November 7: Denny's On A Friday

Denny's is open twenty-four hours a day and it's cheap. These two factors alone make it the perfect place for a group of rowdy teenagers to gather on Friday and Saturday nights; and that's exactly what we did.

When I was in high school, I did a lot of theatre. Drama kids are rambunctious enough on their own, but when you get a group of them together after a performance, their energy levels shoot through the roof. When you're really hyper and you hang out with a bunch of goody goodies, you don't just go home for the night. You don't go and get wasted, so you go to the local Denny's.

We would go to Denny's after every Friday and Saturday night performance. It would be about ten o'clock and the diner would be pretty vacant. Without warning, twenty to thirty kids would fill every booth and expect to be served right away.

It was on one of these fateful nights that a group of us that was only there for the camaraderie thought it would be a good idea to run around the building and pound on the glass windows where our friends were sitting. It would be hilarious because it would scare everyone inside. Doesn't that sound like a great idea?

We waited until everyone was settled down into the booths before running in a single-file line past the windows that overlooked the parking lot. The idea was to pound the glass, but by the time I got to the windows, there was shattered glass all over the bushes and grass between the building and the asphalt.

Of course, it wasn't any of the people that were running around. Why would it be one of us? (I don't know if these last sentences will be read with sarcasm, but they should be.) After standing around with dumbfounded looks spread on our faces, one person decided to take up a collection from all the runners to help pay for the window. I was pissed off that I had to pay anything at all because I didn't have any money; that's why I wasn't inside with everyone else!

We never did find out who the culprit was, but I think of that night every time I'm in San Diego and I pass the Denny's off of Main St. Tonight, I passed the Denny's on Main St. and I thought of that night. Another blog is finished.

November 6: Lazy Lights

It's a bit early in the year for this topic, but because it's 11:39 on the night of turning the clocks back, I'm running out of time to come up with a better idea. I don't know if Blogger will give me the extra hour, so I'm not risking it.

Christmas lights. What's the deal with Christmas lights? I mean, really!

When I was growing up, my dad marked the day after Thanksgiving as the day to string the lights from the eaves. While all of the lunatics were up at five in morning fighting over Furbies and Tamagotchis, my family was sleeping in. Mom and Dad would be up at nine and while Mom was in the attic handing down the Christmas decorations, my sister and I would be slowly rising from our turkey slumbers. We would then spend the better part of the morning hanging the lights around the house where they would stay until the first weekend after Christmas.

It's a tradition. It was a tradition to hang the lights and it was always a tradition to drive around the different neighborhoods and admire the hard work and high energy bills of all of the Christmas lovers. Every Christmas while driving home from dinner with our friends and family, it was always a nice way to end the holiday season too. The one star on top of the distant hill. The tall pole with strings of lights reaching from the ground to the top at the local park. Everything tied together so nicely.

Except now it's July. It's July and there's that one house at the end of the street that feels it's absolutely necessary to keep those white icicle lights up. It's a hundred and fifty degrees outside except on the eaves of this jackass' home. The Christmas spirit is still alive here!

Back in the day, they didn't have hanging icicle lights. It was a string of lights that hung up close to the eaves. It was just one light bulb every four to six inches. The advantage of these lights was that a lazy person could get away with not taking them down each year. If he unplugged them, a person could easily drive by without ever realizing that such a negligent person lived there. Icicle lights, however, are plain as day. Look over here! The occupant of this house doesn't give a damn!

Okay. If your Clark Griswold, taking down your lights each year is going to be difficult. Putting them up each year is going to be difficult. If you want the best looking house each Christmas, you have to work for it. You have to put in the time and effort to install and remove them each year. It comes with the honor of being that house. If you don't want to climb on the roof each year to take the lights down, don't put them up!

As Christmas gets closer and closer, more and more houses will display their lights. People actually offer their services to hang lights for some extra cash. These people are also around after the holidays to remove the lights so you don't see strands of lights in July as often, but keep a look out. People that are too lazy to take their lights down could also be too cheap to hire someone to do it for them. Whatever the case, it makes me sick.

Don't forget to turn your clocks back!

November 5: Rum Tum Tugger

Let's be honest here. I was born a freak. I grew up in the dark alleys of New York City where I was shielded from curious and staring eyes. I was forced to live under the protection of night and I dared not venture out in the light of day. Standing over six feet tall with a wild mane of hair framing my feline face, a long tail, and a black chest of leopard spots, I didn't exactly fit in with other people.

My mother was a beautiful Maine Coon cat raised in a home of wealthy Pine Tree State politicians. She was the poster child for success amongst the Main Coon population. She was where every feline of the breed strove to be. She was cared for and loved. She made public appearances at state fairs and political rallies. It was because of this degree of success and fame that she came across my father.

By making promises of breeding more beautiful cats like my mother, my father was able to convince my mother's owners to let him run some blood tests. He ran tests, alright, but breeding prestigious cats was the furthest thing from his mind. Throughout his life, my father was obsessed with breeding different species, but he saved my mother for his most grandiose and grotesque project of all. By successfully fertilizing my mother's egg with his seed, I was born.

Upon escaping the clutches of the laboratory I knew as my birthplace, I spent years traveling at night until I found myself on the streets of New York. For twenty-five years I ate from the trash and talked to myself. I literally had no human interaction. My only friends were the other homeless tom cats that didn't scoff at my appearance. On the contrary, they looked up to me as a leader. When people screamed and ran, my feline friends purred and followed my orders.

After a quarter of a century of living in solitude, I had become quite used to my life. Then, like a long lost and forgotten prayer, my life turned completely around. He called himself Mr. Mistoffolees and oh! Well, I never was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffolees. He approached my alley as if he knew exactly what he would find. When I first saw him and his band of misfits, I felt an instant connection. All five of them were exactly like me. The hair, the tails, the grotesque feline facial features. I had found my family.

For eighteen years and 7,485 performances, I was on top of the world. It was with Mr. Mistoffolees that I discovered fame and fortune beyond my wildest dreams. We amazed and delighted millions with our talents. People that were very recently terrified by our appearances were now spending millions of dollars annually to hear our story. We threw extravagant parties and purchased expensive cars and houses.

Although we were at one time the longest running Broadway show, we were convinced we would spend many more years together. We had hopes of raising our children to take over our roles, but on September 10, 2000 we gave our final performance in New York. If it weren't for that wretched Demeter and her contractual disputes, we may still be going strong, but that's neither here nor there. Some of us continued sharing our story around the globe while others, like myself, were content with enjoying our retirement.

After spending twenty-five years in the streets, I couldn't be more thankful for my time spent with my friends on Broadway. I would have liked to have kept going, but all good things must come to an end and retirement has been very kind to me. I have officially turned the tables on those humans that treated me with such disdain. I have four butlers and three maids. I have chauffeurs, chefs and financial advisors. I am no longer on the bottom of society. I'm at the very precipice of the top; for I am the Rum Tum Tugger.

November 4: Lou

Do yourself a favor. As soon as you're through reading today's post, I want you to put on some decent clothes, grab your car keys, and make your way to the local Tower Records. Walk to the Rs of the R&B section and flip to Rawls. Get yourself a "Greatest Hits" or a "Best of" Lou Rawls. After purchasing whichever album you choose, get back into your vehicle, drive home, and write me a thank you letter.

As a part of this project of converting all of my parents' vinyl records into mp3s, I have to record them in "real time" which means I have to sit and listen from beginning to end. I have sat through quite a lot of (in my opinion) crap, but then I come across a Crystal Gayle or an Alabama. Now, I had heard all of these albums when I was much, much younger, but I never really knew who the artist was when my dad played them. I just remember what they sounded like. So when I grab a new record to transfer, the cover rarely means anything to me.

Occasionally the record will start and I'll instantly remember how much I enjoyed it as a kid. Lou Rawls was definitely one of those records. When the first track started and his silky-smooth voice sang You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, I found myself cranking up the volume and tapping my toe. This is how the entire album went. I thoroughly enjoyed each track; from one through nine. In Let Me Be Good To You when he crooned about pouring a glass of wine for his lover and massaging the stress of the day away, I wasn't creeped out. It was the exact thing that Chef from South Park sings about, but it wasn't funny. It was good old fashioned groove.

Seriously, though. Lou Rawls is the man. He's upbeat, sexual, and smooooth. His is the kind of music you want to listen to with a glass of wine and a hot bath. You can't listen to him as background music, either. You have to blast it unapologetically and as soon as I have it transferred to my iPod, I plan on doing just that.

November 3: Neighboring Nuts

I don't really know what's going on with my parents' neighbors. We think the son is a high school boy and we know the daughter is a UCSB graduate from last year or the year before. We don't know if the parents are still together, but we know the grandmother is living in the garage. To make matters worse, we don't even know which one is the grandmother and which one is the mother.

Not only is there something unusual about the inhabitants of the house, but there is something very peculiar about that house itself. There have been three owners since it was built. All three have been complete nut jobs. The house has never been properly landscaped, yet each owner has felt a certain obligation to mow the weeds on a regular basis. The first owner planted some really ugly trees and never tended to them. The current owners put in a pool, but nothing else. It's literally a fenced-in patio with a hole of water and a sun-bleached slide on two flimsy looking poles. I have no idea what the inside of the house looks like, but the outside looks like Hell.

It's not just us, either. The first owner hated us for no reason at all. When we were building our retaining wall (below her line of sight, mind you) she called the police to make sure we had a permit. When her giant oleanders grew out of control and reached over to our side of the fence, my dad pruned them up so they didn't look ridiculous when he just chopped off the branches that reached over. Her reaction? Cops. I used to play basketball on my hoop every evening when I was done with my homework until dinner was ready. She once told the cops that I played at five in the morning. She was a horrible woman with frizzy hair and she only got along well with my then five-year-old sister.

The second owners were the most normal of the three, but again, they did nothing to their yard. They could have completely remodeled the insides, but it still looked like that old vacant, spooky house on the hill from the street. The real problem, however, was that the lady would not shut up if you started talking to her. I can't count the amount of times I went outside to see what my dad was doing in the yard only to find him stuck at the fence as she went on and on about worthless matters.

You may think that just because my family doesn't know about the current owners, I don't have a right to label them as being nut jobs. That's where you're wrong! My parents have done everything in their power to be "neighborly." When we see the spooky mother/grandmother figure walking, we wave. She'll see us and simply look down. She never waves back. Remember those oleanders? My dad received permission from the owners to trim them up and he's been on their side of the fence as the family drove down the driveway. He has actually stopped his pruning, turned, and looked right into the car to wave and not one person waved back. Their driveway is maybe two feet from the oleanders!

My parents are the original owners of our house and watching three groups come and go is a big enough sample size to officially label the neighboring house as cursed. I'm convinced that if the current owners were to move out, another freak show would move right in. I'm looking forward to seeing what the people look like when my sister and I take over in twenty years. I'm taking bets on whether or not the yard will have any color all all. Who's in?

November 2: Bonfire

While most people were making last minute stops to the polls and with the weather absolutely perfect in southern California, my mom, dad, and I loaded up the truck with scrap wood and drove down to the beach to have an early November bonfire. We left the house around four in the afternoon, sailed past the rush-hour traffic heading out of downtown to the suburbs of San Diego, and arrived to a completely vacant bay.

Within minutes of unloading the truck, we had our little tepee of kindling crackling and popping as the young flames licked the dry wood. We continued to toss bark and other small pieces of wood on to the pile and before long, we had a pretty nice fire going.

As the sun sank lower and lower over the horizon, we watched San Diego State's crew row eights, quads, and doubles. We stared in awe as a man had his remote-controlled airplane do flips and rolls over the water. We watched the sailboats and we watched the birds; alone. We spent a good four hours on the beach and only once did we see another bonfire and it was wonderful. We didn't have to hear any boom boxes or worry that someone was going to open their car door into the side of our truck. It was absolutely wonderful having the entire place to ourselves.

One of the many conversation topics that kept arising was how long we thought it would take to get a fire ring on a Saturday or Sunday. We all agreed that it would be pretty difficult to find one for the upcoming weekend and absolutely impossible in the summer. We couldn't believe we were the only ones there with the weather being so beautiful and the views so clear.

In a word, the night was perfect. We burned everything we had (including the hair on my right wrist) and I never even considered putting my sweatshirt on. It was one of those nights that simply went flawlessly. It made me remember how much I love bonfires and how I wish I could have them more often. I don't know if there are any places in Austin to have one, but I definitely need to look for one.

November 1: Milk Mustache

In order to grow into a healthy and happy adult, there are a few paramount events of childhood that every little boy and girl should experience. Learning how to ride a bicycle is one and having sleepovers is another. To write every one down would take a very long time, but the one that I never got around to when I was younger, was sporting a great milk mustache.

You see, I grew up on 1% milk. In order to get a real good 'stache, it's important to drink a milk with a higher fat content. Nonfat (or skim) milk is white water and 1% is one small step toward a more creamy consistency. Because the beverage has so little (for lack of a better word) density to it, it can't cling to the upper lip. Even if you hold the cup to your mouth for a minute or two and let your lip soak in the liquid, the milk will simply drain off the lip leaving it clean and maybe a bit shiny.

For 25 cents, a child could get a small carton of milk at lunchtime. This milk was not 1%. If I remember correctly, it was "Vitamin D" (whole) or 2%. The latter would have worked fine for a nice milk mustache, but unfortunately the "small carton" was just that. The opening to the cardboard container was always too narrow to adequately be a source of mustache growth.

While kids were moving on to skateboarding, dating, alcohol, sex, and drugs, I was stuck trying to get milk to stick to my lip to make people laugh. My life hit a wall and it has never progressed passed that crucial point in my childhood. If my mom would have only served a percent more of fat, I would have developed into a normal adult. This very well could be the reason I come up with ridiculous New Year's resolutions.