i guess i’m lucky in that the only time i’m not in A/C is the walk from the car to the train station, from train to station in DC, on the the metro plaform (they’re sorta air conditioned) and then the walk to the office. though yesterday i had to stand on the train home, and the spot in the car where i was standing was not in the airflow of the AC, it was pretty fucking terrible.

yeah so that’s that. another month and it’ll cool of.

yesterday i harvested my first zucchini from my fledgling vegetable garden. we’ve had pretty good luck with our tomatoes this year. on a whim i planted a pumpkin, watermelon, honey dew, squash and zucchini plants in what should have been the space that just the pumpkin needs. so far we have one big ass pumpkin that is already orange. all the vines are all mixed up, i’ll be surprised if we get anything else. henry has also done a number on the middle of the pumpkin plant. fucking bastard. anyway, for years i maintained that there was no point in growing your own food. i’m actually enjoying it. next year i’m gonna establish an official garden area, and put in some real fencing to keep henry and the rats out. yeah, my life is this exciting.

so i think i’m completely apple challenges. for the life of me i can never get itunes to do what i want. for the boy’s birthday, i created a playlist. i then wanted to put back on my standard commuting late 80′s and 90′s hardcore playlist. for some reason it wanted to put on every song i have on my ipod, which doesn’t have enough space, so it wouldn’t do anything at all. the fucker. after a fair amount of back and forth, i got songs on the fucking ipod, but not the exact songs i wanted. well anyway.

so there are some songs on there that i didn’t have on there before. some how danzig’s first album is on there (you know the one with mother and twist of cain). so i’m going down the escalator the other day and the song ‘soul on fire’ comes on. i’m pretty sure it’s been 10 years since i heard it (why did i put it in to itunes you ask? i don’t remember)

so suddenly, the song triggered a series of memories from the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. it was pretty fucking amazing. the story goes like this:

so i always hung out on periphery of several different groups, until my senior year when i sorta settled in with my friends that i carried through college. i’d hang out some skaters, even though i was completely terrible at it, we had a little skate rock band that was oddly well accepted. but that’s not the point. so one night, during the summer, i was with some friends and a younger guy’s house. he went on to be a pro snowboarder actually.  but anyway, he had a mini half pipe and a trapoline and shit. so the others would skate, and i man the boom box and such. well at one point i tried to learn to drop in, but it was a miserable failure. i digress.

this guy’s mom was a nurse, and she’d work the night shift. his parents were divorced and his dad lived in another part of the state (i think) so there was no direct adult supervision (can you imagine?–this was before i drank. actually, more importantly–can you imagine me before i drank?)

on this particular night, 3 sophomore girls came by his house. i can’t remember why, but they did. normally, having to be around a girl would have made me roll up in to a ball and cry, but i guess because they were younger, i had some sort of false confidence, or something. i don’t remember the ins and outs of it, but at some point, i ended up on the deck of the ramp, with one of the girls, a semi notoriously slutty girl (well a kissing slut, she didn’t bang), alone. next thing i know, we’re making out. (sorry natty). so we do that for a while, and then she asks me to drive her home. (!!) so i go to take her home, and she suggests we stop off at this little park/field near her house (awww yea!)

so we do, and i lay down my leather jacket (rock!) and we make out a bit more. so she stops at one point, and says

her: you’re a singer for your band, right?
me: -yeah

her: well sing me something
me: -what???

her: sing me something, i’ll like it
me: –uh what do you want me to sing?

her: i dunno something, something sexy
me: (!!!!!)

so how fast can a 17 year old male’s brain recall lyrics for songs when he perceives (wrongly) that sex is a strong possibilty?

well, basically none. my mind was going in like 900 directions, my heart was pounding. it was incredible and terrible at the same time.

the final answer: that danzig song.

so lying there on my leather jacket, with a 15 yr old girl, in a field, thinking i’m about to get laid, i start singing ‘soul on fire‘

i think i even realized at the time how redicoulous the whole thing was–but i did it.

–right. so lets take a moment to describe this young woman. her name was ashley. she was cute, although chunky she has a very scratchy voice, she acted very very very ditzy most of th time. (i think she was a genius though) it was rumored that her older sister slept with the entire football team in a huge gang bang and then went on to be a porn star (unsubstantiated). most importanly: ashley has incredibly huge (well relatively) breasts.

so i finish singing.

she lifts her shirt, and i swear, flicked the front closure of her bra, causing the thing spring open like a fucking trap or something. i was then instructed to pay attention to the monsters she had unleashed. i swear it was straight out of a jon hughes film.

however, i think she had a stop watch or something. i was given like 5 mins. and then they were taken away and she had to get home before curfew. we hung out one other night about a week later. it was pretty much more of the same, sans singing (thank god). the only other contact i had with here was about 4 months later, when she came up to me drunk (her now me!) at a football game (what the hell was i doing at a football game???) and groaped me in front of a recently ex-girlfriend.  sending that ex in to a fit of hysterics (yeah, like wasn’t a rocker heartbreaker)

so lets see, where did we leave off, oh yeah…We’re buying a house!!, no wait after that…We’re getting a dog!!…hmm after that. oh i got it…natty was 6 months pregnant and i’m freaking out about being a first time father.. no, well anyway.

i’ll work backwards, from uh, about an hour ago and eventually get to the big bang, and by that i mean the orgy we went to last weekend. (rimshot) no no, just kidding, been reading too much acw lately.

So it’s suddenly summertime here, and that brings all sorts of fun fun stuff along with it. Henry, inspite of his hip problems, is having a very good kill year so far. I think we’re up to 4 birds so far, the latest of which was saturday. I typically take the carcass and but it in to the dog shit garbage can and forget about it (umm the smell though, lovely). so i did that, and well it’s been about 110 degrees everyday (no joke, really 100 fucking 10) in the sun and shit, and the shitcan, with the dead robin in it has been in the sun. so this morning, at about 6:11 am, and i go to the shit can to tie up the bag and take it to the street for garbage day. i prepared myself for the stench by holding my breath, what i wasnt ready for, was (were?) the 50 maggots all over the bag, lid and rim of the shitcan. no sir, wasn’t expecting that.

now one would probably be freaked out and puke at such an early morning surprise. well not jefke 2006. no sir, i exclaimed “ick!” threw the cover on the ground and took the whole shitcan to the curb, and took the bag out and left it. no puking, no screaming no throwing up. and i have joe rogan to thank for it. well maybe not him exactly, i dunno how much he really has to do with the content of fear factor, but for better or worse, he is the face of fear factor, and after seeing people pretty much swim, eat, have sex with, insert into their butts, etc. all manners of maggots, cockroaches, pig testicles, cow nostrils, chicken thyroids, musktrat anus’ over the last i dunno 10 years or whatever that the show has been on, a shit can full of maggots didn’t really phase me. This is progress people, really. and people say reality TV is ruining our culture. poppycock, I say.

It was a long US bank holiday weekend last weekend (for all you non A-murricans) and i had big plans for sitting on super patio, drinking lots of cheap beer. well so as it turns out, natty caught some sort of plauge, and the capt then caught it as well, so that didn’t really come together like i had hoped. On friday, our fancy pants table arrived, which I put together on saturday. i was supertastically pleased to discover that our fancy pants umbrella and stand doesn’t fit under the table, which led to a super awesome ‘debate’ between natty and i on how to resolve the situation. like most good debates, it really wasn’t about the table or umbrella or the umbrella stand, but that’s what tripped it off. (it was really about our countries current polictical climate surrounding illegal immigrants), but it was some good times-arguing on a 90 degree day with 2/3rd of the household sneezing and coughing. ah holidays.

ah so speaking of kids with colds. i never knew how accruate the phrase “snot nosed kid” was.  till, well i had one. interesting.

building off of the fear factor thing. about 2 weeks ago, natty and i identified a foul odor coming from somewhere in the front yard. naturally she accused me of taking a shit somewhere out there (ok she didn’t) but she did ask if i put down manure or something.  we also noticed a shit load of flies everywhere. turns out our new mulch has brought this to down.  whicih is just luvely, lots of rancid smelling little phallus’ all over the yard, really who could ask for anything more? apparenly they’re a delicacy in asia. i think people just make that shit up. it seems that anything that we find disgusting is a delicacy in asia. someone’s making some shit up–believe you me.

so as many of you know, rolling rock was bought by budwiser, (well pretty much) so like many, i went out and got some RR for old times sake. for one summer in college, the whole world was about rolling rock snubby bottles. I maintain to this day that there is something in rollign rock that fights hayfever–that summer i discovered that i’d sneeze and wheeze all day until i downed my first beer. then it would go away. maybe that PA water. i dunno i personally think the wet dog taste is really wet dog, adn there’s something from that, but i can’t prove it.
all of a sudden people seem to be all upset that the company  was sold to our friends at interbrew/bev a few years back. I can still remember when i saw my first RR bottle at a belgian bar. I was obvious that the bar had to stock it as part of some sort of contract. when i asked the bartender for one, it took like 8 tries (oh yes i know i dont’ know dutch, but if there’s one thing I DO know it’s how to get a damn beer). when it arrived it had that classic wet dog taste and was sold with a lollipop. not sure what the deal was with that.

well anyway, farewell rollilngrock, not to be a doomsayer, but i doubt that NJ will brew you in the same way.

ok well that’s it for now. i’ll try to keep on top of this shit. but hell who am i kidding.

fuck YOU,

NO, FUCK YOU

yeah so the sopranos return on sunday, after what, 8 years? hmm man, they better pull some seriously crazy shit to make this long of a wait worth it. so as i looked at hbo’s site, i notice they’re pulling anothe piggyback ride the wave move with a new show called big love. no i didn’t watch the trailer, but i did notice it has paxton in it, and there’s ploygamy. seriously what else do you need.

lemme stop here and say i love bill paxton–no not in a buggery kinda way, and not even in a wow he’s a god on the screen sorta way, well maybe  alittle of the 2nd one, but not really. from the first time i watched weird science, to the 900 times i’ve watched aliens, i love the bill paxton.

get ready–flash back….

as i’ve often noted, my 2nd year of grad school might very well be the apex of my life. that’s sad but fuck you, what have you done? so i’m living in belgium, getting a well, lets not say useless, but perhaps not the most practical degree, i’ve been there a year, and through trial and error, i’ve established my watering hole/place of employment, my crew, and somehow become president of a student orgainzation which has granted me some weird set of rights and responsibilities. so what do i do? i make richy the quebe my minister of ontology and we set forth to use the international philosophy student’s association our personal right to party. yes, it sounds cheezy, adn well it was but man was it fun.

oh we had all sorts of events–i’ll stick the the relevant one. bill paxton movie day.

i dunno who thought of it. might have been me, i dunno. but for some reason we thought it’d be funny to invite a bunch of people to watch every bill paxton movie we could get our hands on. and somehow call it a philosophical exercise. oh yes, we love him that much. at first we were going to do it at our house, but that didn’t make much sense. so then we talked the owners of the bar i was working at to let us do ti there….they had the TV already hanging, very precariously i might add, above the door way to the bar. so richy and i set out to rent a vcr and every paxton film we could get our north american hands on, in belgium mind you, ….in 1997 or was it 98? i dunno.

now lucky for us, the belgian professors didn’t liek to teach on fridays…and further, luck for us, mostof the belgian students go home for the weekend on friday…so the bar would be pretty empty, and the prospect of international student money always sat well with the boys at the flying pig (i’ll tell you about fajita nights and the standing gig our band used to have). 

anyway, the plan was to get a buncha movies, and watch’m 5 or 6 of them, back to back from 9 am till whenever. of course, this broke several international copyright laws, but fuck it, we were in the zone man, we could do no wrong—richard even threw together little introduction brochures for all the tables in the bar (my kingdom for that file).

the list was something like this:

• weird science
• aliens
• tombstone
• that movie where they invite people over for dinner and then kill them (last supper, i think)
• boxing helena (maybe– i can’t remember)
• true lies 
• titanic
• some other one.

the mists of time fog up my memory. as i recall (natty hates when i say that, actually she hates ‘as i recollect’ even more) we did very well weird science-tombstone. being an idiot, i naturally started boozing from the get go. others reserved themselves a bit. i remember heidi, a student from south africa making popcorn for us, the flems were aghast that the popcorn was salted and not sugared….we were doing alright until that dinner/kill movie, by then it was late afternoon, most of us were loaded, adn some locals came in, and oddly enough, were not down with the bill paxton movie day. i vaguely remember moving the last 2 films back to our friend’s apartment, but god knows i dont’ remember the last to films.

all in all it was a great day, perhaps a perfect execution of jackassery,  i’m pretty sure a good time was had by all, well, at least richard any myself.

ah the memories.

well suffice it to say that if the capt goes to sleep, and natty lets me, i’ll watch a show with billy having a buncha wives….yeah sure–why not?