Busting A Cap In Your Ass - April '09

Rant #1: Do not be the first one to get out of the elevator or get off the train if you’re going to saunter along at 2 miles per hour in front of me. You should know I’m a fast walker – I’ve painted flames on my shoes to indicate it. So step aside, Slappy, before you get a taste of the pavement.

Rant #2: If you’re under 5 feet tall, you do not have permission to put your seat back on the airplane. It’s unnecessary. And if you let your kid do that, be prepared to donate a kidney to your lil’ munchkin after I rupture his with a sharp blow from my patella.

We lived in Northlake for a couple years when I was a kid and I remember driving past a music club called The Thirsty Whale. They had the coolest sign – a giant bloated whale, and when I reached my teens I’d read about the bands playing there in the free weekly entertainment rag I’d pick up from the record store. I knew it had to be one of the greatest places in the world and I envied all the people old enough to take a Jonah-like journey into the belly of my imagined nirvana. Then finally, one day, in 1990 I had the opportunity. In all honestly I had probably forgotten all about the place, but one of the crazier chicks I worked with was dating a musician, of course, so I would be her date for the evening until Theater finished their set, at which time I would tender her vinyl-clad bod to the nasty bass player in leather pants and mascara. Not only did I seem to be getting the raw end of that deal, but the club was kind of a letdown as well. I never went back and they tore it down in 1996.

The older I get the more I like Steely Dan. It’s something that I’d make fun of someone else for admitting, so go ahead, let me have it. Even worse is that it reminds me of Red Lobster. I bartended there for a few months after college and they played the same damn tape every day, which included Peg. In a desperate move to find relief I eventually let a live lobster from the fish tank in the lobby claw my eyes out. I never said I was smart. There was a reason I was working at Red Lobster after college.

In addition to not posting much lately, I’ve also fallen off on my resolution to catch up on some movies this year. But I did get to watch Dig! which I highly recommend. Just do it. But those numbnuts at Blockbuster kind of screwed it up for me – it’s a two-disc set and they decided to send me Disc 2 of the bonus material first. That’d be like a girl asking you to snuggle before the sex.