Month: August 2002

That was by far the longest week of my life. I spent most of my time sitting on the couch just staring at the wall and rocking back and forth to mp3s. When that would get boring i would binge watch X Files episodes on DVD. I watched all of Season 4 and started working back to 2 and 3 and then went back to 4 again.

LeStat was moved to Sam’s house where i used a 56k external modem, circia 1989, to dial in and get my Warcraft fix. Most of my work has been done on my laptop at my dad’s office again.

But alas my packets now flow like a mightly river of some kind and i am reconnected to my little world. Thank fucking god.

Since Justin and I really didn't have any set plans for the evening, we decided to meet at a friend's house in this neighberhood. Only problem is Justin just said meet him at the inersection insted of telling me which house it was.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, Justin finally calls my cellphone anouncing that he is around the corner. He pulls up, i wait in my car, and he walks over. We exchange handshakes, he explains his friend's house is around the corner and to follow him. As i put my car into gear, a nice bright white police card comes driving up the road adjacent to ours, flips on it's lights, and drives up to the front of my car blocking me in. I exhale. That cool feeling when you feel all your internal organs scream “F U C K”. The feeling people probably feel when they drive off a bridge. Spotlight goes in my eyes, i put my car back into park and turn the lights off. The cop steps out of his car with one hand on his flashlight and one on his gun. I feel a tear drip from my eye. The officer ordered Justin into my car and we sat there staring into the bright lights of the squad car. Now i was mostly sober, as sober as i get anyway but it would make a better story if i had 3 kilos of coke in my trunk, so lets just pretend I did. He approaches my window, i roll it down and flashes his light in my eyes. Now this was one of those cops that you should be afraid of. This guy is not the fat belly jolly sherrif that drinks Jack after he gets off and “had his wild days as a kid” old guy.

My cop was Hitler Youth, blonde haired, blue eyed son of the 3rd Reich kind of police officer. The one that when he gets off work he goes home and polishes his guns because he's so upset about the drugs and crime in the world. The bad cop. So he taps on the window and i roll it down he says that “They had gotten a call about supecisious activity in the area” and wanted to see some ID. I laughed for a second at the horrible “Hi, we're the police, we saw one guy walk up to a car, say some stuff, shake hands, and as he was walking away the car begins to pull away”.

He thinks it was a crack deal. Because that's what it looked like. I'd like to thank god at this point in the story that the squad car approached me from the front and not the back, so the cop never saw the CRACKHORE.COM bumper sticker on the back. Hahaha, tommorow i am going to go sign up for some community service for that.

Okay, as the cop is walking away with our liscenses, he turns, flashes the light in my eyes again, and asks if that's my name, Steve James. Steve James is not my real name. Steve James is the name on the Service Transport Salvation Army jacket. I tell him this important fact and he stares for a second and starts to walk back to his car turns back his car. He then spins around says “What's your social security number?”, I spit out my number to him and he nods and walks to the car. Justin and i make small talk, what he's been up to, oh you've been drinking alot too, etc, etc. The cop walks back to the car, flashes the light in the car and then hands us back our ID's and says we “check out”. That scared me, “checking out” is like “Vere are you'rve vapers” Nazi Germany gestapo feel to it.

I flick on the lights and pull away quickly. My “the bigger creature is going to eat you” instict was clawing at my back and I followed Justin away. So Steve James, wherever you are, your jacket is in good hands.

I know I'm gonna get a lot of flack about that last line but its the truth, women just can't understand this album. Its kinda of like how white people can only listen to Jimi Hendrix, they can't “hear” Hendrix. You remember White Men Can't Jump, right?

Anyway, okay, most people think this cd is just a normal cd, always sounds the same, just another disc in the case. Lies, lies, lies. This cd has 2 interesting points to it, i shall cover both of these in this article. First, a little history about PHM. This is the first Nine Inch Nail album, done solely by Trent Reznor while he was working as a engineer at The Right Track. At night after they closed he would record his own music by himself and this was the beginning. He received help from Adrian Sherwood, John Fryer, Keith LeBlanc and Flood producing the final album but he is still the primary person behind the masterpiece. You may want to hunt around the Internet for The Purest Feeling tracks, these are the beta versions of PHM, very 80's popish, very fun to listen to, hehe.

Anyway…getting on with it, first point. Although Pretty Hate Machine is a great cd, better then any crap that has came out or probably ever will come out, there is a startling difference between PHM and everything else that i have ever came across. Pretty Hate Machine sounds completely different while drunk. Yup, it does, call me crazy but others have agreed with me on it. Don't believe me? Go home, get some headphones, a copy of Pretty Hate Machine, a gallon of rum and start in on it. Now, see you have to be careful and make sure you have a good buzz before you start listening to it or it won't work, you'll get to end of the cd and still want more. Each beat, each lyric, go deeper while drinking, as far as i have noticed this feat has not been reproduced in any other albums. I've been pondering why this cd has this certain effect, some people have commented that it was built into the cd on purpose, others think it was just a random great thing. During my many trips to New Orleans have still not seen Trent Reznor but let it be known i will ask him about this phenomenon and get to the bottom of this.

The second part, and i know Jesse agrees with me, is that women are unable to hear Pretty Hate Machine. Yup, I'm sorry, you can love the beats, you can even love the lyrics, but you just don't know what the hell he is talking about. You may think you do, but you have no clue. Its okay, i commend you for being a NIN fan but just take my word for it. The funny thing about this whole thing is I had a ex girlfriend steal my copyright 1989 Pretty Hate Machine cd and i never could get it back. Now how's that for rough, getting over a girl without PHM, anyway, getting off the point, sorry. Once a friend brought up the point, since this cd revolves a lot on getting over women and falling back in love with them, could a lesbian hear PHM? I replied, no. Since, being a lesbian she knows the trials and tribulations which follow from women but she could not fully understand it because lesbians only date lesbians, which differ drastically from normal women. Now looking at the situation again from another angle, can women appreciate PHM more while drinking? I answer yes. Whatever magical properties this cd has, i truly believe women can benefit greatly from listening to this cd while drinking but cannot fully understand his torment.

As i left my house searching for something to occupy my time, i was wearing a random black t shirt, camo shorts and combat boots, typical toad attire of the time. Memphis is a strange city because its easy to get into all kinds trouble which make good stories afterwards, tonight would be one.

My first stop was a gaming store, lots of bored people hang out here on occasion. I needed a partner in crime. I sat around there feeling antsy and wishing for something to do when i saw this week's copy of Playbook(a local newspaper in Memphis which tells what crappy bands are playing and other events of the weekend). I flipped through it and saw that Benny Hinn was having a “show”. Now if you're not familiar with Benny Hinn, he is a “Christina” preacher who fills stadiums for his rantings. This look like it was promising. I grabbed a friend of mine, David, explained my plan and he nervously agreed. We ran out to my car, put in the appropriate cd for seeing a ultra conservative preacher, Megadeath and flew out of the parking lot. My normal mad skillz got us to the stadium in about half an hour. There we saw the flock slowly hobbling towards the huge monument of human technology, the Midsouth Coliseum. The typical Memphis people were out in their normal numbers, white trash, old people, typical useful idiots. David and i walked slowly, not making eye contact with the creatures as they flocked towards the light which is Benny Hinn.

Since Benny Hinn doesn't want money, he wants to help people find Jesus, we just walked in without paying any admission. I couldn't believe my eyes. The entire Coliseum was full. This place seats 6,000, and it was full. Full. Our original plan which we concocted on the drive there, was to sit in the front row and when the healings began we were going to run up on the stage and explain how we were die hard homosexuals and wanted to be healed of our abomination. Denied. We decided to stay anyway, walked up the endless flight of stairs to the nosebleed section, and sat with our backs to the wall. The people around us stared us for a minute and i smiled and sat down and stared straight forward, like a human trying to blend in with a bunch of flesh eating zombies in a old fashioned horror flick.

The stage was decorated with flowers and other such paraphernalia of Jesus but there was still no sign of Billy. I calmed David as he started to feel nervous, if we were discovered it would be all over. Then it began. There was lot of singing dancing and the anti-christ himself walked out onto the stage. He stood there, smiling wearing a white suit and a huge smile. I felt every cell in my body scream “Kill him, now, one shot, one kill.” After the twitching stopped I just sat there and smiled. The irony that i had seen Maynard Keenan stand there singing Opiate was almost too much. Then A little girl about twelve went up on stage and sang a song about Jesus. Everyone clapped. I stood up screaming “crackhore!” and cheering insanely and then sat down when i realized i was bringing undo attention to us. I saw two huge black guys that made Marsellous Wallace look like a wuss meet at the bottom of the great steps and look up at us. I sat down, looked straight forward and continued with my smile. Then came the Bible reading. David turned to me, made a comment about how he forgot our Bible at a volume which probably could have been lower. I dug my fingers into my legs trying not to laugh as a woman sitting in the row in front of us informed us that she had a EXTRA Bible and offered it to us. I handed it to David, he said that this New Testament crap was out of his league and he handed it back to me. I can still remember it, it was really old, covered in a ratty thin sheet with some weird font on the front. I held it and pretended to read it.

After Billy asked if he could get a “Amen” and David and i screaming “CRACKHORE!” in response, the security guards motioned us to come down. We handed the Bible back to the lovely lady in front of us, thanked her for her generosity and walked out with the security guards. They were really nice about it, just escorted us to the door and told us to get lost. We laughed and walked back to the Horemobile and i had trouble talking because my jaw muscles were not used to the stressful activity of smiling. I dropped David off at his car and drove home. The next morning Mothertoad asked what i ended up doing last night. I explained to her my fun night with the Reverend Benny Hinn. She stopped asking what i do at night now.

Just because one religion says we should take the day off I'm sitting here completely sober and I'm pissed. What is up with that? Sure, I'm only 19, i can't buy alcohol, but if i could, i'd be really pissed that the only thing i could buy is beer. Beer is only fun on a few occasions so what if I'm not in a beer mood on a Sunday?!

Sorry Toad, we here in the United States Of America say the church and state are seperate, but since the church says its wrong, it probably is, so lets make a law! AHAHAHAHA Damn it. I work in a call enter that is open 365 days a year and we serve almost no purpose except to lie to people. Look, i know the church is against drinking for some strange reason but is the church also against lying? Yup, thats right. So by logic, shouldn't call centers be closed on Sundays also, to prevent lying as they do drinking on Sundays? The 9th commandment says do not bear false witness, so i think bearing false witness on a Sunday is like extra bad.

Now you may be thinking, all those people who own liquor stores need Sundays off to rest for all their hard work they do all week helping AMERICANS get their booze. Thats crap, as much as they deserve rewards, they shouldn't be forced to or be allowed to have their place of business closed just because its a certain day of the week. Know what the solution is for that? HIRE MORE EMPLOYEES!

Hell, i don't think these places should even be closing at 11pm, they should be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to promote drinking just like a call center promotes lying! If i want to be lied to at 4:30am i know what number i can call but if i want a rum and coke at 4:30am I'm shit out of luck for like another 8 hours. A friend made the argument that you should just stock up on Saturday. What if i don't want to?! My forefathers died so i can be lazy and buy my alcohol any damn time i want. But i guess since it was members of the National Brit Church that landed on this country first, well technically they didn't but thats a whole other editorial, they think that i can't buy alcohol from liquor stores on Sunday. Damn it all.

Footnote***Thanks to Queen Jenny for giving me information on the 9th commandment so i didn't have to look it up.

I had found a Honey Baked Ham store about 3 miles away which i had been eating at about once a week and i suggested it to Ian on that day. We came in, ordered our sandwiches, paid for them, and sat down at one of the small tables they had setup.

Our lunch time conversations are always the same. Whats wrong with life, what we want to fix it, and digressions of that. A lady, her son and her daughter enter the store and walk up to the clerk. I listened with one ear automatically and heard the drift of what they were talking about. The lady apparently had received a coupon for a product which this specific Honey Baked Ham establishment didn't carry or never carried. When the clerk explained this to her, she became exteremly irate and began speaking in a higher tone of voice to where Ian and i both look over. The clerk, some guy who was getting paid 6 bucks max, kept explaining and apologizing to the lady but she really seemed to be upset by it. She kept asking him why she received this letter if they didn't have this product in stock. As if this clerk, when not making sandwiches for humble XML convertors like ian and i, sat in the back printing up these letters and sending them to local residents and he really messed up by saying they had this product when they didn't. This lady really thought it was his fault. She went on and on for about 2-3 minutes about how Honey Baked was going to receive a letter about this horrible tragedy and how she was very very upset that her precious time was wasted. When her and her son and daughter left and the clerk walked back into the back while shaking his head we finally started talking again.

I was in a bad mood, this pissed me off. Maybe a person yelling at another person when it was obviously not his fault brought back a customer service flashback of mine or maybe it was something else. What is wrong with this country? Why do people get so upset about meaningless little crap like this? To quote the late Bill Hicks, “Reasonable people don't write letters, reasonable people get on with their lives”. He's right. A reasonable person would have taken the advertisement in, found out that it wasn't possible for the clerk to fulfill the advertisement, shrugged and walked out without having their day shattered in anyway.

But no, not in America. In the late 80's the focus was “take one for team”, sacrifice your own well being to benefit the corporation or the greater cause. Then in the early 90's when the computer field began to require more people then our society was requiring, the focus went back to the individual and people began to get content again. Employees had more rights, less dress codes and worked just fine. Alot of cases better. Problem is, we went to far. Now our once great country is filled with letter writing soccer moms who think they are the center of the universe and that they have the right to walk over people because they are a consumer. How this will end? I'm not sure but it needs to.

My point? You are not special. You received a letter in the mail just like me. The difference? I have a purpose and you are annoying some clerk who isn't paid enough to care about your petty feelings. You need to understand that every single person you meet is on the exact same level as you. Until this becomes at least somewhat clear in your mind, you are a subhuman. Now kill yourself so you don't ruin my lunch.

Well, in a drunken jealous rage, i took some catnip and put it in a pipe. I'm always up for trying something new and possibly deadly so i thought, why not? After sparking the catnip and tasting the interesting minty flavor it had, i leaned back on the couch and waited for any effects. Ian then told me that it would be funny if there was some strange chemical reaction with the other chemicals in my body and i somehow overdosed. Now that would have been funny, Ian dragging Toad into a Baton Rouge hospital explaining to nurses that he was smoking catnip and his heart stopped. I didn't think it was funny at the time though. After about a hour we decided to leave and i was still not feeling any new feelings from the catnip. My conclusion? Catnip sadly does not effect humans the same as it effects cats. This is a huge disappointment. I thought i was stumbling upon a great new drug that would sweep through the streets like a tidal wave. But alas, nothing happened.

The moral of this story. Crap, i'm not really sure on this one. How about, if you try something you saw someone else getting a buzz off of, it probably won't work for you? Well thats not completely correct either. Okay i got it, the moral of this story is that cats have it so much better then humans.

You can tell towards the end when Toad gets drunk because all the pictures are ones with stuff stuck in his mouth.

But it’s okay, i don’t miss it. Nope, not me. I’ve been watching a lot of movies on the computer…actually, all of the movies on my computer…..Wes brought over another season of X Files for me to ingest and i’m staying busy. For example, i ate a cupcake last night.

But it’s not the lack of those beautiful precious packets coming into my apartment that’s the source of this update. Sam Cooper is finally done. This construction diaster has been under development longer then i’ve been driving. Or probably breathing. After numerous pickets of ghetto people, upset that a 6 lane interstate will now be their front yard. As i was speeding by at 80mph instead of the normal 30 that we were restricted to on Broad, i see a yellow Lab cowering on a porch, scared shitless by the metal monsters that are screaming down the street where his front yard used to be.

Fuck um.

The new Sam Cooper has 2 lights instead of the normal 4….no railroad tracks to cross…no threat of being car jacked at Tillman and Broad…..no more ghetto….just beautiful blacktop with few places for police to hide. It’s like a dream.

I came home to this.

I went inside, saw the cable was out but luckily i still had power. I thought no big deal, got a new dvd player, Sara brought her dvd collection, i’ll be fine. I got comfortable and relaxed, watching a movie, thinking “i don’t need internet, im not addicted, im not addicted”.

Halfway through the DVD the power goes out.

I see one of the few neighbers i left, since half of my apartment complex has moved out since i moved in, and he informs me that mlgw told him it’s gonna be out for about 30 minutes.

I leave. Get food, come home and eat it in front of the TV. Chad brings me some movies.

I go to bed at 10:30pm.

Day 2
I wake up to a internetless laptop next to me. It’s like waking up to your girlfriend but instead of her being all beautiful and peaceful, she’s all blue and bloated, dead, dead, dead.

I wait for the timewarner guy to come, he never shows up. I run errands and run to point2point with my laptop and digital camera to get a update in. Tonight i’ll go home to my internetless apartment, rock back and forth on the couch and probably go to bed before 11pm again.

*Sigh*

Oh well, at least yesterday my ebay car was a 1996 Nissan 300ZX. I was scared shitless to touch this bease of a vehicle. I had just lost my manual transmission virginity a few weeks ago and i was staring at a huge polished green…..hehe car. I drive it out of the parking lot, heading for the park to get a good background. I pull out of Covington pike and drop it into 2nd, then 3rd. Demons beneath the hood roar with anger. I notice the gas light is on. They wanted to make sure i couldn’t get very far.

After i took the pics and brought it back i felt like i needed a cigerette. The transmission was so smooth between gears and the rear wheel drive made that car off the hook. I wish there had been more gas in the tank, hehe.