stolen from garfieldminusgarfield.com

when you can only remember the night in little bits

Lakewood must have the northeast Ohio market of derelict late middle age white male drunks; and they're all belligerent. Where do they all come from, and further more how does one end up there? I feel most of the ones I run into are competent enough to harass me, and therefore competent enough to have most available jobs. They don't seem homeless, just people whos lives and mental states have been completely eroded by drinking and possible drug abuse. My first interaction (this year) with one of these was a man named Lloyd who staggered up to me and my group of bike riding cronies and, in short, threatened to run all of us over with the car he doesn't own in a vain attempt to salvage the few threads of dignity he hasn't drowned. Lloyd had no problem ignoring everything you suggested to him, to, in turn suggest you or someone like you is at fault for his current state. So the bar drunk has become a staple in most all of my west side ventures; sadly they get viewed almost as bar clowns. These inebriated apparitions of humans that meander around the bar interrupting each conversation to either ask for a cigarette or inform the conversationers that something they mentioned is either wrong, or stupid, or a combination of both. And/or such a statement is something that flies in the face of all the values they've come to know and love and they're penance for such a verbal fornication is an awkward squinty eyed twenty minute lecture from a drunk in a USS Roosevelt hat with less then the a modal number of teeth. Next to this are the more mobiley synonymous derelicts/oddballs on junker bicycles; These guys use the fact that your are on a bike, and for what they know, they are on a bike, and that is enough reason for them to come and talk about goddamn nonsense for x amount of time. Most of my conversations held with bums on bikes are on par with my conversations held with friends who were experimenting with salvia. Where I ask them a simple question such as, "Do you want some Cheet-O's?" And in their mind they deliver a well orchestrated and elegant response going from intro to thesis to topic sentences to supporting arguments, sometimes stopping to consider a dissenting opinion or two, segueing into summation and then QED. However in the non-salvia hazed reality they're jibbering and jabbering nonsense, staring at the ground or at some object thats not part of the conversation, and sweating ...alot. Last night's derelict was folded into this ever growing cast of weirdos. He was Dr.Shock. Dr. Shock is a bout 5'8" wearing a blue windbreaker, and black goth kid pants, like the ones sold at hot topic, with the suspenders and an inordinate amount of inoperative zippers. He was missing a tooth and was sporting a very bushy Amish beard, Dr. Shock rode a blue bike, with a bag hanging off the handle bars and bungee cords that went from his see to the fender mounts on the back of his horizontal dropouts. He was also wearing a purple kids helmet with a decal that read "DR. SHOCK!", the words were bisected by a pretty awesome looking lightening bolt. We ran into him, two of my friends and myself, while waiting for our bike group to assemble in public square for our weekly thursday night ride. Dr. Shock intiated the conversation with us by insisting that he is not going to the Brown's game that night. None of us doubted him, he was nonetheless compelled to repeat his platform on non-attendance, and question if any of us were going. So with it established that neither Dr. Shock or none of my friends were going to the football game that night He directed the conversation to his deep knowledge of the junkyard, and how its a vast cache of bikes, and that none of use should venture that and take his bikes for they are his, and that bikes at the junkyard were his discovery and therefore again..his. He got a bit worked up here with his final junkyard statements and this moved the one sided conversation to issues of security. I had lost all interest in Dr. Shock, my friends were nodding there heads in an accommodating motion that to most anyone else would infer "please, please go away". This is about when Dr. Shock reaches into the bag in front of his bike and pulls out a small black revolver half way from the opening. I looked up from the text message I was writing on my cell phone and promptly skipped a heart beat, or four. He drops the piece back in the bag and said something along the lines of "no cars will mess with me", and then scooted his blue bike onto Superior Ave and left.

holladays

campaign cheer

with great boredom comes great responsibility

things found

A quick list of things I've found while riding
its mostly tools ( just like the finder *zing*)
- 3/4" box wrench
- 1/2" box wrench
- channel locks
- 10mm box wrench
- 12mm box wrench
- really big crescent wrench
- 3 box cutters
- an x acto knife
- a Ti-83 plus Silver Edition calculator with no cover, but still works
- 10 different sized lug nut wrench's
- a kite
- couple of diffrent action figures and army men

things I've lost
- blinky lites
- one cell phone
- dignity

kittens

I found four two week old kittens that were dumped behind maggies apartment. Its sixty dollars a kitten to drop them off at the apl. What surprises me is the overall callous reactions I get from most people I tell about my findings. A few people were surprised, or inquired what if I was going to keep any of them. But the majority told me I'm wasting my time, and money and that I should " put them in a bag and drop them off there at night". Of course if I were to find four new kittens everyday my actions and view on the situation may different. Its almost as if I was having a discussion of party politics with someone in that our conversation wasn't a debate over the ethics of dumping cute little kitties but more over the lifestyle preferences and comforts that whoever it was I had been talking to preferred to see in themselves and in this case me. almost like a personal attack........

just click the picture since i can't get the layout right

weekend

march '08 dined at a restaurant in the east village of Manhattan called the Khyber pass

about one month prior download the Vampire Weekend self titled.

Four months after that finally get around to listening to it.

its no black album

still catchy and I can't help but like it

"I'm done with fixed gear....I wish I still had my fixed gear....I"m glad I'm done with fixed gear and fixed tricks... get a bmx bike, the only people who are good at that aren't messengers anyways, spend all there time practicing backwards circles in there Mom's garage."
-local courier trying to justify his actions and sentiments

summer!

the is black mold growing inside my head
the air is too thick to see past my handle bars
and there are not nearly as many bugs as i remember

unreferenceable names of inanimate objects

cranky tired, frustrated with an inability to focus on anything
snap, bite and place all the blame where it doesn't belong...

No More Subway

As a child Subway was a foreign land to me. An unexplained anomaly in the overgrown forest of fast food. When ever I was forced to go there I got the most appetizing thing on the menu, the pizza sub. A genius move taking my favorite food ever and reinventing it into sub form. As I matured my fondness for Subway did too. Dreamlike memories of riding bikes into town on a late summer afternoon to hang around the Discount Drug Mart, get some ice cream and then some Subway sandwiches to go. By this time I had moved on from the Pizza sub to the Italian BMT, which I believe stand for Big Motherfucking Tomatoes (this is not true in the least). Years later Subway re-entered my life by way of Subway Club Cards. Shortly before they were banned at all Subway franchises my brother handed me a stack of non-consecutive completely full subway club cards. This action regimented Subway at the top of the dining chain for me.Up and down the menu I went, but staying the hell away from the tuna and mystic seafood combo, Subway had become my moderate free meal with purchase of a soft drink home away from home. Like all foot long gravy trains this one too had to come to an end. And with that, so did my frequenting of subway. Years had passed, and I moved to my most recent apartment, conveniently located around the corner from a subway. I pass this establishment everyday. The aromas of fresh baked breads, frozen cheese, and high fructose corn syrup filled my nostrils with every pass. One adventurous summer day I took the plunge, and emerged with a foot long veggie with everything but onions, and a splash of honey dijion. Much to my chagrin, but paralleling what I had expected, I had invested in one of the crappiest sandwiches ever. This catalyzed a love hate relationship between the convenience of filling my belly almost immediately and the dissatisfaction of poorly proportioned sauce to food ratios, "fresh" vegetables that taste only of crunchy, and the unweighting of five dollars from my pocket. Last Monday was the straw, or should I say foot-long-sub that broke the camels back. Me and my local sandwich artist were just finishing up another mediocre stomach stuffer, and were at the final and some say, most crucial moment. The sauce. I like honey dijion, but just a little bit. My usual phrase is "honey dijion but just a little bit.....OK THATS GOOD" Monday went something like "honey dijion please...ok....thats good....ok.enough..thanks......stop...that was significantly more that what I wanted...what do you mean you wont make another...fine gimme the sandwich *and go fuck yourself cause i'm too hungry to go somewhere else and have them screw up*" mmmmm honey mustard and crunchies

needless to say I'm done with the unsatisfying transactions between me and subway. Like my roommate who quit smoking, like all those girls who quit returning my calls, and like 23 out of the 25 jobs I've ever worked..Subway I quit you!

* the words between the asterisks where not actually stated




oh and they're pro war
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/17/182752/072