The Graduate

THE ENCINO MAN

I woke up this morning and decided to watch television for a couple hours. Instead of all the other things I could have done I turned on the TV and watched “Encino Man” in its entirety. 

They showed the frozen cave man around where they lived. Initially he tries to build a fire inside the house, to cook with, and he befriends a dog. They calm him down and he starts to dwell on the inventions of the future. It was all new to him, everything was a discovery. He discovered driving and dancing, he discovered music and arcade games, he discovered packaged food at convienence stores. 

I thought I would have more to say about Encino Man. When I was a kid I sort of loved the film. I remember the noise they make when they do the secret hand shake. I remember trying to imitate the noise, so I could do the secret hand shake. I couldn’t make the the noise when I was a kid. 

I can make the noise now, though. 

UNSTABLE CONSTRUCTIVIST MISADVENTURES

I took this picture while I was in Reno a few years ago. A brush fire burned up something like 50,000 acres of brush in the sierra nevadas all around where I was staying over the course of a day or so. I had forgot that I took any pictures until I found a couple undeveloped rolls of film. I paid the man forty dollars to give me a digital copy of these prints, which I’m not happy about. The prints, yes, but more the forty dollars. Do you have any idea what I could have done with forty dollars back in my day? 

I could have seen a movie, got some popcorn, and a soda; all large. I could have, got a fishing licence, bought a three pack of cotton tee shirts, and I would have had enough left over for a soda. I could have picked up two whole CD’s. I could have bought almost a pair of pants, or almost a tank of gas.

Back in my day forty dollars was a sum of money. It was enough to buy something to make you happy for like, six hours. You could have bought a kite and, subsequently (depending on the weather) flown said kite. You could have done all of each one of these things for forty dollars. Now forty dollars doesn’t go so far, it’s not even enough to pay one parking ticket, or get one tank of gas, it’s barely enough to get a movie ticket, some popcorn, and a soda. 

Enough about the forty dollars, grand pa. Don’t you know your kids carry around five hundo’ where ever they go? Why, just now in fact, I spy a toddler playing with colorful wooden blocks on a black table, spying at them through his (or her) toddleresque platinum blonde hair, over a San Pellegrino and a bran muffin.

Jesus guy, live a little. If you got the dime to drop on muffins and beverages that nice, maybe it’s time to stop wearing cargo shorts and “Sketchers, it’s the S.” Get some real clothes, trade out the vintage wooden blocks for an Ipad, and just try one cigarette, one never hurt anybody. If you have all that disposable income, toddler, use it for you, the rising class of extra young professionals doesn’t need to follow the same health precautions that its parents did, you guys are going to cure all the terminal illness’ any ways. 

any ways, it’s good to see the economy is on its way back to the top. I wouldn’t be able to live in an America that wasn’t pushing the envelope of workers rights, and personal freedoms; regardless of sex, gender, race, culture, or age. 

you could sell a woman anything if you tell her its a hat

I’ve been growing a mustache. I don’t know what for, except that I’ve always wanted one but I’ve always had something going on that kind of made growing the thing out awkward. Work, namely. I know it looks goofy, I look like a “porn star” or something, but I like it. I’m going to slick my hair straight back and wear a full, but short, mustache all across my upper lip. I’m going to crop it so all the hairs are the same length instead of trying to let the top of it grow to my lip, or curl up on the edges. I’m going to wear that full trimmed mustache with a five-o-clock shadow. I’m going to let that face badge grow until I tire of it, or until I find a job. 

I was riding around my neighborhood tonight, clearing my head. I’ve ridden my bike 12 hours so far this week, since Sunday. Today I rode for three and some change. After dinner and some scholarship work I thought “hey, its been a while since I went for a bike ride.” so I went and I found my way down to the neighborhood beach and saw a cop car there, I sort of hoped he would try to stop me, because I know for a fact I can get out of that beach parking lot way faster than a car could. The lot empties onto the dam that holds the lake in and there’s a post in the middle of the path that crosses it. You can just pull the post out and drive across the dam, but by the time you could have done it I would be out of sight in the trees. He didn’t follow me though.

I got on the dam and paused, I thought about what I’m doing and cleared my head looking out over the lake. I meditated, as I’m prone too, then I would get a phone call or some fire works would go off or someone would send me a text message. So I turned my phone off and waited until I got my head all cleared out before I kept going.

 I rode through the neighborhood and thought I would start a community garden, with my mustache still on my face, and my five o clock shadow accentuating my hollow cheeks and impressive jaw line. I thought of a great place to put it and of all the things that I could do there with a little community input. I thought about Brad Pitt’s characters from “Inglorious Bastards” and that baseball movie being melded together to create the over zealous persona that would manage the community garden, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a fishermen’s hat.

“The first rule of community garden is, you don’t fucking talk about community garden. Second, you will not plant invasive species, such as mint, or I will salt the earth in your plot, after burning it down. Third you will address me as captain and your fellow gardeners as neighbor. If not I will have you shaved, sterilized, and destroyed.” 

That would be a good short story I think. 

TAI-PAN JAMES CLAVELL

I was out riding my bike a lot last week, I thought about a few things that I should start doing there.

1) get a Michael Jordan chest piece of him dunking with his tongue out

2) Mimic the face as best I can when I’m doing something awesome on my bike

3) listen to more Busta Rhymes on pandora

4) Not be so afraid of bees. 

I’m pretty sure those were all terrible ideas. When you’re riding a bike it doesn’t really matter though. It takes a couple hours to get to that point, that instant where you start having wacky ideas and they’re all really, really funny. I think that’s the reason I ever started riding a bike, it’s the only way any of my shit makes sense. 

I finished a book today, “Tai-Pan” by James Clavell. I don’t know if you do this, but when I finish a book I instantly become the main character, or the main idea. My entire outlook suddenly changes and sometimes it stays changed. Normally it wears off in a couple weeks. I don’t know if this is a condition or something but I feel like I’ve always had that tendency to embody the message of a book or song or film I like. 

“Ah a 1904 Picasso, this is a clear example of his blue period, see how he has reduced the image to a few shades of blue and green?”

“Ah a 2009 Meier, this is a clear example of his Gilberto/Getz period, see how he is wearing a pea-coat, raybans, and has his button down tucked in?” 

I mean, I know I do this pretty badly, I remember when I loved rage against the machine and I wore che model UN shirts and volunteered. I would never do that without hearing “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” over and over again in my head. In fact, every signifigant decision I’ve ever made relates directly either to the music, writing, or film I was involved with at the time.

“Chris will you turn off that Graf Orlock and please take a shower?”

“Chris can you pause that Sufjan Stevens and stop crying?”

“Chris I know you just finished “Elephant” but can you get out of bed so we can talk about this picture you drew?”

“Chris why are you building a storm shelter?”

I guess it’s good I’m not into slasher flicks. 

NO ASSASSIN NO PLANE AND NO VAN-MIER

I’ve decided to start using a web-calendar more, to increase my productivity.

“11 a.m. get up; 11:15 a.m. really, get up.”

I had a good weekend in Richmond, saw all my friends, did a bunch of fun things, it makes me wonder why people like Washington D.C. 

Richmond is laid back, fun, its easier to get a job doing something in Richmond, and the crowd is younger. Crime is no more of a problem in Richmond than it is in D.C. Richmond has a much better live music scene, as well as a few great park resources that D.C. doesn’t have. Richmond is far less expensive to live in, the traffic is no where near the level that D.C. traffic is on, and, as indicated by a recent poll, Richmond is a much friendlier place to live. I really could go on and on.

I think people are drawn to D.C. in much the same way Mid-Westerners are drawn to New York in a certain Fitzgerald novel. They like the idea of having power, or getting power. The notion that having it makes you more important. Which I guess is true, in that by having power you become more high maintenance. 

“The President is entering the hallway, copy.”

“Copy, the President is in the hallway, over.”

“The President is entering the bathroom, copy.”

“Copy, the President is entering the bathroom, over.”

I guess D.C. is a place where people can feel important should they need too. It’s a very serious place. While Richmond is a fun place that can laugh at itself, a place where you can hire art students to paint a mural on the side of your building depicting a deer-shrimp creature clutching a heart with arrows sticking out of it. 

AWKWARD GLANCES, FOLLOWERS AT A COFFEE SHOP

Hey there blog, I got offered a job yesterday.

“uh oh.”

I know our relationship has been strained lately, blog. Me making promises to keep and, subsequently, not keeping them. You silent, stoic, strong and abandoned on the internet, left to rot.

Alas, I can not take the job, which is a shame because it would move me to Richmond and all of my dreams would come true. except for the strings attached which I wont go into any detail about. Lets just say they’re more like chains or cables than the blue threads your grandmother uses for quilting.

Now that I’m thinking about it, have you ever had a grandmother who loved you enough to knit you something?

Because I do.

I’ve been thinking a lot about new direction, (which definitely isn’t code for “smoking a lot of pot”) so I downloaded instagram. Its great? I think, I have followers, before I uploaded any photos I had followers.

This post feels disjointed.

I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee lately, I’m big into coffee drinking and writing things down, I’m also big into people watching. Which is not to be confused with stairing off into space and typing at the same time. I don’t know about you but I don’t look at the screen of my computer when I type because I want to edit every word I misspell as I type it.

“What is he talking about? why does this matter at all?”

I’m thinking about what I’m writing instead of what I’m looking at, my eyes tend to wander, and all social considerations go out the window. I only snap out of it when someone makes eye contact with me, which is a nice way of saying; when someone lets me know with their eyes that I’m creeping them out.

It’s not so much a problem when I’m typing in private, but out in the world it really messes me up. Right now for instance, everytime I’ve changed the subject in this post it’s because I am being interrupted by a woman’s scowl, adjusting the hem of her garmet as if they were saying;

“Hey, buddy, they only say its free to look if they’re trying to sell you something.”

Otherwise it costs you your dignity.

Speaking of which, an ex of mine found a video on the internet of me rapping karaoke.

POLITICS RAIN GOVERNMENT

Fearlessly, I drove. The rain driving down on the interstate like a wet dream comet hurdling parallel to the ground. The water stuck to the windshield, but it was no matter, windshield wipers moved swiftly across the glass shield. I drove quickly and to a destination, an address if you will. I did forget to look up a good place to park downtown, yet it was no matter, I had the intuition of a pointed and successful wolf, and the rugged good looks of a man wearing clothes fit for the 1950’s. I carried a briefcase that looked like it should have been handcuffed to me. With hair that said:

“Hey man, you can fuck right off.”

I took this mentality with me as well, I took it to the ground in front of where my interview was and picked up a wet twenty dollar bill that, as swiftly as a lion breaks a neck with his noble jaws, slid into my pocket. I took my mentality all the way up to the fourth floor of a rustic office building where I single handedly interviewed for a campaign coordinator position with a small, progressive issue’s based, policy firm. 

“Chris, why should I hire you?”

“Well, I’m personable, honest, and an able manager. Also, I’m extremely intelligent, if not modest.”

In my mind, caffeinated and strong, a audience began clapping for my performance, from my well selected briefcase, to my sharp, pomade’d hair, I had looked, acted, and executed the part of a well reasoned sane individual. A act that has become increasingly difficult with age.

TYPICAL

 

Hey blog. how have you been? I was looking through old pictures when I realized that I was much more awesome when I was younger. So I’m going to work on getting back to that. 

Also, Just figured out who Kate Upton is, why wasn’t I told? 

I had an adventure last night at a friends house. His house has a nice patio that looks over the potomac river. We decided to go sit in some chairs on the patio. I unstacked several and carefully chose a wicker chair. It was dark outside, around 830 p.m., so I sat down without thinking to check for stinging insects, all of which I am allergic to. 

Of course a fucking wasp is on the arm of the chair, going to town like a business man in Hong Kong, humping the fuck out of my arm with its tiny, and deadly, bellend. So I have to go to the hospital, and of course my friend had given me a ride to the place I was, so he gave me a ride to the hospital as well, since I objected to walking. We waited in the parking lot, waited for me to go into anaphylactic shock. 

“You know that the African wasps are spreading around the country now? and they’ll just sting you without being provoked.”

“Awesome, glad to have them aboard.”  

“Chris how did you find out you were allergic to bees?” 

“Well I got stung while I was riding my bike a couple years ago and I swelled up like  one of those dried sponge dinosaurs you buy from the dollar store. then my feet turned white and my hands turned blue and I thought “If only I had lived another day,” before passing out.” 

“Was that the first time you got stung?”

“No, the first time I got stung was in the cul-de-sac of a friends street when I was six or something. We were taking turns throwing rocks at a hornets nest and running away. I got bit on the arm a few times.”

“Karma, man.”

Shit, I hope that’s not how Karma works, or some woman is going to snip my manhood off and feed it to me intravenously.

Haha?

Also, I went to a music festival at william and mary, met the lead singer of the mountain goats, and interviewed the band that opened for him, which is here.

LOTTERY, KITES, SAMURAI

I bought 10 of those mega millions lottery tickets and extended my confluence over my friends and family as best I could. I tried to leverage my tickets against my friends in order to have as many chances of striking it rich as possible. I probably spent an hour total on lottery dealings. GOOD THING IT PAID OFF BIG TIME.

Actually after it was all said and done I am technically entitled to 4.6 cents (someone I was sort of in agreement with, by way of another agreement, agreed to the agreement with the person I had agreed to agree with, and won 2 dollars). 

I guess that’s the lesson the lottery should teach us; it doesn’t matter how much time you spend looking for a short cut to getting filthy stinking rich, you have to play the lottery at least twice to win.

I watched this movie at the National Geographic building Saturday after going to a kite flying festival downtown. I rented one of those bike share bikes and tore that mother fucker up. I looked like a pro mountain biker riding down hills on the mall and cutting through the grass. I did a wheelie on a monument, I rode against traffic, I ran over a kid. Excellence.  

The kite Festival was pretty cool, people were doing stunt kite flying to music. I felt like I was walking through a battle field though, children kept crashing their kites into spectators. I quickly became aware of this and had the sense to keep an eye to the sky. I did see this woman take one to the shoulder while she was talking on the phone. She winced from fear, paused, and continued walking. 

“Oh my god Sherry you would not believe what just happened to me, someone crashed a kite into my arm, it was terrible.” 

It was a good day, over all. 

Also, check out my friend david taking this awesome half court shot

PLAN A WEEK

So I’ve decided to stay up late to; A)beat myself up for hurting someone I care about B)make a plan for the week that includes efforts to correct A). C) make more pancakes. 

I had some pancakes today, they were phenomenal. I’ve decided that, as far as pancakes go, more is more.

I will no longer taunt myself with the thought of pancakes, I drive by an ihop almost every single day. Do you have any idea what kind of pressure that puts me under? I’m like a dog, begging for dinner. I literally drooled all over my shirt yesterday when I started thinking about pancakes driving past the quaint blue front of the 24 hr ihop.

In fact, the other day while I was in Radford we stopped at a little diner in the town. I ordered the pancakes and an extra egg. Casually, I ate the plate of pancakes, and the egg.

What I didn’t notice was the Chef coming out from the back of the restaurant, he took a seat at the bar a few spaces down from us and when I finished the last bite he came up and told me he hadn’t ever seen anyone finish the entire plate.

“Congratulations!”

Thank you chef, I think.