I'm having a terrible time figuring out how to write an opening for this one. Part of me wants to be poetic and poignant, another part would like to write something hilarious and wacky, this is all a reflection of my real-life disposition. Pierre, our family dog, was put down on Saturday. So I am dedicating this entry to his memory.
My Mother reminded me a few weeks ago of how Pierre first became a part of our family. Somehow, my brother and I had managed to get him to our house from a family friends house who lived in the country. We had apparently secreted him away in our room, hoping to hide him from Mom. How we ever thought that we would get away with hiding a puppy from her is still a mystery to me. Upon her discovery of the dog, that at the time we were calling "Gak", she told us that we could not keep him, but after much begging, she eventually, albeit begrudgingly, gave in.
I am not sure who came up with the name Pierre, but I always thought that it fit him perfectly. Perhaps we named him that because he was small and had a tail that curled to his lower back completing an almost perfect circle. Which in my mind is a distinctly French dog trait. The best we could figure is that he was some kind of terrier, or a mix of that sort. I guess if I really had to describe him, I would say he looked a lot like Benjy, only 27 times cuter. This is pretty close.
In the beginning he ran away alot, and would more than often be picked up by the pound before we could find him. Where my Mom would have to post bail for him, which increased every time he was captured by them. This really pissed my Mother off, who would after springing him, threaten to leave him there next time. It was an empty threat, we knew it, and even though she wouldn't have admitted it, in those early days Mom loved that dog just as much as she loved my brother, sister and I.
"He's just like a person!" Everybody says this about their dog, but no one ever says it about other peoples dogs. We heard this exclamation quite often, because up until about a year ago he would greet anyone who set foot through our front door with a toothy smile and a fit of sneezing, tail wagging, and a myriad of bodily gyrations. He was smart in a very stupid dog kind of way. If you left anything edible on a table that was less than 3 feet high and then left the room only to return and find it missing, he would be sitting there smugly licking his chops, staring at you with a look that said; "Dude, you didn't call 'dibs'."
After my brother, sister and I moved out of the house you could tell who Pierre really loved. It was Mom. This became evident after she sold the restaurant and decided to take him with her on an extended vacation to California and Spain. Unfortunately she couldn't take him to Spain, where my sister was living at the time, so he had to stay with my Grandma in Laguna. My Mother was gone for a month, and when she returned that dog would not leave her side for a second. From then on, he wouldn't let that woman be alone unless she was going to work, but when she returned he was always beside her. At dinner, on the couch watching 60 Minutes, or just reading a good book, he would hang within her proximity just so that he could be near the person he loved so dearly. His utter devotion to her was concreted by the fact that when he was diagnosed with chronic renal failure a year ago and he could barely move. She rushed him to the vet and they helped him the best they could but told my Mom that he only had a little more to live. After that visit he wouldn't eat his dog food, so my Mom decided to cook for him. Mashed potatoes and ground beef, that is all he would eat!
The most endearing quality of this dog was his undying devotion to Mom. I can remember nights sitting on the couch with her and Pierre and looking down at that dog only to see him gazing up at her. To him, she wasn't just the Alpha-dog, she was his Mother, his savior, and his best friend. To be honest I was a little bit jealous, Pierre and I had many a good time. We spent many late nights hanging out, eating leftovers, and watching the Cartoon Network. Whenever I would come back home for a weekend, he would join me in the basement and sit beside me where we would enjoy the quiet solitude of Mom's house together.
He was quite possibly the most excellent domesticated animal to have ever existed. I really hate it when people personify their pets, but it is hard not to do it with him. He lived 15 years, which I am told is a very long time for a dog to live. That's a little over half of my life time. He lived a charmed life, and considering his penchant for running around in traffic, a lucky one too. We all miss him very much, I'm sure the next time I return home I'll really understand what it's like. So I dedicate this blarg in loving memory, of a brother, I sincerely hope that there is a heaven, because if there is, he's there, running around with a turkey carcass in his mouth, playing in traffic that will never hit him.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Night of 1000 Michael Jackson Dances
I can call some of my birthday celebrations, "birthday celebrations", others I can call "epic", but only one (so far) can I and will call, legendary. I recently hit the quarter of a century mark, and while I've considered posting a very self-indulgent blarg involving stories from my formative years, I decided that writing a blog, in and of itself, is enough. Consider this one an ego hand-job, instead of the usual BJ.
Mr. Proper/Voltron's gift to me was admission to the CSS show at Neumos. Unfortunately, after two buses and a very underwhelming improv bus performance (my first) put on by three hackneyed teenagers, we arrived only to find out that the show was sold out. Upon which Mr. Proper(MP) and I decided that it was going to be "one of those nights." We'd be got-damned if it didn't too, and got-damned we weren't!
After a delicious G&T at Moe (the bar connected to Neumos), MP led the way to another bar down the block that he was familiar with. After showing our ID's to the bouncer we entered, and found our ears being assaulted by Janet Jackson. Red flag from the get go, but we had already walked through the doors and something curious was going on. Placed along the bar were 40 or so designer Fedora hats. People were trying them on so we decided to do the same. After finding one I liked I told MP that I might buy it if it was reasonably priced, but I would definitely need another drink before I made that kind of commitment, so we ordered a couple of beers and MP asked the bartender what the deal was with the hats. "They're fuckin' free dude, it's a promotion." He turns to me and says. Without hesitation I run over and grab the one I was admiring and we set to finding one for him. At this point I figured that after the free hats anything else would be a bonus and we probably could have called it a night. That is, if we were major pussies.
With both hats and buzzez on we triumphantly strode up the street to the Satellite, to look in a Stranger and find out if there were anymore shows we could go to. There really wasn't anything going on and we both knew where we really wanted to be at that moment. Neumos, watching this waifish minx rock out. After yet another beer we made our way back to Neumos to see if we couldn't find a way in. Obviously it was still sold out and Busdriver was already playing who we could actually see from the street. He's kind of a nerd-core rapper, he was wearing one of those cone shaped birthday hats, which I thought was very apropos.
MP seemed shut down, we were just standing outside the main entrance between CSS's tour bus and some groupies. No words were exchanged for about 5 minutes, but I was cool with that because I was being entertained by these two sorority girls attempting to get on the tour bus, the look of desperation on their faces was priceless. But after they left I began to worried MP, was standing there seemingly staring in to blank space, little did I know the gears were turning in his and a plan was being hatched. "Let's go dude, I've got an idea." And like that we were off down the street at a good clip.
It wasn't until we arrived at the grocery store that MP would unfold his plan to me, and it was either the dumbest plan ever concocted or the most genius. I settled on the latter, due to the fact that the risk to reward was something like 0 to 100, and if anything I would have something to write about later, MP agreed.
The plan was remarkably, we were going to make our own VIP bracelets. All we needed was a green band, which we got off of a kite, a sharpie , a whiteout pen and some tape. Total cost: 11 and some change. We set to work right there in the QFC on some tables next to the coffee stand in front of some windows facing the sidewalk. People could easily see us from the street as they walked by and we must of looked totally retarded because as we were drawing on the green ribbon we were smiling and laughing like a couple of drunk idiots. Our faux bracelets attached to the appropriate wrist, we made our way back to the club, all the while discussing our plan of attack. We decided to try the side entrances first, since security seemed to be the most lax there. But we were immediately turned away saying that we had to go through the main entrance. Fuck.
Things happened very quickly from this point on. MP led the charge, his technique was flawless. Stealthily covering up his wrist band just enough so that it looked like the real thing, so that they could give him a stamp. He was in, right there on the fucking stairs leading up to the VIP section. His insane plan had worked, I followed his lead, mimicking almost every one of his movements, almost. Something gave me away, we're not sure what it was, but we were pulled to the side as security was called. Checking MP's wrist, a security guard discovered that they were fakes and said to Mr. Proper as tape broke "That's not going to work." You could tell the security guy was mildly entertained by our little ruse, and for a second it looked like he was going to let us in. Until he put a giant red X on our wrists, and told us to leave. What was surprising is how little we were hassled, usually when assholes try and pull a fast one like that, they get a lot of shit, but nothing happened. They handed me my ID no questions asked, 86'd us, and let us leave under our own power.
We ended the night at Linda's replaying the whole thing over in our heads. What if we had...etc. It didn't dawn on me until the next morning how much fun I'd had. We had done something completely stupid, something I probably would have done as a teenager. Here we were two full grown adults attempting to trick an establishment in to letting us in with VIP bracelets that we had fashioned from a kite streamer. For me it was all about proving to myself that I still had it, that wild spontaneity of youth. You sometimes forget that you are still young in the midst of the 9 to 5, student loan payment, bill world that you live in everyday. It felt really good to do something crazy, and it truly ended up being one of the best birthday's I've had in years.
A special thanks goes to Voltron as a whole, for making this happen. Now go and check out Mr. Proper's account of this tale.
Mr. Proper/Voltron's gift to me was admission to the CSS show at Neumos. Unfortunately, after two buses and a very underwhelming improv bus performance (my first) put on by three hackneyed teenagers, we arrived only to find out that the show was sold out. Upon which Mr. Proper(MP) and I decided that it was going to be "one of those nights." We'd be got-damned if it didn't too, and got-damned we weren't!
After a delicious G&T at Moe (the bar connected to Neumos), MP led the way to another bar down the block that he was familiar with. After showing our ID's to the bouncer we entered, and found our ears being assaulted by Janet Jackson. Red flag from the get go, but we had already walked through the doors and something curious was going on. Placed along the bar were 40 or so designer Fedora hats. People were trying them on so we decided to do the same. After finding one I liked I told MP that I might buy it if it was reasonably priced, but I would definitely need another drink before I made that kind of commitment, so we ordered a couple of beers and MP asked the bartender what the deal was with the hats. "They're fuckin' free dude, it's a promotion." He turns to me and says. Without hesitation I run over and grab the one I was admiring and we set to finding one for him. At this point I figured that after the free hats anything else would be a bonus and we probably could have called it a night. That is, if we were major pussies.
With both hats and buzzez on we triumphantly strode up the street to the Satellite, to look in a Stranger and find out if there were anymore shows we could go to. There really wasn't anything going on and we both knew where we really wanted to be at that moment. Neumos, watching this waifish minx rock out. After yet another beer we made our way back to Neumos to see if we couldn't find a way in. Obviously it was still sold out and Busdriver was already playing who we could actually see from the street. He's kind of a nerd-core rapper, he was wearing one of those cone shaped birthday hats, which I thought was very apropos.
MP seemed shut down, we were just standing outside the main entrance between CSS's tour bus and some groupies. No words were exchanged for about 5 minutes, but I was cool with that because I was being entertained by these two sorority girls attempting to get on the tour bus, the look of desperation on their faces was priceless. But after they left I began to worried MP, was standing there seemingly staring in to blank space, little did I know the gears were turning in his and a plan was being hatched. "Let's go dude, I've got an idea." And like that we were off down the street at a good clip.
It wasn't until we arrived at the grocery store that MP would unfold his plan to me, and it was either the dumbest plan ever concocted or the most genius. I settled on the latter, due to the fact that the risk to reward was something like 0 to 100, and if anything I would have something to write about later, MP agreed.
The plan was remarkably, we were going to make our own VIP bracelets. All we needed was a green band, which we got off of a kite, a sharpie , a whiteout pen and some tape. Total cost: 11 and some change. We set to work right there in the QFC on some tables next to the coffee stand in front of some windows facing the sidewalk. People could easily see us from the street as they walked by and we must of looked totally retarded because as we were drawing on the green ribbon we were smiling and laughing like a couple of drunk idiots. Our faux bracelets attached to the appropriate wrist, we made our way back to the club, all the while discussing our plan of attack. We decided to try the side entrances first, since security seemed to be the most lax there. But we were immediately turned away saying that we had to go through the main entrance. Fuck.
Things happened very quickly from this point on. MP led the charge, his technique was flawless. Stealthily covering up his wrist band just enough so that it looked like the real thing, so that they could give him a stamp. He was in, right there on the fucking stairs leading up to the VIP section. His insane plan had worked, I followed his lead, mimicking almost every one of his movements, almost. Something gave me away, we're not sure what it was, but we were pulled to the side as security was called. Checking MP's wrist, a security guard discovered that they were fakes and said to Mr. Proper as tape broke "That's not going to work." You could tell the security guy was mildly entertained by our little ruse, and for a second it looked like he was going to let us in. Until he put a giant red X on our wrists, and told us to leave. What was surprising is how little we were hassled, usually when assholes try and pull a fast one like that, they get a lot of shit, but nothing happened. They handed me my ID no questions asked, 86'd us, and let us leave under our own power.
We ended the night at Linda's replaying the whole thing over in our heads. What if we had...etc. It didn't dawn on me until the next morning how much fun I'd had. We had done something completely stupid, something I probably would have done as a teenager. Here we were two full grown adults attempting to trick an establishment in to letting us in with VIP bracelets that we had fashioned from a kite streamer. For me it was all about proving to myself that I still had it, that wild spontaneity of youth. You sometimes forget that you are still young in the midst of the 9 to 5, student loan payment, bill world that you live in everyday. It felt really good to do something crazy, and it truly ended up being one of the best birthday's I've had in years.
A special thanks goes to Voltron as a whole, for making this happen. Now go and check out Mr. Proper's account of this tale.
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