HUG FIGHT!!!

and the winner is.....everyone.

This Seriously Happened

I'm going to get Little Caesar's the other day with my pal A.J. (Arizona Jeans) and next door is a T-Mobile store. I'm not one to ask anyone questions because I'd a large advocate of figuring shit out yourself. The Hot and Ready Pizza we ordered was neither "hot" nor "ready" so we had time to kill. Againt my better judgement I went into the T-Mobile store inquiring about upgrading my plan and how because it is a phone hosted through Google it wasn't able to accomplish this via their website. The vendor in the T-Mobile store, a simple man in his mid-thirties, said, and I quote:

"Hmmm...I'm not sure. You might want to call customer support. They can probably tell you."

WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I'M DOING HERE!?!?!

Box Head: The Savior

Every so often you come across a man, dare I say a savior, that encompasses a true feeling and understanding of a place.

My hat, or box goes off to Box Head. Some drunken hillbilly I saw at the bowling alley. God rest your moonshine soaked bones.

All I can say is that it takes a lot of balls to go around like this in public in your mid-thirties. At home? Yes. Out around town on a Wednesday? Lord NO!

Don't Shit Where You Sleep

It’s been muttered, “Tatters is a little strange.” Like snowflakes, everyone is different and like poker, everyone is dealt a certain hand. Keeping this in mind, I am back in my hometown; the place where I learned to be a man and cry like a woman.

There are a few things that people may not understand about where I’ve grown up and these things should probably be known before I begin my tale of adventure of what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks.

My hometown has about 20,000 people; and the average age of those people is about 75. There are a select group of people I know that have moved back to Hermitage and a select group of people that had never left. And once you leave, it’s very difficult to smeld back into this society; and these are simple folk. I remind my dad of this on a daily basis. I have to remind him everyday because, well, he’s a simple man.

I dunno when this town turned into what it is now, but rest assured, it was never this bad when I was growing up, or maybe I just didn’t notice. Wal-Mart is a fantastic place to really get an appreciation for this town. As many of you know, I rocked the ‘stache on my way out east and it was embraced with open arms when I got here. The typical man in public is we’ll say 55 years old, mustache, a plaid twill jacket, and usually has a NASCAR hat on and its about 50 pounds overweight. Typical woman is about 45 years old, mustache, pregnant, NASCAR T-Shirt on (yes in the winter) and usually has a few bruises scattered randomly over her body. They’ll jump into their pick up truck, GMC twin cab, covered in rust, and 9 times outta 10, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes will be pissing on something. This ranges from Ford to Cleveland Brown logos. It’s really interesting that there are 3 Volkswagens in town and I know who drives all three of them.

So those are the people. Simple folk that love country music and southern rock. I’d take pictures of these people but if they say my camera they would probably burn me on a stake accusing me of witchcraft.

Moving on to entertainment…We got TONS!

One of the first things you can do, and this is appreciated nationwide, is to indulge yourself in the local drinkery for a few well deserved libations (see Figure 1). On this particular night we saw a buddy of mine play some music at a place called the Clark House. We sampled a few Old Milwaukees and topped it off with a shot of “Creature”, known to the rest of the world as Black Velvet, aka paint remover, aka jewery cleaner.

Another thing could can do if the bowling alley locks you out is drink in a parking lot (see Figure 2) as the manager of the bowling alley suggested. It takes a certain town when the manager of a bowling alley not only allows but SUGGESTS you drink in his parking lot. An opportunity like this may come around once or twice in a lifetime so me and my buddy took full advantage and drank until we couldn’t feel our toes because of the cold. So then we went to his house and drank some more.

Another popular activity is to hang out with Lord Licorice (see Figure 3). I assure you, the Lord, although gallant and wise is not a regular in Hermitage. No Sir. He is a part of Easter Bunny lane (see Figure 4) which is at Kraynak’s. Kraynak’s….there’s no easy way to describe it. It’s really…uh…random. They have a lot of trains there. If you take anything out of this, I hope it’s “if you ever wonder what the right thing to do is, just ask yourself ‘What would Lord Licorice do?’”

Mom mother is sort of a cat lady, she only has four but we’ve had a pretty solid rotation of cats since I’ve been alive. We actually had 4 other cats when I was growing up which make a wonderful segway into another fun activity, which is: Watch the Cats. It’s really better than television. Take Abby for instance (See Figure 5). It was in that position for long enough for me to decide whether or not to take the picture, grab my phone, then take the picture. Remarkable.

I know some of us were Eagle Scouts so another thing to do is pay homage to the boy scouts by putting up robotic moving puppets dressed as creepy ass boy scouts (see Figure 6). Good luck sleeping tonight.

The last things and the most common thing to do is bowl and this dude abides. Had a pretty good game (see Figure 7). Since I’ve been home I’ve went bowling 3 times and drank in the parking lot once…well, actually twice but I don’t count the second time. I’ve also had on average about 6 Stroh’s each time I’ve gone bowling.

You gotta love the place though.

To Infinity and Beyond!

Tatters Log: 09-Feb 2010.

I found myself alone in warm in a place that looked a lot like my bedroom. It was strange because it was my bedroom. Confused I shut off the alarm clock which was softly places some Walrus hits and made my way to pile of clothes I laid out to wear on this journey. It took me about 20 minutes to make it my way to the bank for some safety cash that I might need on the arduous journey. The goal? 1350 miles from San Diego to Oklahoma City in one drive, not counting gas.

It wasn't far down the eastbound 8 that i found myself doing an easy 110 miles per hour. It's a pretty smooth road and this pretty much set my pace for the trip, not speed-wise. Heading east around 6:00 AM going 110 miles an hour is one of the worst with to do sporting a pair of polarized Warfarers i soon found out as the 8 was merging with another interstate. Not realizing how slow the two dark figures were going in front of me I found myself going a little harder on the breaks than usual. Picture how hard guys try to put their hands down girls pants after a high school dance; that hard. Luckily there was not a collision. Unlucky however, one of those black figures was one California's finest so unable to stop behind these cares and having to shimmy the Jetta through the traffic, I didn't find it to surprising to see the glaring blue and red lights in the rearview. I wasn't even mad. I realized I fucked up and thought to myself, well, "I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the 13 years I've been driving; I'm due."

"License and Registration."

Being that I never get pulled over the registration was a new thing for me. As i fumbled through the dash I pulled out a registration from 2006. After he had asked for a more recent one I pulled out the Junior Senior cd and maps of UCSD and found the most current one. I handed them to the man and he went to the squad car and came back with a "less than impressed" look on his face. "Do you know what the speed limit here is?"

"70."

"Do you know how fast i clocked you at?"

"No."

"95."

He had asked where I was going and why I was going so fast and during the conversation I realized the mustache I was sporting was not helping my cause at all. After some light banter and asking me if I had any warrants out for my arrest or had been consuming any alcoholic beverages that night or morning my 95 turned into a 75; which is about the coolest thing I've ever heard of or witnessed, since I'd have to go to court initially, and had he seen me a few miles up the road I would have lost my license right then and there. I took off after that keeping an eye on the speedometer and made sure I didn't go any higher than 5 mph over the limit; which could be attributed to mechanical failures of the radar gun.

Didn't get far until I made a new friend that worked for the border patrol. It was a routine stop asking where i was going. Expecting a short conversation, much like the car before me, i answered "Oklahoma City" when he had asked where I was going. It was right around this time i found a German Sheppard running hysterically to my car. It was like this dog was on speed, which is surprising since it was a narcotics dog. It raced around the car a few times going ape shit and I thought to myself, "I don't have any drugs but with this goddamn mustache, who would believe me" and looked puzzled at the border officer told me to go on my way. Apparently all drug dogs are hyperactive.

I dunno how many of you smooth operators drive across the US but I'll tell ya, it is a pain the the hole. There isn't much in the terms of landscape in the first part of the trip however was completely taken from the views of Flagstaff, which also, I found my first snowfall. It wasn't heavy snow, just enough to tense me up a bit and the views were outstanding, driving up to elevation of 7000+ feet I was totally taken away by the mountain scape; truly fantastic.

After that I made my way through New Mexico which was not short of it natural beauty. This natural beauty came to an end right around the time the sun went down. Now, if there's two things people know about me it's A.) I hate driving or perhaps B.) I hate driving at night or perhaps a third secret is that I fucking hate semi's!!! So you could imagine my demeanor when I found myself in this particular situation stated below:


1.) Driving at night
2.) On a 2-lane highway
3.) In New Fucking Mexico
4.) Surrounded my semis
5.) Alone
6.) On a road that has no highway lights
7.) And no reflectors on the road
8.) In the fog

The thing about semis is this. Semi's to my knowledge do not have cruise control so every time they go up a hill, they slow down. Conversely, when they go down a hill they speed up. When it's straight they go the speed limit. I have a natural fear of semi's. I always felt like that would be my end; getting into an accident with a semi. This was a very hilly road, the I-40. So the speeds on the semi's were very wide in range and the occurrence was high. Mama didn't raise no fool. I'm one of those guy who takes his left hand and touches a counter top and it is cool, I'll touch the refrigerators and it is also cold. If I touch a stove with my left hand and burn it, I don't touch it with my right hand to see if my left hand is wrong.

So it was right around one of this hills i found myself passing this slow semi and the hill ended and we leveled out going the same speed. Uncomfortable with the situation I had hope he'd speed up or slow down but this was as fruitless at Rice Krispies. I, taking the man route, decides to accelerate past him to leave the passing lane open, rather than drop back 100 feet behind the three semis, two of which i had passed on the hill. This was not the correct idea, no matter how good and logical it may sound. So unlike before, I was surprised to see the red and blues in the rearview moments later.

The man asked for my license and registration and puzzled I gave it to him. He had asked if there was a reason i was going 83 in a 75. I told him there was and explained the situation verbatim as stated above. He went back to the squad car and came back with a ticket. At this stage I took the ticket from him and took off. This exact situation happened multiple time since. But this time i wasn't falling for it and after driving neck and neck with semi for miles, eventually another hill would come and i would pass them, then that hill would end and go down and he would pass me. And so on. Whatever. It just seems stupid that i get a ticket for going 110 almost INTO a cop and get a 5 mph ticket and i play by the "rules" and get a 7 mph ticket. Does this seems stupid to anyone else? God, I love California.

So that was New Mexico. I went on further, not exceeding the speed limit the rest of the way, no matter how dickheaded the situation made me.

I made it to Oklahoma City after 21 hours at 4:30 AM in the morning local time...when i left 5:30 local time. So let's crunch the numbers

2.
0.
80.


2 speeding tickets
0 meals
80 oz of Sugarfree Rockstar

End Transmission.

Joe Jack Talcum - Methodist Coloring Book

This isn't my video i got but was the show we went to.