The title of this series of updates is taken from the hit television program Baywatch Nights. It had all the best aspects of Baywatch, what with the big-titted ladies and sculpted dudes, but it was even hotter, because it was about beach community nightlife. Well, out here in the shadows of New York City, there exist all the best aspects of suburban New Jersey life, only hotter, because now I’m in town for ten days. You see where this is going? No? Well, it’s like they say — you can lead an ass to water but you can’t teach him to understand the meandering prose of a complete fucking moron.
I awoke this morning to Nicci’s alarm clock. I asked whether or not it was socially acceptable not to shower before getting on a airplane for five hours, and quickly came to the conclusion that I should probably shower before spending so much time in close proximety to one-hundred-or-so total strangers. I dressed, gathered my belongings, and we left for the airport.
Sitting in the Continental terminal waiting for boarding to begin, I befriended a freelance photographer who spoke with a thick German accent. He lives in Laureal Canyon, but said he spends a lot of time in Siverlake, and maybe he’d come visit me at the store when he returns from his trip. He’s apparently a well-known photographer, who has travelled the world shooting famous people. He talked about the “old days” of air travel with a sense of nostalgia that was completely lost on me. He also talked about European dance clubs, another subject I couldn’t talk my way into OR out of. What the fuck do I know about German night clubs? Uh…they probably played a lot of Depeche Mode in the early ’80s, and probably everyone there was a homo.
We were allowed to take our seats on the plane. The photographer was seated five rows behind me. The kid sitting next to me kept checking his wallet, and I heard him telling a friend how much money he had on him. I asked what happened, and he said that he and his friends were going to bribe some people to change seats so that they could sit together. Apparently they had some big important meeting in the city tomorrow and they wanted to go over aspects of their sales pitch. What were they pitching? A musical…about MySpace. I checked to make sure my seat was equipt with a barf bag, but I couldn’t will myself to puke at the thought of a MySpace-themed musical. What are they going to call it, “Pimp-My-Profile”? Or maybe “Top 8”?
The kid changed seats, and for a moment I thought he wrangled a switcheroo with the photographer, but the person who took the seat next to me was another young guy, probably close to my age. We chatted about music and comedy for a while, as that is his current area of work. He was a nice guy, and the first person in many, many years I’ve enjoyed sitting next to on a plane. He was way better than the old racist woman who talked my ear off about how black Denzel Washington was on a trip to Houston, and incredibly more cool than the guy who had what looked like shit stains all over the front of his pants (all the way from the crotch down to the knee) on a trip to Tucson. We even played video poker against one another for a portion of the flight, but it we could see each other’s screens so it wasn’t much of a competition. The movie choices sucked (the Get Smart remake, something called Baby Mama, a Matthew Broderick/Alan Alda vehicle, and Hancock). I watched the latter, and it sucked. I thought it was amazing when Hancock shoved some guy’s head up another guy’s ass, but the movie lost momentum right after that moment, and by the time it ended I just wanted to sleep.
I popped two sedatives and nothing happened. It might have been hard to sleep due to the all the turbulence. Oh, man, it was like a rollercoaster ride that wouldn’t end for 90 minutes. I fucking hated it. Somehow, I didn’t puke. It was bad, though. Even looking at the little movie screen or my laptop screen made me nauseus. The sedatives left me feeling worn out, but not tired enough to sleep.
Upon arrival, my mother greeted me at the airport and drove me to her condo, where my sister and one of her friends were watching The King Of Kong. There was chicken parm waiting for me, with a side of whole grain pasta. Some of Ian’s homebrews were still in the fridge, so I drank one of those with the meal. Afterwards, I drove over to my father’s and chatted with him for a few minutes (mostly about politics — he’s an “Obama is a Muslim” Republican, which I find fascinating considering his abnormally high IQ). I showed him my absentee ballot, upon which I clearly marked my vote for Obama, and he kind of huffed at me and then turned on the baseball game. The Phillies suck.
I got a text message from Ken than he and Katie were going to Jack’s to shoot some pool, so I drove across town to Jack’s house. The billiards were good, but I scratched on the 8-ball in two consecutive games. We listened to some records, I informed Jack that he actually has a really valuable collection, and then he asked me to try and sell it for him. We drank a few glasses of wine, and halfway through my second glass I realized that I was having a reaction to the wine and sedatives. After a glass of water and a final game of billiards I drove home. Here I am.
Tomorrow is a busy day. I’ll find time to write.
