The value of friends

This month, my live in lady has company coming in every weekend to stay with us. With the exception of the last visit being family, all of them are childhood friends, including one that she has known for 23 + years. I can say I come close, seeing I've known my friend Dirty Ryan since I was about 10. I am 34 now. Dirty Ryan now resides in Japan, and has been there for an astonishing decade abouts... The last contact i have had with him was a few days ago via a few sentence email checking up on him after the country got demolished from a huge earthquake there. He is fine, but outside of that however, it has been a long time since we have corresponded with each other. I can safely say that I have been an equal partner in slacking between he and I in keeping in contact. Yet that bond of friendship is a unique one that most of us have, the one of growing up with someone. To elaborate further on it, its also one that even if years go by, bearing mental illness or some other cataclysmic event, the bond still remains, and for the most part, we pick up right where we left off after high school graduation. The same goes in respect to my other buddy Douglas. He lives here in Arizona, a few miles from me. Even as we go months without hanging out, it is no problem to just sit around and do nothing.
Those childhood bonds, the ones we share through schooling and teen life lessons, are innocent at best, and sophomoric at worst. That is what makes those bonds so endearing. The sneaking out at night, a taste of a first beer or of a girl's lips, the curious trespassing on property or inner thighs, petty theft, car waterballooning, burger flipping job working teenage angst that screamed through your walkman cassette player as you loop play your "mix tape" with your amigos.Even though I may have made and lost friendships in my college and adult life, for the most part, the closest ones I had in my young years still remain intact.
Lately I have been focusing on repairing or acquiring new friendships with people to come close to the same bonds as youth. It isn't the same. The grown up experiences and differences are unfathomable to attempt to recycle an innocent youth. While I can strive to make new friends, I should remind myself, and those others out there in my past of bonds that existed long ago.
Its that warm blanket, sitting on the couch in front of the Christmas tree and fireplace while its freezing outside as a kid feeling that makes whatever stress you had just go away for a while as you reminisce.
I was reading an article on MSN tonight about when and what to throw away childhood memorabilia. At one point in the article, the author quoted about digging out her old yearbooks and the backpage senior quote pages. I had totally forgotten about purchasing one of them back in 1994 until now. Digging it out, it was a awesome touchstone to the past and all of my friends. I also remembered my flaw it it that I wrote way to damn small for the actual yearbook that even if someone I named in it tried to read it, they would need a microscope to see it. So, I scanned it, blew it up, sharpened it and it was still barely legible.

So in closing, I'll try to translate as best I can. Remember, sophomoric at worst right? It pretty lame, but then again, so was high school...pretty much left to right...

"H20 polo crew, you guys are sick. Brendan A. Adam B.(cool daddy-o), Gavin W. (shpeedos mon, slurpees),Jared Kohler (smooth & creamy), Long N.(cool daddy), Dan T. Sean M. Jason Foisy (FRESHMAN!),Matt Varney, Carlos C.,Lisa T & Colleen Mc. You guys are the best, see you next year, thanks for the memories. Salute! Camel Man! To Coach Frank-I love you bro, you're the best, thanks. To my lost cousin Sonia Bray-We all love you and will never forget you. RIP Love cousin Marc.

To my loving cousin Tina D.thanks for being there for me. Love always, Marc.

Marc Demelo 94!Portuguese Pride! Viva Italia! Class of 94! Whats up? We've been through a lot eh?In a way, I'm sad to go because all of my friends are going too.You're a part of me, I'm going to miss you all. To Mike Hagan,Tony Easley (my art rival). To my pisan Nick Torre-she passed the test. David Coffaro, the ocean man. Juaquin V. (Barney!) & Ken B. Tom Traung-eh, Ryan is still a good guy. Vince Bravo-thanks for being there for Tina. Steve Miloch-the Mortal K-bat king!Johnny Cage! Rigo Hartmann- You got my respect 4 being there 4 Sarah. Jovan "Poo" Barnes, What's up? Zahedi G- NORM!! Sam Curlee-my artistic bud.

To all the women out there- I couldn't find a better bunch anywhere else! Amy Laudenslayer-hey babe, stay physical.Allison Pelfini-SMILE! Nicole Leone & Christie K.-I luv you as the sisters I never had. Thanx. Niki Costello, Ruth Bravo, Vanessa Chavez & Amy Ellington, luv y'all. Heidi Schaffer,luv u, thanx for helping Sarah-you're the best. Sue Couret, you are my first love, too bad things didn't work out-but I still care 4 ya. Sarah Fisher-what's going to happen 2 us? I still care for ya,luv always.To Tina,Jenny and Jeanette, luv cousin Marc!

To my pisan Ryan D. aka EDDIE. How da $#@! are ya doin. I could never find a bro like ya. Yuv ya man! The shpeedos mon.

To Mr. Engleman-The 2nd father of mine.Luv ya bro, can't thank you enough,keep in touch ok? Mr. Farina-my pisan, thanks.Mr Ulloa,Mr.Dodge,Mr. Queen,Mrs. Odington thanks.

U2, Pearl Jam, Stone T Ps. Hack-fest 93-94, go Doug!To Doug H. aka Vizzy Z. Am I gonna have to shoot you? See ya my pisan."

drudging up the past

I was digging around for old photos of family to make presents for some of my family when I dragged up some pics of Doug, Dirty Ryan and I from well back in high school. It's amazing how fast time passes!

At Pescadero beach in January of 94

Ah, Dirty Ryan on one of our many bike rides back in the day. I bet Dirty missed that good ole bike.

Ryan and the Dog Broad Izzy at Pescadero

Douglas "reflecting" on something at Bean Hollow beach

Ah, the infamous trizan hack pick in front of Ryan's house after a hacky sack session back in 93. I really...really miss those shorts. I literally wore them until they were nothing more than ripped strips.

Day 15-ingesting my own heritage

(The hoop at Woodland today)

I've been waking up to sunshine while I've been sleeping here. As in, light is waking me up, no alarm clocks, no breaking out in a sweat from being too warm, no landscapers mowing next door, just light. It's been nice to have days start out on a natural body rhythm. Plus it helps that I've been going to sleep usually between 1030-midnight mostly, so my 8 hours peaks at just after sunrise.

Today was slated out to be a light day. I was surprised that I woke up when I did as I was up til 130am watching I am Legend on my laptop last night. I may be in for the same as I downloaded the latest resident evil flick today. I got up and had a light breakfast, and then we all went over across the bay to Newark to stock up at the Portuguese market. I wouldn't classify it as a market, more of a ethnic bodega. The smell of salted preserved fish emanated. The place was extremely small, smaller than my kitchen in AZ, and looked aged, but it was pretty clean. We gathered up a truck full of goodies, some of which I'm bringing back to AZ. Portuguese sweet bread, rolls, cornbread, olives, figs, salted cod, passion fruit soda, fresh sardines, cookies and the ever elusive but delectable Sao Jorge cheese (St. George). Yes, it smells like rancid gym socks used to wipe up fromunda cheese, but if you can get past the smell, it is some of the tastiest cheese you can get, and some of the priciest. A pound cost $17.

We left there and headed home for a leftover lunch before Mom and I headed to Kmart real fast to pick up on sale coffee and some new placemats. Seeing that it was 72 degrees today and quite gorgeous, I remembered that I packed up my BBall for the trip, so I hopped on my bike and rode the two blocks to the former Woodland church parking lot to shoot hoops. Just like riding a bike, Woodland is a place I can't forget. Ryan or Doug and I were there near daily to play ball, toss a football, ride our bikes through, walk the dog through or drive into after a late night taco bell or donut run over the many years. The clouds were starting to roll in around 5 and dinner would be cooking soon, so I packed up and rode home.

We ate dinner an hour later and gorged ourselves on fried sardines, fresh bread, hand picked garden salad, potatoes, olives and a home cured onion/shallot and pepper pickle that dad made the week before. It was quite the feast. So much so that I knew I needed a walk after dinner, and Jenny was happy as usual to oblige. Up the road, through Red Morton, through John Gill and back home. A quick but comfortable and all too familiar walk, just with a different dog. The inner voice is pleased today.

Day 7-the therapist arrives

Today my boy came back home. Doug arrived to visit for 4 days. We left the airport at 1pm, and tried to head into SF to hit up a Mexican restaurant in the Mission district. Unfortunately after driving around for 10 minutes with no available parking, we split and decided to head up to our newly found favorite pub from our last visit.

We enjoyed ourselves for a few hours. We had ourselves a tasty order of curry fries and an order of fish and chips for lunch. We headed home about 4 and came home to start getting dinner ready for the parents.

Doug and I ate light because we were still stuffed, and we chatted with my parents for a while. Dad rambled on about casinos for a long time and Doug needed rescuing, so we decided to talk a walk around the neighborhood for an hour at 8pm. We walked up to our old elementary school and hung out on the jungle jim talking about whats going on in our lives.

It was a medicinal feeling to not only talk to a lifelong buddy, but to actually talk in a place that we both viewed as safe and welcoming.

We walked from John Gill and over to Red Morton Park, another childhood park. We sat and talked more, walked more, talked more. We walked up the block, down old streets, peeing on random bushes, and headed to home get in the truck and head up to Canada college to enjoy the view at night.

It was a breezy tonite, but crystal clear. We could see all the way across the bay into the surrounding bay hills that are now dotted with the lights of civilization. Our topics of conversation changed from serious to sheer high school stupidity and comedic moments. My sides hurt, but I couldn't help laughing.

We headed out after a bit, headed to Chuck's donuts to pick up breakfast for the morning, and headed home for a good nite's sleep.

Day 6- The dead live vicariously through the eyes of the living

I could easily be dead tomorrow. Or the next day, or the following week, or 58 years from now. It is one thing to learn from the past, but not to live directly in it. It's also safe to say that once you are aware of that fact, it would be inherently foolish to not exploit tomorrow for it's full value.
I inadvertently stumbled upon both thoughts today as I was out with mom.
Yesterday Dad has talked to my Godfather who was planning on tiling his new kitchen today and asked for my pop's help. That meant that the day would be free for mom to occupy her time with whatever. I suggested that we head downtown and stroll around. I ended up giving her a taste of freedom and social adventure she hadn't had in countless years.
We drove downtown, parked, and walked into the new Cost Plus. I think she felt a little overwhelmed with all the items that were out to browse though, so she settled on a few gourmet chocolate bars and we left to continue on. We walked up the newly restored Broadway, which is ironically devoid of most shopping, and instead is centered on theater, restaurants and nightlife. Trust me, Redwood City, outside of the 1930's-1952, there's still a reason why they call it Deadwood City.
Anyways, we ended up visiting the old courthouse building, circa 1902. Seeing it also is the county seat, they converted the old building into a museum for the history of the bay area, primarily the peninsula.































There was a good amount of information, unheard of history, and useful exhibits that explained a lot more of the past of my home than I knew before. After an hour of strolling around, we left and hit up the City Hall Cafe for a cup of coffee at the counter. It had been a very looong time since Mom had been to a counter, way back to when i was a tot and one of the last 5 & dime stores, Ben Franklin's, closed down in our city. We sat, enjoyed our coffee, chatted about the museum, why she likes history and associated topics, and then left for the car before the meter ran out.
We drove up to Trader Joe's, picked up 20 bucks of groceries, and then stopped by my Godfather's house to check on the work progress. As predicted, I knew that Dad couldn't be just a casual observer offering guidance, he was doing work himself. At least we know it was done right though.
We had to leave so we could get the groceries home and take out something for dinner.
Driving the mile home, I mentioned that I was going to head up to the cemetery before dinner to visit the g-units. Mom offered to come along.
I grabbed a pair of clippers, a pair of bromeliads and 3 fresh oranges and we left.
The cemetery was, for the better word, dead today. We only saw 5 other people in the few acres of property. We visited and cleaned up my mom's parent's site and my Dad's father and a cousin too. The flowers were pretty and I know the oranges are sweet, which they would have appreciated.
Visiting Grandpa Demelo, Mom talked to me about her and Dad's plots and where they are located up the hill. Apparently they have a side by side plot with an additional top area open for me if I choose to be cremated and join them. It was a eerie, business conversation.
We paid our respects and headed home via a scenic drive through Portola Valley and Woodside. Talking more in depth about the relationship between Dad and her, what things are wrong, brainstorming possible solutions. Solutions that would enable both of them to enjoy life more, and especially life together. Mom and I have a good time, and Dad and I have a good time when we do our respective things, but I am not the person that either of them married.
That's when one thing hit me. I see it as a possible outcome for one, or both of my parents to meet their end this way, and I really don't want it to happen, for them or I in that way. That is to die having lived a relatively unfulfilled life. It's one thing to live a life as a provider and to assist people, which is admirable, but somewhere down the line, one must also look after one's self.
Once you grasp a concept like that, the only thing that one has to understand is that ultimately, the conclusion is equal for all, a name carved in stone. Which is a very sobering experience to see.

Day 2, a lions share of memories from a 7 yr old

There were a few parks that I can remember when I was 5-7. One of them is Weseley Crescent. A tiny park with a few benches located in the middle of a roundabout near the junction of Edgewood rd and El Camino. It is guarded at the front by a pair of sculpted life sized painted lions. As a kid, I thought that even though they could easily eat me, that they allowed my presence into the park. Once again, they granted me passage. They have an odd gaze to them, awkwardly penetrating, always weary of strangers to their realm. Today was no different, and as if they gave me that, "who are you to ask allowance past us thi...oh, wait, it's you...fine, go ahead-but I got my eye on you!"
I figured today, to ease into a little self reflection, to travel back to my earliest memories. What better way to do this, but on the way I got around the most as a child, by bike. I transported my beat up bike from AZ back here to it's birthplace, as to have a second companion that can relate to most of my memories with. Forces joined again, time and abuse battered, we rode out of the house as before 15 years prior, down the block, through old Woodland church, down Brewster ave, left down Elwood st to Whipple to Duane to Edgewood and Weseley Crescent park.





















(the inaugural ride of the fanny pack cult)


I paid my respects to the guardians and rolled onto El Camino and thru the 7-11 corner strip mall. The same odor lingers in this strip mall, a strange nostalgic mix of all pleasant smells mixed into an odd, yet compelling potpourri of 7-11 coffee and beef jerky, stale tobacco and freshly made donuts and icing from the next door Donut House. I fully expected to see a wannabe Jay and Silent Bob hanging out there.
I continued up to my first residence, the old El Centro building on Whipple. A historical original 20's Art Deco work of art, this building was home from birth to age 8. A flood of memories crashed through my reality as I rolled into the driveway. I was once again 6 and learning to ride my Huffy with Dad pushing me from the back. In his building owner's outside parking spot his blue and chrome trimmed El Camino guarded a small pigeon coop with my adopted pets Charlie and Charlene who were calmly resting on my small shoulders. The passageway at the back of the building wasn't clustered with locked bikes and trashcans now, but my dad's makeshift garden, complete with abundant fruit trees. I'd run up and down the hallways of the 3 stories to the fire escapes on the opposite end from our apartment, that is, when I wasn't playing on the roof, or throwing stuff down the garbage chute, or catching flies in the front lobby, or even rummaging around in my dad's workshop and accidentally finding nudie mags.

























(insane asylum ladder...crazy shit)
I later on heard a story of my dad and an old family friend named Jim Nicholas raiding a local insane asylum for a fire ladder part (the accordion ladder) in the middle of the night. They got the 300 lb contraption off and on leaving the facilities, were stopped short by police and firemen. They thought they were busted, but turns out the emergency crew was there for other reasons. It gave them bragging rights to the story.
I rode on, down Birch st, past all my old childhood family doctors and dentists offices, down Arch st past my first and now lost friend Jeremy's house, Michael LaDesma's old place, down and up underground driveways of offices that I used to ride my Huffy on. I still got a quick rush from a few of the steep driveways.
Then back up Brewster Ave to Hudson to James to King st to Jefferson ave. Across the way to Red Morton Park, up Roosevelt to Valota and finally up St Francis and the speedy descent to home.
A quick 4 mile ride that took me 31 years in the making. A great day to do it, 70 degrees and sunny. A small sweat emanated through my pants and shirt on an uphill part but I honestly didn't care. I was happy. On my return, Jenny was still napping after our 2 mile walk earlier on in the day. I got dinner ready and cooked outside on the grill. Chinese 5 spice chicken, corn on the cob, homemade coleslaw, grilled pineapple and cheese stuffed bacon wrapped green chilis.
Fat and happy, I settled down into a easy night of rest.

old money

As some who know me know, I collect old money. It's a good habit to have that I picked up from my boss. Money needs to be at least 14 years old though, or I won't consider it.

Last night I cashed out a 1981 $10 bill. I began to think about it. I was 6 in 1981, and just starting to venture out into the world. By the age of 7, Dirty Ryan and I were pushing the limits of our neighborhood and the B&W Market was in the outer boondocks of our world (5 blocks away). What toys and treats could a $10 bill give us during those years?.......

.

1000 pieces of .01 cent gum from the gumball machine.

500 pieces of tootsie roll candy at .02 cents each

200 jolly rancher stick bars, or blow pops at .05 each

100 mini boxes of nerds candy

40 candy bars at .25-.30 cents each

40 games of pac-man at the pizza parlor

25 Eskimo bars,fudgicles or bomb pops from the ice cream truck.

20 packs of baseball cards (with the gum in them!)

20 bottles (glass) of coke, and then get a .03 cent deposit back on bottles

About 12 gallons of milk

10 big macs

1 case (48 ) of beers

1 Atari video game cartridge

1 full tank of gas, with change, in the full service line.

And about now?

3 gallons of self serve gas

a video game rental for 5 days

a six pack of cheap beer

3 big macs

3 gallons of milk

10 cans of coke

8 packs of baseball cards

5 ice creams-and you're lucky if you can find a ice cream truck

reduce the amounts of candy you can buy to about 1/3 to 1/4 the previous amounts.

Now I fell sorry for today's kids. Then again, they're busy buying iPods and cell phones.

13 years ago...virgin eyes turn away

I once thought that being older meant that you talked about elementary school hi jinx, then remembering high school, but man, when I am starting to recount college experiences 13 years ago, you know its bad.

Pretty much 13 years ago this week I hopped on a plane from San Jose California to start my life out in the desert at ASU.

I was young,fit, ready for a new experience. I got off the plane and gathered up my two giant boxes of personal belongings and got in a cab to head off to the dorms. By the way, the new route to Tempe was the recently opened 202 loop. It was pretty much just our cab on the road. Smell the irony now? That ride took 5 minutes and $11. Nowdays its a 20 minute ride that costs $4 in gas. My cabbie found it surprising that a California boy didn't look like a surfer. Instead he thought I was from NY. Must have been the leather jacket.

I got dropped off and entered into a 5 month trial by fire in the freshman dorm. In those 5 months I was subjected to a plethora of not only debauchery and scenery to fall upon my naive eyes, but hygienic problems, cultural differences, MTV and financial woes, all interlaced with occasional comforting touches from home and new experiences and friends.

My instant new friend was top ramen bricks ( 10 for a buck at the old IGA market on University). I relished care packs from home, and God bless Mom, she found a way to ship birthday cakes and other pastries intact.

It took all of 5 minutes to start hating my roommate on my arrival...and he wasn't even there yet for another week. I opened the door to my shared room, dropped down my bags and looked around at my surroundings. I immediately noticed a certain odor leaking from somewhere. No dirty laundry around, trash cans were empty, bathroom was "clean" enough. I couldn't place it. Then it hit me. His fridge...it was unplugged for the winter break. I dared to open it. Once I did, I was sorry i made that mistake...

The torrid odor that followed was virtually indescribable. It smelled like death...death that hadn't showered in a month. The fridge itself was empty except for a pop can. It was the freezer section that sealed in the culprit. Inside, sealed in a green and grey cocoon of mold and some outworldly lifeform was the remnants of 2 lbs of ground beef. To this day, I swear it moved once I allowed outside light to touch it.

I spent the rest of the day hauling it down the hallway (which was now flooded with the stench and alarming the other dormrooms) and out of the fire escape stairwell to attempt to clean it.

Like your coroner will tell you, sometimes you just can't clean out the smell of death. Every cleaner went in there to no avail. It had infused into the fiberglass. I just let it sit out there for 4 days until my roommate came back. Upon arrival of the frat boy "perma-stoner" and assorted greetings, he asked where his fridge was. I directed him to the fire escape. He trashed the fridge 2 days later.

The floor named him Denver Dave due to his birthplace. I nicknamed him Spanky. Spanky because I heard him spanking it across the room a few times while I slept during the early morning hours. Thankfully, due to his frat boy antics, he failed his classes and was expelled and pulled out of school by his dad halfway through the semester.

It was nice to have a whole dormroom to myself for 2 months. This lead to a lot of imaginative ways to pass time outside of studying for class. In less than one semester I spent almost my entire savings of $3000 on music CDs, groceries and take out food.

I was (and still am) a Cluck U whore. I ordered that deadly fried chicken a few times a week. Dominos also delivered.

I went, almost religiously on a certain night of the week with my buddy Josh, to the on campus Taco Bell to eat and watch Beavis and Butthead. New episodes were a reason to celebrate.

I never drank as a freshman, not once. Ironic now right?

Back then, especially late at night, i didn't have access to entertainment luxuries now. I had no computer, and for the most part, no TV. I could rent a TV/VCR combo (circa 1984) at the dorm front desk for a few hours, but they were always taken or broken. I didn't know what a cell phone was and my Ipod was a Walkman with actual mix tapes.

I had my stereo, my sketchbook and my imagination. On lonely boring nights, I'd sing along to music, read, draw, run in circles naked in the room. I'd stare out of my big room window, 8 stories below and watch people walk and drive by.

I'd go downstairs and watch TV, or to our floor's study area in the middle of the floor that overlooked the stadiums and the path between the frats and sororities at 2am to watch girls walk the walk of shame back to their rooms from their one night stands. I'd find reasons to go visit the trash chute and dump something down it, or to just ride the elevator up and down to random floors.

I had watched the Oklahoma City bombing in April over a breakfast of runny & salty scrambled eggs and pancakes in the cafeteria. I wasn't concerned about the bombing, but anxious about the foodworkers wheeling in boxes of food saying "grade D, Fit For Human Consumption" on it. If I didn't eat with Josh or his roommate Luke, I always ate alone.

A Carrot Top promoted 1-800-COLLECT was my access to the outside world. It was a collect call that gave me the experience of hearing my father cry because he missed his son. I still haven't SEEN him cry yet.

I let my hair grow and became the owner of a pony tail and a goatee for the first time.

I became aware of what sorts of trouble my friends could get into with their impromptu STD and drinking stories and had to perform exploratory surgery on myself with an exacto blade and tweezers after getting a case of trenchfoot. More than likely because of my tendencies to walk everywhere barefoot-from vomit stained hallways, dirt and trash covered elevators and cigarette covered sidewalks only to step into a shower that we cleaned, I think, once.

I ended my first semester of college with a flu illness so bad that I was having the shakes and chills in 99 degree May weather, having to take a final in a sociology class that, due to my delusional sickness, I showed up to the classroom on the wrong day with a different class being taught. I went back and passed out only to test the following morning.

It was a 5 month slap in the face called leaving the nest. Now, in addition to still looking for similar new stimuli, I also wish to have a return to the nest to visit.

Last days of Innocence

*fall 1993, senior year*

A glass of wine down and in the middle of a 3 way international conference call last night, my two old friends of mine and I started to reminisce and discuss how we (or people in general) lose the carefree nature that we all had in our youth.
Full fledged adults now, with mortgages, bills, 9-5 jobs, responsibilities and even a wife now, we have all seemed to forgotten the carefree nature that we once had. It's a sobering and bittersweet feeling to have fading feelings of those days. Now days we spend most of our hours trying to make a comfortable lifestyle by working our asses off. The irony of those days was that we didn't have to work at all to live an aesthetic lifestyle of being happy.
I put it bluntly to Ryan last night in saying how I remember how easy it was to come home from school, drop off the backpack, grab the basketball, head over to his house next door and roll up the street to shoot hoops until dinnertime, wolf down dinner and then head back out again to do whatever adventurous & mischievous deeds we deemed fit for ourselves until bedtime. Wake up the next day and repeat. Same after that day...til the weekend when school wasn't a factor and we had all day to misbehave and do what we wished.
Albeit, we had that carefree style due to our parents bearing the responsibility of feeding, clothing and sheltering us, but now we spend most of our days occupying ourselves with providing those same things all the while working and saving towards the far future wherein, more than likely, we will not fully be able to enjoy the fruits of our efforts due to old age.
Which is complete bullshit.
Which all the more reinforces my fledgling idea of just saying fuck it and doing things that make you happy.
We as adults have lost that ability to just "play". There is an inherit goal in some way to every action we do, which makes us jealous of our own past childhood. As youth, we did things because we just felt like it, because it gave us joy, or it was something new, or sometimes for no reason at all. Why did you jump up and down on the bed? Why did you dig in the dirt? Run after the Ice Cream man? Why did you go climb a tree? Because it was fucking there.
And it was usually better when you did it with a friend.

What it used to be

Ah the 4th of July. A time to relax, party and celebrate America's Bday. Well, at least for the rest of you. I'll be working tonite, getting your asses plowed at my bar. Anyways, I wanted to share what the 4th used to be for me.

Back in the day when I was a wee lad in the Bay Area, we used to have a blast doing the 4th. Back when the family was still together, not feuding and all us kids were well, still kids. I used to get up early on the morning of the fourth, like 6 am, turn on the tube and watch the NY or Washington DC parade and have my bowl of cheerios. Then Mom and Dad would get up and we'd head downtown for our city's 4th parade with some of the rest of the family at like 10:30am. Streets were all closed, businesses and my favorite...school was out for the summer. People were out having a blast, sporting the red, white and blue back in the Reagan days. After the parade, we'd head home to relax for a bit. Dad would work in the yard, I'd go play with my friends, hail down the ice cream truck or ride my bike down to the park and ride through the sprinklers.

I'd get back in around 3pm as my mom finished up prepping sides to bring to the family BBQ.

We'd all head down to my Grandparents house and the family would all socialize and BBQ. The men would hang outside together, having beers, smoking, and getting involved in loud conversations spoken in Portuguese. The women were all inside or under the patio prepping dinner, or talking to eachother. Myself and the plethora of cousins would all go play tag, explore my grandpa's garden, play football in the street or just run around being kids.

We'd all sit down for a 30 person family dinner around 5 and stuff ourselves silly. Mom usually brought desserts and we'd scarf those down as well.

Like clockwork though, after we've all eaten, us kids would hear the chime of the ice cream man from miles away, and like a choreographed children's riot, we'd team up on all our parents and get a dollar to get ice cream.

Sticky and covered in residual Eskimo pies and bomb pop juice, it was showtime. Back when I and most of you too, were kids-explosives were legal to buy. Each of us had our folks buy fireworks and we'd all gather in front of the house and spend a good hour of ohhs and ahhhs in giddy pyro excitement.

That was nothing though, for where my grandpa's house was, we were less than a mile from the bayshore launch area. We'd wait in our old wood and fabric strap lawn chairs for that one single pop flare that signified the start of the big show. BOOM!

It was on for a good 45 minutes. By the end of the grand final, all of us had neck strain.

By the end of the show, all the kids had come down from their sugar highs and were whipped.

The adults were beer'd out and we all headed home.

At the end of the night, my folks and I would stay up just a little longer to see the replays of the big city shows on the late show before I went and passed out in bed with a ear to ear grin on my face....

OMG! Can I kick it old school??

Holy doodie drawls batman! OK, back when I first got my Ipod about half a year ago, I uploaded all my songs on my computer, then took all of my Cd's and transferred them to my computer, then to Ipod. I though my music library was complete. I forgot something, or somethings I should say. Something that I think only my generation would remember using. Tapes bitch. Remember poppin in a tape in your Alpine mos' def tape deck in your 84 Honda Civic? Only thing that sucked was if you wanted to get to a certain song, you had to manually fish for it by rewinding or fast forwarding to said track. Usually you missed it and had to backtrack.

Anyways, I went through my bowels of the entertainment center and found cases of my old tapes...LL Cool J, Bryan Adams, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Floyd, Public Enemy and other crap that I had before the advent of Cd's. There were other tapes too man....Admit it fuckers...you had mix tapes. You know you did!!! You had the party mix tapes, the jam tapes, the rap mixes, the driving mixes, and yes, the "good lovin" smooth ass Rico Suave tape mix that you made specifically for those nights that you may just be gettin lucky. Fucking cheese man..Anyways, I went through most of them and tossed out all the mix tapes cuz now I'm up to speed with technology. I kept all the actual albums for future authentic value.

Man, I'm listening to LL Cool J's Walking with a panther album right now. Man this shit was back in Jr high and early high school. We'd pop in the tape at Dirty Ryan's casa and act all tough and thugged out. Lift some weights, spar and hang out all gangsta n shit...We'd go cruising around later on in life in high school and act all cool cruisin by in Ryan's Mom's Volvo as we head off to Chuck's donuts for a glazed.

And of course, LL Cool J's "I Need Love" song. Fucking super cheese!!!! I can't believe that I thought this song was scroggin worthy!! What do I do though?? During my crush on Jennifer Pitcher in Jr High, I copy the lyrics on a note and slip it in her locker. Later I find out that she hung out with the druggies and thugs in High school and fell off her pedestal. Crackwhore is probably having Pancho's 4th kid living in a trailer park. Snooze you loose beeatch!

Ah memories, the shit was classic...