Friday, September 2, 2005

Katrina & The Waves

Holy shit, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, so a catch up is in order. What prompted me was the influx of comments this blog received, all of them confusing.
First came the introduction of some retarded automated comment generator which, if you’ll look to the comments posted on mid August’s posting essentially tries to sell something utilizing the comment section of a private blog. Great marketing! I’m sure tons of investors come to Worpswede’s blog for financial advice. After all, I’m working for a company that’s going bankrupt. Hell, we were even delisted, bitches!
Then a few chuckleheads decide to post on shit written months ago and come up sounding retarded. Whatever dude, unless that one thing was an attempt to quote a Big Black song or something. If that was the case, then you’re pretty cool. If it wasn’t, then you’re amazingly creepy. Whatever turns you on, baby.
I will now show you a very high level photo of the inside of where I work. Since it looks as though I may have landed a new gig elsewhere, I will share this confidential photo of a highly secured area of my current employer. I present to you, the Juniper Router. It has something to do with computers, I’m told. I've got dibs on using 'Juniper Router' as a band name, btw...
Everyone’s all weepy about the possibility that we may be moving to a smaller facility, one without a cafeteria. Fuck me, no more flap jack days! I’ve got to have one of those (assumedly) tasty suckers before they close up the café. The new owners (read: the bank) have cut about 10% of the workforce, which means that about five dozen support positions were eliminated because, well, we’re broke. My position is cool for now, it’s the headache from beating my head against the wall that’s prompting me to consider other opportunities.
It’s fairly cool to have someone call you to see if you’re interested in working for them. It’s even better when your current employer is going through a financial toilet.
For a change of pace, a friend invited me to the drag races and I took up the offer. I’m sure the SLF didn’t like the idea of fuelers, funny cars, and quarter mile wheelies, but sometimes a guy needs to see other guys racing in a straight line to see who can get to the end the fastest. It wasn’t just any drag race, it was the world series of drag racing. And these just weren’t your typical redneck crowds, these were crowds that probably change the oil in their own vehicles every three months. One thing we all shared together was a mutual love for a guy that thinks putting an F-4 jet engine on the back of a car is a good thing. It was, and I highly recommend the experience.
After noticing that the SLF was not having the time of her young life, we left before the other 3,000 participants decided they had seen enough too. Truth be told, if there was a remote chance that I could have gotten an autograph from legend Big Daddy Don Gartlis. She would simply need to understand that he was the drag race king. He didn’t show, but a jet powered train did. Fucking awesome.
Then New Orleans sank, and I became worried about the fate of Fats Domino. They found Allen Toussaint in the Superdome, so I didn’t need to remind you that he was the guy that wrote “Southern Nights” before people thought Glen Campbell wrote it.
The New Orleans story:
When I started getting boners on a regular frequency and figured out how to handle such dilemmas, the family took our Dodge station wagon down to Bourbon Street. It was a good time, and even better for my parents who used the locale as a reason to drink and take in the decadence of the city. We ate a lot of shellfish and went to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which was fucking cool.
One night, my parents decided to partake in a little bit of Pat O’Brien Hurricane action and left me at the hotel on Bourbon Street with the key to the room. For some fucked up reason, I decided to leave the confines of the Holiday Inn and seek out a pack of cigarettes. I took to the mythical street and witnessed my first homosexual couple walking with their arms around each other. They looked so Village People-esque, or maybe that was just my youth talking as the only experience I had with homosexuals at that point was an ill-advised purchase of the Village People album “In The Navy.” I think there were like six songs on that fucking album and, even in my youth, I understood that Casablanca Records was in the business of ripping people off.
So I head to a sidestreet of Bourbon with the thought that I could find a cigarette machine in the front of some restaurant. I went down a dark street and found a Greek café getting ready to close for the night with a cancer stick machine in the foyer of the restaurant. As I begin to feed change to the machine, one of the Greek employees, presumably the owner, approached me to ask in broken English what I was doing. Beginning to explain, the guy decided he didn’t have time to listen to the words of some thirteen year old Iowa boy and proceeded to throw me out of his shitty little food place. I was immediately met on the dark corner of the street by a female figure, dark skinned and dressed provocatively, whispering “Psst! Hey! Come here!” She repeated and I immediately knew what line of profession she was in. I looked around the street and found myself alone in a town that eats curious Iowa boys for lunch and spits their rotting corpses in a dumpster.
I ran. I ran like a little schoolgirl away from that dark street and that dark prostitute. For years afterwards I spent a lot of time trying to correct my virginity problem and to think if I’d only borrowed a twenty from the old man that night before he left, I could have beaten nearly everyone in my class in the poontang department. How I would have explained the burning sensation afterwards would have been a little awkward, but hey, now you’re a man. A man man man.

Soundtrack sounds to this New Orleans trip:
Aldo Nova-“Fantasy”
Gap Band-“You Dropped A Bomb On Me”
At least that’s all I remember. And that I was really intrigued by a chain of quick, shitty Chinese restaurants throughout the Quarter called “Takee Outee.” Nothing says yummy N’Orleans cuisine like deep fried Chinese egg rolls under a warm heatlamp. We never ate there, but I distinctly remember wanting to.
New Orleans also marks the first time I ever drank coffee and liked it.
The Dodge broke down around Cape Gerardo, Missouri on the way back.
I eventually bought both Aldo Nova’s first album and The Gap Band “IV” when we got back home. I still think that Gap Band album rules…

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