Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
I hope you guys had a great weekend. Ours was nice, thanks for asking.
It's pretty damn cold up here, and rainy too, so that always helps.
Perhaps I'm weird (anything's possible), but cold and rainy make me
happy.
I was in a deep, deep funk most of last week, feeling pessimistic and
questioning the point of it all. I was like Morrissey with a southern
accent and a preference for women. But the weekend helped, thank God. I
was getting sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
Not even staring down the barrel of another five-day work week is
getting me down this morning. It's amazing. Cats are sleeping with
dogs....
-- Steve came to town on Saturday and we bought our Steely Dan tickets.
They cost sixty buck each, which almost turned my colon inside out. But
we've got 'em, and they're pretty good seats. So that's that. Barring
death or dismemberment, we'll be in attendance for the Khaki Slacks and
Stock Options Tour '06. Pass the merlot.
After our excellent Ticketmaster adventure, we went to lunch at Five
Guys. Man, I need to take better advantage of that place. I've been
there four or five times now, but I should be hitting it at least once a
week. They serve up some of the best hamburgers ever, and a
"regular" order of fries is enough to feed a family -- which
is perfect for me. Plus, they have big crates of peanuts to munch on
while your order is being prepared. It's the happiest place on earth.
After lunch we returned to the Surf Report compound, and Steve helped me
cobble together some notes for an extracurricular writing project I've
undertaken.
This exercise mostly involved sitting around in chairs and reminiscing
about various episodes of ridiculousness from the Dunbar days. Like in
Jr. High when we'd get behind the curtains in Mr. Lee's West Virginia
Studies class, and throw handful after handful of magazines out the
second-floor window for sport. That was our entertainment back then....
And when we'd go to lunch and see paper strewn all over the
neighborhood, we'd just laugh and laugh. The whole thing was
inexplicably retarded, yet I still find it funny to this day. Go figure.
-- On Saturday night Toney, the Secrets,
and I attended a block party in our neighborhood. I was dreading this
thing like a rectal exam, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. They
closed off a short street that runs past a park, fired up a bunch of
grills, set out a long table o' snacks, and tapped a keg. It's a recipe
that rarely fails to please....
I had it in my mind that Toney would be talking non-stop to the many
people she knows, and I'd be off by myself staring at my shoes and being
a big miserable sack. But, surprisingly enough, we didn't know hardly
anyone there. Nobody from our block attended the thing (I guess it was
too cold to be outside in only half a shirt), so I was able to hide
behind my wife all night, and that's the way I prefer it.
The thousand or so kids played a game called Manhunt (who the hell
knows?) in the park the whole time, and the adults stood around drinking
booze and shooting the shit. Everybody was really nice, and surprisingly
sarcastic and funny. The joint was crawling with cynical bastards, and
we fit right in; I had no idea we were surrounded by such excellent
assholes.
One woman kept wondering why her neighbor wasn't there yet, and finally
broke out her cell phone. "Where are you?" she hollered. Then:
"Having a beer by the fire? Goddammit, get your sorry ass down here
and socialize! You can have a beer by the fire any night. We're getting
drunk in the park!" This was a fifty-five year old woman who looked
like a school teacher off Leave It To Beaver.
I went home to use the bathroom, and when I returned there was a gang of
people standing around hammering back the brewskis and reciting lines
from Animal House. And I heard a man that we do know, a
person deeply involved in the church and usually very businesslike and
intimidating, hollering, "Do you mind if we dance wif your
dates?"
One of the ringleaders of the event had some sort of harelip or
something going on. He was really nice, but it was hard to understand
him at times. And the more he drank, the worse it got. By the time the
sun went down, the shit was almost completely unintelligable. At one
point I asked him how long he'd been living in the neighborhood, and if
he was born and raised here. And here's a recording I made of his
answer. Did he say something about sixteen years? I can't really make it
out.
When it started getting dark, some people built a roaring bonfire at
the edge of the park (totally illegal, I'm sure), and surrounded it
with camping chairs. Everyone continued drinking and drinking, and
it started getting a little crazy. One guy, who looked like Ernest
Hemingway, kept proposing toasts to people like Grover Cleveland and
Richard Nixon(?!). After an hour or so, he asked his teenage son to go
home and fetch his harmonica for him. Then he wailed on that thing like
J. Geils, for a really long time. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Ernest was throwing down!
After his little performance, he raised his cup again and said, "To
being drunk!" And the whole crowd of respectable parents and
middle-class suburbanites hollered back: "TO BEING DRUNK!!" I
laughed my big ass off at that, and wondered what my parents would think
of this shindig. We were a long way from Dunbar, WV.
It was a great time, and I sure as hell couldn't have predicted it. The
only downside: somebody offered me a Cuban cigar when we were beside the
fire, which I foolishly accepted and attempted to smoke. (I had no idea
what I was doing...) And the next morning I woke up believing that a
small woodland creature had somehow managed to crap in my mouth during the night.
Blecch. I think I can still taste it.
-- On Sunday I mostly laid around the house and wallowed in my heft. We
did go to Sam's, where I purchased a pillowcase sized sack of salted
peanuts in the shell, and a kraut dog from the snack bar ( where I
witnessed a man purchasing a fifty-inch plasma television -- and a
rotisserie chicken). Then I watched an entire Atlanta Braves game,
several episodes of House Hunters and Designed to Sell,
and finally The Sopranos.
And you're up to date on my exciting life. What did you do this weekend?
--
I hope you guys had a great weekend. Ours was nice, thanks for asking.
It's pretty damn cold up here, and rainy too, so that always helps.
Perhaps I'm weird (anything's possible), but cold and rainy make me
happy.