Squatalupe
 The town of Guadalupe, Arizona, is adjacent to Tempe, where I spent Thanksgiving. Guadalupe opted out of being incorporated into Tempe, I'm told, because it chose not to have Tempe's taxes foisted on it. The result is a very small town with as many dirt roads as dirt lots, with a sheriff prowling around trying to catch people on the short section of road between Tempe and Phoenix that suddenly drops to a 25 m.p.h. zone.
I didn't have my camera with me or I would have captured several instances of residents squatting in dirt lots, staring at the cars going by. To be clear, they weren't defecating in the dirt lots; they were just squatting there.
At a Circle K convenience store I walked into a nearby dirt lot and squatted for about a minute. It was very peaceful. Imagine how relaxed I would be if I did that all day!
Go ahead - wreck your life
 We called it Uncle Adolf's Cabin.
I want more jelly.
 ...or I'll kill you; I swear I will.
Subtitle: Gollum=Venom
With a subject line like that, maybe I can go be an Assistant Professor of something!
Click the picture for the video.
 Have your person bring you a highball, relax, and enjoy this macabre bicycle safety film from (just before?/just after?) the time of JFK's assassination, in which children dressed as monkeys die in traffic accidents on the streets of Beverly Hills but it's funny because they're monkeys.
An added bonus is "Fractured Fairy Tales" narrator Edward Everett Horton, who counts down the dwindling monkeys/children as they get steamrolled, hit by cars, or collide with shoppers, leaving only their lunch bags and an apparent lack of concern from peers/parents (because they're monkeys).
Click on the image to see the video (thanks to Steve Johnson for the link).
Homeless design aesthetic
With home and office rents in Los Angeles between $2-$10 per square foot, I was not surprised that local transients had made the most of this leafy area in the middle of the L.A. River (Grease, Repo Man) just north of downtown.
"Cardboard boxes and heating grates are out," said Zeebo, designer of the space. "I wanted to create a Neptune's FantasyLand of Half-submerged Stimuli."
I asked if the exhibit changed when the river rose, traditionally between January and March.
"Then we rotate in the Neptune's FantasyLand of Drowned Dogs motif," he said.
2Eh-Oh1: A Teletubby Fan Fiction Odyssey
One day, in Teletubby Land, a monolith appeared.
"What's that?" Dipsy asked, and giggled. Then they all giggled. As if anything they ever say is funny.
"Into the Infinite with you!" said Primal Man, and giggled.
Mercury in retrograde in Teletubby Land
It has been a tough few days for ACI, who caught the stomach flu from some rotten kid.
Advised to keep her stable and upright, we watched a lot of television with her, most of which consisted of four endlessly-repeating Teletubbies DVDs.
From these I gleaned the following irrefutable truths:
- Tinkywinky is so gay.
- Dipsy is probably headed down that road, too, what with his drag-queeny hat.
(I told ACI that the only crime is repression, whether internal or external.)
- Mercury is clearly in retrograde in Teletubby Land, as evidenced by the fact that the Teletubbies get so much goddamn mileage out of technology breaking down, such as the Tubby Custard machine and the Tubby Toaster.
- Teletubbies are not shown eating anything that isn't sweet, leading one to believe that they probably snack on those rabbits when the cameras aren't rolling.
- When their intestinal televisions are activated (one is left to assume that the activating windmill is a symbol for Jesus), the two female Teletubbies thrust their pelvises and Tinkywinky goes into a drugged, dreamlike state. Only Dipsy appears to not be some kind of deviant.
Mercury will be transiting the Sun today at 11:12 a.m. PST, so we'll see if anything gets fixed in Teletubby Land, or if more rabbits have to die.
California votes!
 There is probably no correlation between the re-election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to my getting rock star parking in front of my polling place, or to the fact that I was one of two people in there.
Remind me, though, to start my own Church of This Is Fucking Awesome.
California residency allows individuals to start three churches, businesses eight, and casino developers up to 32.
Tengo que pellizcar un pan
I went to Mexico for a few days.
Mexico is a place where a man can think.
(This isn't necessarily more true in Mexico than it is anywhere else, but it's an interesting thing to say to someone.)
I was under the impression that once one puts up a huge sign, one's alcoholism is no longer anonymous. Do you think AA Mexico thought no one would catch on because the sign was in Spanish?
This is a statue of Lazaro Cardenas, former President of Mexico and the man who nationalized the Mexican oil industry. One can get the same price for gas in Tijuana that one could get across the country in Quintana Roo (currently about .30 less per gallon than in California). There are statues of Cardenas all around Mexico - this one stands in Ensenada.
He is a national hero.
Among other things, Cardenas expropriated the oil machinery of corporations like Shell in the 1930s and was neither bombed nor sanctioned out of existence. In fact, the United States and Great Britain grudgingly submitted to his terms.
He improved infrastructure and public education, his administration was known for its honesty, and he campaigned in some of the remotest parts of Mexico on horseback and without the coterie of bodyguards employed by politicians of the time.
Despite these, my friend Alx, who is from Mexico, tells visitors that this is the statue of the man who invented the elbow fart. Ay cabron.
I know this 400-ft. flagpole and immense flag look cumbersome, but I bought six or seven of them along with bags of churros from enterprising street vendors on the way back to the United States.
Previously: Ensenada
Bartles & Jaymes & Stabbing
 Despite the grisly events of two Halloweens ago, last night was blissfully murder-free.
Probably because of the cold, however, very few trick-or-treaters showed up, and we were forced to offload undispensed candy in bulk, as well as give third helpings to neighborhood children whom we don't like (because they display behavior that includes the social faux pas of coming back twice for Halloween candy) but felt sorry for (because they felt the need to come back twice).
I was reminded of Halloween, 1986, when I and a group of high school friends rented a limousine to take us 25 miles south to Harvard Square.
I used to sing in a barbershop chorus in Lowell, MA. and I was good. I once misguidedly wrote a four-part arrangement to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter". Even then I realized that singing in a barbershop chorus with a bunch of old guys was probably the least cool thing one could do. I've overcompensated since then.
One of the older guys, in his 50's at the time, ran a limousine service. His name was Jerry. I arranged to get one of his limousines for Halloween night. I forget what he charged me.
As we were finalizing plans, he asked, "Do you take a drink?"
I had no idea what he was talking about. But everybody likes to stay hydrated, so I said Yes.
"OK, I'll put some champagne in the car," he said.
Oh. "No, I don't drink," I said.
"It ain't an extra charge," he said.
"I still don't drink," I said.
Halloween arrived and the bunch of us got in the limo. I can't remember any of the other guys' names. But we went to Harvard Square and stayed out all night and followed some girls to Arlington, of all places, and did a lot of standing around and got in fights and watched people throwing up.
I quaffed a six-pack of wine coolers in Arlington. Between that and singing in a barbershop chorus, I don't know what I'm more embarrassed of.
You can always tell which are rented limousines and which are not because the latter rarely have people throwing up down the side of them and yelling "FUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU" out the moon roof. While I was not one of the people yelling or vomiting, I kept thinking what an inconvenient form of travel a limo is.
So it turns out our chauffeur for the evening drank the bottle of champagne and then he tried to charge us for it. I guess knowing Jerry personally was like knowing Don Corleone so that situation was taken care of quickly by means of a gigantic car phone.
Still, I remember the driver asking us if we could stop by his girlfriend's place at Revere Beach for a while and we said no. Even having never been to Revere Beach before, it still sounded like the type of place you wouldn't want to have a girlfriend in.
We cleaned the vomit off the side of the limo in our Halloween costumes in the breakdown lane of Rt. 93.
We were dropped off around 5 a.m.
At 8 a.m. I took the SATs (800 verbal, 420 math) and remember thinking, somewhere around congruent triangles, "I think I'm going to throw up."
But I didn't, and I got into Harvard, as well as a bunch of other schools I could nary afford. I am assuming my membership in the barbershop chorus compensated for my abysmal math score.
To this day, the smell of wine coolers is repellant to me (as is that of strawberry schnapps and cheap cigars, but that was a year later), but I still look forward to reaching the age where I can say things like, "Do you take a drink?" and "Don't give me your guff."
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