More Helpful Hints

More helpful hints for the new drug dealers on my block:

1. Wear something a little less conspicuous. Neon colored baseball hats and yellow hoodies (with HOLLISTER printed on the front) don’t help you blend in with the other corner boys. Same thing goes for your “platinum” grills.

2. If you actually do decide to wear something inconspicuous, like a black knit hat, a black jacket, black pants, and black shoes, how about not wearing the same thing every day? Wearing the same thing every day doesn’t help you blend either.

3. You’re walking around with wads of cash. How about getting your braids tightened up? That way people might believe you when you tell them you’re an entrepreneur.

4. When pulling up to the curb in front of my house waiting for your re-up, how about turning your shitty music down about a thousand decibels? At the very least, play something good. Your uninspired taste in music is what makes me call 911.

5. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that no one lives on this block because no one is outside. It’s February, genius. Normal people are inside. So when you start trying to break into every abandoned row house on my block in search of new places to stash your drugs, I will call 911 all day long. Hope you liked the eight cops interrupting your Sunday spelunking.

6. Some streets around here are one-way streets. You think this is a good thing because you can keep your eyes on all of the traffic. I know this comes as a shock to you, as evidenced by your reaction when the police drove the wrong way down the one-way street and surprised you, but cars can drive both ways on a one-way street. There is no law of physics keeping the police from sneaking up behind you. How did those silver bracelets fit, by the way?

7. When dealing drugs out in the open, how about not counting your cash in the middle of the street? This is about as third-string junior varsity as it gets. And dealing drugs with little kids playing not even fifty feet away from just makes you a pussy.

8. If you claim to be a Blood, why not commit to wearing the red all out and proud and not hiding it under your hats and coats or in your back pockets like little bitches. Because I’d like to see you become the best lil gangsta you can be, here’s a helpful guide to back pocket handkerchief code. Scroll down to RED and choose your back pocket wisely. This handy hanky guide may prove helpful for your inevitable prison stay.

9. Since you don’t live on this block and I do, please refrain from eye-fucking me every time I get home from work like I’ve just somehow disrespected you. Getting up and going to work every day all day every week all year is hard. Your “gangsta stare” is not. It actually makes me a little embarrassed for you.

That is all for now.

I’m (Mostly) Back

Today is the first day I feel mostly back to normal. I had never taken that Tamiflu stuff before and I have to say it really worked. It basically c-blocks the flu virus by “preventing new viral particles from being released by infected cells.” Amazing! Thank God for those kids who got ‘A’s in Chemistry classes. If feel like you’re getting the flu - definitely call your doctor and get yourself some. Apparently it’s only effective if you start taking it within the first 48 hours. My ear cleared up too and now I can hear again, which isn’t necessarily a good thing in Pigtown.

So the weekend was pretty much a blur. I watched a lot of TV, including The Godfather marathon. I made a terrible mistake, however, when I came across Gangs of New York and decided to watch it. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph how have I managed to dodge this 167 minutes of mediocrity until now? I love Scorcese, but this movie was an epic letdown. I kept waiting for the story to start and it never really did. It’s almost as if the plot took some of my Tamiflu. Leonardo DiCraprio’s “brogue” was actually worse than Tom Cruise’s in Dances With Immigrants Far and Away. DiCraprio’s accent was reminiscent of a very bad high school drama club accent. We all appreciate the effort, but sometimes it’s a big distraction if you can’t pull it off. Daniel Day-Lewis’s mustache was pretty amazing though, but it too was a distraction at times.

There was a lot of drama on the block this weekend. Lots of 911 calls made by us. Lots of police cars. Etc. I’m still too drained to type it all. Maybe later.

It’s My Turn

I’ve got that plague-like flu that’s going around. I woke up this morning aching all over and shivering and now I am crashing by the hour. I just got back from my doctor’s office and it turns out I have an angry ear infection on top of the flu. My doctor mercifully gave me samples so I could skip the pharmacy thing at this hour on a Friday. I’m stirring up a cocktail of Avelox and Tamiflu right now and crawling into the sweet, lovin’ arms of my Sleep Number bed.

Willin’

“And if you give me
Weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign,
Then I’ll be willin’ to be movin’.”

Linda Ronstadt / “Willing” from Prisoner in Disguise
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All of my earliest memories have a song playing somewhere in the background. Both of my parents love music and when they split up it was the end of truly a spectacular record collection. Before I was even born, there were signs that their marriage wouldn’t last. Duane Allman’s last concert ever was at the Painter’s Mill Music Fair on 10/17/71 in Owings Mills, Maryland. My parents were there and my mother was about six months pregnant with me at the time and barely twenty years old. Just twelve days after that concert Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident. My father, an obsessive Allman Brothers Band fan, was so despondent that he insisted that I be named Duane if I was a boy or Layla if I was a girl. Thankfully, my mother stood her ground and got her way when it came to naming me.

To this day there are many songs my mom can’t listen to and most of them are Allman Brothers Band songs and Derek and the Dominos songs. It’s not that she doesn’t like the music; once upon a time she loved that music, actually. I know that now it reminds her of a different time and I think everyone’s got a song or two from their past that they just can’t bear to listen to anymore. During the years my parents were together, there was music my mom kept all for herself. These were the records she would play when she was alone or at least wanted to be.

When I was a kid, my mom went to community college during the day and waited tables at night. The couple of hours she had between classes and waiting tables were sacred to her. She never had to tell me that this time was sacred - I just understood it to be so. When I’d get home from school, I’d often find my mom sitting in a faded plastic chair in the backyard, slowly smoking a Marlboro Light and sipping Ernest & Julio Gallo white wine from a pale yellow Tupperware cup. This was her ritual. Linda Ronstadt would be there too, always in the background just over my mom’s shoulder. For a good part of the 1970’s, my mother played two albums incessantly: Heart Like a Wheel and Prisoner in Disguise, both by Linda Ronstadt. My mother - the transplant from Queens, New York - listening to country songs while sitting alone. During those in between hours, those songs were her songs and no one else’s.

Do You Smell That?

Last night, while catching up on DVRed garbage, our block was swarmed by the police and two different fire companies. I thought for sure they were coming to take me away for continuing to watch “Rock of Love 2.” I would have gone willingly, but only after Brett selected his trannies for the next round. When my door didn’t get kicked in, I decided to walk outside and take a look.

The fire trucks and police were at the end of the block and I could smell something burning. Not good. The firemen were running hoses down the alley and I ran around to the back of the house to take a look and, sure enough, there was a rowhome on fire at the end of the alley! I panicked because it looked like it was my friend’s house. I ran around the corner to the front and fortunately it was not his rowhome that was burning. It was a rowhome two doors over from his. Very scary.

The guy whose house was on fire is one of the old guys who lets random hookers stay at his house for a daily fee. Apparently, he got into a huge fight with a hooker who stays there regularly. This is a hooker who’s done time twice in the last six months. She set the place on fire during the fight and you could still hear them screaming at each other in the burning house when the police and fire department arrived. See? Here’s further proof that prostitution really is a victimless crime. I’m sure the families living on either side of the charred hooker dormitory feel the same way.

Weekend Blah Whatever

Late Thursday afternoon I noticed two suspicious pending transactions in my checking account coming from Oslo, Norway. The charges were coming from a taxi company, which didn’t make any sense at first and then I remembered taking a drunken cab ride in Oslo back to the Viking Queen’s condo late one night. I didn’t think anything of the cab ride again until I saw those charges and then it hit me - my card was the only one that “worked” that night. The cab driver swiped other cards (not mine) with no success and then I handed him one of mine and it magically went through on the first attempt. Hmm. I suppose I did reek of “American tourist”, but I was with two locals. I feel really dirty knowing that someone sat on my info for five months before doing anything with it. Anyway, I had to go to my bank after work Thursday and c-block my card and do the affidavit thing swearing it wasn’t me who made charges, etc. By the time that was all done, I didn’t have any more fight left in me to deal with the six-hour drive to Snowshoe, WV.

So rather than leave Thursday night, we watched Jodie Foster play a vigilante in “The Brave One.” It was a pretty good movie and definitely a little scary because the event in the beginning of the movie is not all that far-fetched. Jodie Foster playing a heterosexual woman did require a certain suspension of disbelief though. There were some scenes that were very hard to watch, like Jodie’s sex love making scenes with a guy (more suspension of disbelief). Other scenes that made me think a vigilante (or two) in Baltimore would be a nice way to tidy up the place. The drug dealers, hookers, and johns around here aren’t afraid of the police, but a vigilante might inspire some fear and worry or, at the very least, make people pause and perhaps keep themselves in check.

There is one particular Bernie Goetz-like scene on the subway in “The Brave One” that’s very inspiring, although it would have been better if Jodie had been on an MTA bus. Don’t get your liberal “we just need more gun control laws, more campfire songs, and more hugs” granny cotton panties in a knot here. I’m not advocating straw purchases, like the one Jodie made, and indiscriminate violence. I’m just saying that a good old-fashioned and well placed pistol-whipping would make a lot of us feel better by proxy.

Anyway, the weekend in West Virginia was awesome. I could definitely live there some day. I think I am only one or two gun purchases away from what Maryland considers “stockpiling” anyway and it’s just a matter of time before I am deported to one of the Virginias. Coming back to Pigtown after such a quiet and polite weekend was a different kind of pistol-whipping. I’m still feeling out of sorts, obviously, because I’m watching “Scott Baio is 46 and Pregnant” at the moment. If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is.

Southbound

We’re heading down to Snowshoe, WV today for some fun-n-frolic in the snowy wilderness. We’ll be crashing at this dump while we’re there. I can’t downhill ski anymore because of my back issues, but I can cross country ski for days. I got my x-c skis out of the basement last night and I’m thinking about hooking my dog up to my belt and doing a little skijoring. I’m also going to give snow tubing a try at some point during the weekend. I’m confident that everything will seem like a good idea after fifteen beers on an empty stomach.

I’m really looking forward to getting out of town for a few days. Between the screeching prositutes staggering up and down my street and my passive-aggressive cubicle neighbors sighing for miserable emphasis next to me, this week has been more irritating than most. On top of that, I have such raging PMS that all I want to do when we get to Snowshoe is curl up with a box of red wine and eat Communion wafers by the handful. It is the Lenten season, after all.

Feminist Bookstore

Going all the way back to 1997, I’ve always maintained a bit of a rock star crush on Carrie Brownstein of Sleater Kinney. My crush is now going to become full-blown stalking because, along with being a rock star, she’s also hilarious. I had no idea! Carrie Brownstein is a girl’s dream come true! This “Feminist Bookstore” skit is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while:

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“When I see the drum head, I see a woman’s face.”

Best Birthday Gift Ever

We got home in the wee hours Sunday morning after a night of pint after perfect pint with some of my mostest favoritest people in B’more. I didn’t think the night could get much better, especially since I had homemade chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of Boone’s Farms Mountain Berry “wine” for the ride home, but it did.

When Lady Friend and I pulled up to the Pigtown Palace, there was an idling car parked behind LF’s car with (of course) some sketchy people sitting in it. Just about the same time we pulled up and got out of my car, a middle-aged white guy pulled up in a work van/stabbin’ cabin and started staring at us like he was waiting for us to give him the “open for business” signal. Unfortunately for that limp-dicked loser, he eye-fucked the wrong White bitches. When we got inside the Pigtown Palace, LF called 911, embellished a bit, and then we cracked open the blinds and waited.

Much to our surprise, a police cruiser arrived in less than two minutes. He came down the block with his spotlight on and parked in the middle of the street so no one could pass his car on either side. Two more police cruisers pulled up behind him with their spotlights on and blocked in the idling car and the work van/stabbin’ cabin. I wish I had a camcorder so you could have seen the look on the work van guy’s face when lady cops got out of both cruisers! Just minutes before, this john had been cruising us and now he looked like a person who had just shit his pants and could do nothing about it but sit in it.

The male police officer had his spotlight in the work van/stabbin’ cabin guy’s face and made the guy open the doors so the cop could check the inside. The lady cops took their sweet time with the occupants of both vehicles, taking their IDs and registrations, walking all around their vehicles, writing stuff down, talking on their radios, chatting amongst themselves at their squad cars, etc. We really appreciated how these lady cops were making the johns sweat. They spent close to fifteen minutes checking the vehicles and asking lots questions. Both drivers were handed citations or maybe just warnings. Not sure. We couldn’t hear what the police were saying from where we were. I don’t really care though because whenever johns get stopped by the police or beat up by the locals, we never see them again on this block.

Birthday wishes really do come true!