A Bowl of Stupid

Little did I realize that my posting a picture from the movie “The Terminal” yesterday would be so prophetic.

For the uninitiated, in that movie, Tom Hanks’ character is left stranded in an airport terminal because neither the destination he’s going nor the place he came from will take him. So he lives in the terminal (thus the movie name, for any fucktards not following along).

It is now 06:30 Pacific Time, and I have been in LAX for about 9 hours now. Gosh, their floors are comfortable.

I tried to check in with American Airlines, with whom I’m flying, about an hour ago.

Not so much.

As mentioned in my last post, you need to have proof of a return flight from Singapore before they’ll let you into Singapore.

Okay, fine, I got it.

I decided to fly via American Airlines based on the recommendation of my friend, who said their “One World Alliance” is worth it (to earn the “flight miles”). Okay, fine, they’re more expensive than EVERYONE else that flies (except Lindsey Lohan, of course).

But when I went to buy a return flight (even though I plan on keeping it open), I decided to save $300 by reserving a return ticket via China Air rather than with AA.

And when I spoke to an AA representative yesterday to confirm everything (I don’t practice law any more, but I still have that anal-retentive streak about some things, so fucking shoot me), I was told that would be no problem — American would simply confirm the return flight with China Air.

Errr … not so much.

The group of bitches working the American Airlines counter here in LAX won’t issue me my boarding pass without a “printout” of my China Air ticket.

This despite the fact that I whipped out my laptop, showed them the actual email flight confirmation from China Air. They require a printout.

Not that much of an issue, you may think. Right? Wrong.

Apparently, after talking with both the initial reservation agent and her supervisor — both of whom look like they’ve been hopped up with the other dregs of Sunset Strip for the past 2 days — I was told that, not only do they NOT have a printer I can use to print out the requisite “return ticket”, but they also don’t have email to which I could email them said ticket as “proof.”

I realized virtually immediately this was a battle I would not win, and I didn’t want to end up in handcuffs like Gay Focker.

So I took the next logical route — I went over to China Air, whose telephone representatives told me they would gladly print out my return flight confirmation.

Problem? Their reservation desk doesn’t open here in LAX for another several hours.

So I took the next step — I called the American Airlines “customer service” number.

Big mistake. Apparently American Airlines doesn’t DO customer service.

I say this because I then dealt with the BIGGEST FUCKING ASSHOLE I have ever spoke with — one “Mr. B.C. Carter” — who said that although he works for American Airlines reservations, he does not do “customer service” nor does American even have a “customer service for this type of thing.”

His position in this regard stood resolute in the face of the facts I pointed out to him — 1. I am a customer; and 2. I need fucking service!! (Although he wasn’t quite sure how to answer my question as to just what do they do customer service for).

Well, I suppose I owe him props for being such a grandiose dickhead in the face of such overwhelming facts and logic to the contrary.

I can not really leave the airport to go to a Kinko’s or something to print out the treasured “return flight confirmation” because I have oversized luggage that won’t fit in a taxi cab. Similarly, there apparently are NO printers available in all of the LAX facilities.

As I write this, I am waiting for a “fax and copy” store to open in the bowels of the international terminal. Let’s hope they may be able to help me. And let’s hope they open before my flight leaves.

Fucking American Airlines can suck my right nut — right after their “customer service representatives” are done fucking me in the ass this morning.

UPDATE: No such luck, I’m still stuck here. Fucking assholes.

UPDATE TO UPDATE: Muuuch better now. I wound up having to email my “return” itinerary to a buddy back in Miami (my best buddy in PHX was still asleep, bless his hippy looking heart), who then faxed it to QUANTAS airline (the next counter over), who then printed it out for me to present to AA. The new rep I had at AA was a sweetheart, but still didn’t quite make up for the cluster-fuck from the early morning. I’m at the gate waiting to board my fully booked flight to Tokyo.

I guess I’ll be meeting a few new “single serving friends” today — 20 hours worth.

Fuckers.

I leave the States tomorrow.

I’ve been talking about it for so long that, although I’m sad to be leaving my college friends here in Phoenix (who I haven’t been able to spent this much time with in years), I’m obviously glad to be finally going.

I’m actually pretty stoked right now.

That being said, depending on the status of the free WI/FI at LAX tomorrow, I may not be posting anything for the next few days until I get to Singapore.

Why would the wireless system at LAX be such an issue, you may ask. Well, apparently the name of this blog is extremely appropriate for me as of late — not only did I neglect to buy a return flight to the U.S. (a necessity for even entering Singapore, regardless of whether you push it back every few months), I forgot the fucking departure time of said flight.

Yeah, shaddap! I already figured out that doing something like that takes a pretty special kind of stupid.

The issue? I’ve been using military time for several years now.

The benefits? it’s logical, it’s fairly easy, and I’m used to it. The drawbacks? I’ve forgotten the difference between 12:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.

The repercussions of that precious little brain-fart? Although I’ve managed to secure passage to Los Angeles (Yeah, I know, twice in one week! Oh god, my eyes are bleeding!!), I will most likely be a resident of LAX for about 18 hours or so.

Another lovely side-effect — I will be arriving in Singapore just after midnight, not (as I thought) noon.

Again, I’ve already figured out the stupidity of this. Hell, I named the fucking blog after it!

No worries, maybe I’ll be able to hook-up with Catherine Zeta-Jones while I’m stuck in the airport (if she can tear herself away from changing Michael Douglas’s diapers). Hey, it’s all about being positive.

However, if I’m unable to hook up in LAX, I’ll be back online when I’m in Singapore, where I’ll be staying for at least a couple weeks.

Right now, I’ve only set up a surf trip to Bali and Lombok — both in Indonesia — in mid-June.

I’ll continue blogging about the webs and stuff, but the focus will obviously change to something more akin to “An American Werewolf in Singapore” (except for the eating people and stuff).

With that in mind, I hope that the rubber-neckers who’ve stumbled across this train-wreck of a blog over the last several months, as well as my personal friends and family who I’ve told about this since I decided to leave, will all continue reading and keeping up with me.

Likewise, although I may not be reading all of my favorite sites (EVERY SINGLE ONE in the sidebar to your right) as often as I’d prefer, I hope they all take into consideration that I will do so, when given the time. Salude.

Well, that was a fairly interesting weekend.

I was out in Los Angeles visiting with Manny and his beautiful girlfriend fiancee, as well as Chez and his beautiful wife Jayne.

Let’s just say that, although I love those guys, I fucking HATE that town with a passion.

Manny and his girl were just great, allowing me to stay in their home and feeding me whenever I needed the feedbag. I am eternally grateful for their warm hospitality and great company. I have an extra tent for you guys the next time you’re in Sumatra. Mi “lean-to” es tu “lean-to”.

Similarly, Chez let me and Manny make fun of him relentlessly for hours on end, for which I am also grateful. And Jayne, well, I’m just grateful that Chez had the good sense to marry that broad, so I’ve have the chance to meet her.

I am also eternally grateful for the parents of our waitress, who had the good sense to provide the genetics for one of the most stunningly hot women I’ve ever had the good fortune of getting shot-down by.

I highly recommend them all as friends, as do I recommend reading all of their blogs.

That notwithstanding, Los Angeles — and in particular, the area around the Sunset Strip (where we were hanging out and where, coincidentally, Lindsey Lohan wrecked her car about 3 hours later) is all the bullshit that Miami Beach stands for … decadence, self-indulgence, pretentiousness, the obsession with money and fame … but on a huge amount of crack, heroin, and Lindsay Lohan.

Wow, I didn’t think anyone could “out-drug” Miami.

Touche, L.A. Well played.

Now I just feel dirty, and I’ve been showering every hour on the hour since I got back to Phoenix (err, … or that could just be me trying to rid myself of the smell of cigarette smoke that has permeated every pore of my skin due to the inordinate amount of smoking I did, or it could the fact that I crashed out on Manny couch – which oddly enough smelled like balls).

And if any of those guys has something to say about my description of L.A., just know this — y’all better shaddap or I’ll put the Sheeney Curse on ya.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I haven’t watched cable television for the last couple years.

As such, I’m a couple months behind on this thing, but this Starburst ad I saw this morning is quite possibly the funniest disturbing commercial I’ve ever seen.

Much like The Exorcist, I’ve watched it about 100 times now, and it keeps getting funnier every time I see it.

I got my new camera today.

I’ve never been all that into taking pictures and, as such, it’s my very first digital camera.

However, I thought it necessary to finally get one to use for my travels to Singapore, Indo and all parts East.

I also figured this picture of my Jeep Wrangler is the most appropriate photo with which I should start my upcoming photo journal.

Why?

Miami to Phoenix. Two and one-half days. And hauling a 2500 pound trailer. Nuff said.

Man, ya’ gotta love Jeeps.

For the two (2) people that still read this blog, you’ll both remember that, until recently, many of these posts were about music, humour, and entertainment links or videos, randomly scattered with my personal lame-brain commentary as to the various state of affairs in the world (read: Hollywood).

As both of you may have noticed, the focus of this blog has changed significantly over the past several months, more towards my own personal travel activities.

I have done this intentionally, hoping to gear-up to write mainly about my upcoming Vision Quest to Far East Asia — of which I have already begun doing (more for me than for any other reason).

I just took the opportunity (read: remebered) for the first time in several weeks to check my visitor statistics for this blog.

Good god. I swear the new Beta version of Google Analytics has crickets chirping in the background (they’re a buch of vindictive mutherfuckers, ain’t they?).

Indeed, apparently nobody cares about my own personal issues, my travels, where I’m going, or the places I’ve been.

My site traffic has dropped tremendously — even in the weeeks since I sold my condo and figured out I would be traveling Southeast Asia for the next several years.

Bummer. I thought I was more interesting that that.

But not to worry, I’ve hired a bunch of tap-dancing monkeys to entertain you fuckers between my boring travel tales.

Blah.

UPDATE: According to this guy, I’m supposed to “blog for my readers.”

Two problems:

1. That assumes I have readers.

2. That assumes I care about my readers. Yeah, that’s right, I’m talkin’ to you, ya’ mook.

Both of these are questionable propositions, to say the least.

I count myself as always having been very fortunate, but never having been extremely lucky.

I’ve had a relatively gifted life, with good friends, a great family, and I’ve got my health.

But still, I’ve never had just absolutely great luck.

I’ve never won the lottery. I’ve never gained fame or fortune, nor have I ever stumbled upon a suitcase full of unmarked money (at least that’s what I said during the sworn deposition … and I’m sticking by that story until I get to Indo).

That’s why, when I hit an oil gusher this weekend, while still very lucky, it was not that huge of a godsend.

A valve blew up on my Jeep over the weekend, sending engine oil everywhere.

The good news, obviously, is that said oil-valve waited for 3 days until after I drove the Jeep cross-country before exploding oil everywhere, bless her stainless-steel heart.

The bad news, obviously, it that my kinfolk need not tell me that Californi-ae is the place I ought to be, with all the other rich oil barrons.

The Jeep is okay. And I got to spend the last 1.5 days rebuilding the Jeep’s engine (I’ll not bore you with details) with my college roomate. I actually enjoyed it tremendously.

Oh well, such is life.

Maybe I’ll have better luck next time if I get a hunting dog.

To all those in the Phoenix metro area who may tell me the heat here isn’t so bad because “it’s a dry heat”, I would typically tell them to go to hell.

However, in this case, I would be too late — they’re already here.

So instead, I will leave them all with a hearty and happy “bite me.”

I came back to Phoenix on my way out of the country because, despite the fact I’ve not lived here for over 15 years, and despite the fact that I was born and raised in Philadelphia, the Phoenix Metro Area (aptly called “The Valley of the [Blood-Boiling] Sun”) is the closest thing I have to a home.

Phoenix/Tempe is where I came of age (no, not that way … uhh, okay, that way too, but that’s not what I meant). During my years here, I grew from adolescence to adulthood, I gained a sense of being and a moral center, and I learned — for all intent and purpose — who I am.

But I forgot just how un-fucking-godly hot it gets here. So, once again, just in case anyone tells you it doesn’t matter because it’s a dry heat — tell them to go fuck themselves, it’s a goddamn oven.

And it’s not even summer yet.

Those issues notwithstanding, I have enjoyed the past few days essentially reliving some of my finer, and more memorable days from when I used to live here:

• I went skateboarding through the Arizona State campus (and got yelled at by bike cops, just like the old days).

• I’ve been able to hang out with my college roomates — whom are the closest things to brothers I will probably ever know. As such, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve last seen each other, we are able to instantly reconnect whenever I come to town — they are the closest links to my past that I have, and I love them for that alone.

• I had a great lunch with a couple of good friends I haven’t seen in probably a decade, with whom I went to law school and are now practicing lawyers (reluctantly) in the Phoenix area.

• I went hiking in North Scottsdale at Pinacle Peak, a place that, although somewhat far away from where I’m staying, holds a special place in my heart from when I used to live here (by the way, from personal experience I can tell you, when they say “the park is closed”, they mean “THE PARK IS CLOSED.” — see “coming of age”, supra)

And while I noticed several things as I skated through Tempe, and as I sped across town via the numerous new freeways, I did not notice just how much has changed until I got atop Pinacle Peak.

It was only from that vantage point, in an area that once stood at least one hour outside of town, that I could see a vast sprawl of once pristine desert land now littered with golf courses, and housing developments, and track-malls, and so on, and so on, and so on.

I felt cheated.

I had come to this place that held such a special place for me in my heart just to find it too has been besmirtched by the things of man.

And I realized — in the sweltering 100 degree heat — that, although the Phoenix and Tempe where I became a man will always exist for me in my mind, the city(ies) have moved on without me.

Truly, you can never go home. But I’ve still got lovely memories of the beautiful, mesmorizing place that Phoenix once was. And any property developer who wants to take that from me can go fuck himself.

I find it fairly ironic, given my personal situation (abandoning the relatively quiet confines of my life as an attorney in Miami in favor of a vision quest to the South Pacific), that one of my favorite movies has been playing virtually nonstop on HBO ever since I got here to Phoenix — Joe Versus The Volcano.

If you’re not familiar with it, the movie is an existential comedy classic starring Tom Hanks, probably one of the best comedies ever after Groundhog Day.

As per Wikipedia:

Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) is a downtrodden everyman who finds no joy in his existence. Upon learning that he is chronically ill with a “brain cloud”, Joe is visited by an industrialist who offers him the opportunity to “live like a king, die like a man.” He will pay for whatever Joe wants, as long as he throws himself into a volcano afterwards. With nothing to lose, Joe agrees.

According to people close to the writer/director, John Patrick Shanley, the story is based on a near death experience Shanley had and is his attempt to describe and explain the altered outlook on life he adopted as a result.

Although I’ve not gone through a near death experience (well, not in the past few months, at least), I have obviously had something of an epiphany with respect to the time we all spend on Earth — it is definitely, definitely, definitely not meant to be spent behind a fucking desk shuffling paper.

Admittedly, I personally didn’t like the movie when I saw it in my early 20′s.

Indeed, I didn’t quite get it at the time, despite the fact that I already had questions about the validity of being a lifelong desk-jocky (which probably explains why I spent a year working on fishing and crabbing boats in Alaska between college and law school — yeah, I know, I’ll write about that later).

This is a compilation of some of the scenes of Joe at sea, on his way to the island of Waponi Wu to jump into the volcano. Strangely enough, they sorta resemble some scenes from his later film, Cast Away (another Hanks great).

Good shit, my friends. Good shit.

P.S. TK, even though I’m dead to you, I hope you feel better, bud.

P.P.S. If I find an island in Indo named Waponi Wu, or if I see anyone resembling Abe Vigoda, I’m on the next flight back to the States.

As I may have mentioned before, although I owned a 55″ HDTV, I got rid of my cable about 2 years ago in lieu of renting movies, reading books, and playing on the interwebs.

As a result, during that time, I generally have not been privy to the outstanding network news produced in the U.S. (and in particular, the fantastic coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death), nor have I had the luxury of watching the 2-3 actually good cable channels out there.

But now I’m hanging out at my friend’s house. And he’s got cable. A lot of cable.

Fuel TV is obviously one of the few channels I’ve been watching religiously since I got here (duh).

G4 TV is another (although I don’t play video games).

Although G4 is generally dedicated to maintaining the everlasting virginity of the “video-gamer” croud, they often have some interesting internet links and video clips.

This extremely gay video madness that I just saw on G4′s “Attack of The Show” is one of them. It’s abvsolutely brilliant! (Tom Cruise as a gay unicorn? … Priceless!) It’s also fucking hysterical.

Not that I advocate such stuff, but I would also assume that smoking, drinking, ingesting, or otherwise subjecting yourself to some type of mind-altering substance would greatly enhance your viewing pleasure (not that I’ve ever engaged in such activities personally).

Planet Unicorn (NSFH – Not Safe For Homophobes)

• What day is it now?

• What State am in?

• Who am I?

• How the fuck did George Bush get elected President?

Yes, all of these are reasonably valid questions at this point. However, given a few minutes, I may actually be able to answer them all (well, at least in a non-existential way, of course).

As for the day, at this point, I’m pretty certain that it’s now Thursday. I drove for 17 hours on Tuesday – from Houston to Phoenix. And for any of you not following (let alone still reading), I did so in an open-air Jeep Wrangler dragging an 8′x5′ trailer full of furniture that I’ve now given away – like all my other worldly possessions – to someone else.

Yeah, I’m pretty damn smart, huh?

Needless to say, Tuesday was not a fun day.

I do this every time I drive cross-country.

What starts out as being a slow, relaxing tour of the country quickly devolves into my own little version of The Cannonball Run, thanksfully sans Dom DeLuise.

This time, after about 7-8 hours of that purportedly “relaxing” drive, I realized that rather than visiting the world’s largest ball of twine, I wanted nothing more than to get to Pheoenix so I could finally, stop, fucking, driving.

Thus, the 17 hour debacle of the other day.

Despite my attempts to avoid any scenery, I was still treated to some interesting sights, including the obligatory tumbleweeds crossing my path in New Mexico during one of the gnarliest lightning storms I’ve ever seen (it’s also quite fun to hear not one, not two, but three seperate “Emergency Warning System” alerts while driving through the areas then subject to the pending Wrath of God).

In East Texas, I also realized just why George Bush was elected President. In particular, while stopped for gas in some BFE town, the guy at the next pump from me was dressed in the stereotypical Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, with a rope attached to one hip and a pistol holstered at his other hip, at the ready just in case “one o’ dem dere hippy surfer types showed up spoutin’ some terrorist liberal shi-at.”

I kept my head down and pretended to chew tobacco. Hell, I ain’t even left the U.S. yet — if I’m gonna get shot, I’d rather it be by some Indonesian pimp as a result of too much price-haggling.

Yesterday, I took a day to regain what little of my mind I’ve left, and to relax and hang out with some old friends here in Phoenix.

But I made it this far, next is Vegas/L.A. to go hang out with the other blogging geniuses I know (sans TK, who is apparently too cool to visit Denver, the Sunshine State).

Yeah, I know, I used the word “sans” twice in this post … I told you I was wicked fuckin’ smaht.

Hey, Matt here (or as Manny would say, Mattè).

I made it to a truck-stop about 30 miles outside Houston, Texas, where I’ve holed up for the night after about 13 hours of driving, … which kinda sucked.

It was obviously a long day, and I drove through north Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana en route into Texas. I will say this: it’s unfortunate the South has such a sordid history, because the places I’ve visited below the Mason-Dixon Line are absolutely beautiful, especially along the Gulf Coast. As for Texas, it too is also beautiful — but it’s like something out of the Stepford Wives. I feel like I’ve driven into one big Applebees.

Yet for all the driving, with the help of Manny and Chez, in conjunction with the pack of cigarettes and – quite literally – gallon of French roast coffee I ingested over the course of the day, I will forever associate today (and specifically Baton Rouge) with the most manic and disjointed conversations I can ever recall having … well, at least vaguely.

Manny, Chez (or Chè), if you remember what I said, please let me know, since my recollection is clouded by a thick nicotine and caffeine haze.

Tomorrow I hope to make it in to New Mexico.

I left Miami today, en route to Phoenix, Las Vegas and L.A. before leaving for Singapore and Indonesia.

I made the (now-questionable) decision of renting a trailer to haul all of my remaining possessions to Phoenix attached to the back of my Jeep Wrangler.

The majority of these possessions include my living room furniture, which I will be giving to my friend in Phoenix, ostensibly as payment for him storing my Jeep and the 8 or so milk crates that now hold the remainder of my personal possessions — mainly books, clothes, surf-wax, and assorted water-pipes.

My Jeep is of the open-air kind. I have removable doors, removable soft-canvas “windows,” as well as canvas “bikini-tops” for the roof and the rear seats. As a result, I am always a victim of the weather, to some extent or another, depending on how many of those items I choose to install on any given day.

Today, I started my trip with only the bikini tops — which were fine until I got the the middle of the State, around Orlando. That’s when the swarm of mutant mosquitoes were released from the Military Weapons Research Facility.

I swear to fucking god, I was driving 60 MPH in an open air Jeep Wrangler towing a 2000 pound trailer and, in a matter of less than a minute, the air outside (which obviously also included the air inside) got so thick with huge swarming mosquitoes that, for a split second, I literally thought they were a CGI production from the guys at Industrial Light & Magic (yes, I know I need to stay away from Sci-FI films for a bit).

Upon regaining my tenuous grasp on reality, I was forced to get off at the nearest exit and put on the doors and the remaining canvas tops in a vain attempt to stay the mutant insect horde, all to no avail.

Indeed, right now, I’m in a hotel room outside Pensacola, and I still have bugs emerging from various bags, pockets and crevices (not a word, Manny, I know what you’re thinking, sicko). In fact, I’d never considered the need for fumigating my hair until now.

Moreover, as I mentioned previously, most of the State of Florida is – quite literally – on fire. The smoke has dissipated, for the most part, in South Florida. Not so much elsewhere (everywhere) in the State. In fact, the visibility in the upper panhandle was anywhere from 30 to 100 feet in most areas, where I could actually see the glow of the fires from the highway.

This extensive fire and smoke also made for particularly fun driving conditions in an open air vehicle. Everything I was wearing – hell, everything I own – now smells like I was hanging out at a bonfire making s’mores all day. Plus, after breathing that thick, nasty, gunky smoke for several hours today, I now have a newfound respect for firefighters … and people who smoke Marlboro Reds.

Last, but not least, were the hail storms. Yes, you read right — it’s Florida in the middle of May, and in those parts of the state not otherwise enveloped by fire, smoke, or swarms of mutant insects, there were instead terrible storms raining down golf-ball sized hail (which, although disconcerting, admittedly did lead to inadvertently comical driving of all the elderly tourists trying to get out of the state before Lucifer himself shows up).

Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Florida really is starting to resemble something from The Divine Comedy or the Garden of Earthy Delights.

Given today’s events, I’m pretty sure I saw the Suwannee River running red with blood.

Can you say “happy to get out alive?”

Oh shit, I’m not out yet. Let’s hold off on those types of comments until I hit Mississippi tomorrow.

As was aptly noted by Vanessa Byers earlier this week (while I was off on a 3 day bender), the entire State of Florida has been on fire for about a week now.

Specifically, forestry officials state that 236 wildfires rage in 55 of the state’s 67 counties.

Those fires, in conjunction with the southernly blowing winds from the first (sub)tropical storm of the year, Andrea, turned all of South Florida into a smoky, hazy morass for most of the week.

Not to totally disregard the negative repercussions of these fires to thousands of innocent Floridians, but the fact the entire State of Florida is on fire seems to me the most fitting end to my time here in the State.

An entire state on fire? Just as I’m planning to leave — possible forever?

How fucking appropriate is that?

It’s almost as if nature is acting as my own personal Cortez, thus ensuring my departure as the only means of long-term survival.

And quite frankly, I could care less. All I know is that I’ve never been so glad I’m leaving Miami.

UPDATE: [P.S.] Just in case anyone was wondering, I had absolutely nothing to do with any of those fires. Really. No … really!