that's how it is, that's how its gonna be, kidz when you grow up, who the fuck you wanna be?

i gotta say whats up to my man on handsome island (leemme hold that) for showing me the most amazing time on sunday, to his girl for be supa down with my incoherent ramblings, to his girl's girl for being super hot and hanging out with me, to the pool for bein cool and the hot tub for bein you, for la fiesta burrito and fish taco, but moreso to campos tacos for bein the shit, to venice beach for bein the best...around, for the waves for crashin right where i could body surf a minute, to America flag towels and all of the tourists, and to PEGLEG NYC for that fucking amazing TANK OF DESTRUCTION pictured above and to REED SPACE NYC for selling that shit to me.....

words can't describe the kinna day we had. one.

A super dope homeboy from the Oaktown

So while my colleague is out spying on homeless people in his backyard and getting ready for the long hard road ahead, i've been enjoying the summer kickball style. adult kickball style. not adult like adult movies, but adults like grown ups enjoying a game we all used to rage on in third grade. and then going out to the bar afterwards, getting competely wasted like we used to in college and then making out in some kind of incestuous drunken orgy more akin to what we all enjoyed in high school (or what the greeks probably enjoyed in the greek ages except with less gay sex and sex in public). the only thing is a fascinating study in regression really, but my therapist says its helping me connect with my inner child, the one who didn't get nintendo even though like every other kid on the entire freaking block had one....JEEZ mom and dad.

anyways, we're talkin about kickball. i mean, kickball, i'm talking about kickball. my team is called the hammers. seriously. in a league where another team is called "john stamos is our dad", we're a bunch of tools. but, at least we're like the manliest of the manly tools. hammers hit shit and help mold the world. (well, maybe the latter can be said about stamos also, but that's for another discussion). im thinking this team name was like a default name or something, like john doe or username or

we have a messageboard for the league which i occassionally drop in on. now i wasn't always really into messageboards, but apparently you have to have sweeeeeet avatar. here's mine:see what i mean? sweetness. nothing can't touch the old hammer. unfortunately there's only like three classic shots of hammer in google images, so there wasn't much to choose from. but i think i done pretty good with this one here.

the big debate is: how much of a pussy are you for bunting in kickball? because, see, there's a rule that prevents you from charging a bunt until its been kicked, and its pretty much impossible to just throw people out at first, so a bunt is a sure way of getting on. so is it cheating? or using the rules to your advantage? and do you care if all the people you're playing against think you have a sticky, slimy vertical taco that hasn't been shaved in years cause you like to bunt....more to come on this

you must be another handsome boy graduate

HANDSOME BOBSLED ORIGINAL: CATS OFF CAPE NANFUCKET

really slow day at work today

HBCC Ode to Vegas: Day 4

tonight i got to have dinner at a place called pampas at the former aladdin casino and hotel, now the planet hollywood casino and hotel. sort of a trend in the opposite direction of things in vegas becoming more sophisticated. but dinner was a brazilian steak place, where they freaking bring you meat and more meat and more meat and more meat and a jamesons and a glass of red wine and chicken and sausage and red wine and jamesons and water and i've gotta go.

the theory that i came up with today is this: when you come to vegas, you find a lot of really nice shops in places like the venetian and ceasar's palace. places you might find on 5th avenue or rodeo drive. the problem is, these places are much more easily accessible than the aformentioned locations. so you have the kenneth coles and bcbgs and other nice desinger shops i can't recall now being frequented by the guy with the tucked in reebok t-shirt and dewalt racing hat from arkansas. it's nice...it's just frequented by dirtballs. and therein is the paradox that is las vegas.

anyways, vegas at night is beautiful. really. my favorite movie memory of vegas has to be the end scene of ocean's eleven (the george clooney version) where they are all standing in front of the bellagio watching the lake and then one by one walk off. there is just something about it that captures the beauty of vegas that it might actually be if you were to bomb all the tourists with their gigantic test-tube drinks, or whatever teh fuck those things are.

anyways, more photos. hope you're enjoying them. i'm stayin in henderson tonight which is a completely new experience and devoid of slot machines, card tables and fun things that rob you. thanks duggs, i owe you at least $40 and a 40oz.

fuck, conan is a repeat tonight, even though my morning jacket is the musical guest. check some photos while i get up to go flex my pecks in the mirror...

fountain in front of the paris casino and hotel

flamingo: the casino is old by the marquee is timeless

ceasar's palace is massive. when you stay there, the wake up call picks up with, "HAIL noble guest..." serious shit

arch de motherfucking triumph. i love lindsey lohan

oh shit and i would be remissed not to mention the free smut that you can pick up and random points along the way. they look just like newspaper dispensers. except, instead of news, you get nudes...hello? hello? is this thing on? sweet pandas...

i sit alone in my four cornered room starin at candles

a funny thing happens as you get older: you start to realize, slowly but surely, how complete fucking insane things you once thought normal really are. for instance, music, clothes and road trips.

take, again, for instance, this weekend. what do you do when your flight home from orlando, the tourist hell of hells, gets cancelled and you're faced with the possibility of having to stay in that disney world shit hole for not one but two additional nights? why, you rent a car and drive like hell.

well, let me properly rephrase that cause i know travis america is going to read this and think, "what a fuck, he took all the credit." you get in a car with your cohorts and stay awake for a few hours and then pass out in the backseat knowing they're going to need you to come in like the fucking mariano rivera of road trips and close that bitch out.

but that's exactly what happened. friday night at 7:30 we hopped in a car and didn't look back. we drove straight up I-95 from Olrando to the Lincoln Tunnel and only stopped for gas. my boss took the first shift, Travis the Iron Fist of driving drove straight through the fucking night and the dead boringness of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina while I slept, and then I woke up just as Travis was nodding off at the wheel to report for duty. and i think i maybe dropped below like 80 once, maybe twice.

in retrospect, it was insane. something that in college i would have said, "fuck yeah, let's do this." like the time i drove from columbus, OH to the merriweather post pavilion in Maryland, for a concert i didn't have a ticket to, only to turn around and drive home again afterwards, stopping to sleep in my truck at a rest area for a few hours on my way back. yeah. almost 8 hours of driving, two hours of the shit ass trey anastasio band (not even the real phish) and then 8 hours home again. wtf?

so when my boss was like, "we're driving to NYC from Orlando, get your stuff" my first inclination was "i'd sooner back a hummer over my head than do that." but, somehow i got my stuff packed and...it was like an out of body experience...found myself checking out, putting my stuff in our Ford Freestyle and then starting my watch as we got on I-4. And then 95 and that was all she wrote folks.

Ford Freestyle, Whitey-style

of course we listened mostly to classic rock cause what the fuck else can you really listen to for 15 hours straight? as much as I love nas, you can't do it. and i tried listening to the underworld double CD, but that just hypnotizes you. you really have to have that good, cheezy, sing-your-fucking brains out classic rock (we tried to think of all the bands named after cities and came up with Boston and Chicago before realizing that Kansas isn't a city and that, fuck, that's all the bands named for cities.) but i'm talking like only three AC/DC songs, maybe some David Bowie and Talking Heads songs, Bob Seger, ZZ Top, and whoever sings Radar Love.

we dined on the finest cuisines: McDonald's, Beef Jerky, Sunflower Seeds, Snickers, Red Bull, Coffee, Soda, AirHeads, Cookies and...um...coffee. We saw amazing sights (sup Jacksonville, Richmond and the NJ Turnpike. god I-95 really sucks actually). We sang songs and told jokes. I guess in the end it was pretty cool. Besides, we made it in 15 hours. Google maps had that shit at like 17 hours, which means that we averaged 71.3333334 miles per hour, which is pretty fucking fast.

Besides, we had to get my Irish boss home in time for St. Patrick's Day so we could end up looking like this by the end of the day:
and that's my story.

Art or Poison: Handsome Installment #2

Continental Diner just outside the Poconos

Art or Poison?

Art or Poison: Handsome Installment #1

Travis McGee and the Revelers Album Cover Art

Art or Poison?