I'm not advocating indiscriminate U-lock justice. I'm not in the least bit advocating instigating violence.

But we're the ones getting honked at from behind while in the bike lane.


We're the ones getting run off the roads and killed.

We're the ones who get blamed when some fucking oblivious cagers kills a cyclist with a right-hook, then gets no charges filed against them.

We're the ones under attack out there on the roads.


You. Cager.

The one in the personal automobile.

Your choice sucks. And you're killing the planet. And we're fighting wars in order to keep your car running.

The one that's killing you slowly, and killing us rather quickly and messily.

Rearrange your lifestyle. Make better choices. But if you insist on keeping your fucking cage, SHARE THE FUCKING ROAD GRACIOUSLY, PAY ATTENTION, AND STOP RUNNING US DOWN!

Personally, I'd like to see the laws written like they are in Holland:

in the Netherlands, a driver is presumed to be negligent in any collision involving a cyclist, unless the driver can introduce evidence rebutting that presumption.

Start fucking being less oblivious, cagers.

You hit another cager from behind, you're presumed to be at fault. Why shouldn't cagers be presumed to be at fault when they hit a pedestrian or cyclist? I see no reason that people should be legally allowed to be oblivious when piloting a 4,000 weapon around in public.

Yes, I'm demanding higher standards just for the privilege driving around, BURNING GASOLINE, getting weaker and unhealthier, poisoning the air. Suck it up and deal.

Start seeing bicyclists. Stop fucking honking at us when we're taking up the full lane as is our right as a vehicle.

Because an American soldier (and who knows how many impoverished, brown-skinned locals) just died to keep your fucking cage ferrying your lazy ass around AT HIGH SPEEDS. You fuckers are in such a fucking hurry, you're so fucking impatient, and having to slow down behind a bicycle sends you into paroxysms of confusion and rage.

TOO FUCKING BAD! WE'RE NOT AT WAR TO POWER MY BIKE, CAGERS! YOUR OBSESSION WITH NOT BEING IMPEDED IN YOUR FORWARD MOMENTUM, EVEN FOR A MOMENT, BORDERS ON THE OBSCENE! EVERY OUNCE OF PRESSURE YOU PUT ON THE GAS-PEDAL = A CUPFUL OF SOMEBODY'S LIFEBLOOD HALF A WORLD AWAY!

AND I'M THE FUCKING BAD GUY FOR SLOWING YOU DOWN?

We're fucking sick and tired of taking shit from you and your gas-burning, poison-spewing, muscular-atrophy-inducing cage. We're fucking sick of your aggression and your horns and your "GET OFF THE ROAD!"

FUCK YOU! STOP KILLING US!

I'm not advocating instigating violence. But if you try to crowd me off the road, well... I do make it a habit of locking up my bike with a U-lock that's QUITE HEAVY at one end. And physics goes both ways, suckers.

</ANGRY_RANT>

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-This is how I roll

-Team Wonderbike: have you taken the pledge?

-I, Cracker

-Laughing from the sidelines

-Done. Over. Last link to the dinosaur-burner is CUT!

-If I can't bike with a broken collarbone... [MAJOR anti-personal-automobiles rant]

-I don't want to hear about running privately owned cars on alternative fuels

-# Automobile = Pollution, Terrorism, & Jellybutt

I had a strange experience this weekend. lexica510's folks invited us to go to the SF Asian Art Museum to see the Lords of the Samurai exhibit. Several of my friends have already gone, and had a great time. I was looking forward to this, not in the least bit because that's not an inexpensive museum to get into, so going as a member's guest was the only way I was going in the front door (been through the servant's entrance loading dock more than a few times), to say nothing of getting into the special exhibits.

Yeah, yeah, first Sunday is free, but grinding through space, cramped up against the sweaty human tide is great when there's a pounding dance beat, sub-optimal for museum viewing.

High level summary was that I was almost completely unmoved by the experience. This surprised me to no end.

I thought the fact that the exhibit was made up not only of national treasures from the Samurai era, but that almost all of it came from one (still existing) family's collection, would be extra cool points. The old family castle has been turned into a museum.

Nothing.

The artifacts in the in the temperature-controlled glass cases were exactly like every book/website/historical source I'd ever read on the Samurai said they would be. They looks just like the detailed drawings and descriptions.

Yeah, great. Reality confirms that the authors weren't lying or insane. But that's all I felt. Some of these things are so fragile and old that they can only be on display for part of the stay at the AAM, before being rotated out for other items. Did we really need to truck them all the way to SF just so that people could look at them up close?

Miyamoto Musashi, possibly the best known samurai in all of Japanese history was, late in life, a retainer of the Hosokawa family. That fact was fascinating to me. There was a pair of wooden bokken, possibly carved by the hand of Musashi himself on display.

All I could think was I can get a polypropylene bokken from Cold Steel that doesn't need to be stored in a temperature controlled glass box, and which I can train with and not worry about destroying cultural heritage in the process.

Musashi (or whoever) didn't carve those wooden sword to be a work of art, they were tools to teach swordsmanship. Physically, they were indistinguishable from the $20 bokken in the gift store, lack of nicks and dings from use included. This was not the pair of bokken Musashi supposedly defeated sword-armed enemies with.

But the ones on display had a story behind them. I wanted to reach out and swing them and smack them against someone else's wooden sword because that's what they were meant to do.

There was copy of Musashi's Book for Five Rings scrolls, supposedly copied down by Musashi's student (the originals are lost). I have a paperback copy that won't piss millions of ¥en down the drain if I throw it in my backpack and spill coffee on it. It's also conveniently translated into English, a language I can read.

Musashi's teachings are alive (to me) in the paperback. I don't read Japanese, and can't carry an ancient scroll on BART. I felt nothing looking at it.

There was a teacup made by the hand of master *SOMETHING*-san. Probably hadn't had warm tea in it for hundreds of years.

I've grown up watching Samurai movies most of my life. I saw Seven Samurai and Yojimbo long before I saw The Magnificent Seven or For A Few Dollars More. Lone Wolf & Cub is a freakin' masterpiece (as well as meticulously researched). But seeing the actual artifacts...

They were just things. Old, well-made, well-preserved things.

I thought they would move me. They didn't, though the ideas behind them still do. At least nobody paid extra for me to discover that.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the maintainance of fire
-Gustave Mahler

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-Bartender-of-Fortune: Working the Museum Circuit

-Sci-fi geeks: we know the future

-Tokyo-Dance Trooper

-Most. Fucked-up. Candy. EVAR!

So I sit down on the bus heading downtown today, and I notice this lady is not only doing a whole stack of scratchers (mathematically a fool's bet), but she's doing them with a large folding knife with at least a 3/5" (if not 4") blade.

On a moving bus that, while far from shoulder to shoulder, was also far from empty. And this is on the bumpy, jankety streets Oaktown with a driver who had, shall we say, a jerky relationship with the brake pedal.

BTW, Oakland's got stricter knife laws than most of the rest of California, and any knife (folding or fixed) with a blade longer than 3" (like the one she's doing her scratchers with) is illegal to carry.

I moved to a seat not opposite her after taking the picture. That way, if the bus stopped short, I'd be out of the way if she got jostled around with an open knife in her hand.

Too bad for the elderly folk and the mother with the toddler sitting in the front seats. Hell, she could have sliced open her own femoral artery and bled out quite easily if some ball-chasing kid ran out into the street and the bus screeched to a halt.


Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-Oscar Grant was shot in the back by a BART cop and all Oaktown gets is knucklehead rioters [EDITED]

-James Howard Kunstler & "The Geography Of Nowhere"

-Rick Fernandez... YOU SUCK AND SHOULD BE FIRED!

-In Soviet Russia, bus chases you!

-

Protests over BART shooting turn violent:

A protest over the fatal shooting by a BART police officer of an unarmed black man mushroomed into several hours of violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars, set several cars ablaze and blocked streets in downtown Oakland.

The roving mob expressed fury at police and frustration over society's racial injustice. Yet the demonstrators were often indiscriminate, frequently targeting the businesses and prized possessions of people of color.

They smashed a hair salon, a pharmacy and several restaurants. Police in riot gear tried to control the crowd, but some people retreated along 14th Street and bashed cars along the way.

The mob smashed the windows at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, and a woman walked out of the shop holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," shouted Leemu Topka, the black owner of the salon she started four years ago. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"

Wednesday night's vandalism victims had nothing to do with the shooting death by a BART police officer of Oscar Grant on New Year's Day - but that did little to sway the mob.

"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."

Lexi & I got out of BART and exited Lake Merritt Station just as things were heating up. We didn't see any of it, though the ghetto birds were out in a swarm last night, and we did see rollers blockading 14th around Franklin or so.

As a citizen of this city, I'm outraged that a man can be facedown in cuffs, a BART cop is filmed pulling out his gun and emptying a round into the man's back, and the cop can just resign and not have to face internal investigators. This is all kinds of fucked up, without even getting to the issue of "did he mistake his firearm for a taser?" The killing of Oscar Grant is no minor thing.

But Nia Sykes, FUCK YOU! Go the fuck back across the Bay you fucking knucklehead. Yes, BART is an area-wide system and what happens on the station platform is not just an Oakland problem.

Oaktown does not need your kind of noise.

Lexi & I patronize several of the shops you smashed. The people's cars you wrecked, those are my neighbors. A lot of them are figuring how they're going to get to work and get the kids to school this morning.

I gotta remind myself, once the arrests start working through the system, to see how many of those arrested actually live here in The 'Town, and how many just came to my city for the riot.

[EDIT] merle_ points out a very salient fact: the rioters were getting into it with OPD, but it was a BART cop on a BART station platform who put a round into Oscar Grant wile he lay face down & cuffed.

OPD got issues, no doubt. But this one isn't on their doorstep.

[1/10/09 EDIT] Nia Sykes claims she was quoted out of context by the Chronicle:

I was a part of the peaceful rally that began at 3 p.m. at the Fruitvale BART Station, where Oscar Grant was murdered. I said that the peaceful protest was "great"- not the destruction of property! Some of us continued to downtown Oakland, but I was not a part of the faction of protesters that became violent. I do not advocate violence at all, from police or the protesters, nor did I have any part of it. In fact, when I saw people vandalizing property, I moved to another block, where I was interviewed by the reporter.

I have no reason not to take her at her word. I still am interested to see if the Chron issues a retraction, but I do notice that she seems to have been quoted after leaving the original peaceful protest, after marching downtown as part of a mob, and after parts of that mob turned violent.

Maybe the lesson is never speak to reporters ever.

Also, you fucking knuckleheads from Revolution Books over in Berzerkeley who were setting the fires... I hope the cops catch you and I hope Mom & Dad refuse to pay your bail.

And then there's the case of protest organizer EVAN SHAMAR: YOU ARE A KNUCKLEHEAD AND YOU ARE PARTLY TO BLAME FOR THE RIOT! You were told by people who were experienced in this kind of thing that there needed to be better organization and facilitators guiding the protest.

But, NO! You thought "If we just get a big mob of people from all over the Bay Area & California, angry about watching a young black father being shot in the back by a cop on YouTube, and spread them out throughout the city with an admonition to be good, spontaneous righteousness will arise from people's inner nobility. Yeah, that's the plan."

YOU WERE TOLD THAT A MARCH DOWNTOWN, UNSUPERVISED AND UNCOORDINATED, WAS A BAD IDEA. BUT YOU LET YOUR IDEALISM AND POETIC BELIEF IN "THE PEOPLE" GET IN THE WAY OF EXPERIENCE AND REALITY.

Maybe the over-privileged children from Berzerkeley in the black hoodies were going to start fires anyway. But if the march downtown had been organized and coordinated with law-enforcement, maybe they wouldn't have had a chance. You, sir, are a starry-eyed knucklehead who is partly to blame for all the broken windows in the stores on 17th @ Webster.

And lastly, for everyone who is making with the "SQUEEEEE!" over Mayor Dellums coming out on the steps of City Hall to address the crowd, FUCK THAT! Ron Dellums is getting close to $184,000/YEAR for doing JACK SHIT. This city needs a full-time mayor and if Dellums isn't going to be that man, get the fuck out of office and let Robert Bobb or Wilson Riles or SOMEONE fucking do the job. I've got reservations about Nacho, but at least he seems to want to spend 40+ hours a week on the job.

I'm sure RD is a nice guy. But he is an abject failure as Oakland's mayor. 25 hours A WEEK on the job is not going to cut it. I'm with Chip Johnson, Dellums has to go.

[Table of Contents]

---

Tobin Goodman was under the impression that his grandfather was dead. Long dead. And yet the boxes and accompanying letter FedExed from Austria seemed to imply a much livelier paternal ancestor.

Son of my son, Open and read this before December 5th!. Not the usual admonition to wait until Christmas before opening. Which was fine, Tobin wasn't a stickler for dates and ceremonies when it came to people giving him gifts. Especially if this meant his merely dead Austrian grandfather might turn out to be a live, rich Austrian grandfather, an infinitely more appealing kind. And, well, this was Dec 5th. That still counted, right?

Having a predilection for perversity that maddened his mother, Tobin made it a habit to open his gifts first, then read the card. Seeing no reason to break with that particular tradition, he quickly opened the first box from FedEx. He tore into it, and out spilled onto his dorm room floor a great pile of red wool, vacuum-sealed into a plastic bag. It took him a moment to make out the details.

"A Santa suit. An authentic, Austrian wool St. Nicolas costume. My suddenly-not-dead grandfather is a traditionalist. Great. Well, at least it's not a pink bunny suit. Let's see what's in box number zwei..."

The smallest, lightest box disgorged a black leather whip, coiled neatly, similarly sealed. Tobin took a moment to contrast the supple, well-oiled, braided leather snake next to the the red suit and blinked. Then he blinked again. Still there, both of them.

"My not-dead Austrian grandfather is a traditionalist and kinky." Suddenly memories of shots of Jägermeister and howls of Dude, google us up some German porn... flashed across his memory, along with the search results. "Oh sweet Jesus, Elvis, and Buddha, please do not let this be the Christmas I find out I'm the heir to some weird, underground transcontinental S&M porn empire. Please let him not be that rich Austrian grandfather..."

Fearing to discover what the long, heavy box held, he turned rather to the letter From his Grandfather. Inside the letter was folded a small, glassine envelope, itself containing a lock of hair wrapped in a black ribbon. He turned to his grandfather's letter.

My Dear Tobin,

Your father wished none of this for you. He believed that times had moved on, that this would not be for you as it was not for him. But time does not move forward, it moves in circles, as sure as the Earth around the Sun. Or the Sun across the sky, season after season. And the season has come around again.

No explanation I could give you would you believe. And I will not live long enough to teach you in person. Besides, your father extracted a promise from me I may not break, that I never speak to you or set eyes on you. I have waited this long because even if you seek me out now, I will be dead before you find me. As much as I love you, some promises even a grandfather may not risk breaking.

But no matter. These heirlooms are yours. They will speak clearly enough. The Trophy first.

Hunt well. Do not let them see you bleed. And let the children stay ignorant. This is our gift to them.

Your Grandfather,

Konrad Bartholomäus Gutmann,
Jäger im Rot

A cold chill came over Tobin's spine. Things he should know were poking at the back of his mind, unable yet to find a purchase. Urgent things. He was frightened by the fact that he knew, without a doubt, that his grandfather Konrad meant the hank of coarse, black and grey hair wrapped in the black ribbon when he spoke of "The Trophy".

Fingers trembling, Tobin opened the small glassine envelope and withdrew its contents. Almost without thought, he thrust it up under his nose, and was overwhelmed by the scent. Wet, animal, angry, wretched... So angry... So much sin...
( Make with the clickety-click for a dark tale from a snowy land... )

Part 2: NEWSFLASH: Dec. 12, 200-


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

At least he kept fighting and didn't quit after taking one shot to the face.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Danish supermodel Helena Christensen puts on a bold front as a pirate temptress in this provocative shot for a lingerie campaign. The 39-year-old model makes a special guest appearance in a raunchy new campaign for the lingerie house, and promptly steals the show from model of the moment Alice Dellal. Agent Provocateur founder Joe Corre said: 'She fits the bill perfectly as our Pirate Queen.' Keep reading

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-Pirate's, um... piratey links

-Buccaneer [with apologies to Nickelback]

-Save a Sea-Horse (Ride a Pirate!) [with apologies to Big & Rich]

-Arrrrr! Mark Day be me new favorite Scottish-American Comedian!

-Burning Man, Pirates, and the end of the TAZ

-The World's Most Erotic Lingerie. As Proven by Me.

-Okay, added to the list of "Places Pirate Will Never Go"...

"But we should be going nowhere fast!"

Once upon a time, in a land called Rock & Roll, real men dueled with sledgehammers, gangs ran wild in the streets, and a devoted metalhead monkey in high school had a total retro-on for Diane Lane.




Anyone else think that Streets of Fire is one of the totally underrated, forgotten gems of 80s cinema?

Sound off.

During WWII Julia Child, of TV French cooking fame, was a member of the OSS, according to recently declassified documents.

So. Fucking. Cool.

Reminds me of a part in the LotR making-of documentary on the DVD. Peter Jackson wanted Christopher Lee's Saruman to let out some big "Aaaaaaaaargh!" when stabbed from behind. Lee proceeded to educate PJ about how when you stab someone there, it lets the air out of the lungs, and it's a much more gasping sound. And then it came out that, yes, Christopher Lee was some sort of commando during WWII and yes, he knows exactly what sound someone makes when you stab Nazis from behind.

And you thought Julia's knife technique was all kitchen-learned.


Previously in O, DIKTO?:

-An English accent sounds so polite while teaching you how to crush a man's nuts in your hand

Back when black men knew their place and the community came together as one to make sure they never forgot, Toby Keith's grandpa knew how to keep the darkies down civil order.

Get a rope and pack a lunch. And bring the family.



I'm kinda sick that Willie Nelson appears in a song that promotes mob rule and lynching. I thought he was... well, he's from Texas. And I was raised in New York in the late 20th century by an parents in a ethnically mixed marriage (i.e. "The deep end of the Gene Pool").

Lots of kids grow up thinking "Cowboys" when they think of the Texas. I grew up thinking "Strange Fruit".*

Remember, every time you hear Toby Keith sing Beer For My Horses on The Colbert Report or any other of the late-night talk shows, he's reminiscing about a time when mobs murdered black men (and at least one Jew) with a rope in public, and did so with impunity (and photos for the scrapbook).

Hey Toby, would grandpappy call for the mob to string up a white man who opened fire on a church musical in progress because it was too liberal a congregation?

Or would grandpappy just have helped him reload? I'm curious.

And lest we forget, high school students have quite recently hung nooses from a "whites only" tree when local black students had the unmitigated gall to sit under it, rather than in the colored section bleachers.

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-"Black man forgets his place, talks back to white man in public"

-I love it when morons go for a large caliber when taking aim at their own feet

-What Are You?

---

* And before any of my dear friends in Texas get bent out of shape, I'm not the one who put commercials on TV suggesting New Yorkers be hung for violating the Salsa laws. We leave violations of the Pizza God's will to him, we don't take the law into our own hands.

From Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Protection by John Perkins, et al, p. 12:

Challenge No One

We are teaching the pacifism of the warrior. Unless you or a loved one are in imminent physical danger, no fight is worth it, because you never know who you are dealing with. Even when you win, you can be seriously injured. Remember that self-defense isn't about honor, it's about survival, and macho posturing is a form of insecurity.

What are we talking about? Suppose you are in a bar and someone bumps you, then makes some remark intended to insult your sexual orientation, or claims to have intimate knowledge of your sister.

You say "Excuse me," admit you're a eunuch, and wish him well with your sister. If necessary, claim you're a coward and leave. Walking away from confrontation has three advantages:

1. You avoid petty squabbles and later entanglements with the legal system.
   
2. It restricts fights to those you absolutely must undertake to physically save your hide.
   
3. It relieves you of moral indecision and guilt when you have no other choice but to do what you have to do.

As someone with years of martial arts experience, this is the single best $20 I have EVER spent on self-defense and I recommend it to just about anyone, especially women. I'm mean, this is up there with kettlebells on the monkey-thinks-you-need-this-o-meter. (Lexi tacks on The Gift Of Fear to the recommendations for women.)

A friend and fellow caterer may be in jail right now, I don't know. Some guy made a disparaging remark about her girlfriend. And given the Latino cultural mores she grew up with, she got up in his grill over it. And he lunged at her throat. So she pulled a pocket knife out and stuck him with it.

And now she very well may be in jail for assault with a deadly weapon (or worse) instead of at home with her girlfriend. Over absolutely nothing. She may get jail time and certainly a criminal record in one of the stupidest, most avoidable ways possible.

I'm a cowardly eunuch, have fun fucking my sister.

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-Real knife-violence in America

-An English accent sounds so polite while teaching you how to crush a man's nuts in your hand

Gipsy Kings, Love e Liberté. This was a whole decade ago, LOOOOOONG before things like iPods or downloading MP3s.

Ya see, it has this song. Montaña. I don't understand of word of their Spanish dialect, but I know the song is about the mountain where the singer was born, how he cannot live without it.

And once lexica510 got on the plane back to Oaktown after our weekend meeting for the first time at the tattoo convention in Seattle, that song, that beautiful, melancholy, achingly longing song, was the soundtrack for the weepy 3-day bender I went on the moment she left my side for the first time.

That voice longs for home the way I longed for her.

It was playing the early rainy morning my buddy since 5th grade Joe came home to his apartment and found a puddle of Pirate in the middle of his living room and all the beer gone. Evidently, I'd been using his computer to e-mail everyone I knew about the most incredible, most beautiful woman in the world that I'd just met at a tattoo convention. And drinking all of Joe's beer.

And playing Montaña on infinite repeat. Listening to Canut Reyes over and over for hours, aching and pining for his mountain like no parrot EVER pined for a fjord.

The kinda song that makes you want to tear your own heart out with a knife and throw it in the direction of the city your beloved is in, if only that it might be that much closer to them.

A weepy, drooling, maudlin, semi-conscious, fully-drunk puddle-o-Pirate with a not-particularly-to-his-taste soundtrack on his speakers was, well... not what Joe expected to find ~0400.

What I remember hearing was:

*FRONT DOOR"
What?
What the?
WHAT IS THIS?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?
...
HOW DID YOU GET A BOTTLE BACK THERE?
GET UP! GET THE FUCK UP!

Then began what I have come to remember as The Unending Rain of Wood. As in baton. Did I mention Joe was a cop? Who just got off 3rd shift and came home to no beer and drooling buddy surrounded by other-than-full beer bottles?

Considering I got out the building with no blood or broken bones, shuffling uphill in the rain to my place wasn't so bad.

So when it came time for Lexi & I to get hitched, I had to have that disk for the reception. Had to!

Wish I hadn't lost it.

S'okay, Selix fucked up Christine's tuxedo measurements (she was one of my attendants, and one of 2 dykes in the wedding party totally rockin' tuxes), so I had to take her in the morning of to pick up her pants. There was a music store in the mall. But, DOH! No Gipsy Kings!

FUCK!

We had planned on stopping by Cody's on 4th st in Berzerkeley (sadly, no more) on the way back from the mall to pick up a copy of the Nag Hammadi Library (a.k.a. The Gnostic Gospels) to have on the plinth during the ceremony. I called to give Lexi an update, no disk. Or I could run down the block to...

"No! DO NOT GO DOWN THE BLOCK IN SEARCH OF THE CD! WE ARE GETTING MARRIED IN NOT MANY HOURS! BUY THE BOOK AND COME HOME IMMEDIATELY!"

So I hung up, gave Christine the skinny, told her we were under orders specifically not to run down the block to the music shop on 4th and see if they had Gipsy Kings Love e Liberté.

Fuck it, lets go!

I could hear Christine mutter "Oh, Lord!" as she fell in behind me and I started tearing down 4th. I was barreling my way through the crowd, "S'cuse me, getting married, errands..."

Christine was trotting along in my wake, apologizing for my actions, really he's getting married and needs this CD...

I reached into my pockets on found a bunch of $5 and handed them out to each panhandler I passed. I was having too much fun to be contracted and stingy on a day like this!

BAM! Music store has the disk. BOOM! We're out the door, ready for another go at the 4th Street Saturday Shopping Slalom.

Except this time, the panhandlers are are asking people to clear a path, "This guy needs to get through, he's gettin' married today!"

Oh yeah, that run to the car with strangers wishing me congrats and Street Sheet vendors clearing me a path kicked ass.

I think part of it was the adrenaline rush, knowing what was waiting for me at home.

I remember coming into the apartment and seeing lexica510 in the bathroom, applying her make up and saying something like If you speak to me, so help me God, I will fucking kill you with this make-up brush. Go get dressed. Okay, I paraphrase. monica_lisa, tcmneedler, y'all were there. You can back me up on the "LEXI NOT HAPPY WITH MONKEY" angle. ;-)

So it was off to the Mills College Chapel (BEST! COLLEGE CHAPEL! EVAR!) for the ceremony.

bff2112Gave a reading as part of the ceremony. And Joe, my buddy who gave me the stick and kicked me uphill in the rain? He was best man.

Ten years today.

I love you so much, baby.

You are SO gettin' it tonight!

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. one weapon
2. one song blasting on the speakers
3. one famous person (real or fictional) to fight alongside you


via mrlich

The monkey's anwers:

Weapon: Cold Steel 1796 Light Cavalry Sabre



Soundtrack: The Memphis Murder Men, Burning Love



Partner: The King. TCB, baby.