Sonicrusk Blog

I stumbled onto sickside’s blog from Black Dog’s blogroll. In one of her recent posts, she discusses dumping yet another loser or “bad boy.” Trish commented that “white collar guys are worse.” I asked if working in a hospital made me white collar. Trish and I had a back and forth discussion today on this topic and I told her I would bring it up here.

We have all heard that ladies dig “bad boys.” What is a bad boy? Is it someone that decks his old lady? I’d call that person a criminal. Is it a lazy ass that leeches off of his girlfriend? Maybe, I don’t know.

Having a set schedule of classes with the same 60+ girls, I am always amazed at some of the losers they shack up with. A lot of himbos and morons. I always wonder how they interact with each other when they are home alone. Do they have meaningful conversation, or do the women just sit and watch the guy’s play video games until bedtime and then participate in the deep-dicking action? (Sorry crude, but too funny to pass up). Sounds surreal.

Being in my late 20’s and single, I see the after effects of these bizarre hook-ups. It seems like all of my female contemporaries have 2+ kids with an assortment of losers. I knew one chick that got married to some asshole, popped out two kids in three years with him, and then divorced him. How smart.

Back in the day, it was probably easier to be a bad boy. Smoke cigarettes, drive a sizzlin’ ride, and act like a tough guy would do the job. Nowadays, I guess you have to woof down roids and drive too fast. Too dangerous for my vanilla-ass blood.

It is all about perception. In my class there are six guys. Two are married, one is a Filipino guy that has a girlfriend and never socializes. The other two guys are my buddies, but they are white-bread. In this case, maybe I am the bad boy, as I will at least slap some chick ass sometimes when the circumstances warrant.

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When talking with Black Dog, I kept referring to this place as Donut Mart. It obviously is not named that. It has the agriculturally derived name of DONUT FARM!

In recent business in the small farming communities of Arvin and Lamont, I have bought donuts from this establishment. Always soft and fresh - my two favorite adjectives. I would sometimes crave them, but that could’ve just meant that I was hungry. Donuts are great in moderation. Good thing I won’t be visiting Lamont anymore in the near future.

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A while back, someone gave me a bunch of Eagles CDs as a gift.

I’m not the biggest fan of The Eagles because I don’t like their hillbilly, Southern rock sound. Much like the body needs some trace mineral for sustenance, I listen to some classic rock station once a month for about twenty minutes in order to get my required allowance of hillbilly rock.

Yesterday, similar to Stevie Wonder, I heard a cool sounding song on Pirate Radio. Don Henley was singing, so I knew it was The Eagles, but I was not familiar with this song. Pirate Radio is pretty good at playing cool songs that are not an artist’s most famous (or overplayed). I heard an old Billy Joel song on that station named Rosalinda’s Eyes, and I wondered why I had never heard it before.

The Eagles’ song in question is Those Shoes, and it sounds more funky than Southern. I listened to a lot of my Eagles collection; I figured that phantom song had to be there. I also discovered that The Eagles have a lot of other songs that I like that aren’t the same tired, hillbilly sounding tracks.

Radio stations play the same Eagles songs over and over. Let’s see: Life in the Fast Lane, Tequila Sunrise, New Kid in Town, the Best of my Love and God help us, Hotel California. All kind of the same sounding tired-ass songs.

This is definitely not a new phenomenon. People have probably been complaining about this type of thing long before I was around.

Maybe I have strange, unconventional taste in music. I am a Dave Matthews fan, but it seems like all of my favorite songs from his CDs are ones never played on the radio. Under the Table and Dreaming – you’ll hear Ants Marching and What Would You Say?, but my favorite song on that CD is Warehouse. Beyond these Crowded Streets – full of awesome songs, some so sad that you will want to take to the Seagram’s, yet the only song you probably know is Stay (Wasting Time). Crash – same tired ass songs: Crash and Too Much.

Peter Gabriel had two great CD’s that I have liked a lot since I was a kid: So and Us. The only songs you probably know from these albums are the effervescent tracks Sledgehammer and Steam, and also the tearjerker In Your Eyes. Those CDs have some incredible songs that are not known.

Also, why don’t they ever play Springsteen’s “Atlantic City?”

I know the standard answer is “ Those other songs are too long for radio play.” So? Still sucks.

It’s like the kid that will only eat the pepperoni off of pizza. So much good stuff wasted.

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The last spokesmodel didn’t make much of a splash. Maybe I picked the wrong picture. Oh well. Here is a darn good one.

Possibly last week, I had my small blonde dog outside in the front yard. She sniffed, smelled, and meandered around for a bit, just like she always does.

She then made a stop, laid down, and started rubbing her back on the grass. Trying to get that itch you just can’t reach. Scratch scratch with that goofy dog smile.

She popped up. I walked over to where she was scratching herself on the lawn. Any dog owner knows that dogs like to rub themselves in putrid stuff sometimes. Better to find out sooner than when you are petting him or her later.

I looked down. She had been rubbing herself on the desiccated skeleton and beak of a dead baby bird.

I have found about six dead birds in my front yard within the past month, and it has me mystified. The two other dogs on the property are big, old and slow. My little dog is pretty spry and quick, but not cat pounce quick. So I can’t believe the dogs have been killing them. Speaking of cats, they’d be pretty stupid to come into my yard, as my dog chases them away and loves it.

The dead birds have been four adults and two babies. My yard has a couple of big trees, but all of these dead birds were found a distance away from the trees on the other side of the yard so I’ve ruled out falls from nests high in the branches.

What else? Poison? If so, why aren’t the dogs sick? It’s baffling.
 

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Last summer, my buddy Hoat came down from Monterey for a weekend visit. He got here kind of late, at around 2200, but getting him to visit me here in Bakersfield is like creating dynamite out of turds so I was grateful.

I took him over to Amestoy’s. He has been there a handful of times, but this was after the visit where he asked Frank III for his dollar back. Anyway, the place had quite a few people on this Friday night.

We got our shoddy pitcher of beer. Back when Frank III was in charge, the only beer pitchers that his bar had were these flimsy, frail plastic pitchers. “Hold it from the side!” was his refrain. Apparently, he only had a limited number of these flimsy pitchers because we had to wait for one to become available before getting our beer.

Finally, we settled in. Little by little, even more people started to show up, trickling in through the back door. Quite a few of them were girls in torn denim skirts. Hoat and I noticed and appreciated the influx. The denim skirt became a sort of inside joke.

I went with my in-town buddy Calvin of Dive Bars Fame to The Manhattan last Saturday. I have been to this place four times. The first time was a quick drink before some friends (not me) went to the Gwen Stefani concert. I had never heard of the place before that night. It was packed, presumably with concertgoers. The second time I went the place was near empty. I thought that The Manhattan was doomed and that the original crowdedness I saw was a Rabobank-related fluke.

But the place picked up. I went there a few weeks ago for a friend’s birthday and again last weekend with Cal. The Manhattan is a cool bar. They have rules to keep jokers out: no ball caps, collared shirts, $5 cover charge. But do you know what makes The Manhattan so cool? Tons of chicks in denim skirts.

So there is my theory. The amount of denim skirts is directly proportional to the enjoyment factor of an establishment. I don’t have any evidence or persuasive argument, but I promise that this theory is cogent.
 
Not just bars or clubs either. If you have a class where a multitude of women wear denim skirts, it will be a cool class. At the hospital, the mall, BC, CSUB, TMC, Wasco State Prison (God forbid), DLI, SFSU, chicks in denim skirts will increase your enjoyment level.

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I went wakeboarding on the lake Friday afternoon, when the weather was still summer-like.

I had originally planned not to enter the water. I remember as a kid swimming in a portion of Buena Vista Lake with 100’s of other people. Even then, I thought about how many of these people were, at the least, dirty, and at worst, pissing and shitting. Then KGET reported one people getting sick after swimming in the water a few years back.

My friends said that that had all cleared up. The government had cleaned the water and regularly tested it. Well, whatever. I decided to wakeboard because I had never tried it before and because everyone else was giving it a try. A surprise I made it out of high school with that thinking.

The wakeboard looks like a single, wide ski with two places to insert each foot. A water skateboard. I stuffed my big ass feet into the foot rests, thinking my ankles was going to break. I had to do this hanging over the water so I didn’t scratch the boat. Then, once the board was in place, I fell into the water face first with the ski line next to me.

I watched some of my compatriots attempt to wakeboard previously. Virtually all of them ate shit. So when I got in the water, I tried to figure out how not to do the same thing. I planned on focusing on the board and holding on to the handgrips at the end of the line.

Needless to say to anyone that has ever tried this, it was not that easy. My buddy revved his boat and accelerated. My handgrips yanked hard. I flew upright, felt the grips yank back out of my hands, and slapped back into the lake. I didn’t realize it would be so violent.

I tried it a few more times. Each time was unsuccessful. The accelerating boat felt like it was going from zero to ninety in five seconds. My arms felt like they were going to be yanked off of my body right before I fell on my face and took in a mouthful of mountain spring, Buena Vista Lake water. Ummm goodness!

It was fun. I didn’t realize how hard it was overcoming the initial acceleration of the boat. Four days later, my arms are still a little sore. Those four attempts, plus the sun, wore me down.
 

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Monday, Monday

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My very first post was a quick test message: “Baseball is an interesting sport.”

I have been a baseball fan since I was 14-years-old. Fans of the game know what it is that makes it so entertaining. It is a harmonious sport. Perfect synchronized bat swings, pitcher’s wind-ups, and throws across the field, all mixed with the intermittent explosiveness of a batted ball, whether foul or fair. Very lulling, very melodic, but when this harmony is broken, man does it look stupid.

I was watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN earlier in the evening. They showed a clip from the Twins-Tigers played today. The clip involved two talented professional baseball players, Placido Polanco and Ivan Rodriguez, both of Detroit, getting caught off base. The catcher caught Polanco first in a run-down between Third and Home. After he was tagged out, Rodriguez, trying to advance, suffered the same fate between Second and Third. All of these capable ball players running away from each other and around the field like headless chickens. They looked ridiculous.

When errors occur during a baseball game, nothing looks more foolish. A ball zips under the glove of a shortstop, a clueless outfielder with his hands in a “where is it?” gesture. Looking stupid in front of 40,000 people. Duh.

Same holds true for throwing errors. Rarely does a wild pitch or an errant throw attempt at tagging a runner out not look dumb. Catchers look like dummies when a pitched ball gets passed them and they have to run to the backstop to retrieve it.

I love baseball. I watch it pretty much everyday during the summer, and have done so for 15 years. I actually find it thought provoking, yet relaxing. No matter what some oaf tells you, it is very strategic. Once you understand the strategy of the sport, you will never look back.  But no other sport shows its ass in a more raw fashion than when the harmony of batting, catching, throwing, and base running gets disturbed.

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I should’ve posted this pic with one of my recent automotive repair posts.

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