4/29/2004

Back of the F.P. :  I have almost moved out of my old house in Austin. For ten weeks, I have studiously ignored the enormous sign in the neighbouring church which advertises the local Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I made it. Ten weeks wet. Ten weeks off the wagon. Ten weeks without a meeting. Do I get a sticker or something? It's almost the weekend, and I have collected no less than five bottles half-filled with margarita ingredients from my old house. I think I deserve a drink.
posted by Garreth at 11:26 PM

4/27/2004

What a Guy :  I was packing my accumulation of materials together so that I could move out of my house today. Guy, my gun-toting, soon-to-be-ex-room-mate strode in with a friend. He introduced the friend as his future room-mate and I toyed with the idea of telling future room-mate that Guy hadn't shot anybody in the house at all in the last ten weeks. Future room-mate would surely be pleased. I decided not to spoil the surprise, and heard future room-mate saying things like, "Do you keep a round in the chamber, dude?" from the depths of Guy's room.

Many hours later I returned home to find future room-mate demonstrating how to strip an AR15. Future room-mate used to be in the US Army. He told stories of how LSD became the weapon of choice in a force in which soldiers would be routinely tested for drugs like marijuana and cocaine in the early nineties. Soldiers were not screened for LSD. Future room-mate went on to explain that after taking LSD on one occasion, he had to report to the firing range. He heard the rattle of a three round burst before the order to fire had been given. He turned to see one of his fellow soldiers who had put the end of his weapon of choice against the roof of his mouth and fired into the inside of his kevlar helmet.
posted by Garreth at 11:21 PM

4/25/2004

Low pressure hose :  Saturday was a big night out. It seems that a combination of the following activities is a perfect preparation for fixing the air-conditioning on a Saab for someone who has no experience of such things. ( Maybe I have frozen off some of my fingers with 1,1,2,2-tetrafluoroethane R134 -I can't really feel much after last night. And I'm sure my compressor will lock up with sludge soon. But there was cold air coming from the blowers, however briefly. I claim this success, however ephemeral, in the name of King George and for the nation of Loughborough)

Things I remember as essential air-conditioning repair preparation: Chardonnay, freaks in spandex (including a chance to meet Captain Phallus), the screaming massacre of 70 pounds of live crayfish, a kebab, fires, egg-shell and shotgun pellet percussion, Dry Blackthorn, learning the two-step, fires moving about on strings and sticks, being glittered, a big red machine (a truck rather than wrestler), forgetting the two-step, meeting and correctly identifying Chitlin, joining a kingdom and rejoicing, looking at my watch and realising it was past 5am, wandering around 6th and Lamar at about 8am unable to correctly identify the car that I was getting a ride home in, despite it having a superhero and a pagan-type in the front of it, and breakfast. And there were some stern librarians poking people with rulers.
posted by Garreth at 7:20 PM

4/24/2004

Young democrats beware :  "Today sucks!" said Guy. "They called me into work, and because I forgot to turn my phone off, I had to go. And then I delivered a 652 dollar order to these Young Democrats. Assholes. Know how much they tipped me? Normally it would be at least a 60 dollar tip. They tipped me nothing. Nothing. Bastards."
posted by Garreth at 12:48 PM

Bar-room blitz :  Progress at last. After ten weeks of fervent boxing training, we had a breakthrough yesterday.

"Block, uppercut, hook," said Bruce, "Block, block, one, two." he added, going on to say, "You're ready for a bar brawl now."

I took heart in this pronouncement. He didn't say what state my face would emerge from such a ruckus though, or whether I'd be on winning team or not. Although in war, there are no winners. Except the companies who sell bar-furniture and replace windows. Maybe that's what he meant - I should train to be a glazier.

posted by Garreth at 12:39 PM

4/22/2004

"Well, shit fire and fall back in it," :  was a phrase I learnt today. Another reason why Austin is great. I also went to the all new Waffle House. There were 14 people working behind the counter and between 7 and 12 customers. It was enlightening to find out what smothered and covered Waffle House hash browns are, having only heard them in pirate folk-lore. I also went to help a bunch of very nice people in their construction of a 30 foot tall 6-armed wooden monkey. Which was nice. And on Saturday there's a birthday party for a sulking donkey. How quaint.
posted by Garreth at 10:51 PM

4/21/2004

Control :  For the first time in a very long while, I made a to-do list. It's probably one of the seven effective habits of highly turgid people - I'm not sure, I haven't checked. It was a bit scary at first, having a list. All of the items are things I want to do, like book plane tickets to go to interesting places, and fiddle with the Saab. But the whole list thing just makes me shudder. Without realising it, some subconscious survival mechanism kicked in. It must have evolved during the time that I used to keep to-do lists. It probably kept me sane. This is what happened. I wrote down something that I was just about to do (go pick up my ticket to Flipside), and then crossed it out. Instant gratification. Then the second survival instinct kicked in. By the time I had returned with the ticket in my hand, I had lost the list.
posted by Garreth at 8:16 PM

4/20/2004

Pieces of Eight :  "It's only at times like these that I find myself saying, 'Can I borrow your automatic eye pencil?'", said !Bob as we put the finishing touches to our pirate costumes. Bean gave me a headscarf, and I cunningly drew on an eye-patch in black eyeliner. When I closed my left eye, my costume was complete. My eye-patch was continuous. When I opened my left eye, I looked fairly ridiculous. After a hard week of training, I was very ready to get involved in the mayhem of a pirate rampage. I had packed my ice chest with cider and supplies, and had foolishly packed my wallet, mobile phone and digital camera. It hadn't occured to me that the 12 bottles of cider might cause the ice-chest to sink, even if the nasty WalMart ice-chest was waterproof. Pirates never used to have to worry about keeping their electronics dry. Gold was waterproof.

Arriving at Town Lake for the first time, I was struck by the natural beauty of this dammed section of the Colorado river. Right between the freeway bridges was an expanse of clean fresh water, surrounded by trees and populated by turtles, paddle-steamers and kayaks. And I was also struck by the natural beauty of the rampaging pirates - each with a splendid costume, and with plenty of booty. The aluminium canoes were launched, my ice chest accompanying myself and my first mate !Bob. The armada of three pointed hats, Jolly Rogers, frilly shirts and cutlasses set off, and the booze started to be passed around. A smidgen of sun screen may have been applied to fend off the radiation from the mid-day clouds. Pirate Rodney, who had returned from three years in the jungle was particularly well equipped with a supply of flasks containing potent blends of grog.

"Try this one. It's like a citrus punch."
"What's in it?"
"Mainly rum to be honest. With the juice of a lemon. And then have a cup of this."
"What's that?"
"Yerba mate."
"OK."
"Are you buzzing?"
"A little."
"Well try some more. It'll help you paddle."

"It's very hard to sink these things." Someone was heard to say, blessing our voyage with optimism bordering on recklessness. Our first port of call was Clyde's Island - a small patch of land where an otherwise homeless man with a canoe had been found on previous rampages. Clyde was a true pirate, and rumour had it that treasure (in the shape and form of June's skimpies) was buried there. We approached the shrubs surrounding the thirty foot island that encircled a bridge support, and a few brave souls touched down to discover a nesting swan. We evacuated the island as quietly as 20 drunk-ass pirates fuelled on yerba mate could, to leave the swan in peace, and headed for the shore at which the Austin Marley Fest was being held.

No canoe was left un-terrorised. "Aaaaarrrr!" was yelled at anybody within earshot. We tried to encircle a few Geordies in their canoe, but the British Navy proved too wiley for the pirate horde - they paddled away very quickly to shouts of, "Northern monkeys!" and other such taunts. It was about this time that I realised how good shouting is. Drinking and shouting together are an awe-inspiring combination. Apart from brief pauses to breath, and to drink, I don't think I stopped shouting for about two hours. Perhaps in part due to the shouting, none of the pansy-ass hippies at the Marley Fest would approach to receive our food donations - the event was for charidee, and the pirates had pineapple chunks to offer. Kind of like the Robin Hood thing on water, if you will. Only with a slingshot in place of bows and arrows. The idea of using the slingshot to propel the food donations into the crowd of hippy rasta pansies was quickly quashed, and the tins were set down in a pyramid on the banks.

The sun was out, I was shouting, and deliriously happy. !Bob must have got sick of me saying, "Isn't this great?" every five minutes, but if he did, he didn't mention it. It could explain his suicidal actions that followed. We saw a cruise ship making swift progress past us at a distance of about fifty feet. !Bob is big and strong, and I used to row with seven big strong men, so was used to being towed about in a boat. We decided to attack the cruise ship. We made good speed, ramming speed in fact, and miraculously managed to approach the vastly more massive boat on its port side at an angle of 45 degrees, still moving forward. !Bob demanded alcohol from the passengers, and beer was sprayed in his general direction, him being at the bow of our canoe. By this point the cruise ship was still churning forwards rapidly, and we ended up heading into its stern. Into the thrashing jaws of the paddle wheel which churned at the back. Time froze as I saw !Bob getting closer to the rotating drum of paddles, each keen to be the one that tore him downwards and sent him to Michael Nesmith's locker. (Michael Nesmith was the Austin-based Monkee, so replaced Davy Jones in local pirate vernacular).

Somehow, our canoe veered starboard and !Bob was saved, my heart beating all the faster. Other canoes caught up, and we described our lucky escape and partly successful pillaging. In the general hubbub of parallel canoes, we managed to almost tip over our canoe. We tipped it sufficiently to allow some water to enter, but someone in another canoe managed to force the high side down. We had taken on the first water of the afternoon, and this was a trend that continued - as the sun strolled across the sky we gradually sank lower and lower in the water.

We set ashore, and partook of more rum, more cider, more everything. I secured a berth in another canoe for my ice chest of valuables. And my sun screen, sunglasses, and cider. We claimed the land for our own, and headed back onto the lake. To the dam! I honestly can't remember how, but I very nearly managed to tip up the canoe carrying my ice chest. !Bob and I paddled off, tearing ahead of the opposition, flying with the wind. My ice chest returned with two pirates to the rental shop, unbeknownst to me, and I paddled on oblivious. More pirates arrived to replace the fallen. The slingshot was deployed on tennis balls we found. The complex physics problem of getting three people in three canoes to fire a ball without tossing one member into the lake was finally solved. But not before Ellen fired herself out of the canoe in the opposite direction to the ball. She needed to pee anyway. A basking turtle - a female Texas slider - was allowed to heat up in Rodney's canoe. It was also allowed to urinate over everyone who came to see it.

"Peeing is it's defense mechanism," explained Rodney, making sure that all were subjected to a stream of its defence, before releasing it.

Bliss emasculated me by stealing my oar. Despite knowing how unstable our canoes were when someone stood up in one, I decided to strip off the majority of my pirate gear and jump into the water to retrieve it from the receeding canoe. The three people who saw me attempt a drunken front crawl were convinced I was drowning, as they haven't seen the way I swim, and hurried to my rescue. I was given back my oar, and was now free to bake in the sun, in a canoe I managed not to completely submerge when I climbed back in. I never saw the borrowed bandana again. It had perhaps still been on my head right up to the moment I jumped in.

The pirates regrouped several miles away. I really mean several miles. The wind was blowing us merrily merrily merrily merrily in our drunken fighting and shouting. Another paddle-steamer approached, and this time we had numbers and location on our side. We barricaded the lake in front of it, but the captain managed to swerve at the last moment, and get past the northern tip of our lakeblock. Three canoes gave chase, and though ours didn't catch the cruise ship, and one canoe was slowed by Captain Morgan answering his mobile phone, one did, and latched on to the side of it. The cruise ship apparently didn't have a liquor license, so was released by the canoe, and allowed to go about its business.

The next regrouping was on a sheltered boat launch. The ingredients for the pirate stew were more liquor, some nudity, and beef jerky. As part of the landing effort, the first canoe of the day was capsized. The scurvy dogs responsible hooted and staggered ashore, pointing at their accident. If only my camera hadn't been sitting in an ice-chest several miles away. Eventually, we set off, paddling into the wind as hard as we could. !Bob and I made a point of trying to paddle faster than everyone else, which left us tired and unable to do much shouting. The sun stroke may have been a factor, it was hard to tell. We were focused on paddling and looking for slack water to run faster through. Apparently we were weaving, very much like drunken pirates. We didn't notice. On the final bend before home, a canoe was sunk again. No-one was sure what kind of manoeuvre was being attempted. One pirate had already abandonned ship, the other two remained sitting in it as it sunk. Finally the taller of the remaining pirates announced with his neck protruding from the lake, "I'm still in the canoe. I'm just standing up now."

It was a miracle that we managed to get all of the canoes back to Zilker Park Rentals. Costumes were somewhat dishevelled on our return - mine consisted of sunburn and a pair of shorts, my eyeliner eye-patch long rubbed into my face. But I was reunited with my ice-chest, camera, phone and wallet. !Bob and I had both been in the lake several times, but our canoe had remained afloat. We had collectively captured a cruise ship, extracted booty, and we had taken a hostage. We had sung songs about eating babies, and harangued all and sundry. Shipmates had been rescued, and an island had been claimed. The pirate rampage was a storming success, but it was not over. We then went ashore with our booty, and made haste to the city jail to break out our imprisoned brethren before sacking the city of Austin and getting tattoos and big gold earrings. Well, we went to get some Mexican food at any rate, and I realised that I'd spent six hours in the sun without water, and was practically incapable of speech other than to say, "Combo meal. Chicken. Yes. Water. Please." and "More water please."

And then I remembered the cider in my ice-chest, and after victuals and a brief respite, the evening started. True, much of the evening involved squeezing aloe from plants onto my parched skin, but even pirates have to nurse their wounds from time to time. And I got to look at my photos.
posted by Garreth at 6:00 PM

4/19/2004

Just another maniac Monday :  Dazed after a weekend of sun, rum and fun, I went to the boxing gym. I was non too alert, but Bruce is always telling me not to think when I'm training. "Don't think!" It's a motto I have been toying with and applying to many different situations lately. So, I was in a strong position to succeed.I had my weekend hangover, and impaired mental functions from the herbal painkillers I'd been given to block the pain of crippling sunburn. In the boxing ring, I got my ass kicked by a girl. It makes me feel so much better when that happens. Amanda isn't particularly big or strong, but she seems at home behind a fist. Other bashings were to follow in the day.

Guy the gun-toting room-mate drove us to the laundry. The car in front hit a car that had stopped in the road to turn left. I wasn't watching but Guy pointed it out, and we slowed behind the accident. The reverse lights of the car in front then came on, and it hurtled towards Guy's car before smashed into the front of it. All three cars made it to a sideroad without further incident, and the defective driver came out to assess the damage. He was clearly in no fit state to assess his own belly button fluff, let alone be behind the wheel of a two tonne juggernaut of destruction. It was about 4pm, and he was dribbling drunk. He couldn't say sorry enough. He wouldn't stop saying sorry, even when we saw that there was no damage and we got back into the car to leave. He kept trying to give us his phone number, and apologise. As we pulled away, he was still saying that he was really, really sorry. He's probably still there, apologising to the tarmac.

Laundry was started. We went off on errands, as is our habit, and we wound up at a shop that sold only hot sauces, to satisfy Guy's fine palette for such dressings. I get a bit blas? about chillies, hot sauces and curries. Everyone has a story about how hot a sauce can be, and which country / cuisine / bar has the hottest sauce. I've watched people eat jars of lime pickle. I've struggled most of the way through a Gate of India phal. I've come to that point in my life where I don't have to order a vindaloo when I go to an English Indian restaurant - I've done spicy, I've lived among endorphin junkie spice munchers, I've tried Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce. So when the little lady at the counter said, do you want to try the hottest sauce we have, I have no idea what compelled me to try it. It might have been the fact that she said a small bottle was a hundred dollars, and that we could try it for free. She carefully put the tiniest of drops on the sharp end of a toothpick, and handed it over. I placed it on my tongue and waited. Not too bad, I thought to myself, as a warm tingle spread from the point at the back of my tongue where first contact was made. Within 20 seconds, the woman behind the counter was smiling as I ran with my eyes streaming and grabbed a drink from the freezer. I couldn't speak, and she joked that my root beer was going to cost ten dollars. I was incapable of appreciating her humour. I was incapable of speaking, as I hiccuped every few seconds. I thought I was going to be sick, and I didn't know which way to point. I inhaled the root beer, as every time the liquid stopped flowing, the air would hit my tongue and make me think I had been gargling with battery acid. The root beer took the burning into my throat, and I stumbled outside the shop. Guy was having similar difficulties, and ran across busy 6th Street to an ice cream shop which was unfortunately closed. I ran back inside and asked the woman if she had an antidote, prepared to pay a hundred dollars to make the pain stop. Guy later commented that he was about ready to kneel down and beg to be shot. We spent ten minutes in agony, before we could function. I went back inside and bought a bottle, purely based on the amusement that the woman behind the counter had just enjoyed.

When Guy had recovered sufficiently to entertain the idea of driving, we left the car. A short, bald, shirtless muscle-head approached and demanded money from Guy, who declined to give. I looked down at the muscle head's shiny head, wondering if the sun had fried his brain yet. The muscle head turned to me and shouted, "Get out of my way, homey!" I took a step and explained that I was "out of his way", and he moved on. Which was lucky for him. Not because he would have otherwise had to bruise his knuckles beating me like the ginger-haired step-child he always wished he'd had, but because Guy subsequently confided in me, "If he'd have threatened you, I would have shot him. That's the law."
posted by Garreth at 6:54 PM

4/18/2004

Aboard the good ship catharsis :  Never, never, never forget the power of drinking and shouting in the sun to make you feel better. Dressing up as a pirate and combining these activities from within a bunch of canoes is probably the most fun way of doing this without fruit and a baseball bat.
posted by Garreth at 8:49 PM

4/15/2004

Breaking and Entering :  I needed a new place to live for May and June in Austin. I advertised the fact and got a few offers. I met Sharon at the place she rented as she returned from work. She was a fine looking woman in her thirties, wearing a smart black dress. We approached the door to the place - it was a lovely large house in a quiet street, shaded by large pecan trees. Sharon announced she didn't have the key, and told me about her cleaner not returning it, or leaving the front door opened as arranged. Leave the front door open? Alarm bells began to faintly tinkle.

She made to push past the bushes in the front garden to gain access to a window, that she said she left open just in case. How queer. I offered to climb in on her behalf, given that I was wearing neither stockings nor a dress. Prising the window up, I pushed past the blinds and landed on the wooden floor of a spacious bedroom. No burglar alarms went off, no dogs attacked, and no homeowners with shotguns appeared. As I type this I remember that Guy, my gun-toting room-mate had explained that you are perfectly entitled to blow someone to smithereens if they are on your property with whatever hardware you have to hand. He also explained that it's quite hard to get assault rifles these days, that they have to be manufactured before a certain date and so on. At the time, the thought didn't occur to me at all.

I went out of the bedroom and found the hall. Still no attack dog. I let Sharon in to what was allegedly her own house, and took a tour as Sharon slipped into something more comfortable. The bedroom. Her current room-mate arrived at the door now, and there was a bit of tension. The room-mate didn't appear to know that she was moving out, and appeared puzzled. I decided to leave, and didn't look back. Maybe the two were accomplices. The seductress house burglar, and her getaway driver. I was just the stooge. Perhaps they planned to leave my bleeding body in the house as they whisked away all of the valuables. I'll never know.
posted by Garreth at 11:20 PM

The Big Red Machine :  I've been in the States for three months, and I've seen no wrestling. I'd even missed the fact that the Big Red Machine (Kane, not a fire-engine) is now going about sans mask. With a face like this, you can see why he wore the mask. He was one of Chyna's heroes in terms of dedication. Any man, woman or goat that wrestles in a mask is my hero. Chyna is the 9th wonder of the world, a hugely muscular lady wrestler of mammoth proportions. One of her silicone implants exploded during one match. For those of you who are still trying to figure out the other wonders of the world, don't forget Andre the Giant. Enough with the wrestling gibberish already.
posted by Garreth at 3:01 PM

4/13/2004

Eat the Styrofoam :  Easter Sunday in San Antonio. I am rejoicing after returning from Mexico with a new lease of US visa life, having not found any wives in the US yet. Before I sit on a bus to Austin for six hours, I must eat something. Perhaps I'll treat myself to a celebratory steak or a twelve pack of quails' eggs or... Oh. It's Burger King or Popeye's. I know all fast food sucks, but I'd never had a Popeye's experience, and I was curious about the shrimp. It was like eating cardboard. There must be more nutrition in the packaging. How disappointing.
posted by Garreth at 11:00 PM

The Revenge of Boys' Town :  It's nice not knowing anything about a place and turning up with no preconceptions. The only preconception I had about Boys' Town was that there was a bar with few women that wasn't a brothel that sold cheap booze. I had been there the night before. And getting there would involve avoiding eye contact with a few dozen ladies of the night. A typical lady of the night looked like she had a big snatch and could clean and jerk all day, by which I mean she might have the physique of a powerlifter.

I remembered the bar's existence correctly, and dodged and weaved around a few touts. I hadn't noticed the big policia station by the entrance to the citadel, or the large numbers of shifty looking armed officials roaming about. I only later found out that this was a 'zona' - a controlled area in which prostitution is legal, with compulsory STD tests and identity cards for workers, and policing to keep trouble to a minimum. If you trust the police. I was offered, "Cocaine?" and then "Poouussseeee?" , and then "Donkey?" I was puzzled by the suggestion that I might need a donkey - the place was maybe five minutes walk from one side to the next, and the donkey I was shown didn't look big enough to carry a load. The tout explained that the donkey was part of a show.

Ah. Right. I eventually found my cheap ass bar, and went inside for its relative safety. Mexicans dressed like fat cowboys perched on bar stools. I drank my way through the tequila menu that was daubed on the wall, trying to avoid getting between the cowboys and their television. I decided to eschew the lime and salt offered by the barman for each shot to prove how macho I was. That was a bad idea. I ended up reaching behind the bar and grabbing a lime on shot number three, which dashed my macho pretensions.

A squat Mexican gent came in with a squat Mexican lady. The sturdy type. They selected some music from that ever-present Mexican bar ornament - the sparkling jukebox. As the music started, the man dragged his lady to the middle of the floor, and started to kiss her savagely. She was sturdy enough to avoid suffocation from his advances, and she must have had a neck like a rhino to keep the violently passionate kissing going for as long as they did. Perhaps the strenuous necking is the reason for all of the powerlifting training. When the song ended, the couple sat down and continued to wrestle tongues as if they were drunken teenagers at a prom, and had only five minutes of face-sucking left before their parents arrived to escort them to their homes. They kept it up for some time, and I was conscious that I was staring in disbelief at how they were going at it. I had a few more 'El Presidente' brandies because I thought the name sounded macho, and then headed outside to weave my way through the treacherous streets to my motel.

A broad shouldered woman just a few inches shorter than me blocked my way as I walked past a bar. I looked at her dress. I looked at her co-worker's dress. These ladies seemed rather more slender, lithe and sparkly than the other girls I had seen. With my progress arrested, I struggled to focus in the dark, as my captor suggested subtley indecent things to me, before pulling aside her dress to show me her g-string. It was about that time that I noticed the stubble on her co-worker's chin, and again the penny dropped. I politely made my excuses as I headed off leaving the two gents of the night to their business. The next indeterminate-gendered-worker of the night to grab me cut to the chase and said, "Sucky sucky ten dollar," and made graphic demonstrations with his/her closed fist and his/her mouth.
"No thanks, I'm fine."
He/She then changed her marketting and said, "Sucky fucky twenny dollar?"

Again, I shrugged off the grabbing limbs, and made my way into a burger bar. I had eaten some grim food already, and thought that my intestines might as well be hanged for a raw sheep as for a lamb. While I waited for the frozen burger's outsides to be cremated, a Mexican with a bike started talking to me.

The man was clearly disillusioned. He thought that by endlessly repeating himself in Spanish at my baffled expression, that I would eventually understand. Of course, everybody knows that the technique of repeating yourself to people who don't speak your language only results in recognition in the following circumstances:

• You're English
• You speak very slowly
• You speak very loudly

My attention was distracted by the languorous way in which his eyelids would pulse open and closed. At first I thought he was drunk, but then I figured that his eyelids were more like bellows, trying to pump in pictures to a brain addled with opiates. He lifted up his arm - freshly broken and swollen - and then nodded at his scratched bike. He was totally spaced out after an accident it seemed.

My raw on the inside, burnt on the outside burger arrived, and I made my excuses and moved quickly into the night, away from the donkeys and rhinos and bearded ladymen of Boys' Town. My only regret was that I didn't make it back to see the masked wrestling on the television.
posted by Garreth at 10:38 PM

On the way to Boys' Town. Again. :  Although I had just eaten, I stepped into a nearby restaurant and ordered some more food. I hadn't come across many English speakers in this part of town, and had previously resorted to asking for things like 'breakfast' and 'food', given the utter inadequacy of my Spanish vocabulary. But this place had an interpretter. The only problem was that I didn't know what any of the foods he mentioned were. I enquired about some of them and got the answer that they were typically some stuff wrapped in something flat. I asked for whatever he recommended and went to sit down by the blaring television.

A grinning man opposite me stopped his chewing to concentrate more earnestly on grinning at me. He raised a half-full bottle of Corona from the table where it rested next to two of it's empty compadres, and taking a swig said, "Where are you from?" What followed was a one sided conversation in which the man would tell me things in English, and I would pretend to be trying to listen above the noise of the television, while waiting for my food. My food arrived and the man showed be a tattoo on his shoulder of a giant scorpion, and the word 'LEO' in large letters underneath. I didn't have the heart to point out the zodiacal error, that Leo is usually depicted as a lion. The jukebox sprang to life, drowning out the television. The man continued to try to tell me a story about a scorpion. I finished my food quickly, and managed to leap into the conversation to announce my departure as the waitress jumped on an approaching giant cockroach. He told me his name was Leo as I left, and I was glad that his tattoo was appropriate after all. I went off into the night looking for cheap tequila in the citadel of dubiousness.
posted by Garreth at 10:04 PM

4/11/2004

Return to the Brothel Citadel :  Nuevo Laredo was dusty and dirty. More so with the approaching thunderstorm. The wind that ushered in the dark clouds threw grit in my eyes as I walked to get some food at about ten in the evening. I put on my sunglasses as I forced my way up the streets towards the bus station. An array of unexciting eateries were waiting by the bus station, their standards based on one-off long distance customers rather than repeat business. I ate a surprisingly pleasant meal in the cleanest looking outfit, and then walked outside into the height of a thunderstorm. A bar looked at me with welcoming eyes, and offered refuge from the deluge.

Bar Palace was less welcoming on the inside than the outside, but only by virtue of its roof. It was the size of a large classroom, and the light was provided by a small bulb above a shelf of bottles behind the bar, a light illuminating the tightly fitting pool table, and the twinkle of bulbs in the juke box. The juke box filled the bar box with Mexican music. The winning atmosphere half filled the bar box with Mexicans. The walls were patchy. The bar itself looked like it had been locked in a cell with a starving goat. The barmaid may have been nailed to it at the time. Form hadn't followed function in this bar - form was still hiding around the last street corner, not wanting to be associated at all with function. There were boxes of beer stacked by the juke box. Perhaps the goats had eaten the store-room. There were mops, brushes, and buckets strewn about. It was a dive.

I ordered a drink, and after several minutes of miscommunication got something approaching a rum and cola. I sat at the bar, watching the clock. I watched as the barmaid marked the level of rum in the bottle, maybe to make sure non evaporated between drinks. The place grew on me. Or it could have been mould from the ceiling. I ordered a Presidente and cola. The drinks were two and a half times as expensive as the bar I'd found the previous night, and the range of options was very limited. The storm had stopped. These were all the excuses I needed to head out. Back to the Brothel Citadel.

What happened in the shady Boys' Town? Would it involve donkeys and margarine? Who is the mysterious Leo character? All this in the next episode of...
posted by Garreth at 11:12 PM

4/10/2004

Boi land :  On arriving in Nuevo Laredo, I found the nearest hotel to the bus station, and took a look at the last remaining room on offer. It was less than 20 dollars, and had mould growing apparently unconstrained on the ceiling, and a ceiling fan, two single beds and a small television. I agreed to take the room with much shaking and nodding to the Spanish speaking owner. Michel Thomas, my Spanish tutor would be turning in his grave if he was dead. He might not be dead, but my memories of his lessons on tape were dead in my mind, dissolved in a solution of vodka and rum with the odd "no lo tengo" occasionally drifting to the surface. Michel Thomas, with your Spanish way of speaking English, you gave me the reciprocal talent of speaking Spanish in an English way, but now it has all gone.

I sat in my hovel, and wondered why people who own hotels insist on butchering the controls of all electrical appliances. The television could not have anything but channel 36 as the buttons had been destroyed. The light switch was curiously outside the room, and the ceiling fan was merely ornamental, as its controls had been disembowelled. I plugged in a floor standing fan, and noticed that it was impossible to control it either. Amusingly, as it stirred the hot air in the room, it caused the ceiling fan to rotate slowly. Perhaps this was generating electricity to power the television, which cut out at random, I mused. I decided to get some food, and as little poisoning as was possible.

I went for a wander, knowing nothing of Nuevo Laredo, except its reputation as a cess-pit border town. I wandered down dirty streets, past vacant looking vagrants, and across a railway line. All was dark and dusty. Battered cars would do their best to tear up the tarmac some more as they blatted past, mufflers long-gone. I walked for a few minutes along a high wall, and eventually had to pause to allow a car to exit from a road that emerged suddenly from the wall. As I stood on what I imagined a pavement might look like if the road had been the proud owner of such a nicety, I glanced past the break in the wall from which the car had come. Lights. Perhaps food. Faint strains of Mexican music. I ventured in.

Being obviously new in town, I adopted my not too hurried, but fast enough to avoid too much hassle gait as I approached some of the lights in this strange walled citadel. Slow enough to peer into each bar and cantina, but not slow enough to look like I was lost. It worked on the first few hawkers and foreign person baiters that I passed. But I was puzzled by the women I saw standing by doors between the bars. I imagined they worked as eye candy to stop people long enough to be persuaded to enter the adjoining bar. But they weren´t my idea of eye candy. Robust women. Sturdy girls. With low cut tops and gigantic bosoms thrust out, supported on solid foundations. With small rooms behind them with double beds in. And red lights around the place.

The penny dropped, and I was caught off guard. By this time my pace had quickened, but I still got caught in a hailstorm of "Hey baby!"s and "Wanna have sum fun?"s. I got woman-handled, accosted and had my beard tugged. It had been a while since any hookers have tugged my beard, and I had forgotten how vaguely exciting and forbidden it can seem. I pushed through the walls of cleavage, or rather around them, and regained some composure. I befriended a tout who was certain I wanted weed, despite my insistence I wasn´t. Once we´d sorted out the fact that I just wanted a quiet drink with no girls, drugs, polizia or trouble, not even cheap girls, no, not even attractive girls, he showed me a safe quiet bar. A bar where a man preparing himself to climb a mountain can not get drunk, arrested, into fights or locked up. I asked him what strange place I was in.

"Boys' Town." he replied.
posted by Garreth at 5:09 PM

Comfort :  I have to climb a mountain in June. A proper one, with ice and axes and plastic boots. I know nothing about mountain climbing, but it seemed like a good idea when Mr. Salter suggested it. It wasn´t until I had eight hours on a bus to Mexico that I started to read a book about climbing mountains. I suddenly remembered I am afraid of heights. For examlpe, I can´t get too close to the windows at the top of the Sears tower. Despite my fear, I have jumped out of planes, bungeed over gambling towns, scaled buildings without ropes, and abseiled from the odd mountain here and there. The ascents generally involve alcohol, and the descents involve a brief push with no opportunity to turn back. But none of these things has involved sixteen hours of tortuous high altitude slog dressed like a Gundarm.

The book I was reading didn´t help. It´s the story of multiple simultaneous expedition casualties on Everest on May 10th 1996. True, my target of Mont Blanc isn´t anything like Everest. It isn´t even the highest peak in Europe. But then again, I have no training in mountain climbing, whereas the Everest teams had variously accomplished much in the field before their demises. It made me want to get off the bus and run back to the local gym in Austin and start using a Stairmaster wearing a backpack full of bricks. I need to train it seems, to avoid vomitting and exploding and discontinuing at altitude. As I left the comfort of my solid stool lifestyle in Austin and crossed into the slightly less hospitable man-with-watery-bowels-and-a-backpack routine in Mexico, I fell with a bump from my cotton wool cradle.

So I arrived in Nuevo Loredo at about 9pm last night, hot, tired and in no mood to lay waste to my body. The whole point of my trip is one of administration and passport stamping. I had orginally planned to paint the seedy border town seven different shades of red for a few days, and then head back to Texas with a fresh 90 day US tourist visa in my passport. But I was now terrified by my lack of fitness, and feared the decay that my body would suffer if subjected to too much fun and not enough sleep. I decided on moderation, and robust dining.
posted by Garreth at 4:50 PM

4/08/2004

Love is... : 
Texas is....
waking up and thinking, "I'll go to Mexico tomorrow."
posted by Garreth at 11:57 PM

In the Zone :  Come to Auto Zone. Your one stop shop for all your automobile headaches. In the Zone. We have spare parts in stock for all makes and models. In the Zone. We have a computer system which links to our main warehouse. We can order what's not in stock. In the Zone. Watch as our trained monkeys have to reboot the computer system. In the Zone. Watch the monkeys order a part for you using a fantabulous green screen system. Come back a week later for the part and learn that the last known location of your part is Fort Worth. Laugh with the monkeys as they tell you that the part is probably in a truck somewhere, shrug and laugh. In the Zone. Get your ordered part a day late as you take back the other parts that were in stock, but unfortunately don't fit your automobile. Outside the Zone. Show the monkey the size of the hole and the size of the part. Watch the monkey scratch his head, and try and fit it in anyway. In the Zone. Get your thermostat and shove it in the throat of the monkey. Postal in the Zone. Soak the incorrect air filter in carb cleaner and use it to ignite all of the petroleum products. Shove a wrong-sized spark plug in each ear of any remaining Auto Zone monkeys, and show them how you feel about tight nuts. Torch the Zone.
posted by Garreth at 11:46 PM

What's in a name? :  12pm. Power Yoga with Gundega. The name Gundega always terrified me. It's the kind of name that sticks in your mind. Power. Gundega. Some eleven-armed yoga master who can levitate himself and crush the skulls of his opposition through will alone.

I first saw the advert for Gundega's power yoga when I joined a nearby gym two months ago. Today, I felt run down, and was in the spa trying to exorcise some of the deeply rooted pain from my legs. I went in early, before the afternoon giffers could pollute the spa with their scabies and leprosy. Which left me in a perfect position to fight the mighty Gundega in unarmed yoga. The guy at the front desk told me that it would give me a sense of well-being and wasn't too advanced. I thought I'd give it a go. It would distract me from the words ringing in my head from my walk to the gym. A bull-goose looney had dismounted his bicycle and approached me on the street earlier. After a few questions about love and god (his god I think) and jesus, he told me I was going to hell (in a shopping basket) and mounted his bicycle, pedalling headfirst into the oncoming traffic. A man of conviction and a belief in American vehicle brakes.

I entered the workout studio, and was pleasantly relieved to find that Gundega was a petite, harmless looking woman. I was also relieved when she said she'd had to pull some of the headstands from the class at the request of the gym management. Something to do with neck-snapping and insurance claims. So my skull remained uncrushed, and I did exit the class with a sense of wellbeing. The perky Latvian Gundega also left feeling perky it seems, and rabbitted on about economic slavery, religion, easter bunnies, the gold standard and anything else that sprang into her wellbeen head. They never say that yoga is as addictive as crack cocaine (as they do snowboarding). Maybe the advertising is aimed at a different group of consumers who don't associate with addiction and smoking rock. But I think I may do some more yoga. If only they could incorporate more kicks and punches into it.
posted by Garreth at 3:23 PM

4/07/2004

Homeless, Clueless, English :  Anyone need a room-mate during May and June? Reasonable rates considered, have own beard and aluminium foil surplus. Oh, and it would be handy if it was in Austin.
posted by Garreth at 9:19 PM

Local News :  Style: Making four-poster beds from string and aluminium foil is no longer fashionable. Last night residents in Austin tore down their foil creations, and woke very early and confused when the sun arrived this morning.

Boxing: Boxing legend Ron Malibu was spotted leaving an Austin based boxing gym with a smile on his face this afternoon. When questioned, he said that he enoyed being hit in the head, and that boxing was a great sport. He also said that he would be ready for 'Mean Gene' next time. Mean Gene, a few inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Mr. Malibu was quoted as saying, "That Australian guy from Britain, he should know I'm fixing to spar with him when I raise my gloves like that. He should defend himself." The gym's owner, Bruce, claimed that as soon as the English guy learnt not to stop punches with his head, he'd do far better.

Motoring: Austin-based Saabophile Ron Malibu tried to fit a new thermostat today, but was defeated by wrong parts and tight nuts. When approached for an interview, Mr. Malibu was too busy yelling obscenities and shaking his fist at the sky to answer any questions. He was later heard shouting, "I hate tight nuts," as he clutched his bleeding knuckles. On a brighter note, sources close to Mr. Malibu said that he was pleased to have found out where the defunct turbo in his car was hidden.


posted by Garreth at 8:42 PM

4/06/2004

Appreciation :  A nice man who took photos of Fool's Soup took one of my baby. She's near the bottom - notice the missing jesus fish.
posted by Garreth at 8:17 PM

Fool's Soup in Quotes :  "What we really need is a MILF theme camp. This community does have some great MILFs."

"Cumquats are the new hockey-pucks. Business is the new art. Green is the new black."

"Yeah, it wasn't real ego-melting kind of stuff. That's what I was after."

"And the strange thing is that you can still legally buy psychedelics that haven't been scheduled yet."

"Yeah, I found that out from my internet drug cult."

"We only had to helicopter one guy out once. No-one could wake him and then he stopped breathing on me. He was back the next day. He got really mad at the people in the hospital for ruining his sleep, and came back to party."

"You think you could beat me at mud-wrestling?"

"Hey, Mary, I think your shoulder is on fire."

"Are you on the two-thirty train?"

"This is the best time I have ever had ever. I say that every time I come here apparently. But it's always true."
posted by Garreth at 12:32 AM

Fool's Soup - pot luck :  What does one expect at Fool's Soup? I got one perspective from the nice lady who helped me paint my cowboy boots. "They don't like to be called 'hippies'," she told me, "I think they like 'freaks' better."

Another point of view was from a stalwart of the burning community.
"It's pretty psychedelic. I normally don't sleep for four days, and then catch a nap just before I have to pack up and drive home."

Someone advised me that I should wear nothing but a bollo, cowboy hat and boots and a super-hero cape.

I went to a thrift store and bought a mish-mash of costume pieces, and headed off on Friday evening to experience Soup in the humid Texan evening. My Saab was bulging at the seams with supplies for the weekend camping, a pleasant change to having to carry all of your gear on your back. Last time I did that, I had to cast aside booze as being too heavy. This time, I had more cider, wines and tequila than is good for a person. Apparently, Austin is responsible for necking one per cent of the tequila bought in the US - about five times the average. I had my litre and a half to throw into the weekend statistics.

My Saab became a little sick and decided to overheat repeatedly en route. After many hours, and many stops, I arrived upon the unlabelled backroads that led to the venue. By this time it was dark and raining, and the mud tracks became an opportunity to fling dirt around. I had the heating on full to cool the engine, the windows open, and insulated from the road by power steering and automatic transmission, I ploughed on. The cows in the surrounding fields were treated to my victorious theme music amd a variety of expletives as I finally and miraculously arrived at the event gate.

"No firearms, fireworks or explosives?" asked BJ at the gate. BJ was countryfolk. Long hair, baseball cap and a heart of gold in addition to a charming name. I told her that I was mostly harmless. She told me not to bother erecting my tent until the next thunderstorm had passed. I asked her where to park. She asked me who I knew. I told her that I knew !Bob and Bean. She told me where they were camping. I set off in my Saab.

My eyes were filled with wonder as I approached the tents and cars strewn about amongst the trees. It was very much the fairy grotto to someone with my poor night vision. Strings of winking fairy lights adorned the trees. As I cruised past, I saw people dressed in silk dressing gowns and cowboy hats milling about in the rain. The assault on my senses continued as !Bob appeared and thrust a large bottle of wine into my non-steering hand. I drove behind his beckoning figure and before I knew what it meant and where I was, I had reversed into the Kingdom of Slack.

Things didn't really stop from the moment that I left the car. !Bob tried to give me a tour of the place, but we would get distracted by people and events. It wasn't until the following day that I found the swimming pool, showers, stage and the like. I met some thoroughly charming people, and completely forgot about thunderstorms and tent-erecting.

Friday evening didn't really progress - the night didn't unfold. Friday rather dodged and weaved, ducked and dove. My Friday was characterised byBrownian Motion - I was a molecule pottering about meeting other molecules and being distracted by shiny things and the like. I recall being very friendly with some of the dogs from the Kingdom of Slack, partly because I generally had some food in my hands. I recall one of the Slackers complaining that they had run out of Margarita mix, and then I pulled a bottle from the bowels of my Saab to the appreciation of those assembled. I remember someone talking about candy-flipping. I remember not being too taken aback by a large amount of nudity and dancing about. I heard of plans for theme camps for the next, larger, event - Flipside. The blueprints of mayhem were sketched out. I met Nekked Jim, and was pleasantly surprised to see he kept his cowboy hat on. Presumaby that stopped burning embers from singing his hair. Well, some of his hair.

The next things I remember in flashes. One was the thought that I was cramped. The next thouht was that I really should find my car keys so that I could open the electrically operated passenger side window to allow my feet to stick out. I was woken an insane o' clock in the morning by a passing princess who tickled my feet. This wasn't so hard for her to do, as I had opened the passenger door at some point in the night to allow my legs to straighten as I slept.

"Good morning, how are you?"
"Waaaahh. Er. I'm fine thanks. Wish I could find my car keys. Oh hang on. Doesn't matter."
"Where's your tent?"
"In the boot. I mean in the trunk. Oooh. Look. My car keys were in the ignition all the time."

The princess (I'm not embellishing or fantasizing, she introduced herself as a princess) showed me a nice place to put up my tent and helped me do so. I disappeared within and emerged later in the afternoon. By this time, the majority of the camp had assumed I had disappeared or been eaten by carnivorous cows in the adjoining field. Which meant that people would come up to me and say,

"Ah. You're that English dude. The cows didn't eat you after all."
or,
"You're alive! We thought we'd lost you."
or, and this one was really quite novel,
"Do you know how to break into cars? I have three sets of car keys and they're all locked in my truck."

After the briefest of rest periods - about as long as it took to find my car and the cider therein, the random motion continued. Saturday saw the Slackers take my tail-gate party virginity. We sat in the back of a truck called 'Big Red', drank, had our toe-nails painted blue and giggled. This, by all accounts, is a tail-gate party. They are fun. The party later developed into a puppy pile. Many people sit in the back of the truck for this, and form a human and canine lasagne, with sprinkles of blankets and pillows. Warmth is shared, bongs are passed around, and beef-jerky is consumed. For some reason, my brain is wired to say trailer-park party instead of tail-gate party, and I can't reprogram it to say the correct words no matter how hard I try.

A man in a psycho clown suit arrived, and a while later, people are launching increasingly dangerous objects from a three-man catapault. Being a 'Leave No Trace' community, this requires people to scour the field for launched items such as cans of beer and a variety of balls. By this point, I have learnt what "Are you on the two-thirty train?" means. Limes become the favoured ammunition of the launcher. There's nothing as funny as watching people who are "balls-to-the-wall tripping on potent psychedelics" wander around a field of grass looking for a lime that has been flung from a catapault. Trust me. It's great. One particular hero proved to be worth his weight in citrus gold by managing to find the proverbial needle in the green haystack time after time.

A giant of a man walked around with the lady who had locked her keys inside her truck. Again, I am not embellishing or exaggerating that this man was a giant.
"I'm fucking huge. A total giant. Six foot eight," he told me. He also explained that the lady had thankfully stopped throwing up now, and could keep down water. She didn't react well to some of the tablets she was taking for fun. She never did apparently.

Things were burnt on Saturday. This included a large ship effegy. Fire was danced with. Everyone had brought something to the energetic, sprawling party. People were very friendly - there was a real community. It was pointed out that the Kingdom of Slack was a complete misnomer for a group of obsessive compulsives who work really hard to be able to slack during such events in their theme-camp. They have a fully stocked bar put up in the midst of the trees for example. My hero Slacker, fond of a "drinky-drink", vowed he would be brewing two kegs of beer and bringing all of the necessary dispensing apparatus in addition to the bar next time. The community was strong. People would point out when others were on fire. Everyone had something to give and to share. I brought my accent, and it amused people to try to make me sound 'ghetto'.

"Don't be frontin' on the 187 if you don't got the juice," I was heard to say when someone pretended to threaten me with a switchblade.

I woke on Sunday afternoon in my tent, and was saddened to see people packing up and leaving. I decided to sit out the thunderstorms with some fine Chardonnay and slept another night under canvas. A handful of the hard core remained. I never got to wear my silver cowboy boots. Hopefully I will get my hands on a ticket to Flipside at the end of May. I can wear them then.
posted by Garreth at 12:23 AM

4/05/2004

Jesus didn't want me to burn :  I finally prized the jesus fish from the back of my car, as I set off to go camp with the freaks and hippies on Friday. As I headed south on I35 in the rush hour traffic, my baby got sick. In fact the whole family got sick. My car decided to overheat intermittently, the iPod started to skip, and my phone decided it wouldn't recognise its SIM card. Something was trying to stop me from getting to the Recreation Plantation. Something even more sinister than the sheer remoteness of the place and the threat of thunder. Did I make it? Did my car engine seize at the side of a road leaving me stranded with hicks and banjos? All this and more in the next spectacular episode of...
posted by Garreth at 4:58 PM

4/02/2004

Hanger :  Will my 30 dollar tent hold up to this weekend's thunderstorms?
Will beer and pop-tarts be enough?
Will the freaks and hippies of the Texas burners get me confused, strip me nekked and paint me blue?
Was changing the gap on my spark plugs in the rum-sodden darkness last night such a good idea?

All of these questions and more answered in the next edition of...
posted by Garreth at 11:58 AM