…and your enemies closer.” Never completely understood this saying, but its meaning is starting to come clear.

Think about it. They do. Assholes fuck up everything. Think about political systems or economic systems…what is the primary failure within each, huh? Simply loopholes that allow opportunistic motherfuckers to exploit the system to their own greedy selfish power-hungry ends, causing other people who just want to live their lives in peace to suffer, many of whom have little to no defense against the tyranny of said opportunistic motherfuckers. Capitalism, communism, socialism, even anarchy, all of these and many many more are systems that realistically should work, WOULD work just fine if it were not for the fucking bastards whose first instinct was to probe the system for the loopholes and technicalities that would let them profit by taking more than they need, more than they can possibly use, certainly more than they deserve. And you know what? Since I am rambling, I’m gonna include democracy on that list, and you know why? Because in a democracy, you have the freedom to abstain from taking part in the process, and as it stands now in America, a high percentage of the population that is eligible to take part does not because they are lazy. They’re content to let everybody else decide everything for them. And I’ve heard the fucking excuses, okay? The “I don’t think my vote” counts or the “None of the candidates speak to me so I’m going to ‘send a message’ by not voting.” I’ve even heard others dare to say “I don’t want jury duty.” DON’T WANT JURY DUTY?!?!?! YOU LAZY TURD! First of all, if you don’t think your vote counts AT ALL, then you need to be pissed off, not kicking back and drowning your sorrows in goddamn ESPN. Second of all, if you think you’re sending a message by not voting, you are a fucking moron. Who is hearing this message? There’s no message there. You’re just another one of the assholes that ruins everything, which is what this little rant started off being about in the first place.

Jerry Masterson knows what the fuck: http://www.thestranger.com/2003-09-11/ianon.html, http://www.portlandmercury.com/current/ianon.html , http://www.thestranger.com/2003-02-06/ianon.html , http://www.thestranger.com/2003-02-13/ianon.html

I was sitting here at my desk and I just became aware that I was kicking my computer repeatedly…and kind of hard. I dunno.

So I went to the dentist yesterday afternoon, and as soon as I sat down in the chair, I started thinking about “The Rapist and the Murderer” and couldn’t stop. I thought about the goddamn play the entire goddamn time. I don’t know if my insurance provides nearly enough mental health coverage to deal with being mangled by a psycho dentist.

Last December, I’d had enough. The Taurus was just giving me too much shit to be worth it, and it was time for something new in the what Travis drives department. That something new turned out to be a blue Subaru Forester which I instantly grew to love. It’s reliable, comfortable, clean, smells good, carries lots of stuff and lots of folks, and, though it is marketed as an SUV, even though cops may call it an SUV on their accident reports, it is hardly an SUV. SUV’s get bad gas mileage and roll over easily. Mine does neither.

My drive to work is a pretty one, though a bit frustrating. In my book, the hill country of central Texas is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The frustrating part is that rich fucks have decided that they should own that beauty and stick big gaudy houses on it. People like Ashley and Brett who have lived in Austin their whole lives remember when there wasn’t shit out there. Well there’s shit there now my friends, let me tell you. Lots of shit. Shit here, shit there, hell, shit everywhere, pockmarking the hills on either side of loop 360.

Nearing the exit for Ranch Road 2222, there is a bridge that extends over Lake Austin. From this bridge, one can see glass faced office buildings, sheer cliff faces, motorboats, jet skis, sailboats, a golf course…you know, nature. It was just past this bridge that traffic was slowing down. I too, in an act of motoristic cooperation and goodwill, applied pressure to my brakes. At this moment, I also looked in my rearview mirror.

I had bought two breakfast tacos at Rudy’s Barbecue. They would go well with the hot coffee, mixed with French Vanilla artificial creamer and a healthy dose of sugar, that I would pour into my Houston Rockets mug as I do every morning, Monday - Friday. My Saturday and Sunday coffee has to go into a different mug because I don’t take the Rockets mug home on weekends. It has the old Rockets logo from back when they won the championship in 94 and 95, not the new one. I don’t like the new logo. I couldn’t name a single player for the Rockets in their current lineup. They suck.

The breakfast tacos would have to wait however, for in my rearview mirror, bearing down on me were the letters KCAM, which, when accounting for the reversing effect of the mirror, spells MACK. Yes, a Mack truck was closing fast, too fast for me to do anything before it hit me. Which then caused me to hit the little red Honda Civic hatchback in front of me, which in turn hit the Ford Expedition in front of it.

The four vehicles pulled off to the side, mine with its rear bumper hanging on for dear life, not wanting to be left behind to die scared and alone. “I’m not leaving you here man!” I stepped out and was shocked to see the entire ass-end of my car crumpled. Rear window was gone, bits of it spread out all over the place, as far away as the front floorboards, some on the Mack’s bumper. The rear brake light had popped off. The panel sporting the S U B A R U letters was cut in half. The spare tire had been punctured. My shock quickly turned to some sort of relieved pleasure, however, when I realized that it had crumpled in exactly the manner it is supposed to in a rear-end collision. I guess I was pleased that the Subaru corporation’s boasts of safety in their engineering, when put to the test, did in fact prove to be warranted. The Mack truck driver was mentioning something about his foot slipping, couldn’t stop in time, whatever. His name turned out to be Freddie, and he’d been on the job for less than two weeks. His boss was on his way out.

How come I giggle every time I type the word rear? What am I, four? Jeez, “rear-end collision” had me in stitches. My apologies folks.

The driver of the Ford Expedition, a nice fellow named Daniel, turned out to be an engineer, and was as excited as I was to see Subaru’s crumple-zone engineering at work. His car had a bit of bumper damage but the 91 Honda Civic, hit from both sides, had zero damage. Its driver, a lady named Wendy, was most pleased, but don’t you think for one second that she escaped unscathed. I’d say that of anyone involved in this accident, she probably got the rawest deal of all.

Info was exchanged, cops were called, nothing to do but wait. I used Daniel’s phone to call my office to let them know where I was. Through no doing of my own, his cell phone number was immediately circulated throughout the people who know Travis network because people kept calling him asking for me - Brett, Ashley, Tracey. I was glad when Mike D. showed up (my friend Mike Delorme, not the Beastie Boy) so that Daniel could stop getting phone calls for a stranger he was in an accident with. Ashley called him every few minutes to see how things were going, if the cops were there yet, if I was okay. “Well, Life-Flight just landed, so he should be okay now.” She made all the arrangements for towing, doctor appointment, body shop, etc. and it’s a good thing too because I suck at things like that, especially on the side of the road.

Cops arrived. Freddie asked the cop if he needed to take a piss test. “I been holding it for an hour, just in case.” Remember that raw deal I was telling you about that Wendy got? In no way at fault for the accident, just going to work, typical Friday morning?…turns out her insurance had just expired without renewing. Instant ticket, nice and fat. I was going to let the cop stop her if she decided to strangle poor Freddie because I was running low on sympathy.

So now I’m at work and the Forester is at a body shop, waiting for its estimate. I’m waiting for Ashley to come get me to go to the doctor to get checked out. Everyone tells me that tomorrow is when I’ll start to feel it, so maybe he’ll hook me up with a killer prescription.

Have a good weekend everybody. If you need to find me, I’ll probably be at home. Bring me beer.

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Comments

SPI Guy

2004-09-07T02:07:59.000Z

 I’m trying to start a new blog about SUVs and “Off Roading”. I’d like to invite everyone to visit www.HummerCity.com and post comments about Hummers, Jeeps, or other 4X4s. All new posts on similar subjects are welcome.

Brett Wilson says:

you should walk around and act like you are about to fire people. that sounds like fun

Travis says:

hahaha, cuz anybody would buy that

Brett Wilson says:

Where is a good henry walters when you need one?

Travis says:

who?

Travis says:

oh doy

Brett Wilson says:

lol

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Comments

bs

2003-08-15T15:13:12.000Z

dumbass

So next, I guess Henry and Wanda go upstairs and find that Claire is missing, thus turning their whole world upside down.  Wanda is probably chastised by Brian and Miss Tina for not having enough faith in God to bring their daughter back, Henry probably throws himself into work to drown out the insanity of home, his wife, her constant church babble.  Jeez, their sex life undoubtedly goes to shit…

Okay, I’ll stop that now.  No need to speculate.  I would like to say that it was overall a positive experience.  We got a good review and a nice chunk of change out of it, as well as making some new friends.  There were some painful moments here and there, but no need to dwell on those at this juncture. 

I’m looking very much forward to Rapist and the Murderer.  I think that is going to be a unique challenge as a play, and it’ll definitely be another side of LGT that doesn’t get to come out and play as often.  I’ll tell you what I’m NOT looking forward to is after Rapist and the Murderer when there isn’t another show or project in the queue.  Guess that just means it’s time to get to writing again.

So I spent the entire day yesterday worrying that nobody was gonna come out on opening night and see the play because hey, what’s a play without an audience?  But then I got to the theater and I was like so totally zen, the absolute picture of calm, I was the koala bear sitting up in the tree eating eucalyptus while the kangaroos were boxing down below, I was the hippie putting the flower in the barrel of the gun of the soldier at the antiwar protest.  But as 8:00 drew near people, real people, not just imaginary ones (I could tell by the fact that they didn’t address me as “Earthling”) started showing up and they just sort of kept rolling in. 

And then the play itself…there’s a certain charge to watching the play that you dreamed up being worked out on stage.  Call it ego, call it a god-complex, hell call it Suzie, I don’t care.  It’s kind of scary some of the subtle things that they managed to pick up on that I intended but that weren’t explicity written in the script.  I haven’t told Tim this because he’d probably break his jaw grinning, and if he asks what I’m talking about I’m not going to tell him, I’m going to be a bastard about it and play the aloof playwright.  My only real criticism is that “Liar” doesn’t get played until the audience has already filed out.  *Sigh*

All the same, I must say to all involved, good show.  One night soon, as promised, we will play a little actor-torture game called “Bippety-bippety-bop.”

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Comments

Tim

2003-07-25T21:50:38.000Z

those actors are ornry.