For December

Coming Soon.

The most fulfilling meditative moment of 2009

The decade list

The year list (albums and summary)

Nowak's Favorites List (random random shit, probably a lot of youtube videos)

Biggest Disappointments 2009

Perhaps a movie list

The hotties of 2009 (besides my girlfriend)

It's Listcember! Ho Ho Ho.

Thanksgiving

On this very special (not much more special) Thanksgiving I would like to state what I am thankful for.

The therapeutic drive home I had at 3 in the morning

Drinking whiskey all night, giving grown men relationship advice, and watching a documentary on Johnny Cash and what he considered to be the real America. It's the only America that exists.

The small dog that is currently underneath the covers of my bed whom is keeping my feet warm.

The friends who I have who go outside in the middle of the night and smoke a cigarette with me.

My mom.

My dad.

My sister, and... her boyfriend.

the people who will celebrate thanskgiving with me despite the fact they are not technically my family, but are now considered so.

My girlfriend whom I suspect is drunk with her family in Spokane right now.

Asian children who are wearing slightly racist hats and dancing to the "Chicken Dance"

and booze.

For all acquaintance be forgot...

Tube-Tuesday

Note: As I've called in sick today, I've been left to the confines of eating chicken soup out of a coffee cup, listening to jazz, watching Californication, and looking up rediculous shit on the youtube knockoffs.

Enjoy my sickness with me, won't you?

First Up: The Avett Brothers new music video (kinda). I can't seem to figure out whether or not I like this album, but the fact that Rick Rubin produced the entire thing helps.

The Avett Brothers - Slight Figure Of Speech - watch more funny videos

Second Up: Jimmy Fallon, whose late night show is getting progressively funnier btw, does a DEAD ON impersonation of Neil Young performing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song.



more to come.

My girlfriend is the only person that I know of who can walk into a Cabela's outlet store and walk out having an existential crisis.

Everybody displaces something, but only the most intelligent can throw a bag into hot water and come out with three cheese lasagna.

Halloween, the wrong way.

The exploits of October 31, 2009 were not of pursuits I have taken forth in since my realization of alcohol, candy, or costumes. Sobriety specifically. Many would find this factor not even a factor. It's easy to say that many people do NOT partake in the debauchery I would argue is my status quo. But it did make me realize what I looked like at one point, at least at a younger age.

I gathered the nickname "the italian father" at one point when I was 18 (when intoxicated I apparently use to kiss everybody on the head and praise their existence in society, still do actually).

This Halloween was different. I worked. From 10:30 PM-3:00 AM. As of recently I've become a security guard for an anonymous organization. Said organization told me I was to work this Halloween. Furthermore, said organization told me to patrol late-night shuttles that moved drunk students from point A to point B. This meant sitting for 5 hours. On a bus. With 60 kids or more at a time. Here we go.


We start off at 10:30 at the main depot. The three bus drivers shake hands with myself and my two colleagues, each of us to "patrol" an assigned bus.

I meet my guy, we'll call him Larry. Larry is a very nice man. Very experienced. Actually, if I could rank all bus drivers judged by their bus driving credentials, he would be on the fucking top. And Larry TOLD me every last detail on how to be a late night bus driver. If you told me today to drive bus all day today, I would be on my game, because their wasn't a single detail left out.

The most important aspect of bus driving Larry taught me was how to deal with manipulative students. In fact, it made me very pessimistic of youth because every stop we hit, we had AT LEAST a dozen kids trying to pull a fast one on Larry. And Larry would have none of that shit.

...

The best part would be when Larry would be talking to me and mid sentence open the door for students and turn in to Larry the Bus Nazi.

ex:
Larry: Yeah when I use to drive bus in Seattle we could make over $80,000 in overtime if you - wait hold on a second *door opens* Is she drunk?
Student: No
Larry: Well then why is she puking?
Larry: Really, she's not drunk?
Student: ...
Larry: Ok let me see you bus pass
Student: I don't have mine... it got stolen.
Larry: You know you're the thousandth kid to tell me he got his bus pass stolen tonight, and I bet you're the first honest one?!
Student: Listen it..
Larry: GET OFF MY BUSS! WHEN I GET BACK TO THE STOP AGAIN YOU BETTER BE WALKING BECAUSE YOU'RE OFF THE BUS FOR GOOD TONIGHT!
Student: F**k you f****t! F****n' f****t!

Keep in mind this student is a short kid that can't be any older than a freshman and wearing a sad excuse for a surfer costume

It is at this point Larry has slammed the door on him and left about a dozen other kids out because of this one guy and his drunk friend. Kids starts slapping the windows from the outside to let them in as Larry tears out of the bus stop like a bat out of hell while kids briefly chase the bus throwing rocks.

Now. The best part of this, Larry goes immediately back to our conversation WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT about working overtime in Seattle.

I have almost crapped my pants because this guy almost started a public transportation coup on the drunkest night on campus and Larry isn't even phased. This guy IS hardcore.


...

At one point we are driving (and this bus is PACKED. He had to count the number of students on the bus per trip, and he said our highest capacity at that time was 82 on this bus.) we're driving with so many people that I can neither stand nor sit. I had to grab onto the top bar and hang off of it at an angle in which to accommodate these kids. They ALL get off at this one point and to my joy one of the more sober ones goes "Oh hey, some girl just puked"

"What? Where? When?" I reply.

"Right there" she says and points.

I'll spare you the more horrible details, but what I saw can only be described in two ways; Chunky. World record.

Well at this point the bus driver informs me that when someone pukes on said bus, said bus has to go out of commission. So they decide where I am to go is the OTHER shuttle with one of my coworkers.

This of course is after Larry and the head... bus driver... gets into one of those heated discourses that are used in amazingly subtle rhetoric.

Head Honcho: We need to close this bus.
Larry: Ok
Head Honcho: And we need to hose this bus down before it goes back into commission.
Larry: Ok
Head Honcho: ...
Larry: I'm not going to do it.
Head Honcho: ... *sigh*

I'm on the other shuttle for about 30 minutes, and that bus was cake. My colleague and I sit in the back and bullshit with drunk kids, half an hour goes by, and then that bus driver tells me that my bus is back in commission and he's going to drop me off downtown.

Ok... drop me off downtown wearing essentially a glorified windbreaker with the words "Public Safety" in yellow. Keep in mind this is the same spot where the majority of kids out there have probably gotten written up or ticketed or arrested because of the doings of who I am currently affiliated with. Fantastic. Apparently my new co-workers don't have much discretion for stabbings by the downtown bus stop. As the next slue of drunken bargoers heads toward me, I'm looking with one eye and have my hand on my mag-lite just in case, and like a big green wheeled angel, Larry's back to pick me up. He swoops in and I ride off the rest of the night yelling at frosh and trying to keep my eyes open.

It was the best halloween ever.

More Poetry.

A way out west there was a fella,
fella I want to tell you about, fella
by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At
least, that was the handle his lovin'
parents gave him, but he never had
much use for it himself. This
Lebowski, he called himself the Dude.
Now, Dude, that's a name no one would
self-apply where I come from. But
then, there was a lot about the Dude
that didn't make a whole lot of sense
to me. And a lot about where he
lived, like- wise. But then again,
maybe that's why I found the place
s'durned innarestin'.

They call Los Angeles the City of
Angels. I didn't find it to be that
exactly, but I'll allow as there are
some nice folks there. 'Course, I
can't say I seen London, and I never
been to France, and I ain't never
een no queen in her damn undies as
the fella says. But I'll tell you
what, after seeing Los Angeles and
thisahere story I'm about to unfold--
wal, I guess I seen somethin' ever'
bit as stupefyin' as ya'd see in any
a those other places, and in English
too, so I can die with a smile on my
face without feelin' like the good
Lord gypped me.

Now this story I'm about to unfold
took place back in the early nineties--
just about the time of our conflict
with Sad'm and the Eye-rackies. I
only mention it 'cause some- times
there's a man--I won't say a hee-ro,
'cause what's a hee-ro?--but sometimes
there's a man.

And I'm talkin' about the Dude here--
sometimes there's a man who, wal,
he's the man for his time'n place,
he fits right in there--and that's
the Dude, in Los Angeles.

marriedtothesea.com