tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12308266431444865772024-02-08T02:02:41.051-08:00A Collected MiscellanyDavid Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-64122578225732001142007-05-16T17:06:00.000-07:002007-08-20T14:26:21.831-07:00My Weekend in Val Verde County Jail: Part II - Who Knew Fruit Loops Were Legal Tender?<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Sheriff's Deputy 2: "Follow him… have fun ladies."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>An inmate of Hispanic descent appears before us wearing a white jump suit with "TRUSTEE" stenciled across the back.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee: [yelling above the dissonant chords of whoops and whistles] "Vamanos, vamanos"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>We stepped from the holding area into an extended corridor which curved out of sight 40 feet down the hall. Flanking the central thoroughfare were plexi-glass walls checked with inlaid wire for reinforcing strength. The contents of the area behind each wall were obstructed by our gentlemen-callers, standing at attention to receive our arrival. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>"Fishee fishee fisheeee... You're gonna like it here, new fish. A whooole lot...Make you wish your daddies and mommies never bumped uglies... You takin' this down, college boy? Gonna be a quiz later. <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/FreshFish.jpg" target="_blank">Fishee fishee fisheeee...</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>The cacophony of cat calls would have made <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking" target="_blank">Stephen Hawking</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"> out run <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/CarlLewis.jpg" target="_blank">Carl Lewis</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: [noticing, in my periphery, an inmate with a salacious grin sizing up my best friend and his testicles] "Josh, I swear to God if somebody tries to get to you I'll shove this toothbrush so far into their eye they'll quiver 'til their buried."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Right on man."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>We are led by Trustee through the horse-shoe cell block. We arrive to find our new home in a state of relative calm. No wall of inhumanity wagering on our fortitude. No disease riddled playthings exposing themselves. Trustee motions to an elevated guard and the door in front of us opens.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>As it does I scan from left to right and observe a simple, half empty, 50 x 50 square room of 24 free-standing bunk beds, concrete tables with fixed benches, and what appeared to be a 7 foot high pyramid of industrial supply toilet paper. I consider the peculiarity of the single-ply stockpile and allow my mind to recall other places I may have seen such a collection…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: [to self] "High school bathroom? No. College dorm? No. Hospit… Wait, hospital… that's what this place reminds me of… it's like somebody knocked down the walls to like 20 hospital rooms and everybody just wants to lie down… except him, the guy who is sitting up, damn… dude is huge… wait, is dude is looking at us? No eye contact Dave, Discovery Channel said no eye contact, no disrespect… I love the Discovery Channel, so informative… it's in my top 5 channels with Food Network, ESPN, PBS and The History Chan… F%$&!"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">It is my experience that precious few things can reel in a tangential thought and streams of consciousness more quickly, more completely than seeing a large tattooed Mexican who has just been stirred from sleep, beckoning for you lay next to him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Dave, that dude is patting the bunk next to him."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "I know. Locked jaw man. Don't react."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: [as stone-faced as humanly possible] "I'm not. I'm just trying to figure out how I could talk him into preferring you over me."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh has a Sub-Saharan sense of humor. How he was able to maintain it in a time like this is beyond me.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Psychotic break? Possibly. Adrenaline intoxication? Not unheard of. Rationalizing that I was the reason he was here and therefor <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/mike-fredo.jpg" target="_blank">dead to him</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">? Most likely.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>All I know is that his humor fell on deaf ears. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee: "Go, go. Do what he say."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "Bull. Shit."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee: "No. No. Ok. Ok."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Damn the language barrier… damn it to an eternity of hell.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "No. No. What? Ok. Ok. What?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee: "Angel trustee."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>From this broken exchange I gleaned that the man wishing for us to rest next to him was 1) named Angel… assumingly for the product he was most adept at smuggling and 2) he had been designated a "Trustee" and, presumably, would not do anything to jeopardize that designation for a nice (read as "new/virgin") piece of ass.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Think on that folks. Number 2 is a big f%$&ing presumption.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>That said, I knew from watching prison exposes on the Discovery Channel and A&E that showing the slightest sign of disrespect could make things run afoul quicker than… than… than something that is really super quick.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>As such, I walk towards Angel, jaw set and arms flexed, readying my toothbrush underneath the fold of my mattress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: [pointing to the bunk next to his] "Aqui. Aqui. Here. You been here before? You know how dis works?"</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Have you ever said something, the tortured reminiscence of which sends you into cardiac arrest? Where just a millisecond of the memory instantaneously makes you contemplate guzzling Drano? I have one or two of these recollections. They occasionally organize themselves into stealthy sneak-attacks like so many ninjas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I'll be having a pleasant conversation with a friend about a random subject (say, the deliciousness of butternut squash soup), and something my friend says will set off a reaction of brain cells that will unlock a Vietnam-Vet styled PTSD flashback of embarrassment which will, in turn, make me spasm and shout "OH SHIT!" like a tourettes victim. My startled friend will look up from his tablespoon of creamy bisque and say, "What the hell just happened?" I will timidly respond, "Oh...nothing."<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">My response to Angel is one such memory.<o:p></o:p><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Did I recognize that I was possibly the freshest fish to ever darken the doorstep of Val Verde County Jail? Did I assume that Angel had a cognitive functioning higher than that of coppice stone moss and could see through transparent bravado?<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">No. I did not.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>My response?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "Haven't been <span style="font-style: italic;">here</span> before. But I know how it works."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Shoot. Me. Uggghhhhhhhhh.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Seriously, on the <a href="http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/021107" target="_blank">Unintentional Comedy Scale</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">, an upper middle class, honors student of a private, Church of Christ affiliated university telling a hardened Mexican felon awaiting his arraignment for trafficking meth that he was familiar with life on the "inside" in hopes of somehow intimidating himself out of an anal raping has to rank safely in the upper echelon… somewhere between "<a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/BAG.jpg" target="_blank">David Silver</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"> singing 'Keep It Together on '90210'" (97) and "<a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/mullet.jpg" target="_blank">Mullets</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">" (99).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Luckily, smuggling a drug that is essentially asthma medicine boiled in kerosene doesn't require one to have all their tacos on their combination plate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: "Asi. Asi. Trustee come at seex. [pointing to Josh] You sweep. [pointing to me] You mop. Free times a day until next gringo comes, si?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: [nodding nonchalantly yet wondering if it is only the white guys who sweep and mop, contemplating a potential injustice] "yeah, si." <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: "Desayuno at seex-turdy. When you brush teef [pointing to sink], you dry up [pointing to mound of toilet paper]. When you wash hands [pointing to sink], you dry up [again pointing to toilet paper]. We have muy muy. You put anyteng on de floor, you use muy muy to dry up. Clean, clean. Si?" <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: [Utterly shocked and completely pleased at this Mexican's attention to personal and environmental hygiene] "Si. Si."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: [laying back down] "a few weeks, you will be Trustee and everteng is cool."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Gracias."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: "De nada."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I did not sleep so much as a wink on the ninth night of December, 1999. Up until that point in my life I had only one occasion to know the meaning of the word "hypersensitive". That occasion was as a freshman in high school as myself and Jarrod Gaston had returned to the high school field house in the late evening from a baseball tournament. My mother was late picking us up and in the middle of taking an absolutely prodigious dump on the hood of Stone Scoggin's Jeep, the choir room alarm decided to summon local police. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Seriously folks, if you went to high school with me you know he totally deserved it… he used to walk around singing "Stone Daaaaawggi Daaaaawg…" to the tune Snoop's "What's My Name" for shit's sake… but, God love 'em, that was our <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Stone.jpg" target="_blank">Stone</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I can honestly say that running from officers of the law, wind pants around your ankles, hoping you haven't shat yourself too bad as you find refuge in the bushes of a Plum Street alley isn't even in the same "Dear God, please let nobody notice me" universe as trying to telekinetically melt yourself into the mattress on your first night in a border-town jail.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>[Familar voice from the bunk above]: "Dude..."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "I know… I know."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Morning arrives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>How could one tell you might ask? Was the dawn of a new day announced by Edvard Grieg's "<a href="http://www.kickassclassical.com/grieg_morning.mp3" target="_blank">Morning</a>"? Rossini's "<a href="http://www.kickassclassical.com/rossini_williamtell01.mp3" target="_blank">Ranz Des Vaches</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">"? Au contraire... I woulda been just peachy had it been friggin Reveille, but no no... what else could call to order those in Val Verde County Jail other than the <a href="http://www.djmarkymarc.com/Tejano_Boys-Loca_Terquedad.mp3" target="_blank">music of Lucifer himself</a>...<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>A mere 4 hours prior Angel mentioned in passing that I could potentially rise to the level of "Trustee" in a scant 3 weeks time. To this day I am unaware of the specific requirements in place to earn such a title. Though, I can state with relative certainty that never has a "Trustee" been made of an inmate who has done something as seemingly psychotic and irrational as gouging out his own ear drums.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>In that first, stirring moment of the new day, I would have been pleased to die.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I should say however that I was pleased to see that my friend Josh and I had been placed in what appeared to be the Val Verde County Kiddy Pool. Clearly posing no threat to the processing deputies, they had seen fit to place us in a cell with a dozen or so Mexican inmates primarily of ages 15-17 and 63-67… presumably arrested for stealing a car stereo or vagrancy and unable to post bail.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Asserting that Josh and I were for all intents and purposes tied for 2nd place as the "most physically imposing inmate", I began to feel a little better about the prospects of the both of us leaving this experience without having to hear a medical doctor utter the words "ruptured sphincter".<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I designate Angel as the alpha male and decide I must first and foremost firmly entrench myself in his good graces. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee enters the room with push broom and mop. As I rise I notice <s>my friend Josh climbing down from the top bunk</s> my friend Josh's ginormous testicles swaying in the stale air.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "Dude, seriously… I should have let you have the bottom bunk."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Naw man, it's cool… I really think that Angel dude thinks you spent puberty in Juvie instead of <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/churchcamp.jpg" target="_blank">Pettyjohn Springs Christian Camp</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">. You need to stay down there and apply some heat."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "Seriously, something's gotta give with you scrote'n it all over the place… you wanna trade pants? I got drawr's on."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Dave, give me one good reason for being naked from the waist down at this time, in this place."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "F$%# you man, I'm trying to help."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: [whispering, and sternly so] "If you wanna help, follow me with that mop and make sure you don't miss a single square inch. I don't wanna find out how the only O/CD beaner in history reacts when somebody f$%#s up his house."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>We complete our duties and return to our beds, being careful to not so much as fart without witnessing a more established resident do so first in order to establish the accepted protocol.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>As we observe, Angel addresses us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel: "Gringos, gringos… floor.. good… bueno, bueno."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Gracias."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Trustee returns to the door with a cart resembling those used by flight attendants and begins passing trays of breakfast through a slit in the window. Josh and I assume our rightful positions in the back of the line and wait.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I was surprised to learn that, evidently, Val Verde County Jail contracts with the same <a href="http://www.sysco.com/" target="_blank">food supplier</a> as <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Durant</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Independent</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">School District</st1:placetype></st1:place>. I had had this meal before… sausage links wrapped in syrup infused flap-jacks… apple sauce… and not one but two single serving, hermetically sealed bowls of Kellogg cereal… Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">This might be a decent day after all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I make my way towards an empty table. On the way I pass Angel and place my bowl of fruit loops on his tray.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Son of bitch. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>I type that now and I almost fall out of my chair.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Where did I think I was, <a href="http://www.thefiredrake.com/graphics/pbprison2.jpg" target="_blank">Pelican Bay</a>? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Say what you will about my woeful reality testing, but what you cannot say is that I failed to apply... perfectly... all academic knowledge of the U.S. prison system I had ever learned from any book, tour, evangelism, movie or documentary. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Angel nods affirmatively and I feel significantly more secure than I did prior to purchasing myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>The morning passed into the afternoon and afternoon slipped into evening.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Consider please the most mind-numbingly bored you have ever been in your entire life.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Maybe it was a restless Saturday just last month… maybe it was an afternoon at a family reunion or a potluck lunch at your church's gymnasium. Whatever it was, multiply it by 7. Nay, 7 <span style="font-style: italic;">times</span> 70 and you might begin to have the vaguest conception of what it is like to pass the day playing Solitaire with a 48 card deck or reading "La Biblia, colocó por el Gideons".<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>In a word, <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/legoghraib.jpg" target="_blank">torture</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Honestly, in what level of hell are things like the Bible and Sportscenter (yes we had a TV) available only in Spanish? Where were we, Florida? I thought this was America. And that <s>music</s> manifestation of venomous rage… at what point did the accordion become part of Mexican culture? Did some random Polac stow away with Cortes? I must have missed that day of 5th grade when Mrs. Taylor talked about the Conquistadors.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Ladies, gentlemen… this persisted for not 12 hours… not 24… not 48.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">No, no. You see, when Stephen Wells says "We'll have to wait and see" what he actually means is "I'm gonna call back after putting the fear of God into you, you ungrateful, disrespectful pissant, and make sure you aren't gonna be in a cell with murderers and rapists. Then I'm gonna make <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> wait until you are convinced the only reason you have not been bailed out of jail is that me and your mom were killed in some freak electrical storm."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>In all actuality, a playful, cross cultural discussion with Angel and a young Mexican teen about the medicinal benefits of anabolic steroids was not interrupted by a grace-filled phone call until the first hours of day 3, Monday, December 12th. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Interestingly, debilitating stress and pure elation have very nearly the exact same effect on memory. That is to say, my memory of being released to a rather large bailbondswoman named Maria Sanchez is almost as vacant as the transfer of custody from the DEA to Sheriff's Department.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>This vacancy persists until I find myself in the back seat of a sedan assisting Josh in describing to Maria exactly how idiotic we are.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Josh: "It's tough to describe just how idiotic we are."<br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Maria: "I don't doubt you two for a second… you is dumb en's. Why you didn't just mail it back to yourselves… only like one outta 10 get stopped and der's a fed ex just next door to that pharmacy you describin'… what on earff you tink its der for, Christmas presents?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "I think I'm gonna throw up."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Maria: "One a you's got a good sista tho. She got a room reserved for ya at la Ramada so you don't hafta drive back to Abilene tonight."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Dude! Karen!"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "Oh kind and blessed soul…"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>That night was spent in what was very nearly complete silence. Perhaps only this brief exchange:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "Dude… did this happen?" <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: [In the middle of brushing my teeth for the 6th time] "Yeah… it did… and I have an Organic Chemistry final in 32 hours."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Josh: "You know any of it."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Me: "It's supposed to be 32 questions long. Unless Dr. Reeves thought of 32 different ways to ask 'What's added to the halogenalkanes in a Grignard Reaction?', I'm f#$%ed."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p>Sadly, I was never asked that question… not even once. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><o:p>I would have answered "</o:p>Magnesium".<br /></span></p><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >I would have received full credit.</span>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-87568540363653733422007-05-15T11:42:00.001-07:002023-02-01T12:51:14.640-08:00My Weekend in Val Verde County Jail: Part I - A River Runs Through It<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Within 30 seconds of crossing the border a pigmied Mexican national approached…<br /><br />Jose: "Gringos! Gringos! Que paso!?! Que paso!?! What you want… Llello? Marijuana?"<br /><br />Me: "Nandrolone Decanoate?"<br /><br />Josh: "Dude, seriously… do you honestly think he's taken a biochemistry class?"<br /><br />Me: [turning back to the pigmied Mexican] "Donde esta la farmacia?"</span><p style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">-- -- -- -- --</span></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">In case you haven't realized it or have just always given me the benefit of the doubt, I, dear friends, have a near superhuman ability to be a complete idiot.<br /><br />Once upon a time, I was a 19 year old honors student at Abilene Christian University. I stood 6'1" and weighed 194 lbs with 8-10 percent body fat. I could run 3.2 miles in less than 20 minutes and had a resting heart-rate in the low 50's (obviously, that has all <a href="https://www.artsheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/leonardo-da-vinci-narcissus-1-768x735.jpg" target="_blank">pretty much gone to shit</a> in the last 7 years).<br /><br />For reasons that truly surpass understanding I did not like my physical condition or the fact that I had to work so hard to maintain it. As such, I decided to pursue what some call "better living through chemistry".<br /><br />My decision to drive from Abilene, TX to Acuna, Mexico for the purposes of crossing the border and purchasing anabolic steroids was, at best, ill-conceived and, at worst, mentally retarded. This bastard conception had its beginning when I was made to write a 40 page research paper for a biochemistry lab. My randomly assigned topic? AIDS Wasting Syndrome (AWS).<br /><br />Remember the freaky-as-hell public awareness campaign of the early 90's that featured a 17-19 year old kid in a hospital bed covered with purple sores? Yeah, well as destructive as that campaign's scare tactics may have been to the general public's attitudes towards AIDS patients, it wasn't too far off the mark of showing somebody suffering from advanced AWS… which is essentially when your body is so starved for nutrients it has eaten through all your fat reserves and begins chowing down on its own muscle.<br /><br />During the course of researching the various forms of treatment I came across the standard procedure for "steroid therapy". Come to find out, anabolic steroids can be pretty useful in treating AWS and cause virtually no harmful side effects provided a high quality, mild steroid is used in the clinically suggested dosages for the clinically suggested periods of time. "So you're saying I can gain 10-15 lbs. of muscle that I basically will never lose and have no harmful side effects? Well that's DANDY!"<br /><br />So, I decide to try it out.<br /><br />Yeah, I know… brilliant. You know that "superhuman ability to be a complete idiot" I mentioned earlier? That is very closely linked with my savant-like skill in outthinking myself. I would say that I am too smart for my own good but anybody who has gotten themselves into some of the situations I have cannot be said to be smart at all, let alone too smart for their own good.<br /><br />But, there was a problem. Purchasing or possessing steroids in the United States without a prescription is illegal.<br /><br />I am a terrible liar and knew that if I couldn't effectively lie to my parents about walking unescorted to a Love's to get a Mountain Dew before one of my 7th grade football games then I couldn't even entertain the idea of getting a medical doctor to give me, a perfectly healthy person, an illegitimate prescription for anabolic steroids.<br /><br />Luckily, Abilene was only three and a half hours away from a place where prescriptions were not needed in order to purchase steroids… Mexico. I had zero interest in going to Mexico by myself so I called my best childhood friend who had just so happened to have gone out to ACU with me.<br /><br />Me: "Hey man, you wanna go to Mexico?"<br /><br />Josh: "Uhhhh, when?"<br /><br />Me: "Like, this afternoon."<br /><br />Josh: "Dude, finals start next week."<br /><br />Me: "Yeah, I know… but we could get down there and back in like 8 hours."<br /><br />Josh: [having quickly calculated drive time] "Uhhh, why the crap would you want to go to Mexico for an hour?"<br /><br />Me: "I wanna see if I can't get some of those steroids I wrote that paper about."<br /><br />Josh: "... … … "<br /><br />Josh: "You realize that would require you to somehow smuggle them back into the United States?"<br /><br />Me: "Well, yeah."<br /><br />Josh: "You realize you would probably have to do that while interacting with the Border Patrol?"<br /><br />Me: "Well, yeah."<br /><br />Josh: "You realize that you have the guiltiest conscience of anybody on the planet?"<br /><br />Me: [knowing I had already out kicked my intellectual coverage and not thought this through] "Seriously man, I've thought this through… you wanna go or not?"<br /><br />Being the best imaginable friend he his, Josh decided that there was no way he could let me do this on my own.<br /><br />We leave for Acuna, Mexico in the early afternoon of Thursday, December 9th. The drive was as uneventful as a drive could possibly be… this is <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/West-Texas.gif" target="_blank">south, south, west, west, southwest Texas</a> for God's sake.<br /><br />But, a little over three hours later we arrive at the last bastion of civilization… Del Rio, Texas. We decide there is no way we are making that drive twice in one day so we check into a hotel and stow all valuables save a few hundred dollars cash and our driver's licenses… and duct tape… with which we planned to tape the steroids to our inner thighs… before we walked past US Border Patrol agents… let that sink in for a minute then realize exactly how not thought through this whole thing really was. Why we didn't think to just stay in Mexico and get hammered 'til 5 in the morning and take an unassuming taxi back into the States like every other idiot American college student is beyond me.<br /><br />You would think that somebody who didn't have an aversion to buying steroids without a prescription in Mexico would not have any reservations about under aged drinking in Mexico. But, you would be incorrect. You would be incorrect because like I said earlier, I am an idiot and had somehow got into my noggin that legislators were stupid and steroids were a good idea so long as I followed what I had read in the New England Journal of Medicine. </span></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Plus, I grew up in the Church of Christ; </span><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">drinking is wrong.<br /><br />-- -- -- -- --<br /><br />Jose: "La farmacia?!?!"<br /><br />Me: "Si, si… la farmacia."<br /><br />Jose: "You got de flu?"<br /><br />Me: "Where is it?"<br /><br />Jose: "Juss down de road holmes..."<br /><br />Sure enough, Pedro was right.<br /><br />Josh and I enter the first brightly lit pharmacy of satisfactory cleanliness we see and begin perusing. Viagra. Xanax. Oxycodone. It was an impotent pill popper's wet dream. Tellingly, these highly recreational and highly abused medications seemed to represent the bulk of this "pharmacy's" inventory.<br /><br />Me: "Excuse me. Sir, do you carry Nandralone Decanoate or Deca-Durabolin?"<br /><br />"Pharmacist": "Que?"<br /><br />Me: "Steroids?"<br /><br />"Pharmacist": "Ahhh… si, si, si… [pointing to a bottom shelf] … aqui, aqui."<br /><br />I look to the shelf.<br /><br />Apparently, the Mexican National Steroid Taking Team calls this place home.<br /><br />Seriously, what I saw was a collection of the most harsh synthetic muscle builders known to man. For those who wanted to make their arms explode… Dianabol. For those who wanted to annihilate any trace of fat… Winstrol. Honest to God folks, Winstrol (or Stanozolol) was originally developed for Thoroughbreds… freaking <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/BenJohnson.jpg" target="_blank">RACE HORSES</a>… I could be wrong, but I don't think <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/Acuna.jpg" target="_blank">Acuna</a> is Mexico's <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/Kentucky.jpg" target="_blank">Louisville</a>.<br /><br />Me: "Dude, these are all heavy man… I don't wanna grow boobs or have my nuts shrink."<br /><br />Josh: "I guess you've made peace with the fact you're already losing your hair."<br /><br />Me: "Ass."<br /><br />Josh: "What about this… [picks up box of Sustanon 250] … This is what Sean takes (mutual friend and pitcher for ACU's baseball team)."<br /><br />Me: [picking up a box as though I know what the hell I'm doing] "Yeah you're right. This is a little more powerful than what I was going for but if I decide not to take it I guess I could always sell it."<br /><br />Josh: "Yeah, for sure dude… if this smuggling gig works out why not just start dealing too?"<br /><br />Disallowing enough time to pass to reconsider what we were doing, we buy two 3 month supplies and make our way into the streets of Acuna in search of some place to duct-tape 24 tiny glass viles to our thighs.<br /><br />I just laughed out loud as I typed that. This is shameful.<br /><br />Me: [cramped in North America's most disgusting bathroom, trying not to touch the walls] "Dude… this is gonna hurt so bad when we pull this tape off."<br /><br />Josh: [focusing on more urgent matters] "I don't care about that. All I care about is getting back across without any of those Border Patrol agents thinking anything is up."<br /><br />Me: "Dude, don't talk about that… I'll get nervous."<br /><br />Josh: "We got offered coke and bud from a beaner who is probably on the DEA payroll. As we speak we're probably getting Hepatitis C from this 'bathroom' and in about ten minutes we're gonna walk across the Mexican/US border with illegal controlled substances taped to our thighs and you're not already nervous? I don't care if you get nervous. Just don't be an idiot."<br /><br />As I considered the chain of events that was just recounted for me, I could literally feel the blood drain from my face.<br /><br />From there we made our way from downtown Acuna back to the border station, purchasing 2 traditional Mexican wool blankets and some pure vanilla along the way so as to minimize suspicion.<br /><br />Unfortunately, there are only two reasons 18-25 year old American males go to Acuna… 1) under aged drinking or 2) buying prescription drugs. We were two young, muscular American men who had asked a DEA informant directions to the nearest pharmacy and were now walking back to the States stone-cold sober in the middle of the afternoon. Had we been vomiting out the windows of a Mexican cab at 5 o'clock in the morning the following conversation would have most likely never taken place…<br /><br />Border Patrol Agent: [Literally, first words out of his mouth] "So uh, you boys been to any pharmacies?"<br /><br />Josh: "No sir, just checking things out before we head back over there later this evening with the rest of our group."<br /><br />Border Patrol Agent: [recognizing that I had begun to sweat profusely and tremble violently as I gazed skyward in search of a SWAT team rappelling off the adjacent rooftops to take me down] "Really? Well what do you say I have a talk with your buddy here while you stick around and talk with my partner."<br /><br />Josh, God love 'em, he really did try. But he knew I might as well have had a <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/sandwichboard.jpg" target="_blank">sandwich board</a> around my neck advertising "Free Arrests".<br /><br />The Border Patrol Agent lead me into an interrogation room complete with bolted down stainless steel chairs and one-way mirror.<br /><br />Border Patrol Agent: "I am about to pat you down. Are there any objects on your person that pose a danger to me?"<br /><br />Me: "No sir. But I would like tell you that taped to my thighs are 12 glass viles of anabolic steroids I purchased in Acuna approximately 45 minutes ago."<br /><br />Barry Goldwater put up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_US_Presidential_Election" target="_blank">a better fight</a>.<br /><br />Moments later I found myself hand-cuffed and seated in a United States Border Patrol waiting room next to my best friend, who was also hand-cuffed. Brow-beating us was the largest law enforcement official I had seen or ever will see in my entire life.<br /><br />Black felt cowboy hat. Black cotton t-shirt with the letters "D.E.A" printed on the left breast in yellow, blocked letters. Over-dyed wrangler jeans so tight they made <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/chuck-norris.jpg" target="_blank">Chuck Norris</a> look like <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/YoungJeezy.jpg" target="_blank">Young Jeezy</a>. Boots that had clearly been forced into somebody's ass.<br /><br />DEA Agent: "I'm runnin' your numbers. You shit stains best not say a word."<br /><br />Me & Josh: [Nodding quickly and affirmatively]<br /><br />As DEA Agent runs our social security numbers he informs us of several interesting bits of information… incredibly useful bits of information… incredibly useful bits of information such as the statutory amount of controlled substance that constitutes a felony as opposed to misdemeanor and how interested seasoned inmates typically are in new arrivals… particularly, new arrivals with uniquely red hair.<br /><br />DEA Agent: "WELL WELL WELL… Abilene, Texas. Hey Jerry, looks like we got us some more flyboys from Dyess."<br /><br />Josh: "Sir, I…"<br /><br />DEA Agent: "What did I say? WHAT DID I SAY?!?! Not a WORD boy!"<br /><br />Josh: "Yeah, I KNOW… BUT WE'RE NOT IN THE FREAKING AIR FORCE!"<br /><br />Me: [not knowing I was partially verbalizing my prayer to God for my best friend not to be beaten to death with a felt cowboy hat] "Lor… ple… humina, juss uh… ple dear.. oh nev ev, juss ple…"<br /><br />DEA Agent: "You think I'm tarded out? We got sixa yer buddies from Dyess in the back, had 'em for 2 days… that ring's busted to hell but you all just keep comin' in. Now, tell me everything I wanna know 'bout Dyess."<br /><br />I guess " tell me everything" and "about Dyess" are pretty much all I heard DEA Agent say because I let loose a flood of quite literally everything I knew about Dyess Air Force Base like I was <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/Chunk.jpg" target="_blank">about to get my hand shoved in a blender</a>.<br /><br />Me: "SirDyessAirforceBaseissituatedjustwestofAbileneTexasandishometothe7thBomber<br />Wingconsistingofover30B1bombersthelargestB1groupinournationsairforce.Ihaveacousin<br />namedBradleyBowenwhowasamechaniconB1sandIthinkhemighthavebeenstationedat<br />Dyesssometimeintheearly90sbutIcan'tsayforsure.HonesttoGodSirthatisallIknowabout<br />DyessandIdon'tknowanybodythereoranythingaboutasteroidring.Ineedtopeepee."<br /><br />My verbal diarrhea was so pitifully pitiful, DEA Agent actually laughed out loud.<br /><br />Stress does funny things to memory. Namely, completely erases it. I suppose the prospect of having convicted felons wagering a pack of Lucky Strikes on whether or not my cuffs and collar matched was simply more than I could bear. I suppose this because the four to five hours following my soliloquy on the 7th Bomber Wing can only be recalled in the form of random still photos snapped by my mind's eye… the wind-swept Wal-Mart sack that hit my leg as I was being placed in the back of a police cruiser… the deputy's "Val Verde County Jail" shoulder patch… the field of blue-bordered white light that persists in one's vision after their mug shot is taken…<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "What phone numbers would you like to call?"<br /><br />Me: "You mean I get more than one?"<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "Of course… what if nobody answered?"<br /><br />Me: "Wow, that's really considerate. I had no idea."<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "First time?"<br /><br />Me: "For what? Getting arrested or being an idiot?"<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: [Laughing with her partner] "What number should I dial?"<br /><br />Me: "Well, that depends. Is there anyway you can tell me how much trouble I'm in? I really have no idea where I stand."<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "You are being charged with a Class A Misdemeanor, Possession of a Controlled Substance."<br /><br />Me: "So I'm not a felon?"<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "Nope."<br /><br />Me: "Ok, then I guess I need to talk to my dad."<br /><br />Josh: [to the deputy who is taking his mug shot] "You might wanna hold off on taking my picture and listen to him talk to his dad… it really could make your day."<br /><br />There is a saying… "A good friend will bail you out of jail, but your best friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'Damn that was fun!'"<br /><br />While that may be true for some, it is my experience that your best friend will have to have his mug shot taken 3 times because he is laughing at the conversation you've just had with your dad… who tested the outer limits of just how closely a person can come to killing their offspring through telephone lines.<br /><br />Dad: [sounding like you expect somebody to sound if they had been awaken at 1 a.m.] "He, hello?"<br /><br />Me: "Dad, this is your son, David (I have no brothers). I am calling you from the Val Verde County Jail. I was arrested after purchasing anabolic steroids in Acuna, Mexico and attempting to bring them back into the United States. I am now being charged with a Class A Misdemeanor, Possession of a Controlled Substance. I need your help."<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 2: "Well there it is."<br /><br />Josh: "Wait for it…"<br /><br />Dad: "Well, Dave… I have a tee-time at Las Colinas tomorrow morning at 10. I think your mom is heading up to Tulsa. Maybe she can help you out."<br /><br />Me: [to Josh and the Deputies] "He says he's playing golf tomorrow and my mom is out of town."<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 2: "Good call Dad."<br /><br />Josh: "Wait for it…"<br /><br />Mom: "David??? Dad said you're in ja, ja, ja [slips into complete hysterics… sound of telephone being quickly grasped and jerked away]"<br /><br />Dad: "DID YOU FORGET WHO YOU ARE!?!?!?! YOU ARE STEPHEN WELLS' SON!!! YOU ARE DAN WELLS' GRANDSON!!!!!!!!!!!"<br /><br />Me: [consumed by complete and total guilt and shame, desperately needing to cry yet realizing from movies and Discovery Channel shows that crying in jail is typically associated with anal rapes] "YES I DID FORGET WHO I AM! BUT I AM ABOUT TO BE PUT IN A JAIL CELL WITH ONLY GOD KNOWS WHAT AND I DON'T NEED TEAR STAINS ON MY FACE WHEN I GET IN THERE! YOU GONNA HELP OR NOT?"<br /><br />Dad: "Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see." [sound of phone disconnecting]<br /><br />Me: [to anybody, to nobody] "He said 'Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see.'"<br /><br />Josh: "THERE IT IS!!!"<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 2: "NICE!"<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "Smart dad."<br /><br />Me: "I… He… This is all my fault… all my doing… please don't think I have bad parents."<br /><br />Sheriff's Deputy 1: "I don't even know you."<br /><br />Again, stress does funny things. I cannot clearly recall anything that occurred during the ensuing period of time, the length of which I cannot specify. I am guessing I was finger printed and had my blood alcohol level tested. I am also guessing I was given a set of heavy weight, hunter-safety-orange scrubs along with a hygiene kit and told to go into a bathroom and change because it is there that I had my next lucid thought<br /><br />Me: [sound of record being numbly played backwards then quickly being corrected] "mmzzz zhafta dionzzACKS! Razor? RAZOR!?! WHY THE $%#@ DO THEY GIVE YOU A RAZOR?!?!"<br /><br />The make-shift weapons <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/A%20River%20Runs%20Through%20It/shivs.jpg" target="_blank">menagerie</a> that was the Val Verde County Jail hygiene kit was simply jaw dropping. The aforementioned razor… full-length molded plastic tooth brush… soap (hey, I was alarmed… everything looked dangerous).<br /><br />As I exited the bathroom I was given a twin-sized mattress and pillow then told to stand next to Josh and wait for an escort to our new home.<br /><br />Me: "Dude, they give you a freaking razor and toothbrush handle… all anybody in there has is time…"<br /><br />Josh: "Dave. I could not care less about some flimsy safety razor or how long some dude has had to form an edge on the handle of the toothbrush he never uses."<br /><br />Me: "Huh?"<br /><br />Josh: "Dude, look…"<br /><br />Josh, who was blessed at birth by God with <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/squirrel_nuts.jpg" target="_blank">more than just a dry sense of humor and considerable musical ability</a>, then turned and removed his shielding mattress. In so doing Josh revealed the following: 1) The pants he had been given by the deputies were at least 2 sizes too small; 2) The crotch of said pants had been ripped along the seam; and 3) Josh had worn a pair of blue boxers for our trip to Mexico, never anticipating a Sheriff's Deputy would tell he'd have to remove all none-white clothing for fear of instigating a gang war within one of our nation's busiest county jails.<br /><br />Yep, my best friend Testaclese was about to be introduced to the Texas State Department of Corrections while free-ballin' in a pair of snuggly fitting crotchless pants.<br /><br />As this realization swept over the both of us our escort, Sheriff's Deputy 2, called for the security doors to be opened. Immediately a tidal wave of cat calls and whistles from what lay before us flooded the holding area.<br /><br />Josh: "Goodbye 'anal virginity', hello 'lifetime of loose stool'."</span></p>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-68021298268227406432007-05-15T11:41:00.000-07:002007-12-26T13:25:21.459-08:00By The Light Of A Neon Moon<p><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span>I have, on occasion, been known to drink alcohol.<br /><br />This has, on occasion, resulted in grave risk of bodily harm.<br /><br />This risk of bodily harm has been known to manifest itself either internally (in the form of cirrhosis of the liver) or externally (in the form of abrupt contact with bar tables, pool cues and/or bodies of water).<br /><br />On a few notable occasions the integrity of my physical being has come into serious question at the behest of my closest friends.<br /><br />The bachelor party thrown for my close friend C-Murdah was one such occasion.<br /><br />This is C-Murdah...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/C-Murdah.jpg" /><br /><br />A Preface:<br /><br />As you are probably aware, the American bachelor party traditionally involves activities beyond the typical soiree. Such activities may include, but are not limited to, visiting a strip club or hiring a female stripper and/or escort. Pre-operation transsexuals are also for hire... err, so I'm told. In some cases, the activities may resemble hazing at the future groom's expense. The purpose of such behavior is to mark the passage from "adolescent bachelorhood" to "responsible marital life" with one last gasp of free air.<br /><br />There is an interesting dynamic within the circle of friends I maintain from my days at Abilene Christian University. While we have been known to enjoy the effects of alcohol, we are not given to complete debauchery. This is due in large part to the fact that, in the past 4 and a half years, virtually every member of the circle has married far above himself. As such, our bachelor parties typically do not include activities that clearly jeopardize our friend's spousal windfall.<br /><br />There is of course, one member of the association who does not have the Sword of Damocles precariously hanging over marital ties. Allow me to introduce you to the Lone Ranger:<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/1.jpg" /><br /><br />(Feel free to insert your own "Tonto" joke here______________... Assholes.)<br /><br />Given the collective desire of my closest friends to remain married to wonderful women with whom they have no business being wed, the role of "Bachelor-by-Proxy" has, on occasion, fallen upon my shoulders.<br /><br />I can honestly say that I have not sought this role.<br /><br />Conversely, I cannot honestly say that I have refused this role.<br /><br />I will say however, that any acceptance of this role has been made not by me but by my drunken alter-ego known to my closest friends as "Damien BeWellsabub".<br /><br />An Explanation:<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Graphology/GrapghologicalAnalysisofDavidJasonW.jpg" target="_blank">My personality</a></span><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span> consists of several strong traits… "comprehensive thought", "desire for culture", "stubbornness"… as well as "compulsivity". "Compulsivity" can be useful in areas such as creative and janitorial arts. But you see, when mixed with large quantities of alcohol, my compulsive tendencies do not tend to be creative in the artistic sense.<br /><br />Rather, that concoction tends to result in the playful punching of others, the jocular throwing of objects into unsuspecting crowds, the cheerful engagement in limb-threatening behavior and other generally destructive and socially unacceptable merriment.<br /><br />These behaviors are clear indicators that Damien is present and should most certainly be accounted for. Over the years, it seems as though my friends have learned how to harness Damien's disruptive force and bridle him for their own amusement.<br /><br />August 5, 2006 marked the confluence of begrudgingly mature husbands giving a responsible friend a bachelor party and my ingestion of not only my fair share of alcohol but the fare shares of 12 other individuals.<br /><br />There were 8 of us.<br /><br />3 came from Dallas.<br /><br />Foster from Midland, TX<br /><br />Pow-wow from Branson, MO<br /><br />Me from Durant, OK<br /><br />and C-Murdah from Boulder, CO<br /><br />Never one to bore himself, Murdah decided not to fly the 1,100 miles from northern Colorado to central Texas. Murdah thought it would be prudent to drive the 1,100 miles... on his motorcycle... while taking a wholly unnecessary, but no doubt scenic, detour through southern New Mexico...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/CodyRoute.jpg" /><br /><br />And just in case you were wondering...<br /><br />This...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/Pause.jpg" /><br /><br />Equals this...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/CodyDetour.jpg" /><br /><br />Yeah, he's probably the only person on the planet to own a $270,000 house and a BMW touring motorcycle as his 3rd form of transportation but consistently refuse to pay for a hotel room unless absolutely necessary... and that's one of the reasons we love him.<br /><br />Grrr is the anal-retentive one of the group and was naturally responsible for the planning.<br /><br />This is Grrr...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/GrrrNormal.jpg" /><br /><br />But then again, so is this...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/GrrrHelmet.jpg" /><br /><br />Grrr tried his best to guide the rest of us into making sound plans but we are an incorrigible lot when anticipating getting to see each other again.<br /><br />Example:<br /><br />Grrr: "We're contemplating the pros and cons of a houseboat bachelor party."<br /><br />C-Murdah: "Pro: Peeing off the deck. Con: Drowning."<br /><br />Foster: "But still - peeing outside is AWESOME."<br /><br />Grrr decided he did not want to be the tenant-of-record for accomodations that could potentially lead to the death of one or more of his closest friends. Wisely, he rented a riverside house for the weekend. Nothing grand, just a simple 2 bedroom rental in various stages of disrepair... existing solely for the purposes of housing drunken river lovers and their beer.<br /><br />In it was bedding for 8, a refrigerator, a bathroom and a broken DVD player that would not play the porn we did not bring. Outside there was a grill, ample lawn furniture and… with my hand to God… a billboard.<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/Group2arrow.jpg" /><br /><br />(Front Left to Right: Trav, Pow-wow, Greyhound, Grrr. Back Left to Right: Foster, Me, Tobias, C-Murdah)<br /><br />Actually, technically, what we had in our backyard is known in the advertising industry as a "bulletin"… defined as such by its measurements of 14 feet high by 48 feet wide standing atop pedestal of at least 4 storeys (48 feet).<br /><br />Please note, when I say "in the back yard" I do not mean to say "just outside the fence but still closer than I've ever been to a friggin' billboard" or "just across the street in an empty lot". No, no. I literally mean "in... the... back... yard." Anyhow, our's advertised a local, German-themed water park… Der Schlitterbahn… yeah, central Texas is funny.<br /><br />As you might surmise from the presence of a billboard, the backyard was no more than 150-200 feet from a major highway. How major? Interstate 35… linking Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota via San Antonio, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Kansas City. Needless to say, Grrr rented this place sight-unseen.<br /><br />The group spent the first night easing into each other's company...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/ShadMicah.jpg" /><br /><br />... and making trips to the local emergency care clinic...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/Stitches.jpg" /><br /><br />The following day was filled with various behavior of which, sadly, there is no photographic memorialization... being pelted with miniature plastic penises by river-floating bachelorette parties and hurling them back at hazardous velocities... urinating on the feet of those seated in front of us on the bus taking us back to the river's entrance... hitting on the seemingly of-age underaged daughter of a drunken family Pow-wow saw fit to invite back to our house for dinner... and that's just me.<br /><br />Well, not me, but Damien... who had appeared in my stead some time between asking an officer of the law what constituted illegal public behavior on Texas waterways and giggling hysterically as my good friend Shad (a.k.a. "Tobias") recognized I was somehow peeing on his feet from 2 seats away.<br /><br />But, there is behavior that was in fact memorialized.<br /><br />That evening we sat in the backyard, digesting our BBQ, hydrating ourselves with Milwaukee's Best, enjoying our incredibly random and completely ghetto billboard. You see, backyard billboards make for great conversation.<br /><br />While I cannot clearly recall the conversation that took place, I do know my friends well and know their need to be entertained. So, I can safely assume from past experience, conversation was most likely very similar to the following:<br /><br />C-Murdah: [Looking at me, speaking to the others, pointing to the billboard] "You know, its good to see you guys... but I'm kinda disappointed..."<br /><br />Foster: [Catching on to Murdah's intent] "Yeah man, we need something to make this special. Otherwise, it's just another weekend with Dave peeing everywhere."<br /><br />Tobias: [Never one to pussy-foot around a subject] "Hey Dave... DAVE!... Betchya won't climb up that billboard..."<br /><br />Me: [rousing from a bobble-headed stupor] "Huh... I'm gonna climb something?"<br /><br />C-Murdah: [slow playing better than </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://www.doylebrunson.com/" target="_blank">Doyle Brunson</a></span><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span>] "Naw man... don't worry about it... the ladder is way too high... there's no way you could get up there."<br /><br />Me: [turning 'round to assess the obstacle]<br /><br />Pow-wow: [eager to see this happen] "I think if I drive my truck back here, Dave could climb on the top and reach the bottom rung."<br /><br />The Group: [collectively] "Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe..."<br /><br />Tobias: [again, never one for subtlety] "Bullshit, Dave's too drunk and doesn't have the balls."<br /><br />Me: [incensed] "GO #$%& YOURSELF MR. GADDIS! Powie, get me your truck."<br /><br />(<span style="font-style: italic;">Sidenote: Tobias is married to a very sweet and very fun woman whose maiden name was </span></span></span></span></span><a style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=55224530" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:130%;">Laura Gaddis</span></a><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">. During their courtship Shad did not want to screw things up and focused heavily on their relationship to the near complete exclusion of any other social interaction. We give him hell about this as good friends should and do... like the time I sent them my law school graduation announcement addressed to "Mrs. and Mr. Gaddis"</span>)<br /><br />Powie immediately obliges.<br /><br />I am now becoming aware of my surroundings and determined to achieve my objective.<br /><br />After several minutes of maneuvering, Pow-wow nestles his SUV inches away from the advert's pillar. I climb atop his vehicle. Annoyed, I realize I am still approximately a foot away from the lowest rung. Jumping to the lowest rung was out of the question for two reasons... 1) I would surely dent the hood of my friend's SUV and 2) I am incredibly white and cannot cover 12 inches in my vertical leap... assistance would be needed.<br /><br />Like a drunken guardian angel, C-Murdah appears next to me. Murdah verbalizes some kind of enthused affirmation that most likely included the words "wicked" and "bro" then assumes the "wall-sit" position against the column, allowing me to reach the lowest rung thusly...</span></span></span></span></p><p><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size:130%;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/1-2.jpg" /><br /><br />Now, I am focused.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size:130%;">I am an entertainer and I have an audience.<br /><br />I cannot recall what was shouted by my friends below as their words were drowned by the cacophony of 80 mile-an-hour traffic some 50 yards away. But, evidently it made me happy and I noticed it enough to pause for a quick photo-op...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/2-2.jpg" /><br /><br />Several more moves and I was above earshot of any well-wishes or direction from my friends. Then, a buzz... a slight vibration in my left front pocket... a text message. In fact, it was a text message from my good friend Micah Foster simply stating the directive:<br /><br />"Don't fall bitch."<br /><br />Thanks, ass.<br /><br />So there I was, left alone on my perch contemplating what to do next and somewhat shocked at the complete lack of safety precautions installed on the scaffolding of 48 foot tall roadside billboards.<br /><br />Seriously folks, non-existent... as in vertical board, 2-foot wide catwalk, flood lights, air. No hand rails, no guy-lines... nada. Another intersting feature is the blindness caused by multiple million-candle-power flood lights illuminating directions to the board's sponsor.<br /><br />I decide this is no time for half-measures.<br /><br />I pull myself onto the catwalk.<br /><br />There, I proudly walk to the center of the sign and pay my respects to the ulterior doubt cast by my friends...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/By%20The%20Light%20of%20a%20Neon%20Moon/3-1.jpg" /><br /><br />I do not regret the fact that an untold number of families were subjected to the blinding glare of my ass.<br /><br />I do not </span><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >regret the panic my friends endured as 2 police cruisers sped around our residential corner and off to parts unknown.<br /><br />My only regret is that I had no tinkle left with which to christen those who would manipulate my drunken chutzpah for their own amusement.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-83468919193374689322007-05-15T11:40:00.001-07:002021-01-15T18:45:29.997-08:00Desenchantee: The French-Moroccan Stripper Who Smelled Funny<p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">The better half of my 23rd year was spent in western Europe under the auspices of studying law. Despite the negligible amount of study that took place, lessons were learned. They were as follows: 1) The language barrier is more often entertaining than obstructive; 2) personal responsibility is inversely proportional to the availability/reliability of public transportation; and 3) Russian door-men are not nearly as effective as they are foreboding.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">These lessons were learned throughout my 12 months overseas but it was a weekend in Paris that polished them to diamond clarity. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">You see, "law school" in London can only charitably be described as such. To wit, I took 14 semester hours and earned a 3.8 GPA with my first class of the week beginning at 1 p.m. on Tuesday and my last class concluding at 3 p.m. on Thursday. That's right folks, a 4 day weekend. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Additionally, the instructors saw little sense in burdening their students with loads not conducive to outings of drinking and foolishness interspersed with foolishness and drinking... both of which are inevitable goings on when a bunch of Type-A twenty-somethings find themselves 4,700 miles away from anything remotely familiar and who also possess self-granted license to burn through their trust fund/financial aid as expeditiously as possible. As such, the sage faculty of Tottenham Court are still revered as some of our world's most real, real-world thinkers. Juliet, Simone... we thank you.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Early September found my cohort Jensen and me ruminating the particulars of a trip to Paris and Normandy. At the time, our underwhelming, Harvard/Penn educated, homosexual roommate Jo was also considering the trip... (*Note* Jo, a.k.a. Josephina was a pot luck roommate who bore a striking resemblance to Isaac Mizrahi.) For reasons elucidated in the forthcoming "I Hope Your Children Burn in a Fire" blog, JoJo opted out of our trip to Paris and instead spent 4 days on the Greek coast.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">A short trip to STA Travel yielded an itinerary which commenced two weeks later. Jensen and I were booked at the Quality Inn located in Paris' Mont Marte or red light district. This arrangement was primarily borne out of economic prudence which stopped just shy of let's-stay-at-a-hostel frugality. The Quality Inn Mont Marte offered a bed, a bath, a window, free breakfast cheese & baguettes as well as an elevator so small as to preclude more than two individuals of medium build from entering sans baggage.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">The Q also offered reservation services for the famed Moulin Rouge... a scant 3 blocks away. It is a universal truth that when two 23 year old heterosexual males are offered dinner and boobies, the answer is "yes". A call was made, reservations were set and Jensen and I spent 2 of the next 3 days gaining intimate familiarization with the streets, sites and sounds of Paris. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">The actual show provided at the Moulin Rouge is not worth the price of admission... nor is the meal worth its cost. But, when you consider the fact that it is 2 hours of mediocre entertainment and overpriced food in the presence of truly world-class boobies... there's a certain amount of rationalization that occurs. </span></p><p><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/566369047_l.jpg" /></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Anyhoo, 370 euros and 2 bottles of wine later, Jensen and I spill into the streets of Mont Matre. Jensen and I are in the mood to see more boobies so we peruse our options over the next several hours as we make fun of the drunken tourists. One option, "Le Paradis" becomes our focus... primarily because we are drunken tourists and "Le Paradis" would only require the crossing of a single intersection. This is enough to make our decision... a fact that should serve as a telling barometer of our inebriation.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">We approach the rotund elderly man standing in the doorway and inquire as to the cover charge.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Drunk/Idiot Americans: "Say, how much to enter?"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Rotund Russian Septuagenarian: [thick Russian accent which catches the Drunk/Idiot Americans who were under the impression they were in France off guard] "20 euro."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Shocked/Not-That-Drunk Americans: "Get the hell outta here. 20 euros!?!?! That's almost $30!!!"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">RRS: "We have what you like, eh. What you like, eh? Boy on boy?</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Confused Americans: "WHAT!?!?! No, no, no... no... NO!"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Hey, just because he has on a purple shirt doesn't mean he likes boys you know?"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: "Thanks for the clarification... ass."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">RRS: "We have all... girl on girl... girl on boy... woman on boy eh."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Thoughtful/Analytical Americans: "Was he being redundant or did Tolstoy here intend to distinguish between girl on boy and woman on boy? Intriguing..."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Wait, this isn't a strip club... you're saying this is a sex show?"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">RRS: "Ya, Ya... sex show... 20 euro eh."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">At this point the explicit nature of the billboards and photographic collages they display begin to take on more contextual meaning. I am, to say the least, leery of entering a French sex show guarded by an elderly Russian... I have zero experience with these sort of places but something doesn't seem quite right. I have the sneaking suspicion that inside will be a man who goes by Dmitri No Thumbs. That in mind, I am no longer interested in Le Paradis. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: "Naw, dude... this aint right man..."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Its cool man, these things are regulated. Let's check it out."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">The use of the term "regulated" led me to believe Jensen knew, more than I, what was standard within the European sex-show industry. Perhaps he was correct. Perhaps he had read up on Paris' red light district before we arrived. Perhaps I was naive in thinking only Amsterdam had such legally sanctioned entertainment. After all, this was Paris... Paris is classy... and Le Paradis is right in the middle of a huge tourist destination. Perhaps things are not so shady. My friend Alcohol says to me "Midwestern values be damned David. We're in Paris... assimilate!!!"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: "Right on... we're in."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">We give Tchaikovsky our money and enter. We are unamused. There is a peninsular catwalk flanked on each side by 3 round, four-seat tables. To the walk's right is an open parquet floor presumably used for dancing. Opposite the dance area is a 4 foot tall divider lined with two seat tables. Behind it, amphitheater style seating. Notably, myself and Jensen comprise exactly one third of the audience. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Unamused, we sit.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">A cocktail waitress approaches and takes our orders... scotch... on the rocks. Evidently, "on the rocks" is loosely translated from English into French to mean "and by scotch we mean the most abhorrent thing you have behind that thing you call a bar"... because that is exactly what we got. Imagine, if you will, scorched pig urine and you will have at least a vague conception of what we received.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Shortly after we received our drinks music began to play. At this point, honestly, I was nervous at the thought of what I was about so see. I was not at all comfortable. I knew this was wrong but before I could inform Jensen of my misgivings the catwalks' curtain was drawn open and out walked a busty woman of mocha complexion who wore, I kid you not, cut off jean shorts and a standard issue Hanes wife-beater. This was billed as Pee-Wee's Playhouse but it seems as though "unamused" is the word of the day. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Upon seeing this, the other four individuals, two men, two women, promptly left.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">What followed can only be described as a numbed, disinterested self-objectification. But, as with lackluster entertainment and over priced cuisine, numbed, disinterested self-objectification is made tolerable by the presence of nekkid boobies. Adolescent, to be sure but dems da rules... I didn't make em but I suppose I too play by them. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 130%;">It should also be noted that this was not a sex show or a venue therefor. This was by all accounts a strip club in its last throws of business. This alleviated my worries and did much to calm me... realize, I am a good person... I like the idea of being a good person... As such, I don't like the idea of not being a good person and it logically follows that witnessing sex-shows I suspect to be illegal is consistent with not being a good person... an idea I do not like.</span></span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">After her routine the woman, naked in every sense of the word, made a bee-line for my lap. I did my utmost to place a prophylactic napkin across my thigh prior to her arrival but I failed, and miserably so. As she sat, she wrapped her arms around my neck, wafting a rancid bouquet into my nostrils that has subsequently been filed in my olfactory recall under "D" for "Dear GOD! WHAT IS THAT!?!?!?!"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Stripper Who Smelled Funny: [sitting on left thigh, pressing breasts into my face] "Ha-lo. American?"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: [struggling, and mightily so, to gasp fresh air from behind my right shoulder] "Yes, yes, Americans... Oklahoma..."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">SWSF: [koochin' it on a pair of Ralph Lauren Purple Label slacks that are worth more than her] "Ahhhh, Americaaaan..."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: [still... struggling...] "Yes, yes, yes where are you from?"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">SWSF: "Morocco... come to Paris to dance... you buy me drink"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: "No, no... we are just about to finish and leave... no more drink."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">French Moroccan Stripper Who Smelled Funny: [Insisting that her breasts are not close enough to my every means of oxygen intake] "Plllllllleeeeeeeee... A drink... Buy drink..." </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: [Not drunk enough to be hateful, not sober enough to be rational]: "OK, ok... I will buy drink... for you... a drink."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">FMSWSF motions towards the bar... no vocalizations... just simple gestures... they have done this before. Immediately the cocktail waitress appears with two new scotches and an alcoholic arsenal of which I, a seasoned vet, was then unfamiliar. FMSWSF takes from this arsenal a footed jigger and lights afire the liquid therein. A few seconds later she pours the contents of the jigger into a footed glass, stirs briefly then shoots it. Taking my hand, she stands, pulls me from my seat and leads me into the amphitheater seating behind us. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I am worried... I consult with Scotch... Scotch tastes better than earlier... far better... I am confused... I consult the rest of Scotch. He is not helpful.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">As stated above, I am a good person... I do not like the idea of being a bad person. My sole purpose in presenting this and future stories for public consumption is to entertain through open, honest discourse regarding my own idiocy and misjudgment. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">In hopes of retaining as much positive regard as possible, I will spare you the details of what happened next but suffice it to say that I was, for all intents and purposes, sexually assaulted. I have never received a lap dance in America but I cannot imagine the rules of engagement being the same, similar or even in the same ballpark... to quote Sam Jackson's "Jules" from Pulp Fiction, "it ain't even the same f'#cking sport." </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I cannot deny the fact that I may have been somewhat complicit. But again, in the presence of boobies, certain rationalizations are made. The situation never advanced to anything beyond a lap dance performed with vigor and the kneading of boobies. Also, this woman undoubtedly had rent to pay and most likely had a child or three. While not entirely altruistic, any provision on my part would certainly be appreciated.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">FMSWSF finishes the lap dance and asks for another drink... I now know "drink" is code for something other than "drink". I can no longer play dumb. I pause. I contemplate. Somewhere milling around my frontal lobes I can vaguely recall a moral dilemma I might have with this situation... provided I were sober enough to recall what exactly the tenets of my ethical system were... or even what an ethical system was... but I was not. As such, FMSWSF received another drink. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Midway thru the second drink I caught the expression of Jensen, still on the floor... in his chair... holding up his scotch... pointing at it as if to say "They continue to bring me this... it is better than before... I believe they are now plying me with 30yr old scotch because of my association with you... what is going on?" I am thinking similar things. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">FMSWSF finishes dancing on me and asks for a third drink. I may be drunk but I am not stupid and she is not 3 lap dances hot. I say that I have had enough and I would appreciate it if she would kindly summon the cocktail waitress so as to allow me to pay my bill. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Cocktail waitress appears and opens a rectangular portfolio. As she does she points to certain words and does her best to explain to me in broken English the charges incurred. I hear none of it... my attention is immediately and myopically focused on a numerical representation that is confusing... 900. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">You see, there are situations in which one can force upon oneself immediate sobriety. It is my experience that the desperate need to accurately calculate international exchange rates is such a situation. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I knew four days prior, upon my arrival in France that the exchange rate from dollars to euros was 1.3. Applying this knowledge I determined that I was being presented with a bill for $1,170. Evidently, "drink" was code for a package of services beyond what had taken place. Evidently, I was the quintessential stupid American. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I turn to FMSWSF and Cocktail Waitress with a mind free from the fog of inebriation and say calmly... "Mademoiselles. Let me talk to my friend. Bring us more scotch and I will see if he will buy a drink." I gently close the portfolio. They are eagerly receptive to this idea.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I pat them on the small of their backs as I saunter down the steps to Jensen. As I take my seat Jensen does not immediately sense the fact that I am equal parts shocked and frightened. He says "Dude, what the hell... Johnny Walker Blue man... that's $30 a glass back home!" </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I respond with "We are leaving. Not now. But soon."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Sure man... ok"</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: "No. You don't understand. Apparently I just bought a prostitute... twice... and didn't know it. They want me to pay $1200. I am not going to. 15 feet to your right is an exit. When they aren't looking and when the bar tender in distracted we are gone."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: [staring blankly] "... ... ..."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "You can't go to the hotel. If I'm a Russian pimp who owns a French Moroccan prostitute who just got stiffed outta $1200 by an American shithead in Paris, the first place I'm looking are cheap hotels in the area."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: [pleased with his friend's level of cognitive functioning and ability self-impose immediate sobriety] "Good point. It's 4 am. Our train leaves in 3 hours. When we go, we gotta go fast and we gotta go hard. You split for the hotel. I will go straight. I will meet you at Gare du Nord in one hour." </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Cool."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">David: [amazed by Jensen's cavalier response to the situation... hoping to feign the same] "Cool."</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Moments later, the bar tender disappears behind the bar and it, dear friends, is on... I bolt through the door shoulder first with a force and ferociousness that would make a S.W.A.T. team proud. As we enter the Parisian pre-dawn onto Boulevard de Clichy, the world is displayed before me in slow motion... I notice the elderly, rotund, Russian doorman tumble violently into a parked car. I turn to see Jensen make the corner up an alley towards Rue des Abbesses. Good night and good luck my friend. I run south on Rue Blanche, sprinting at a pace representative of an assclown who has just stiffed a Russian owned French-Morrocan Prostitute Who Smelled Funny out of $1200 and has a train to catch. I lose my loafers. I lose the bottom of my socks. Predictably, my feet begin to hurt a lil bit.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">I dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge my way to Gare du Nord. Once there, I blend as well as a shoeless, bleeding, limping, frightened, repenting carrot-topped American can and await Jensen's arrival. He appears, our back packs in tow. Hello dear friend. </span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">The next 2 hours were among the most nerve racking of my entire life... and my vacations are spent hanging from cliffs. I ponder the events of the night and early morning. I am shocked. I begin to feel nauseated. I become hypersensitive to environmental stimuli... of which there were many. Each sound, each movement is interpreted as Dmitri No Thumbs becoming aware of my identity and whereabouts. But at the same time I recall the events from an objective and omniscient perspective. I almost laugh as we board the Eurostar. Jensen turns to me and speaks for the first time in almost 3 hours.</span></p><p><span face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-size: 130%;">Jensen: "Dave... [in a tone conveying the notion that what he was about to say was the most pressing of our immediate concerns]... dog, really... you're wearing a purple shirt man?!?"</span></p>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-33040352912514769152007-05-15T11:37:00.003-07:002023-02-01T12:44:06.500-08:00Today, I cringed...<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;">
<span style="font-size: 130%;">First, a preface... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">I am a Republican. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Specifically, I am a Reagan Republican. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">I am Scrooge-like in my frugality on matters of fiscal responsibility. I consider the likes of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun to be spineless in their hemming and hawing on matters of national security. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Yet, if the social matters concern consenting adults, I am quite moderate and even somewhat liberal. Yes, it may surprise some to hear that there are Republicans who rest unsettled at night when thinking of hungry children and criminally under-treated AIDS/HIV in <st1:place st="on"><st1:place st="on">Africa</st1:place></st1:place>. <u2:p></u2:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><u2:p></u2:p>Still, I am a Republican... as well as a massive nerd. As such, I thoroughly enjoyed watching every televised minute of the confirmation hearings of now Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">The entertainment I gleaned from these hearings was not borne only out of observing the cognitive brilliance of the two jurists. No, no... I am also slightly red in the neck. So much of my delight was generated by the wit and witticisms of the Republican Senator from <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Alabama</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:state>, Jeff Sessions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">This is Senator Jeff Sessions...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/SenatorSessionsandElmo.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">His genial and engaging style brought a smile to my face. His colloquialisms referencing matters of great importance made me think, "Yes... yes... I am happy the majority of people who voted in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Alabama</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:state> voted for Jeff."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p>Today, Senator Sessions did not make me smile. He did not make my head nod in affirmation. Rather, Senator Sessions made my butt cheeks flex involuntarily and scoot across the surface of my office chair with embarrassment... not unlike a family dog relieving the irritation of worms on the living room floor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">What caused the anguish you ask? The answer is Senator Sessions' May 17th press release in which he hailed the passage of his border fence provision with the following: </span><span style="font-size: 130%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">"<a href="http://sessions.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=255759" target="_blank">Good fences make good neighbors...</a></span><span style="font-size: 130%;">"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">I appreciate an ability in leaders to articulate matters of importance to the proletariat. This was one of, if not the, only redeeming characteristics of President Bill Clinton. It was, in fact, a characteristic that I admired greatly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">(An admission that makes me feel as though I need to reenact the "Finkle-is-Einhorn/Einhorn-is-Finkle" shower scene from <span style="font-style: italic;">Ace Venture: Pet Detective</span>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Conversely, I do not appreciate the complete and total perversion and mutilation of deep thought into a mongrel snippet of ignorance targeting the lowest common denominator. <u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><u1:p></u1:p>You see, while red-necked, I am not completely without education. Naturally, the acquisition of that education brought me into contact with some folks who knew how to think and knew how to write about what they think. One of these folks was a man named Robert Frost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #ffffcc;">This is Robert Frost...</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/Frost.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">This is one of his writings... </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">(summary provided below... but I suggest you read it... it's greatness) <u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><u>MENDING WALL</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Something there is that doesn't love a wall,<br />That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,<br />And spills the upper boulders in the sun,<br />And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.<br />The work of hunters is another thing:<br />I have come after them and made repair<br />Where they have left not one stone on a stone,<br />But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,<br />To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,<br />No one has seen them made or heard them made,<br />But at spring mending-time we find them there.<br />I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;<br />And on a day we meet to walk the line<br />And set the wall between us once again.<br />We keep the wall between us as we go.<br />To each the boulders that have fallen to each.<br />And some are loaves and some so nearly balls<br />We have to use a spell to make them balance:<br />'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'<br />We wear our fingers rough with handling them.<br />Oh, just another kind of out-door game,<br />One on a side. It comes to little more:<br />There where it is we do not need the wall:<br />He is all pine and I am apple orchard.<br />My apple trees will never get across<br />And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.<br />He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.</span><span style="font-size: 130%;">Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder<br />If I could put a notion in his head:<br />'Why do they make good neighbors?<br />Isn't it where there are cows?</span><span style="font-size: 130%;">But here there are no cows.<br />Before I built a wall I'd ask to know<br />What I was walling in or walling out,<br />And to whom I was like to give offence. <br />Something there is that doesn't love a wall,<br />That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,<br />But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather<br />He said it for himself. I see him there<br />Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top <br />In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.<br />He moves in darkness as it seems to me~<br />Not of woods only and the shade of trees.<br />He will not go behind his father's saying,<br />And he likes having thought of it so well <br />He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">In case you didn't read all that, a stone wall separates the speaker's property from his neighbor's... a division that consists of an apple orchard on one side and pine trees on another. The writer, therefore, sees no need for the wall. Even so, he contacts his neighbor and aids in the wall's rebuilding when freezing, thawing, hunters and "elves" cause the wall to crumble. Periodically, the speaker says "Why the crap are we doing this? There is no need for this. Mother Nature is basically telling us every year 'hey, you don't need this' and tears it down for us." To which his neighbor simply replies with the stubbornly obtuse "Good fences make good neighbors."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Frost uses the refrain "Good fences make good neighbors" as a means of portraying the fence builder (the speaker of the refrain) as close minded, ignorant and lost in an outdated thought process due to his inability to consider the reality of the circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Senator Sessions displays what seems to be incredible contextual ignorance in using this phrase. Sure there's an argument to be made that the writer in <span style="font-style: italic;">Mending Wall</span> was not a total anarchist and alluded to circumstances in which walls would be necessary i.e. when there are cows roaming around. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">These are illegal immigrants...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/Illegals.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">These are cows...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/Cows.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">It could very reasonably be argued that illegal immigrants are Frost's not-so-absent "cows" of today's predicament. As such, you could say that we need a wall. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">However, Frost took this adage and, with the use of irony, gave to it the connotation of alienation and small mindedness... something of which Senator Sessions, or at the very least, his press secretary should have been aware.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Was Senator Sessions simply ignorant of the phrase's literary connotation? Is he simply saying we need a wall? Perhaps not... perhaps his amiable style was perfectly suited for directing this phrase towards an audience unfamiliar with its connotation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">This is a tactic politicians have long used.</span><span style="font-size: 130%;"> Speech writers in every office search high and low for the perfect 8 word phrase... the applause line... the "fortune cookie candidacy"... never minding what the next 8 words will be. When waters are troubled, crack open the cookie and soothe the masses with sugary reassurance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Similarly, an over arching political principle is that having the issue is more important than providing the solution... a tactic nicely coupled with that of the "fortune cookie".<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">Three hundred and seventy miles of fence will be of absolutely zero consequence in stemming the tide of illegal aliens. But, what building a fence will do is provide red meat for the Republican's conservative base and give the illusion that something is in the works... straddling the fence, if you will... between maintaining the issue and providing half measured solutions... both designed to maximize political gain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">I find that infuriating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #ffffcc;">I'm incredibly torn on this issue. I do not for a single second believe a wall will keep somebody from an opportunity to feed their family... it sure as hell couldn't stop me...</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffffcc;">This is my niece Sophia Elizabeth...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/Sophie.jpg" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #ffffcc;">If Sophie was going to bed hungry at night and I could feed her by working in Guadalajara, the Federales would have to capture me and carry out a sentence of "Death-by-Donkey-Show" before I stopped high-steppin' it over a damned fence.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffffcc;">*Note: I was going to provide visual aid for "Donkey Show" but I would like to continue being employed by the government and I am fairly certain a Googling of the phrase "Donkey Show" on a government computer would put me in some kind of "database" along with "Lenny", the guy who bought a windowless passenger van last week...</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/FreeCandy.jpg" /><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #ffffcc;">Anyhoooooo...</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffffcc;">At the same time, boundaries are the symptoms of organized societies. Unless you are an absolute anarchist and believe Mongolian or Scottish marauders have the right to do their will (i.e. raping your wives) then you probably, as did the Chinese and Romans, recognize the need for literal boundaries...</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffffcc;">such as this...</span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/GreatWallofChina.jpg" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #ffffcc;">and this...</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/I%20cringed/HadriansWall.jpg" /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%;">Civilized societies since the time of Hammurabi have the added advantage of figurative boundaries. To wit, written rules. Laws are walls; justice is the process of wall-mending.<br /><br />Perhaps a better, albeit figurative, wall could be built by a better Mexican economy... a less corrupt Mexican government... a f@&$ing Mexican "New Deal"... Sunset in Chihuahua's Copper Canyon is far more enchanting than any of our national parks... build a damn road and some hand rails.<br /><br />Admittedly, I am frustrated. That frustration led to a tangent. That tangent took me from literature to politics and, in the process, wasted several minutes of your life that you will never get back. For that, dear readers, I am sorry... but I am nevertheless, frustrated.<br /><br />I am frustrated by an American government who argue the issue ad nauseum and aphoristically appease the minuscule attention spans of the ignorant for political gain rather than present viable solutions.<br /><br />I am frustrated by a Mexican government who expect water fountains to be installed in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico rather than realizing their country is so pitifully abhorrent that its residents are risking death rather than staying there.<br />But mostly, I'm bored...</span>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-49334292035167787962007-05-15T11:37:00.001-07:002007-05-15T11:37:50.426-07:00Dancelife: An Observation of Pop Culture<p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:33 PM - I will now watch 30 minutes of a show called "Dancelife"... specifically, <a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dancelife/series.jhtml#/ontv/dyn/dancelife/episode/summary.jhtml?episodeId=104645" target="_blank">Episode 7: "Double Booked"</a>... It is on MTV... a channel I have not watched for more than 3 consecutive seconds in the last 2 years...<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">First thoughts, this appears to be a show about various homosexual males evaluating physically attractive ethnic women... should be interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:35 PM - Apartments in west Hollywood are expensive... they are asking for $1650/mo. for an apartment that would cost $350/mo. in Tulsa and actually require the government to <i>pay</i> you to live there in Durant… none of which I would be completely comfortable having as a home… or even as an alternate place to urinate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:36 PM - Cut to random dance audition... These people can dance better than I can tie my shoes… if of course by "dance" I mean "very deliberately walk towards a mirror, experience a seizure, regroup, walk away". <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">9:38 PM - These people are super dramatic too. </span><a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dancelife/series.jhtml#/ontv/dyn/dancelife/cast_member/cast_member.jhtml?personalityId=8419" target="_blank"><span style="">Homosexual males</span></a><span style=""> do not like being called a "bitch" by </span><a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dancelife/series.jhtml#/ontv/dyn/dancelife/cast_member/cast_member.jhtml?personalityId=8420" target="_blank"><span style="">heterosexual Latinos</span></a><span style="">. <span style=""> </span>It appears as though the homosexual response to being called a "bitch" by a heterosexual Latino is to say "I don't even know who you are… why should I know you… I make things happen… who even are you?" Do homosexual experiences result in difficulty with proper syntax?</span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">9:42 PM - OK, first commercial break...<br /><br />1) I just realized I turned this into a running blog about a show called "Dancelife". Yes, that coincided with the realization that I have absolutely nothing to do on a Monday night.<br /><br />2) I'm actually kind of shocked by the athleticism of some of these folks. I thought it was gonna mostly be hip-hop. I don't think it takes much athleticism to "pop and lock" as the kids call it. But a few of these folks clearly have classical ballet training. How can I tell? Because I have a trained eye. My trained eye is telling me they are far superior to others in the category of "being able to whirl around super fast doing a Big-Arms-Thingy then stop all dramatically and slowly allow their head to catch up with their body".<br /><br />3) Yes, I like the ballet, I actually know some ballet terms like "Arrondi et Arabesque" (the aforementioned "Big-Arms-Thingy")... get off me... those ballet fools have perhaps the greatest strength to weight ratio of people who don't call themselves "gymnasticals". <span style=""> </span></span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">They also wear things called "</span><a href="http://img316.imageshack.us/img316/1715/baryshnikovandkirkland5oj.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="">Cod Pieces</span></a>" in front of large numbers of affluent elders.<span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Respect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:44 PM - I like it when people argue as though they are <i><i>totally</i></i> cool with each other like "Good luck Nolan... I really hope that happens for you" or "It's all good dawg... I hope you have a nice day"... I also really like it when people show they are really emotional by </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://allstarz.hollywood.com/kobe/trialcharge02.jpg" target="_blank">licking their lips like it's been 2 weeks since they had any Carmex</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">. what ever happened to spitting in somebody's face… or stabbing somebody with a wire coat hanger you unwound then wrapped around your clinched fist so as to expose only one and a half to two inches of rigid wiring?<span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Wait… too specific?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:45 PM - Several females are auditioning for a video for somebody called "Omarion". They are all physically attractive. I should have been a rapper.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">9:50 PM - Shit... An attractive young lady is having to choose between a Sketchers commercial and a rap video... but... I just got a text... it reads as follows:<br /><br />"Dude, I'm watching the Amazing Race from last night. They have the </span><a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/midgie.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="">midget girl</span></a><span style=""> on here again and she's trying to put lug nuts on one of those tractor tires that are like 7 ft tall. Highest of high comedy"<br /><br />I now am distracted... I am pretty sure I am missing gold on both fronts as I type... the Amazing Race account from a </span><a href="http://www.myspace.com/micahfoster" target="_blank"><span style="">friend with a proven sense of humor</span></a> on one hand and hearing the word "drivenness" by a guy in two-inch inseam, silver lamae(sp?) shorts on the other. </span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I am in a glass case of emotion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:51 PM - OK, I just saw the physically attractive girl the homosexual referred to as "<st1:place st="on"><a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dancelife/series.jhtml#/ontv/dyn/dancelife/cast_member/cast_member.jhtml?personalityId=8416" target="_blank">Jersey</a></st1:place>" walk off the Sketchers commercial shoot. I can honestly say that I am a fan of her's. I can also honestly say I am now in the market for a pair of Sketchers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:54 PM - "Omarion" is disgruntled by the fact that "<st1:place st="on">Jersey</st1:place>" was booked to dance for his video but did the Sketchers shoot instead. How can you be angry about <em>only </em>6 of 7 hand picked girls being willing to prostitute themselves in your trailer in return for maybe a combined total of 35 seconds of celluloid?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9:57 PM - Homosexual guy makes a very good point... "the more successful you get the more decisions like that you will have to make". <span style=""> </span>This comment is worthy of note.<span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">Either it was actual good, sound teaching gained from real world experience... </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">or... </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">... it was fed to him by a producer and he is an incredible actor. <span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I honestly don't know which one is least likely.<span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Eureka</st1:city></st1:place>! <span style=""> </span>In typical Hollywood style he immediately destroys all semblance of sage responsibility by taking "<st1:place st="on">Jersey"</st1:place> to buy a new Ford Mustang with her Sketchers paycheck.<span style=""> </span>Those producers are sly.<br /><br />Also, the mustang ran out of gas on the test drive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">10:01 PM – Heterosexual Latino confides in </span><a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dancelife/series.jhtml#/ontv/dyn/dancelife/cast_member/cast_member.jhtml?personalityId=8418" target="_blank"><span style="">Masculine Afro-American female</span></a>. <span style=""> </span>Masculine Afro-American female offers little more than affirmative nodding of her head and comments like "You can do this… this is your passion… you are a dancer, you have to dance." <span style=""> </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">I am of the honest opinion that the worst thing you can possibly do for somebody is tell them exactly what they want to hear. </span></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Apparently, heterosexual Latinos who call homosexuals<span style=""> </span>"bitch" like to work off stress by dancing in perfectly lit and empty dance studios to a trendy soundtrack as flashbacks from the previous 30 minutes of the show flutter thru their minds' eye and are projected onto the studio's wall-to-wall mirrors.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps he is trying to affirm himself and establish why a Homosexual male with superior dancing ability should know who he is.<br /><br />Credits.<br /><br />Thank God.<br /><br />Me watching this was the worst idea since somebody thought "<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>".</span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><h2 style="text-decoration: underline;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Post Script:</span></h2><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Holy crap... for reasons that surpass understanding I just assumed the least talented male dancer was heterosexual.<br /><br />I was wrong.<br /></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Appearently, after reading MTV.com's episode guide I linked in the blog, this Nolan guy is gay.<br /></span></p><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >My bad dude.<br /><br />So this totally throws off the dynamic I perceived as "Heterosexual Latino calling Homosexual Caucasian 'Bitch'". To be honest, I loose a little respect for Homosexual Caucasian. Believing he was called a "bitch" by a straight guy, I thought he responded pretty well when he didn't go ape-shit. Now that I know he knew that insult was coming from a brother, or sister... whatever... it's not as impressive.<br /><br />How was my gay-dar <i><i>that</i></i> off?<br /><br />This is troubling.</span>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-59749162721453917382007-05-15T11:36:00.001-07:002008-01-10T09:05:24.085-08:00The Night That Guy Thought He Would Mug Me<p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >I could not have picked a worse year to spend studying International Corporate Law and the European Union in London. There, I was relegated to listening to Yahoo.com's webcast of Bob "<a href="http://planetwill.jt.org/media/characters/art/ferrellcaray1.jpg" target="_blank">Hey, If You Were A Hotdog, Would You Eat Yourself?</a>" Barry, Sr. for the overwhelming majority of OU's magical 2003 regular season.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >(<em>Please note the conspicuous use of the modifier "regular"... this of course alludes to the heart-breaking end to the 2003 season with "Games of Which We Shall Not Speak" Numbers </em></span><a href="http://www.soonerstats.com/football/games/recap.cfm?GameID=1073" target="_blank">1</a><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" ><em> and </em></span><a href="http://www.soonerstats.com/football/games/recap.cfm?GameID=1074" target="_blank">2</a><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" ><em> respectively.</em>)<br /><br />This circumstance reached it's boiling point in early October after I recognized the North American Sports Network was not going to carry Bedlam. This was unacceptable after I was required to miss the Red River Shootout and this was my last decent chance to catch a televised game.<br /><br />I contacted NASN and asked if they were bound contractually to carry the SEC game that was shown on the listing. I was told that NASN was free to air whichever game had the most "international interest".<br /><br />As such, I contacted my friends, family and the alumni organizations of both OU and OSU. I asked my friends and family to provide me with copies of their email address books. I asked the alumni organizations for contact information of groups in western Europe. I then drafted an email introducing myself, explaining my situation, attached a canned request for the game and asked for their help in pasting the response into an email to NASN after they added their name and location to those sections of the request.<br /><br />3 weeks later I got a response from NASN stating they had received over 2,700 requests for the OU/Oklahoma State game, that they were now airing that game on November 1st and requesting that I end the campaign. Beaming, I obliged.<br /><br />As this was my first televised college football game of the season, I decided to make a day of it. I arrived at the Sports Cafe in the late morning for Rugby and Beer. Morning with Rugby and Beer turned into Afternoon with Soccer and Gin. Afternoon with Soccer and Gin turned into Evening with College Football and Whiskey.<br /><br />This ended up being in the top 3 drunkest drunks of my life… along side my evening with "<a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=61645022&blogID=101119038&Mytoken=CD6B65BE-F12F-40CC-B9EEAE4E414AA3CA62635101" target="_blank">Desenchantee: the French Moroccan Stripper Who Smelled Funny</a>" and "The Night I almost Ruined My Best Friend's Wedding <i>and</i> Honeymoon"</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >(<em>I love my best friend and his wife dearly... each rank (individually and on their own accord) in the top 5 non-familial people for whom I would take a bullet. Therefor the tale "</em>The Night I almost Ruined My Best Friend's Wedding <em>and</em> Honeymoon<em>" will never be put forth for public consumption. Certainly, nothing untoward happened between any of the 3 of us but suffice it to say the episode's end only began at approximately 5 a.m. with them finding me shoeless, in the fetal position and soaked to the waist with Caribbean salt water</em>.)<br /><br />I am not proud of this. Blind drunkenness is not a badge of honor. If it was I would be prominently positioned between <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy" target="_blank">Audie Murphy</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hackworth#Military_decorations" target="_blank">David Hackworth</a>. I simply say this to give background to my own idiotic thought process.<br /><br />I do not remember anything from the game. Zero. But I do remember leaving the Sports Cafe late… and by "late", I mean "early". I also remember being adamantly opposed to taking a cab for the 2 miles from the Sports Cafe to my apartment. London's public transit shuts down late at night leaving cabs and walking as the only options for those without a car or drunks. I thought to myself the following:<br /><br />"Self, London is safe. You are not a small person. Limey's are, on average, smaller than you. You can also protect yourself and have been known to do so in the past. You need to go from one nice area of London (Piccadilly) to another nice area of London (Holborn… London's "Wall Street"). Just walk."<br /><br />This of course did not take into account the confounding variables known as "time of day" and "other drunks".<br /><br />I was 2 blocks from the end of my walk when a man appeared from the shadows, bumping into my chest, saying in a thick cockney accent…<br /><br />Guy: "Ey mayt, goh aney mooneh?"<br /><br />Me: "Gets the hells aways from me… you smells liiiiiiiiike falafels… heheheheheheheheh"<br /><br />Guy: "Oi!!!!! I say, you goh aney fookin mooneh!?!?!?!?!?"<br /><br />Me: [In what alcoholics refer to as "A moment of clarity"] "I have 50 pounds in my front pocket but you're gonna bleed for it."<br /><br />Disregarding the first rule of sound thievery ("pick victims more drunk than you"), Guy decides to mug me and swings.<br /><br />I dodge his swing and step behind him, pushing him over my right leg. He falls and I jump him with my knees on each shoulder and proceed to <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/FistsOfFuryBL.jpg" target="_blank">Bruce Lee</a> </span><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >his ass.<br /><br />But, my aim was a bit off.<br /><br />As it turns out, Guy's unconciousness was more a function of his head bouncing off the concrete rather then my fists beating him mercilessly. This was clear because my fists were, in fact, <em>not</em> beating him mercilessly. Rather, they were mercilessly beating my friend and ally "Concrete".<br /><br />After what was, conservatively, a dozen errant haymakers into the sidewalk, I got up and sprinted the remaining two blocks to my apartment complex where schoolmates were enjoying an after party. They were shocked and horrified at the sight of my hands and immediately concerned for my well-being.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >(<em>3 years later I still have light red discoloration and slight scaring over the proximal knuckles of my index, middle and ring fingers on both hands</em>.)<br /><br />They were acting oddly the next day (well, more oddly than their usual condescension)... like I was some kind of horrible, wretched person. This confused me because I thought surely even the Ivy-League educated liberals from Penn and UC Berkley lawschools would think somebody was entitled to defend themselves in such a situation. </span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >I then recalled the night before and remembered a growing uneasiness in the group as I gave my account. This genuinely concerned me and led me to investigate. I asked my roommates Jensen and Cirelli why I was being made to feel like I was <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Satan.jpg" target="_blank">Satan Incarnate</a>.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >As Jensen described it, my drunken explanation of the evening's events made several of them (who were of Jewish decent) think I, their red-necked yokel of a classmate who had no business reading from the same books as them, beat a man unconscious because I thought he was carrying falafels and presumed him a Jew. My fraternally supportive roommates saw much greater entertainment in the ensuing ethnic tension than in anything else that could potentially happen the rest of the evening so they allowed Josephus and his hags to persist in their horror of the mistaken lynching.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Assholes.</span></span><br /></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >Predictably, this marked the last time I drank in Europe... unless of course you count the Irish Whiskey tasting contest I lost to a woman closely resembling <a href="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/chewbacca.jpg" target="_blank">Chewbacca</a>'s sister... but, for obvious reasons, we seldom discuss that and certainly do not count it in any measure.</span></p>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230826643144486577.post-64361071026192387492007-05-15T11:35:00.001-07:002007-05-15T11:35:58.949-07:00Further Down The Spiral: A Refutation of a Texan's Arrogance.<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">*NOTE: I wrote the following on the evening of Friday June 9th 2006.<br /><br />My hopes were to demonstrate, in an unbiased manner, to my friends born/living in Texas that there are in fact beautiful women in Oklahoma.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />I became disturbed by what I saw.<br /><br />I am unclear as to whether or not it was a restless night or an afternoon in the sun that is responsible. But, suffice it to say, my efforts and research led me further down a spiral to a place I did not know existed.<br /><br />Below is the true and accurate accounting of my descent. </span><br /><br />I was born in Oklahoma.<br /><br />I was raised in Oklahoma.<br /><br />I currently reside in Oklahoma.<br /><br />I love a great many things about Oklahoma.<br /><br />The women of Oklahoma are no exception.<br /><br />In August of 1998 I moved to Abilene, Texas. There, I lived for 4 years as I attended Abilene Christian University... an institution you all know is incredibly near and dear to my heart.<br /><br />During that time, I grew to love a great many things about Texas... authentic Mexican food... west Texas sunsets... drivers who pull to the shoulder thereby allowing others to pass... and Texas women. Yet, I also grew to loathe the near incessant confirmation of the Texans' stereotypical arrogance.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">*NOTE: I recognize that some of the comments and presentations made in association with "LegalKnievel" are incredibly arrogant and imperious. Please know that they are also incredibly hyperbolic... exaggerations made in compensation for self-perceived inferiorities... much like this ridiculously high-minded voice I adopt when writing this crap... I'm only half-serious with it.</span><br /><br />A prime example of said arrogance was recently made by this guy...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/Seth.jpg" /> <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=36415745" target="_blank">Seth Denson</a></span><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:130%;" >... who works </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><a href="http://www.laserperfect.net/" target="_blank">here</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >.<br /><br />I have played golf with Seth. I have floated a river with Seth. Consequently, I have drank beer with Seth. I have even enjoyed the indescribably delectable goodness of Seth's mother's baked beans. Seth is cool and o.k. by me.<br /><br />Still, Seth is an ignorant fool when it comes to the women of Oklahoma. A fact evidenced by a MySpace comment he left me yesterday stating "... you know what they say you call a good lookin' girl you in in [<span style="font-style: italic;">sic</span>] OK... yep, a tourist."<br /><br />I failed to mention that Seth is also incredibly funny.<br /><br />Really.<br /><br />My delima... how to respond? I could have taken the easy route and exposed the obvious...<br /><br />Each year, the budget of the Texas State Department of Education is more than the budget <span style="font-style: italic;">in toto</span> for the State of Oklahoma. Yet Seth, a native of Midland, TX, is unable to string together more than a dozen words without running into serious grammatical trouble. There must be something in that Permian water.<br /><br />Doubt me?<br /><br />Here's another Midland native with whom you are most likely familiar...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/W.jpg" /><br /><br />But I couldn't go that route. It would be too easy and, despite his Greco-Roman wrestling matches with the English language, I like W.<br /><br />So, again... what to do? Simply showing a few pictures of attractive women from Oklahoma wouldn't be an effective counter...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/Soonerfan.jpg" /> Regrettably Unknown, Norman<br /><br />See? That's just me saying "This girl is pretty." without any sort of objective confirmation.<br /><br />I also considered comparing famous females from Oklahoma to famous females from Texas. But sadly, for every...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/cunderwood.jpg" /> Carrie Underwood, Checotah<br /><br />there seems to be a...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/0f28603c.jpg" /> Reba McEntire, Kiowa<br /><br />And that's just not helpful. It's not helpful because it clearly demonstrates that Oklahomans do not have to be particularly beautiful in order to achieve fame or any modicum of notoriety. There is no objective confirmation.<br /><br />I then turned to our good friends at <a href="http://www.missamerica.org/">Miss America.org</a> </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >who have been<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>objectively confirming America's most beautiful unwed women since 1921.<br /><br />I was pleased to learn that my fellow Oklahomans have faired quite well in this competition.<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/1NormaSmallwoodTulsa26.jpg" /> Norma Smallwood, Tulsa, 1926<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/1JaneJayroeLaverne67.jpg" /> Jane Jayroe, Laverne, 1967<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/1SusanPowellElkCity81.jpg" /> Susan Powell, Elk City, 1981<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/1ShawntelWuerchMuldrow96.jpg" /> Shawntel Wuerch, Muldrow, 1996<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/1JenniferBerryTulsa06.jpg" /> Jennifer Berry, Tulsa, 2006<br /><br />Granted, the picken's in the mid-1920s appears to have been somewhat slim. But, there is no denying Oklahoma's standing in this noble competition.<br /><br />A tiara count shows Oklahoma is currently tied with Pennsylvania for second place (5) behind California and Ohio (6). But, is this an accurate representation of the beauty possessed by Oklahoma's women?<br /><br />Sadly, I cannot say that it is. As well-rounded a woman as Miss America is meant to be, none of the above can be said to represent Oklahoma's "Everywoman". I realized that competitive qualification as "beautiful" filters those who had not applied to be qualified. That is to say, Miss America is choosen from a pool not representative of an accurate sampling of women.<br /><br />This realization was frustrating. This frustration prompted a Googling in hopes of seeing if anyone before me had considered this. The Googling of "Oklahoma Women" returned a link to <a href="http://oklahomapersonalsonline.com/" target="_blank">Oklahoma Personals Online.com</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">.<br /><br />*NOTE: Again, I cannot explain why this result, instead of any of the others, seemed promising...<br /><br />Lack of sleep? Possibly.<br /><br />Heat exhaustion? Perhaps.<br /><br />Abduction by an alien race preoccupied with voiding humans of their ability to make rational decisions? My GOD how I was that were so... Check out how I try to somehow rationalize my choice in this next paragraph... pitiful... </span><br /><br />Granted, these are women who have turned to internet-based personal ads in hopes of finding a companion. So, psychologically, things are most likely not as they should be. But the question is not one regarding soundness of mind. Rather, it is one regarding possession of beauty.<br /><br />A simple search for straight females, ages 20-30, resulted in a listing of women that, initially, was encouraging...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">*NOTE: The following are screen captures of the first 16 individuals in the listing... in their EXACT order... accompanied by my initial reaction to each.<br /></span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/a.jpg" /><br />WELL... hi'do ma'am...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/b.jpg" /><br />And a hardy hello to you as well there Kindle...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/c.jpg" /><br />Is "grace" by any chance a reference to your Christian faith? If so, I say "OUTSTANDING!"<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/d.jpg" /><br />And hello to you as well Sunkiss... Pardon me for pointing this out but, corals and peaches might not be the right answer when choosing your background... a tad too monochromatic...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/z.jpg" /><br />Ok... well... ummmm... by "A Few Extra Pounds" do you mean the double chin you're trying to hide or the 3 year-old you've cropped out of you picture?<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/e.jpg" /><br />WHOA... I thought my search terms included the words "<span style="font-style: italic;">straight</span>" and "<span style="font-style: italic;">female</span>"?<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/f.jpg" /><br />Oh my dear... ummm... Honey, that is <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>a Twinkie...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/g.jpg" /><br />Ok... so um, like... I have a question... can you acquire an addiction to methamphetamines simply by <span style="font-style: italic;">looking </span>at someone?<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/i.jpg" /><br />... ... ... [blink] ... ... ... [blink] ... ... ... [blink] ... ... ...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/j.jpg" /><br />"Lives Alone"... ya don't say... you sure you don't wanna count that stack of Dominos boxes as a current roommate?<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/k.jpg" /><br />My penis just ran away...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/l.jpg" /><br />I am 26... there is simply no way you are 28...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/m.jpg" /><br />And by "Clean Cut" do you, <span style="font-style: italic;">gril of cutcow</span>, mean to say "Freshly Shaven"?<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/n.jpg" /><br />Yes... yes... I too am now turning to the sun in hopes of having my eyes seared uselessly shut...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/o.jpg" /><br />HOLY SHIT...<br /><br /><img src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e233/davidwells/Oklahoma%20Women/p.jpg" /><br />Ok... that's it... THAT... IS... IT!!! Cotton-Eyed-Joe here CLEARLY indicates that this site is obviously some kind of hoax...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">*NOTE: </span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">I kid you not dear readers... That was the progression. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I can only assume the webmaster of OklahomaPersonalsOnline made the executive decision to put the proverbial "best foot forward" as opposed to presenting a random sampling. </span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >I have no words...<br /><br />I am at a complete and total loss...<br /><br />But...<br /><br />Trust me...<br /><br />There are beautiful, psychologically sound women in Oklahoma...<br /><br />I have seen them...<br /><br />I have even been associated with a few...<br /><br />I have also heard of others in stories and song...<br /><br />Honest.</span>David Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00931845872404042415noreply@blogger.com