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Bottom of the Barrel Reflections
August 22nd, 2008 by alfieI had a long week. I spent it training to be an instructor in Rhetoric at USF. The course work and mandatory sports coat with leather elbow patches didn’t intimidate me. What worried me was that I was expected to be a role model for over 40 incoming freshman. This is a particularly daunting task considering that my Google identity includes videos of me chugging beer at CL’s Beer Club and an extensive online account of my attempts to pick up women. Let’s just hope that the pictures of me at that bachelorette party don’t emerge.
After a week of training, one thing was certain: I needed a disguise. Something that would make me look tough. Naturally my mind wandered to actors, whose job it is to obscure their perverse lifestyles in order to appear tough on screen; maybe I needed a six-shooter or one of those mean-looking bandolier belts strapped across my chest. Or maybe I should be a little more subtle. From experience I know I look particularly threatening in a wig and a fake mustache that would put Charles Bronson to shame.
I thought over these foolproof schemes to appear as a respectable member of society as I drank heavily at Limey’s Friday Read the rest of this entry »
Skater Moms
August 18th, 2008 by alfie“Everyone assumes skaters are bad kids,” said Bobbie Clothier as a gang of longhaired kids circled her, assaulting each other with firecracker poppers Saturday night. “The bad ones are the ones who don’t skate and hangout outside the skateparks. Nothing good happens after midnight or outside a skatepark.”From my own experience, I knew this was true. The kids who are too uncoordinated to skate sit in the bleachers talking shit or taking walks to the woods to smoke. But, judging by how rowdy these skaters were, I’d hate to run into their bad counterparts. Not that these kids were mean-spirited. They just had the kind of energy that makes you dizzy just watching them run around screaming like ballistic missiles.
“I refuse to medicate my kids for ADHD,” Clothier told me as if reading my facial expression. “Skateboarding is the only effective treatment.”
We were at The Market on 7th pizza parlor and pub in Ybor for the after-party of the Skatepark of Tampa’s Back to School Bash Contest.
I made the mistake of arriving at the all-ages show early. I felt like I was reliving my middle school Fridays at the skating rink. DJ Colonic was spinning some Jackson 5. A table of young girls sat by themselves giggling and pointing to boys. Dance lights moved over a polished wood floor that had yet to be filled. I used to be so cool I wouldn’t even bring roller skates to the rink. I’d just sit in a sticky booth bumming off someone else’s junk food, trying to hide braces, impressing girls by exchanging punches and gay jokes with buddies, and fighting the urge to strap on some wheels and chase each other around the floor like the teeny boppers we were. That same awkwardness returned to me.
The Comedy Munchies
August 8th, 2008 by alfie“Who is 420?” asked a sightseeing couple last Wednesday. They had stayed in Ybor City later than they should have and suddenly found themselves surrounded by mild-mannered dope fiends giggling their way to The Improv for the 420 Friendly Comedy Show.
Emma and I were trying to hand out the last few tickets to the show. We kept running into people who acted offended that we assumed they were interested in a pot friendly show, or those, like the vacationing couple, who thought 420 was the name of a hip-hopper who their children might enjoy.
We quickly decided if someone had to ask what 420 meant, they weren’t interested in comedy dedicated to extended monologues about how pot should be the U.S’s weapon against subduing terrorism, as well as spats about the perfection of Doritos.
The problem was that Emma and I were trying to be politically correct, Read the rest of this entry »
AN OPEN INVITATION TO MY PANTS PARTY
August 1st, 2008 by alfieI was on the phone with my interior designer about a set of stackable leather chairs when my eyes locked on my soul mate. I dropped the phone and unfurled the most glorious pair of silver pants this side of the Milky Way.
I was in the middle of working “The Best Garage Sale Ever,” at Vitale Studios. Considering the number of art pieces sold, and the fact that John Vitale was as excited as a young artist drawing his first live nude, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more art sales gallivanting as garage sales.
Art was just one of many commodities cleaned out of these hipsters’ studios and put on sale. This was the crème de la crème of trendy second-hand goods. Thrift store hunters didn’t have to search through racks of Christmas sweaters that smelled of nursing homes and mothballs to find the perfectly ironically hip shirt. Cool stuff was everywhere: a bamboo furniture set, shelves of high-fashion high heels in supermodel sizes, art supplies, treasure trolls, designs and shirts by Blue Lucy, rhinestone belts, lighting equipment, Japanese lanterns, long coats with fake fur collars, knitted scarves and, of course, my luscious silver pants.
I didn’t ask permission before taking the pants in the bathroom and getting naked.
