The Eccentric Essentials

 If you’re anything like me you have a problem.  You have two things in conflict with on another.  You've got your hugely inflated sense of self importance which is coupled with a wavering and massive insecurity.  This conflict causes you to worry that no matter what you do with your time on planet Earth you will be forgotten as soon as you’re dead. You want to stand out in this world of billions of people 99.8% of whom are tragically boring to spend time with.  Perhaps you don’t need a plan to stand out.  Perhaps you want to leap up and correct me. “No, Kranki, don’t you worry I’m working on a really amazing screenplay and it’s going to catapult me into the spotlight.” Well, what if it doesn’t?  What you painstakingly craft it and it's considered a work of genius by the most acclaimed and savvy screenwriters you know and the studio buys it and they cast Pauley Shore and Paris Hilton in it and it goes straight to video?  Do they even have “video” anymore?  I don’t know.  And what about your back-up plan.  Yes, your plan to capture a bronze metal in Olympic Ping Pong and skeet-shooting in the same year.  What if it also sputters and you end up coming in 4^th in both competitions, losing by a total of one point and 2 skeets to that 12 year-old girl from Singapore?  Where will your glory plan for personal achievement be then?  I offer unto you good people a solution.  It’s not even that difficult if you set your mind to it.  It’s certainly far easier than writing an incredible piece of literature like say a JD Salinger or ascending to celebrity status like Michael Jordan, Sir Mix-A-Lot or an Olsen Twin.  With my method you won’t even have to murder a famous like John Wilkes Boothe did or put in the hard work and planning to orchestrating a whole Pol Pot style genocide of millions of people to get a slice of historical notoriety that you crave and deserve.  I offer you the alternative path of eccentricity. 

A true eccentric - just look at those pure crazy eyes

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You have a few friends who are pretty eccentric already and they’re not happy and their lives are just a mess.  Well I say fuck those friends.  Tell them I said so.  Fuck those friends for half ass-ing it?  They give eccentricity a bad name.  You can’t just be shithouserat crazy or run randomly naked through the streets of San Francisco to be eccentric.  You can’t just decide that from now on you’re only going to wear magenta-colored clothing.  It’s a mediocre start but not enough.  It’s certainly not enough to stand out in this town.

It’s as easy as E-C-C-E-N-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y – eccentricity.

The E is for Entourage – Very key.  Surround yourself with people who believe in your weirdness and want to support your bizarre dream.

C - Cash – Think about it.  Can be truly eccentric without money?  Let that marinade a minute.  You might feel otherwise, but you’re wrong.  Think about this.  That guy with the mohawk that walks his bike up the hill at Dolores Park every day, dozens of times a day so he can then ride down full speed until he crashes – on purpose.  He’s a real person.  He exists.  I see him all the time.  He’s a fuckin’ weirdo.  Bum Jovi, is a drunk guy in an old poncho who plays the shittiest covers of Elivs songs that you've ever heard on Valencia Street is a crazy dude.  But, if either of them had 3.5 million dollars in their bank accounts. —BOOM. They’re eccentric.  Money gives you options and if you do weird things with those options THAT is eccentric.  So...  Money.  Have it.  Have a lot of it and make it very unclear where it comes from.  "I hear he’s an arms dealer?"  "Oh my god, weapons?"  "No, I think he buys actual human arms."  "Weird."  "Why?"  Eccentric.

C - Collections – the stranger the better, the more the merrier.  The weirder the more wonderful.  Forget collecting wine or stamps you want lean more towards moose heads, baby shoes, or salvaged plane crash wreckage.  Picture an entire display room of thousands upon thousands of adorable baby shoes with a glass eye placed atop each one.  Now you’re getting eccentric.  Imagine a wall of exquisite, tiny glass framed boogers.  All of which once resided inside the nose of noted serial killers. Impressive.

E – Exotic Animals and Odd Pets – Don’t be impulsive here.  Sure, if you want to make a rookie mistake then just go ahead and run out and buy yourself a White Siberian Tiger.  C’mon.  Do you want to be a Vegas cliché or do you want to be eccentric?  Get a little creative.  How about a family of sloths that just cling on to you wherever you go?  Or a pair of Kumodo Dragons that greet your guests when they arrive at your door.  And if you don’t want to venture into evil villain territory… I understand.  We’re not all out to hold the world hostage with a weather control device.  The world is heating itself up just fine all by itself anyway.  My point is… Don’t choose to be a cat lady when you can be a rat lady.  Or maybe just a simple yet classic pack of wolves.

N  - is for Non-Stop Parties. This is your bread and butter.  This is where you need to step up your game – BIG TIME.   You need to throw the kind of parties that suck people in like a black hole and hold onto them like a dirty, sensual, bear trap.  Parties that are so much fun and last so long that your guests’ friends and families will assume that they’ve fallen off the face of the god damn earth and report them missing. Go that the extra mile and organize a drag queen unicycle joust.  Your parties need to be spoken of and revered as legendary.  “I think it was so weird and cool how he had those midget porn stars wandering around the party making the rounds giving out made to order sandwiches and hand jobs.  “OH, totally, mine was amazing.  Amazing.  The spicy Cajun mayo gave it a nice zing. It was so good that I forgot to even try any of the sandwiches.”  And these things need to rage on endlessly. 

“When did you get to the party?” 

“I got here about 8 days ago and there was some human centipede themed wrestling-match going on?  How about you?”  “Hmm… I was here after the fireworks just in time for the Bonobo monkey orgy and barbecue.  I’ve never in my life tasted such flavorful primate before.” "God yes! The honey mustard sauce was incredible."  "Oh look they’re setting up the Dom Perignon Slip and Slide.  Let’s get swallow some more of those triangular pills and get in line!”

T – T is going to surprise you.  T is for Tenderness.  It is.  Because if you’re going to be such a lunatic you’re going to have to have some sweet and redeeming characteristics so people will want to feed into your eccentricity.  Think about being a really good listener.  Listen with your heart, your freakshow-nutjob eccentric heart. 

R - Rumors and Rants – You want people to be talking about you.  You should go ahead and kick things off by spreading some rumors about yourself to just get the ball rolling.  Start with whatever comes to mind.  You were kicked out of the French Foreign legion for seducing your commander. Um… Your first two spouses became lovers after you divorced them and then they both disappeared without a trace during a mushroom trip in the Mohave desert.  Create some mystery.

I - Invent Something Useless – Placenta scented candles, barbed wire sex toys.  How about a six-foot tall, 175 pound cellular phone that takes two people to operate?  Let the useless genius flow.

C - Companions – Nothing says eccentric like a dedicated servant at your beckon call.  Maybe they’re always at your side or maybe you ring a tiny bell to summon them. 

Personally, I think it’s good to go international.  Think like a rich pervy Roman here.  A nice teenage sidekick boy servant and a sister girl servant from some impoverished yet exotic country like Madagascar. You’re eccentric, friend.  You’re expected to be culturally insensitive.  You may as well go ahead and rename them while you’re at it.  His name can be Click Click like a quick sound you can make with your mouth and her name can be be Snap Snap or Clap Clap – Now underage isn't my fetish but if you’re inclined go ahead and have unprotected sex with Clap Clap.  The irony of possibly getting an STD from her would make for a good story.

I - Inheritance – Make sure that when you are coming to the twilight your eccentric run in this life that you leave all the money you’ve accumulated and all the bizarre collections to a non-human.  This keeps your weird legacy going well beyond your lifetime.  I’d leave the choice to your own individual style but you can’t go wrong with an Siamese cat, a puffer fish, a cactus plant or a box of Oreo cookies.  Each one of these will earn you some solid eccentric points. Fund some research into questions nobody cares about.  Build an expensive monument to your imaginary childhood friend. Buy up all the socks in existence and buy up the means to ever produce or manufacture them again.  Have fun, you’re long dead.

T - Tell-all books – Published after you’re dead. You're have dirt on every single even remotely famous person who fell into your sphere of oddfluence.   You'll be able to air all the raunchy gossip and rant about their freaky inclinations and all the things, people furniture and animals they may have had sexual relations with while on drugs at your non-stop parties.  It's likely that they’ll get angry and create scandal.  Your estate is being sued by a celebrity.  Gasp.  That, my friend just tucks a phat feather in your eccentric cap and validates you as a mad party thrower and highly deranged and deceased eccentric. 

Y – Your last act. Hey it’s your funeral.  So don’t squander it.  Don't do something dull like get buried in a casket made entirely of Belgian chocolate or have yourself cremated inside an active volcano or something Hunters S. Thompsonish and obvious like having your remains shot out of a giant cannon.  Be original.  This is one of your last opportunities to wave your crazy flag, so wave it high and mighty.  Sure you’ve thought about being cryopreserved so that your brain can be attached to a muscular and sexy host body… Kudos to you for trying to extend your eccentric run.  But, my aspiring erotic, eclectic, eccentric comrade, what if medical technology never discovers how to thaw out obnoxiously rich people and put their heads on hot cyborg bodies?

I hope that sheds some light on a potential life goal.  It's a golden opportunity.  Personally I’m just barely getting started on my own eccentric path but already...  I’m stuck on the C for Cash.  In fact, I may have hit a big road block.  About 20 minutes ago I got a call from Click-Click.  Apparently he got detained at the airport by customs with a steamer trunk full of baby alligators, Quaaludes, Chinese circus acrobats, strawberry lubricant and methamphetamines.  They were supposed to be a fun little surprise for a my friend Seth's birthday party.  I just don’t know how I’m going to get them all home on a scooter even if I can afford the bail money.  But enough about me.  Back to you.  You follow your dreams and just don’t be boring.  There are millions of other people who have that fully taken care.  If my words have inspired you to aspire to lead the life of an eccentric I merely ask in return that you invite me to one of the many parties that you'll throw and leave me out of your tell-all book. 

     

FUCK Hana! Not the girl, the place.

Hana is a restful quiet town with many quaint beaches and lovely tropical trees and plants and a highway that meanders around making it less of a highway and more of a pain in the ass to drive.  It's one of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Maui and aside from one or two impressive waterfalls it sucks.  The main reason it sucks is one that is utterly baffling.  There are NO restaurants the entire region of Hana - guess what?  There are no real grocery stores either.  There are two shitty 7-eleven type places but that is IT!  I'm not exaggerating.  Even the tourist attraction spots don't offer ANY food or beverages.  What the fuck is wrong with you people?  This is a big area - Visitors like to eat.  In fact I understand some people eat up to three times a day.  There is one restaurant in Hana that isn't part of the one resort hotel in Hana.  That restaurant is also owned by the resort. 

I asked several of the locals.  Some were born and raised here.  They say that they drive 60+ miles to Costco about every two months and just stock up?  There is no butcher store, no place to get eggs unless you own chickens.  I know more people in San Francisco with chickens than here. 

It's made me very hangry and so due to the severe lack of restaurants in that part of Maui and the non existent grocery stores.  There are NONE!  I say, FUCK HANA, MAUI.  I'm not asking for a Safeway, I hate big chain stores.  I'm asking for a mom and pop store that has a few things.  I've been to impoverished countries that have a ton of food and grocery options.  It's like living on a different planet for food options.

Pa'ia Town had more restaurants on one block that the entire south east side of Maui.  I don't surf so I shouldn't have let the wife suggest Hawaii in the first place.  I'm sure there are other amazing spots but unless I get to see the sunset at the top of a volcano (there's one place that sells muffins on the drive to the top, but nothing else.)  We should have just stayed on the North Shore and done a few day trips. 

I was just enjoying a hike today to the falls (muddy and slippery as it was) and starting to let go of the fact that we had to drive 40 miles to a hole in the wall wooden hamburger shack that, thankgodfully, was open.  Hollie was up on the Jeep taking photos of the cool scraggly dry vistas and cliff overlooking the water in Maui cow country.  We saw a giant rainbow (cheesy yes) but the largest most vibrant one I've ever seen and I snapped a few great photos of her on her iPhone. That was the last we saw of her iPhone with the beautiful photos I took. I don't often loose things (at least not important things.  I felt like complete shit and I'm rather hating the turn of events here in Hana and retracing our drive to the only remote place where I could have dropped the phone.  Maybe I put it on the side of the Jeep and drove off with it there? I wish we were not booked for another night so we could get the fuck out.  Also, I'm at an all time kranki level and aside from doing all I can to make my wifely one happy I am a shitty husband. 

p.s.  The people in Hana are nice, but FUCK Hana.  Event the big tourist attraction The Seven Sacred Pools were closed so no swimming or cliff jumping.  The hike to the waterfall was nice despite the downpours of rain, but give me my money back, assholes.  Bullshit.  They want to keep it undeveloped like with was in OLD Hawaii, but what the hell did they do in ancient times pray to the God called Costcoa to provide them with sustenance?    

I'm having a hard time turning things around in my state of mind and with the trip in general.  The photos of happy wife taking shots of the rainbow LOST.... well that just feels like Hawaiian Leprechauns stole my joyous images and chance to turn the trip around.  I just want to break things when I should be enjoying the slow and restful pace of Maui.  It has to get better.  Thousands and thousands of dollars wasted on the airfare, rental car and accommodations.  I'm in freakin' Maui and I'm somehow more stressed than ever.

Fuck Hana! http://mauiguidebook.com/road-to-hana-maui/road-to-hana-sites-to-see-maui/seven-sacred-pools/

Jeep JEEP JEEP!!!

I have a huge silver Jeep.  I drove it down the Hana Highway today.  Did I mention that it's fucking HUGE.  It's like I'm in the military but they forgot to give me my uniform and M16 machine gun.  I will have a hard time giving the thing back to the rental company.  Maybe if I tell them how much I love it I can keep it?  It's big enough to sleep three people in the back.  If my wife sees another attractive hitchhiking young woman (we've seen two already) and insists that we pick her up... We can all go and make sweet delicious... s'mores on a campfire.  Yum.  I'd better go brush my teeth and go to bed now.  I can hardly keep up with Krankiwife*.  Demand has out-paced supply.  Oh the dangers of marrying a beautiful, young, 'energetic' damsel.  Life is good.  The sound of the sea and the upstairs people (I think it's the young housekeeper chick with her boyfriend having some kind of private party.  Two sets of flip flops outside the door.  Hawaiian style. 

Did I mention I have an awesome steel Jeep/Tank named Hank.  Happily lookig forward to jungle adventures tomorrow.  I'm going to hunt down and have my way with a crisp waterfall.


*please note that she's not usually cranki, she's just the wife OF Kranki.  I haven't settled on just the right pseudonym for her. 

Lovely Local Older Lady? - Possibly Paranoid Schizophrenic

Right now, I'm in Hawaii and it's god damn beautiful and I want to see as much of Maui as I god damn possibly can god damn, it.  I love natural beauty and good fruit and nice people and being near water that is all here in huge quantities.  I can already tell that I'll be back to Maui and other Islands of Hawaii.  What's not to like?  The grocery stores here are even cheaper than in San Francisco.  Yes, don't worry, it's organic. 


I'm tired from a day of beach sitting, grilling, pina colada concocting, chatting with a very nice but very paranoid older South African turned Maui local woman who reminded the wifely one of a female Keith Richards.  She started as a helpful local who answered a few questions for us but then she began to get a bit to much into secret criminal underbelly of Maui drugs it was interesting but there were very few details that sounded credible.  With her chain smoking and rambling tirades but generally nice disposition it was a bit harder to relax and enjoy the view.  The owner of our hotel is a nefarious individual who controls the drug trade in this part of Maui.  Dubious that he'd still bother, as he did, to come by and make sure the mini waterfall in the courtyard was working well if this was the case.  I do wonder about her wild 'could be true' anecdotes.  She was helpful, gave a few suggestions on places to visit but when she asked to use my phone to repeatedly call her bank (I let her because I'm a nice guy) she insisted on talking away from where we could hear her and she told me flat out to delete the number in the phone fearing that I or someone could steal her identity or get her money from the bank by having the digits stored in my phone somehow.  When the lil wifley one asked me what was up with her.  I said she was a very nice but possibly paranoid schizophrenic.  Credit to the wifely one for the Keith Richards-esque observation.   

A Year and Change

Yes, the title is a pun in that it's been a year and a few days since I posted and because my life has undergone quite a bit of change.

Last year this time I didn't own a scooter, I wasn't married and on my honeymoon in a beach in Hawaii.  I hadn't mentioned my lovely band of Inappropriate Update Group(ies)*.  It's been an eventful time.  Might be a good idea to start a new blog for a fresh start.  I also left classroom teaching and am going into business for myself offering classes as afterschool enrichment.  It pays quiet well and hour and I hope I can attract some talented teachers to help me expand the classes that I teach to other schools.  A bit like franchising myself.  I hope it goes well.  I have a sitcom writing project that stalled out and a fun idea for a script on the way back burner.  I also have a side web project that is almost ready (finally) to see the light of day.  It helps track dates with a bit of humor.  There are some interesting broader marketing applications associated with it that my developer friend and I are working on.  I'll have more free time to do things like write, bike ride, do yoga get acupuncture, read books, watch stupid TV shows and all that other stupid shit that people like to do.  Damn, I have a metric fuckton of work to do.  Plus I have a 24 year old wife to keep satisfied.  That's the best kind of exhausting though.  I also have a new apartment.  It's a tiny little crappy place that we're going to fix up now that our hipster roommate is moving out.  It must have been the daily** sounds of loud spanky-hot sex and not taking out the recycling that pushed him out of his 560 dollar a month apartment.  That's almost impossible to find in San Francisco.  Now that he got rid of the "I'll keep this dog in my room for 14 hours at a time when I'm too busy working or playing to be there." He's actually quite fine to live with.  Or maybe know that he's on his way out makes it easier for us all to get along.  At any rate we're going to do our best, to paint and decorate and fix our crappy little place into a small cozy home.  How Mrs Kranki and I didn't kill each other living in basically one medium-sized bedroom after all this time is a testament to a good marriage.  Or just restraint and good make up sex as a reward for getting on each other's nerves.

Tonight I find myself in Maui and while I'm rambling*** all over the place it does feel good to write and I'm going to try and get the rust off by doing it at least once a day.  God damn facebook just eats up my time and I spend it all writing 'witty' comments on other people's photos and updates when I could be working on more fantastic books or trying to publish the ones I've already written.  So many irons on the fire.  I hope my fire is hot enough to heat a few of them up so they boil into something creatively or commercially rewarding.  Preferably both.

* I realize I an NOT the draw of the group just a humble commissioner.  I actually like to call myself a curator of an international inappropriate comedy collective.  That's a lot like a guy who pumps gas calling himself a manual petroleum transport technician.

**It averages once a day.  Sometimes we'll go a whole 48 hours without and make up for it with a marathon.  I get nothing done on those days.

***What can I tell you, dude?  I just fuckin' like to make astrix notations.