Kids and Consequences

Hey, remember me? I used to write stuff here and people would sometimes read it.

I thought I'd try writing a bit and see if it got my juices flowing a bit. I feel a bit like an athlete going back into training. Hopefully it won't be too painful an experience to get back into the swing of things. Ideally it'll be as easy as riding a bike. Perhaps I could even coin the new expression "It's like writing a blog."

So, I'm back to teaching kindergarten this year and I quite like it thus far. Trust me, adults are overrated when it comes to keeping you entertained.

One cute kid moment involved me talking about the rules and consequences. I let them help me set the classroom rules so they feel empowered. It's new age teaching crap.

I gave the kids an example to help make it more clear. "What if Oscar kept forgetting to put the colored pencils away even after he got several reminders? Then the next day he left the materials out again and even broke a point of the pencil on purpose? What would be a good way to help him remember?

Kylie enthusiastically raises her hand.

Me: "Kylie, what do you think should happen?"

Kylie: "You should give Oscar more fish to eat. Fish is brain food! That way he will remember better."

The kids are smarter than me. Send help.

48 Hour Film Festival

It's hard doing an entire film (even a short film) in 48 hours. You write it, cast it, shoot it, edit it and do the music and there may only be 2 minutes left before the thing gets turned in.

I hope it turned out well. I'll know when I see it on the big screen next Monday.

Wish me luck. I'll post a link to it on You Tube when it's up.

www.48hourfilm.com

For My Consideration

So, I'm considering some things. I thought I'd write them down and be able to look back and see which I actually chose and which ones I didn't fully embrace.

I'm considering...

1) buying a fancy camera so that I can be a mediocre photographer with an excellent camera. It's like giving those thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters word processors so they can work even faster. Eventually I'm bound to take a good snap.

2) giving up on heterosexual women and just being the male version of a fag hag. I'm thinking of calling myself a Dyke Rider. Maybe I can start a trend. I wonder if I'd have to buy new clothes? I'm open to helpful input here.

3) getting around to paying my taxes for 2007.

4) a radical career and life change and move after my next year of teaching. Yep, another one.

5) dropping out of civilization to live off the land. No, wait, that sounds tiring. Much as I'd enjoy not getting any junk mail it would suck to have to teach woodland creatures to be my friends AND have to eat the very same creatures to survive.

6) opium, opium, opium. Light me up!

7) getting up to go pee and then getting a refreshing beverage.

Three Pennies

Last night I met up with some friends at a drink to help charity event. I think this particular charity was about abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex. I don't really know what the fuck that means but it matters to somebody so why not raise some money for the alcohol appreciation society at the same time. It was a fairly friendly crowd.

After my friends and I closed out the bar we got some lovely pizza. I treated because I'm frighteningly wealthy and generous. I had to leave because they started using some kind of nasty smelling cleaner. So while my friends finished their pizza I met a loud homeless woman who told me that it was her birthday and asked me if she looked good for 49.

I told her she was 49 and looked just fine because I am a dynamic street poet with crazy rhyme skillz. She continued to speak to me about her uncle and her sister who were down the street and not taking care of her. Finally my friends came outside and we could leave, but the woman insisted that I'd promised to give her three pennies. I actually had three pennies on me but I was taken aback by the idea that I had promised her anything. Also I thought giving her three pennies would just piss her off more. I told her I hadn't promised her anything but she insisted that I absolutely had. I told her that I no longer believed her that it was her birthday and I was leaving. She got very annoyed and said that she should kick her size 14 shoe right up my ass. If somebody lies and then threatens you does that automatically take back your compliment?

It's not always good to get attention.

When I'm an angry homeless black woman I'm going to remember to be nice to people. Especially on my birthday.

An Open Letter to Facebook

Hey Facebook,

It's Kranki here. I see you've been in the news a lot and you're getting more popular every day. That's awesome, congrats. Listen, you and I have spent a good amount of quality time together. Remember when we stayed up all night and I drank too much and passed out right next to you? I had the keyboard imprint on the side of my face. LOL! ROFL! Good times, good times... Anyway, I know you're busy and don't want to pressure you or anything because you know that's not my style. I do however need to made a simple request. Can you please make me look cooler? Please?

If I wait for my friends to do it, it'll never happen. They're far too busy finding terrible and embarrassing pictures of me to share. Pictures where I'm in some idiotic pose with a stupid prop or where my hair has grown out into a mullet because I was on vacation and didn't care. Pictures where I'm clearly going to be hung over the next day and doing something "zany" or "wacky." Or they'll find the one picture where I accidentally Frenched one of their dogs. That kinda thing. As you can imagine while it shows I have a fun side it doesn't really convey cool. And while I know I'm not some runway model with brooding good-looks I still think I deserve better from you, Face. I mean, I don't want to have to remind you that I left MySpace for you. I've only spoken through MySpace a handful of times in the past year. I've made a commitment to you. Lately though I've been having my doubts about your commitment to my happiness and my needs. So, I really need to know where our relationship headed. I didn't want to say it but with you my sex life has really gone down hill. MySpace was helping me get ass pretty regular. MySpace helped get me laid by nearly a dozen* women. What kind of action do I get from you? Zero. Sure you helped get me back in contact with some dear old friends from high school and college and you've certainly introduced me to some interesting Australians but get your act together, dude, they live in Australia. I'm here in San Francisco.

I'm getting off track here, it's not all about hooking me up with attractive women.** I also want to be taken a bit more seriously as a creative artist. Look, what I'm basically saying is you owe me for my loyalty. You need to start making me look like a cool, sophisticated, man about town. If you can't do that I may be forced to do something drastic. That's right, if you can't hold up your end of the deal I may be forced to leave the house to meet people. Let's both hope it doesn't come to that. Get it together, Face. I want to work this out. I love you, man.

p.s. I'm still kinda ticked off that you made me use my real name. So much for an intriguing mystery name that implies I'm a jaded malcontent with a playful edge.


* really just 7 times

** it isn't?

Monty Magic was Wondering

My handsome and learned friend, Monty, from South Africa (I only have one there since I never bothered to exchange information with the topless chick that I met in Amsterdam who was painting mushrooms and rainbow zebras in the basement of a bike shop. She didn't strike me as much of a corresponder anyway) wanted to know what happened on the aggravating Saturday night a few weeks back. Well, I wasted time on a very frustrating person who happens to suffer from adult A.D.D. and is freshly divorced and carries with her a whole mess of baggage and intimacy issues. It seems that I am going to actually have to call her and tell her that she isn't somebody with whom I wish to spend my time with. Why do we always give the attractive ones more chances?* She seems to find the dynamic of leading me and lately my friends on then feigning complete ignorace of the ways in which human beings interact with one another to be delightful fun that we should do again real soon. I did enjoy when she jump-kicked off of the moving bus, but that was only because there was a danger of her falling, hitting her head and becoming more sane.

I am looking forward to not having to worry about San Francisco and the strange cards it has seen fit to deal me. Granted I've proven not to be a very good card player but you still need a few good hands to with the pot. Bluffing doesn't work as well in the real world as it does in cards. Or maybe it does and I should start wearing my "I am so fuckin' happy and rich!" shirt. Soon I will be on vacation and despite being too sick to undertake the flight and long road trip I am about to undertake I'm going. If you're good Uncle Kranki will bring back a shiny anecdote for you from Colorado. I will think of you as I soak my feet in the hot tub at a very large and elegant Telluride home.



























































* That's easy. It's because we're all a selfish and shallow lot of fools who are taken in by packaging.

Ear Plugs

I can always tell when the lesbian couple upstairs are about to get conjugal because it's the only time that they run their shower in the evening. Sometimes it's fun to listen to their love-making but most of the time it just keeps me up. I've actually invested in a pair of ear plugs. The side of the box doesn't guarantee that it will protect the wearer from the sounds of Saphic pleasuring but they really do block out nearly all of the noise. I don't hear any of the moans, grunts or fevered whimpers of pleasure. I only hear the creak of the floor when they change positions. I really should send in a letter to the ear plug company telling them how helpful their product has been.

I just wasted a Saturday Night. I can't tell you what I was doing because I'm ashamed that I didn't trust my better judgement and just made other plans for the night. But I fucking god damn well didn't trust my judgement and ended up listening to my Id and my friend Mr. S and ended up spending time with a crazy person who annoys me 85% of the time I'm around them.

I will never get this Saturday Night back ever again. I could write the next great novel of our time but no matter how poignant and evocative that piece of shit international best seller is, I will still never be able to unlive this evening and gain back the time wasted on foolish notions.

You can't change a person into a sane person and you certainly can't trick them into being sane, so if you are around somebody and they are acting crazy and.... now the phone is ringing. It's the crazy person in question. Thanking me for hanging out tonight and trying to convince me to keep trying with them. I think not. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 9 times and I'm a martyr to a pointless cause.

Thanks Dee Dee!

I believe it was Sophocles who said it.

"To truly know a man you must first crash out on the dude's couch."

It's been a while since this kranki old boy has strung together two back to back out till five am nights.. This morning I was pleased to learn that my kind host, Mr. Wright, grinds his own coffee beans. After a night of mild mayhem it takes a while for me to do my morning-after damage assessment. It isn't until I've cradled the reassuringly warm and solid mug in my hands and taken the first few sips of comforting caffeinated brew into my system that I know my brain is still mostly intact. At that point I always say a silent pagan prayer of thanks to the God of wine, women, and song. I think that particular god's name is Decadence. Although his close friends just call him Dee Dee.

Since Enny asked

This is what happened. She talked about her ex boyfriend entirely too much, called me a lightweight drinker (I am. Plus I was full from dinner, but no guy likes to hear that) which caused me to drink more than I needed. I kissed her at one point and it was nice but then she said she had to go at 10:24 pm to do some work which when she described it sounded like it was less than urgent to me. I told her that was bullshit, but fine. Then on the way up the hill walking back to her car she said she couldn't make it and I picked her up. She was too fucking heavy and I was too drunk and I went to place her atop some recycling bins and kiss her sexily but ended up dropping her on the light and empty bins and face planting her into a parked car. If that wasn't bad enough there were some people who saw the whole thing and uncaringly asked if we were okay before telling us to pick up all the containers that we had knocked over. She apologized for being too heavy and I walked her to her car, made a quick joke about promising not to call her and hurried inside. I went to sleep even though I should probably have just slit my wrists in the bathtub. At least I don't work with her... Oh, wait... FUCK!

Date with Disaster

I think it was the worst date I've ever gone on and the second worst date I've ever heard of. The worst date I've ever heard of happened to my friend. She was out on a mediocre date with a guy who was driving back from the restaurant and began to accelerate to almost 75 miles per hour on a residential street. She asked him what was wrong and insisted that he slow down. He wasn't listening to her but a few minutes after speeding up he suddenly lowered his head and looked totally dejected as he brought the car's speed down to just 20 miles per hour.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He said nothing and just looked out at the road. This weirded her out and caused her to genuinely worry.

"Hey, you need to tell me what the hell is going on!" She insisted.

He finally looked up at her. At that very moment she began to smell a terrible odor that was far more than just flatulence.

"Well," he said. "It's just that the food didn't... I really like you and... I was nervous so..."

Then the smell hit her with its full nostril curdling force and she realized that the guy she was on a date with had just shit in his pants.

"Nevermind, just let me off right here and this never happened."

My date wasn't that bad, but it was very close.

Pre Bay to Breakers

Well tomorrow will be my first Bay to Breakers. It's really strange to be waking up at 7:30 in the morning on a Sunday to go get drunk and watch athletes mingle with costumed eccentrics and naked people.

I have my Bubble Boy costume just about all ready to go. I have a bubble wrap cape, utility belt and a bubble hat. I also have my trusty, crime-fighting bubble wand that shoots a few hundred bubbles per blast. Look out evil. You've never seen anything so intimidating.

Dudes at the Park

My day was very trippy. But it wasn't my fault. It was all because of some dudes at the park who, as part of their product promotion, were giving away free samples of their "special cookies." As it turns out these cookies were extremely special. So special in fact that even just half a cookie can have you forgetting how to properly text message and/or stand without falling.

It is a testament to my lack of responsibilities that I can engage in this form of consumer spending. Free 16 hour high. The Dudes at the park are a welcome addition to the small businesses that cater to the laid-back, park-dwelling bohemians.

MM

Mackin' with Jesus

Saturday was the birthday of a young woman I know. She's cool, has great taste in music, some big tattoos and she cuts my hair when I can be bothered to tame my mullet back into hair that a non-caveman hippie human should have. I assumed that she would probably have a bunch of cool female friends so I invited one of the few guy friends I have here in SF to join me.

The best-looking woman at the dinner party was - and I'm not sure the proper term here so I'll just use all of them and be utterly politically incorrect - a midget, dwarf, little person, hobbit.*

At the Beauty Bar we watched some very attractive lipstick lesbians dance until the music just became utter shit and the visual enjoyment was overwhelmed by the auditory irritation. Then my friend and I went off to another place to have a drink. There were no lipstick lesbians or midgets there and shockingly we were able to get a table on a Saturday night.

When my friend popped off to the bathroom this Chinese woman and a tall guy with a salt and pepper beard invited themselves to sit down across from me. They looked interesting so I didn't care that they'd just plopped down. Jeff and Cindy introduced themselves and Jeff told me they'd just been talking about the reproductive tendencies that have been hard-wired into the male mind. I think I impressed them by telling them about a few authors and works I've read on the subject. I asked if they were discussing the topic from a modern sociological standpoint or a more anthropological point of view. Jeff didn't know what to make of that. I think his drinks were catching up with him because I didn't understand his response.

My friend returned and we asked Cindy, the Chinese chick, how she and Jeff knew each other. This proved to be the absolute best question to have possibly asked her. It was probably the only interesting area of conversation to be mined but it was a productive shaft to chip at.

It turned out that Cindy was here from England going to art school and she was currently doing a video installation entitled "If God doesn't do it for you, try making out with his son." Here is the gist of it. When she was a girl attending Catholic School she was fascinated with the image of Jesus that hung in her auditorium. She was particularly entranced with his beard which she would day dream about often. So now her video installation entails her filming herself making out with men whom she doesn't really know who have beards. As she explained it "I like to go to their apartments after arranging to meet them and I video tape them making out with me for as long as we can until it becomes uncomfortable or awkward." She had recorded just seven guys so far and she was feeling a bit down about her low number of subjects. When Jeff went to get more drinks and probably flirt with other women she confessed that she had developed a bit of a crush on this guy Jeff who she had just met because he is in an all beard-having, male, acapella group that sings Leonard Cohen songs. The name of the group is Conspiracy of Beards so it seemed a good idea to approach this group and try and convince some of these guys to make out with her on camera.

I asked her to show me how she would ask me if I had a beard so that we could see her approach and I have to say it was about as terrible as one could imagine. I gave her some pointers on how to talk to these guys and I suggested that she should go down to the Castro district and see if gay men would be open to the idea.

She told me she was writing my name and number down in her little book because I had "a special quality about me." I made it clear that I had no plans to grow a beard anytime soon so I doubt I will actually hear from Cindy, the Chinese chick with a wide-on for guys that look like Jesus who makes a weak attempt to hide her fetish as something resembling art.

I never understood why any woman would want to have a beard up rub against their face while kissing a man.

* I know you were hoping this post was going to be about how I had hot, kinky, sex with a little person. I can't say I blame you.

New York Juice

I'm finishing up a trip to New York City and I have to say that the city is an inspiring place. Seeing all the people out and about on the streets creates an energy that you can feel. It charges me up with ideas and gets my gears moving. I've been in a non-writing, non blogging funk for quite a while now and I hope that the visit will give me a creative burst.

For me the most astounding thing about being in Manhattan is the fact that they have everything here. Almsot anything you could possibly good or service that you can think of that exists is available. Any type of cuisine is at most a short subway or cab ride away. The sheer number of options for how to spend your time is probably what makes New Yorkers run about like headless chickens. Stylish headless chickens. New York may be the only city where on the same block you can get a gourmet a French roast cup of Kenyan coffee, a sumptuous Italian meal, and a happy-ending Swedish massage from a Vietnamese woman who speaks Spanish. Mei-Ling is a talented woman.

I need to get cracking on some more writing so I can reclaim my status as a struggling writer instead of just being somebody struggling to write.

More About T-Shirts

Last week I wrote about the difficulty of wearing certain kinds of T-shirts with words on them such as this one.
But the idea of wearing a picture of somebody else wearing that shirt opens up an entire new set of possibilities. It changes it from being a statement shirt to a commentary on somebody else's statement.

I don't think I would personally wear a shirt that said "GIANT CUM" but I would probably be up for wearing the shirt above. I don't know that the words on the shirt have any relation to the picture.

Right now I'd like a shirt with a picture of Dubya that says "It's not too late to kill me and my puppet master for shoving that giant piece of rusty metal into your ass." Maybe something a bit more catchy.

Fickle are Friendships

Holy Cow, I got some comments. I must say I was delighted to find that there are brave men and women out there willing to forgo doing something constructive to not only read my blog but to take the time to comment. You are all beautiful people in my eyes. I should also say that I am running a high fever and am on two different kinds of cold medicine so it will be interesting to see what my fuzzy and borderline delirious mind decides to tell my fingers to do.

I think I want to write about friendship because I've had a great many over the years and very few have lasted. I wonder sometimes if perhaps I become tedious to people after a while. I think I can be charming when people first meet me but perhaps the novelty wears off in time. Maybe I'm not a happy enough person so people don't want to put up with my dark episodes. I'm not rich, or successful and I can only rarely score you free tickets to see a cool band. I try to be a good listener and give helpful advice.

Maybe friends are just like shoes where you try on different kinds and different styles to see what fits you and some go out of style or just get worn down from years of use.

It would be so much better if the good friends we had were always there to be good friends and ports in the storm. But the reality is that many times we choose our friends based on what they can do to help us and we give just enough to keep getting what we want from them.

To me friends are especially important because I don't have any brothers or sisters or a very large family so it's hard for me when good friendships come to a bitter ending or as is more often the case just drift away. Sometimes it's because somebody moves or gets absorbed into a Borg-like relationship but other times I can't even tell how or when it happened.

Since I moved to a new city just over a year ago I've worked very hard to try and carve out some friendships and it's been work at times. I've also been trying to reconnect with some old friends through email but even in the few cases where there has been an inital response that is tremendously positive the emails just stop coming.

Some people are too busy to have friends that aren't going to move them up the social ladder or help their career. That's unfortunate because for me having true friends is what makes it all worthwhile.

FBI

So I'm sitting at my local cafe having a turkey, avocado, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich on a lovely baguette with a fresh lemonade to drink just thinking that maybe, maybe, things are okay in the world. Just at that moment, as if to pimp slap that notion from my head, this Hispanic guy walks into the place wearing his brand new shirt. This shirt.

He had no ironic sense about him. On many people it could have a 'so crap it's brilliant' style to it. Slap it on a geeky keyboardist or a... hmmm... put it on a hip lesbian construction worker and... no... wait. Okay, okay, I have it. Put it on a happily married accountant and... damn, the shirt just sucks no matter who wears it. It was especially horrible on this guy who wore it because it...

a) is original and clever

b) makes him feel better advertising his heterosexuality in San Francisco to avoid any gay men with a thing for aspiring, pseudo-gang banger douche bags who would be all over his action.

c) complimented his ample neck bling.

d) flat out impresses the ladies.

e) ALL OF THE ABOVE

I can't even think of a celebrity that the shirt would seem cool on. That's how shit the thing is. Have any other horrible T-shirts you'd like to share?

The correct answer is e) ALL OF THE ABOVE

Feel The Juice: A Cabventure

I was riding in a cab with my friend Seth and we were talking about the idea of get rich quick schemes and how most get rich schemes actually prey upon people who are looking to get rick quickly themselves. That's when my friend told me he was going another route and was now making peace with poverty. He elaborated for me and it started to make a great deal of sense. Instead of killing yourself or (god forbid) working hard to attain material comforts, possessions, a large and fancy home and the opportunity to dine on fine food in exotic locations you simply go the other way and accept that you don't have very much, don't have to work very hard and decide to be okay with it. It's kind of Zen in a way. Eschuing the material wants and extraneous tidbits that we are forever chasing for the simplicity of the bare minimum.

Seth and I were into a pretty deep conversation so I was quite startled when the cab driver-- loudly exclaimed. "Poverty is the devil!" Then he began a manic monologue that I can only attempt to recreate. I wish we had him on audio or video. He jumped all over the place but some of the things I remember him ranting about were money and sex. "You got to have a good car and money in your pocket to take your nice lady out for dinner -- but I would never have sex with a condom because I GOTTA FEEEEL DA JUICE!... ya know?"

We goaded him hoping he'd share more of his blue collar brilliance with us.
"So, you seem to be saying that you don't like having intercourse while wearing a condom."

CABBIE: "Yeah, man. Dat's for shit. A condom on your cock is for shit shit! Dat's like sucking on a candy with the wrapper still on. When you're in the poosie YOU GOTTA FEEEEL DA JUICE! Mmmhh."

I think he then began espousing on the secret to happiness having something to do with being able to afford a nice car, a cute girl and someplace good to go for dinner. Then he quickly switched topics. I got the sense that he just wanted to talk so Seth and I just let him go.

I had this one girl in my cab and she says to take her to the Saint Francis Hotel and can I come get her in one hour, right?! So you know she's selling her trim trim. I mean I drove her to a few places and she was telling me how much she charges these guys like thousands of bucks right because some of these rich guys they will pay whatever for good trim. For her it's like popping a champagne cork but instead of a big gooey load coming out it's money for her. She's sucking up the money. She got a mouth full of money.

We got out of the cab and I told Seth that Taxi Cab Confessions had it all wrong. The real show would be putting a camera on the cab driver and just letting them rant.

I'd like to think that there was a deep philosophy behind the notion of "feeling da juice." A philosophy that embraces the world as it truly is, and the importance of not shielding oneself with a protective or insulating layer. How it is crucial to truly and fully experience all that life has to offer. That's really giving our cabbie too much credit. He just has very strong feelings about how he likes his "poosie."

Sometimes people I meet ask me why I left LA and "the biz" It's always been hard to articulate but this video resonated with me.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=1577240