(I came across an old email recently that I had sent to friends detailing my cross-country move from Michigan to Nevada four years ago. It's kind of amusing--though it wasn't at the time--so I thought I'd post it here.)
What is up, y'all?
I'm enjoying Vegas so far but let me say that if I ever move cross-country again (which I hope I don't), I'm never using Uhaul. Not only did I have so much trouble getting the equipment in Michigan, I broke down three times, twice in Utah. Hell exists and it's populated by Mormons. And I thought Kansas was bad.
The trip started out well enough. It was delayed a day because of the trouble with getting the equipment (a 14' truck with an auto transport). Once I was on the road I really enjoyed the drive for the first day, making it across four states. The second day was less fun but not bad. The third day started well but didn't end that way. The fourth day, also known as Utah, sucked major ass. And the final day started badly but ended well with me arriving in Las Vegas and moving in.
Like I said, the first day was fun. I made it to the middle of Missouri before I stopped for the night. It was cool going into St. Louis and seeing the Mississippi and the big arch. The bad thing was that I got there right at 5:00. St. Louis is a BIG city, with a lot of traffic, but I wasn't in a hurry and the other drivers were really friendly and considerate. It was kind of creepy, actually . . . all Stepford or something.
The second day was Kansas, which is really boring. Sure, the hills and valleys and later on the prairie is pretty but it all gets old very quickly. And all the radio stations played (yes, the truck was equipped with only a radio) was either country music or people talking about pig farming. I shit you not. And for some reason Kansas seems really big. I mean, it took me all day to drive across it! What's up with that? I felt like I was stuck in a time warp and I was hoping for a tornado to come along and blow me out of there.
Day three was cool to start. That's when I got to Colorado. It was really neat to drive toward Denver and see the mountains emerge from the clouds. Driving in the mountains was a pain in the ass though. Let me rephrase: driving a Uhaul truck in the mountains was a pain in the ass. And then the canyons were cool, though it's a little unnerving to drive along a canyon wall that's 2000 feet in the air with a sheer drop. I didn't used to be afraid of heights. Another thing that unnerved me were these signs that say "Speed monitored by aircraft." When I think of Colorado I think of NORAD and missile silos. Now I have to worry about spy planes. Thanks, Big Brother! But I do wish I had the opportunity to look around the state more.
I ended day three in Utah which is when I broke down for the first time. Once you pass Green River there are signs that say "No services for next 110 miles." So, of course, around mile 55 the engine stops running. And there is no cell phone reception. And other drivers aren't willing to stop when you flag them down. It is the asshole of Hell. So I sat on the side of the road for an hour, cranking the engine over until it finally started and I drove slowly to the next service area and got a motel room at an insanely high price. (The experience was actually much more trying than this, involving keys locked inside a vehicle with the ignition switch turned on, but as brevity is the soul of wit I'll leave that to your imaginations.)
I began day four in a good mood in spite of it all until I got to Cedar City, Utah, where a tire on the trailer blew out. I got off the freeway at the next exit and pulled into a Walmart. The Uhaul manual says that if you have tire trouble to go to the nearest Goodyear dealer where they will replace the tire and bill Uhaul. Since Walmart is a Goodyear dealer I thought I was in luck but such was not the case. The tire guy said they didn't carry the size I needed and that I had to go two miles back the way I came to the next place. So I did. Now, the way the trailer's undercarriage is constructed is that the axles are bolted in place on a brace that has a skid plate over the bolts. For some reason the surface streets in Cedar City, Utah have thick steel plates placed randomly over them. They're not conducive to pulling a trailer with a flat tire. Long story short, by the time I got to the service station the axle's skid plate and bolts at the flat end were sheared off, the brake line was torn loose and the trailer was untowable. So I called the Uhaul hotline, which kept me on hold for at least 45 minutes (I timed it). Finally, I was told a mechanic had been dispatched and would be with me in an hour and a half. In reality, it took three hours. When the guy got there, he told me the trailer was unusable (no shit!) and left for an hour to find me a new one. I finally got back on the road and when I was about six miles from the Arizona line I hit a dust storm. So I stopped at the next motel and called it a night.
Okay, the fifth day. Yes, the FIFTH day! I made it through Arizona and into Nevada fine. Everything went well until I was twenty miles north of Las Vegas. Now are you ready for this shit? Another blow out! On the new trailer! WTF? I pulled off at the next exit to call Uhaul and sat back, expecting another three hour wait. After being on hold for another 45 minutes, the mechanic showed up in less than thirty minutes, changed the tire in five, and I was ready to go. WHY THE HELL COULDN'T THEY DO THAT IN UTAH? Anyway, I got back on the road, made it to my apartment and moved in with no further trouble.
So that's my tale of woe. It feels good to vent. So far, like I said, I'm enjoying Las Vegas. I've only really seen the area around the university but I'm planning on hitting the strip next week. And the lack of humidity is really nice. It's much more comfortable than swampy Michigan.
Take care.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Bad Elmo
By now, most people have heard about the killer Elmo doll. If you have not, here's a link to bring you up to speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFcV65FrAfY. While many people seem shocked by this, I express no surprise. I've always known that Elmo was evil (check this out for further evidence: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=vids.Channel&ChannelID=93756406). Personally, I don't think he was threatening to kill the kid. Rather, I think he was trying to command the kid to kill.
The question that remains for me is what kind of entity is Elmo? Generally, the Sesame Street muppets can be taxonomized into three groups. Kermit and Big Bird are enchanted animals or, more likely considering the folklore (particularly as documented by the Grimms), enchanted humans that have been transmogrified into their animalistic totems. Bert and Ernie by contrast are homosocial humans, which at the time would have been regarded as just as aberrant as their bestial counterparts. And then we have characters like the Count, Grover and Cookie Monster which are unambiguously members of the monstrous races. The Count, clearly based on the Stokerized construct of Dracula, is a striga (pl. strigoi), a vampiric creature of Eastern European/Byzantine origin with a predilection for feeding upon children. The origins of Grover and Cookie Monster are more difficult to determine, but their similarities of features and bluish hues are suggestive of an Indus locus genius, in which case they would likely be raksashas, or Hindu demons.
But what about Elmo? In terms of morphology, he resembles Grover and Cookie Monster, indicating a demonic genealogy. His coloration, however, precludes easy association with creatures of the Indus region. His name, moreover, is Italian, derived from Germanic dialects, so he's probably of Western European (Carolingian/Ottonian) descent or possibly Nordic. While Norse mythology is populated by monsters, they are not really demons per se, although creatures like Hel and Fenrir do have demonic counterparts in the Christian mythos (understandable, considering the early Church's propensity for grafting "pagan" beliefs onto their own doctrine as a means of making easy converts to the faith). Aside from this, Elmo's coloration again precludes a Nordic origin (not blonde enough). Through the process of elimination, we are left with a Western European genesis. This determination is reinforced by the common depiction of demons in Western European (read: Christian) cultures as having a distinctly red pigmentation (e.g. Hellboy). We must therefore conclude that Elmo is the Devil. To be certain, Christianity allows for many devils (Beelzebub, Mammon, Asmodeus), so we cannot conclusively state that Elmo is Lucifer himself. But in the final analysis, does it really matter?
The question that remains for me is what kind of entity is Elmo? Generally, the Sesame Street muppets can be taxonomized into three groups. Kermit and Big Bird are enchanted animals or, more likely considering the folklore (particularly as documented by the Grimms), enchanted humans that have been transmogrified into their animalistic totems. Bert and Ernie by contrast are homosocial humans, which at the time would have been regarded as just as aberrant as their bestial counterparts. And then we have characters like the Count, Grover and Cookie Monster which are unambiguously members of the monstrous races. The Count, clearly based on the Stokerized construct of Dracula, is a striga (pl. strigoi), a vampiric creature of Eastern European/Byzantine origin with a predilection for feeding upon children. The origins of Grover and Cookie Monster are more difficult to determine, but their similarities of features and bluish hues are suggestive of an Indus locus genius, in which case they would likely be raksashas, or Hindu demons.
But what about Elmo? In terms of morphology, he resembles Grover and Cookie Monster, indicating a demonic genealogy. His coloration, however, precludes easy association with creatures of the Indus region. His name, moreover, is Italian, derived from Germanic dialects, so he's probably of Western European (Carolingian/Ottonian) descent or possibly Nordic. While Norse mythology is populated by monsters, they are not really demons per se, although creatures like Hel and Fenrir do have demonic counterparts in the Christian mythos (understandable, considering the early Church's propensity for grafting "pagan" beliefs onto their own doctrine as a means of making easy converts to the faith). Aside from this, Elmo's coloration again precludes a Nordic origin (not blonde enough). Through the process of elimination, we are left with a Western European genesis. This determination is reinforced by the common depiction of demons in Western European (read: Christian) cultures as having a distinctly red pigmentation (e.g. Hellboy). We must therefore conclude that Elmo is the Devil. To be certain, Christianity allows for many devils (Beelzebub, Mammon, Asmodeus), so we cannot conclusively state that Elmo is Lucifer himself. But in the final analysis, does it really matter?
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Tips for Visiting Las Vegas
So a friend of mine is considering a trip to Las Vegas and wanted some tips on where to go and what to see. Having lived in the Vegas area for three years now, I've got a pretty good sense of what it's like and thought others might appreciate some advice from a Vegas local. So here it is . . .
--When looking for a place to stay, consider what you want to do. Do you want to gamble, shop, go clubbing, take in a show, etc.? Knowing what you want to do will go a long way to determining where to go. Las Vegas is more than just the Strip. (In fact, the Strip isn't actually in Las Vegas, but that's another matter.) For example, when it comes to gambling it's best to avoid the Strip—we locals do. Since a trip to Vegas is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for most people, Strip casinos don't expect to see repeat business. Consequently, they're out to take as much money from chump tourists as they possibly can. Local casinos (e.g. Station Casinos, Arizona Charlie's, Sam's Town—not that these are endorsements) cater to the locals and count on repeat business. Since they have more to gain from keeping their customers happy, the odds of winning are more in your favor. Most of these places have their own hotels/resorts, so you'll probably be able to get better deals on rooms by going there. As for the other stuff, the shopping, clubbing and whatnot, it is best to go to the Strip for that. Just expect to deal with crowds of morons and pay out of every orifice you have. Did I mention that locals try to avoid the Strip?
--As a general rule of thumb, avoid the downtown area. Yeah, they've got the Fremont Street Experience and all that, but it's also a high crime area. There's talk of putting up surveillance cameras on the streets. Of course, you wouldn't be coming to Las Vegas to do anything illegal, would you?
--Bear in mind that what you see on tv isn't real. Of course, Vegas isn't real either, which is why so many television shows are set here. ("Set" is the key word; neither Las Vegas nor CSI nor any of those other shows are actually filmed here, so you're not going to be an extra on those shows by coming here.) The point is that Vegas isn't as "loose" as you've been led to believe. If something's illegal in your town, odds are it's illegal here too. Yes, this means that prostitution is not legal here. Sure, the State of Nevada allows legal prostitution, but what that means is that the state has left the issue up to the individual counties to decide for themselves. Clark County, where Las Vegas is, has chosen to criminalize it. So if that's what you're after, be aware that the closest brothels are an hour away in Pahrump. Naturally, there are ways around this prohibition and no, I'm not going to tell you what they are. And FYI, drug use and open containers are illegal here as well. It's Las Vegas, not Amsterdam.
--By the way, Las Vegans don't particularly like those stupid tv shows.
--There is, however, a lot of free porn around. When you visit the Strip—and let's face it, you will; how can you not?—be prepared for these really obnoxious people we call "clickers." These are people of questionable citizenship who spend their days lining up on the Strip and forcing business cards for hookers (okay, "private entertainers," if you know what I mean) on passersby. They're called "clickers" because they click their cards together to get your attention. For some reason, this is legal. It's annoying as hell, but it's legal. Unfortunately, it's NOT legal to push the clickers in front of oncoming buses. Did I mention that locals try to avoid the Strip?
--Okay, so you're going to be visiting the Strip. The Strip is about four miles long, so transportation is an issue. Bussing is a valid option. Driving is not; the speed limit is low and idiocy is high. There is a monorail, which locals consider to be a fantastic joke. When it passes by, try to watch out for debris—large, likely-important pieces of it have been known to fall off and getting killed by one would be a bad way to spend your time in Vegas. My recommendation: Bring comfortable walking shoes. Even if you confine yourself to a handful of properties on the Strip, you're going to be doing a lot of walking unless you rent one of those Segway scooters, which just makes you look like a dork. There is one thing that is vitally important to keep in mind when visiting the Strip: don't jaywalk. Pedestrians do NOT have the right-of-way here and if you follow the rest of the mindless lemmings on the Strip there is an excellent chance that you will be run over. You've seen Deathrace 2000, right? Well, some of the taxi drivers here seem to think they're auditioning for parts in that movie. Have I forgotten to mention that locals hate going to the Strip?
--Since you're going to be walking on the Strip, sunscreen is a good idea. And be prepared to drink a lot of bottled water. Buy at least a case of it. Don't worry, you'll drink it all before you leave. And don't buy it on the Strip; go to a grocery store in one of the local neighborhoods. A liter of water there will cost about $1. If you buy it on the Strip, or worse from one of the casinos, expect to pay about $5. And locals don't like the Strip?
That's all I can think of for now. Feel free to comment with questions about stuff I haven't covered. And consider going to Reno instead.
--When looking for a place to stay, consider what you want to do. Do you want to gamble, shop, go clubbing, take in a show, etc.? Knowing what you want to do will go a long way to determining where to go. Las Vegas is more than just the Strip. (In fact, the Strip isn't actually in Las Vegas, but that's another matter.) For example, when it comes to gambling it's best to avoid the Strip—we locals do. Since a trip to Vegas is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for most people, Strip casinos don't expect to see repeat business. Consequently, they're out to take as much money from chump tourists as they possibly can. Local casinos (e.g. Station Casinos, Arizona Charlie's, Sam's Town—not that these are endorsements) cater to the locals and count on repeat business. Since they have more to gain from keeping their customers happy, the odds of winning are more in your favor. Most of these places have their own hotels/resorts, so you'll probably be able to get better deals on rooms by going there. As for the other stuff, the shopping, clubbing and whatnot, it is best to go to the Strip for that. Just expect to deal with crowds of morons and pay out of every orifice you have. Did I mention that locals try to avoid the Strip?
--As a general rule of thumb, avoid the downtown area. Yeah, they've got the Fremont Street Experience and all that, but it's also a high crime area. There's talk of putting up surveillance cameras on the streets. Of course, you wouldn't be coming to Las Vegas to do anything illegal, would you?
--Bear in mind that what you see on tv isn't real. Of course, Vegas isn't real either, which is why so many television shows are set here. ("Set" is the key word; neither Las Vegas nor CSI nor any of those other shows are actually filmed here, so you're not going to be an extra on those shows by coming here.) The point is that Vegas isn't as "loose" as you've been led to believe. If something's illegal in your town, odds are it's illegal here too. Yes, this means that prostitution is not legal here. Sure, the State of Nevada allows legal prostitution, but what that means is that the state has left the issue up to the individual counties to decide for themselves. Clark County, where Las Vegas is, has chosen to criminalize it. So if that's what you're after, be aware that the closest brothels are an hour away in Pahrump. Naturally, there are ways around this prohibition and no, I'm not going to tell you what they are. And FYI, drug use and open containers are illegal here as well. It's Las Vegas, not Amsterdam.
--By the way, Las Vegans don't particularly like those stupid tv shows.
--There is, however, a lot of free porn around. When you visit the Strip—and let's face it, you will; how can you not?—be prepared for these really obnoxious people we call "clickers." These are people of questionable citizenship who spend their days lining up on the Strip and forcing business cards for hookers (okay, "private entertainers," if you know what I mean) on passersby. They're called "clickers" because they click their cards together to get your attention. For some reason, this is legal. It's annoying as hell, but it's legal. Unfortunately, it's NOT legal to push the clickers in front of oncoming buses. Did I mention that locals try to avoid the Strip?
--Okay, so you're going to be visiting the Strip. The Strip is about four miles long, so transportation is an issue. Bussing is a valid option. Driving is not; the speed limit is low and idiocy is high. There is a monorail, which locals consider to be a fantastic joke. When it passes by, try to watch out for debris—large, likely-important pieces of it have been known to fall off and getting killed by one would be a bad way to spend your time in Vegas. My recommendation: Bring comfortable walking shoes. Even if you confine yourself to a handful of properties on the Strip, you're going to be doing a lot of walking unless you rent one of those Segway scooters, which just makes you look like a dork. There is one thing that is vitally important to keep in mind when visiting the Strip: don't jaywalk. Pedestrians do NOT have the right-of-way here and if you follow the rest of the mindless lemmings on the Strip there is an excellent chance that you will be run over. You've seen Deathrace 2000, right? Well, some of the taxi drivers here seem to think they're auditioning for parts in that movie. Have I forgotten to mention that locals hate going to the Strip?
--Since you're going to be walking on the Strip, sunscreen is a good idea. And be prepared to drink a lot of bottled water. Buy at least a case of it. Don't worry, you'll drink it all before you leave. And don't buy it on the Strip; go to a grocery store in one of the local neighborhoods. A liter of water there will cost about $1. If you buy it on the Strip, or worse from one of the casinos, expect to pay about $5. And locals don't like the Strip?
That's all I can think of for now. Feel free to comment with questions about stuff I haven't covered. And consider going to Reno instead.
If I Had a Hammer
(This was printed originally in the Fall 2001 issue of the The Central Review, the literary magazine of Central Michigan University. This essay made me the winner of their first Student Writing Contest. Because it's so hard to find now, I figured I'd reprint the piece here for those who are interested.)
During Spring Break a few years ago, while bored with my Sony Playstation, I was seized with a rabid fit of spring cleaning. After all, I had the week off from school and nothing better to do, so I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and toilet brush and set about doing those things that I'd been putting off for...well, ever since I moved into my new place four months previous. Now some people might have found the task insurmountable or at least tedious, but not I. No, I found this orgy of cleanliness to be rather soothing and, in fact, downright meditative. Scraping the congealed mélange of grease and dust from my stovetop and scouring the hardened specks of toothpaste and shaved whiskers from the bathroom faucet really allowed me to get in touch with myself, to find an inner peace, and to ponder profound questions of the universe. To be honest, some of these questions really weren't all that profound. They were more like the cheap wisdom found in fortune cookies or at the end of a particularly grueling game of computer tai-pei: pithy phrases that seem to promise enlightenment but don't follow through. You know, stuff like "Has anyone ever cleaned behind this toilet before," or "How the hell did the Cheetos get there?"
There was one question, though, that was so profound that I ruminated on it for days. While I was attempting to hang a framed poster for the Roadkill Cafe ("You Kill It, We Grill It") from a nail that I was beating into the wall with the worn heel of a battered wingtip, I thought "Why is it that whenever I really, desperately, need a tool, it's always a hammer I need, the one tool that I don't have?"
Think about it. Have you ever been in dire need of a screwdriver? Of course not. Screwdrivers are tools that, if you don't have one handy, you can always find something else that works just as well: a pocket knife, maybe, or sometimes a credit card. But there is no suitable substitute for a good hammer. Oh sure, you can try to use your shoe, or a rock, or, and I don't recommend this, your TV remote. But none of those ever work as well as the real thing; instead, you end up frustrated, with scraped knuckles, and every time you click over to the Cartoon Network you get some guy hawking zirconium in Spanish. Trust me, I know from experience.
The hammer is an indispensable invention. In fact, it was probably the first tool developed after fire. It certainly seems like a hammer would have been necessary to chisel the first wheel out of rock. Hammers were definitely in use during the middle ages, when blacksmiths used them to forge armor and weapons out of raw steel, and there was definitely a hammer around in Jesus' time in order for him to be tacked up to the cross. In fact, without hammers, there'd be no civilized societies.
In spite of all this, though, I never thought much about hammers until I moved away from my parents and into my own place for the first time. It was then that I began to realize just how important and necessary a hammer is, and how frustrating it can be not to have one. As soon as I tried to hang a picture on my mobile home wall and I found that Scotch tape and a thumbtack wasn't going to work, I saw all the versatile uses for a good hammer. Yes, you can hammer small pointed implements into walls, but you can also sculpt beautiful works of art out of stone with the use of a hammer, or even make music; after all, a piano's strings sound when they are struck with, yes, hammers. Thor used his hammer to create thunder and lightning and to fly, and if somebody cuts you off on the highway, you can follow him home and bash out his headlights with a hammer. Indeed, as they say, you could hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening, all over this land. A hammer is truly a marvelous work of human engineering, and I had to have one.
But how was I to get a hammer? Now, the more commonsensible of you will probably ask a very simple question: "Why don't you just go out and buy one?" Well, I have two very good reasons as to why not. One, call me effeminate, but I'm not the kind of guy who hangs out in hardware stores, scratching himself and buying things that he will probably never use, and thus it would never occur to me to buy a tool until I actually needed one. And two, come on, I was a young, single college student! When I actually needed something, I didn't have the money to buy it just then, and when I did have money, buying a hammer wasn't as big a priority as, say, getting laid. So buying a hammer was out of the question.
What other options did I have? If you're of a less-than-scrupulous sensibility you'd probably say, "Borrow someone else's hammer and conveniently forget to return it." Well, I'm too honest for that. I couldn't in good conscience steal someone else's treasure; I mean, what if they needed to bash out someone's headlights, huh? Think about it.
It seemed that the only feasible alternative was to wait until someone gave me a hammer as a gift. So when Christmas came around and my family asked me what I wanted, I told them I wanted a hammer.
"A . . . what?" they responded.
"A hammer," I said. "You know, a hefty piece of steel attached to the end of a long stick, you hit things with it. A hammer."
"Why a hammer?" they asked.
"Because," I said very patiently, "I never know when I might want to sculpt a beautiful work of art out of a stone, or make music, or bash out someone's headlights. Duh!"
So much for that, I thought. One hammer coming up Christmas morn. On Christmas morning, I was at my parents' place (I had spent the night there), and was anxiously waiting to open my presents. When the time came, I tore into the wrapping paper and extracted a shiny new . . . screwdriver.
"Isn't that what you wanted?" my family asked.
"Noooo," I said. "I wanted a hammer. A screwdriver is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hammer. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"
"Well, can't you pound things with the blunt end of it?" they asked.
"It looks like I'm going to have to, doesn't it? Philistines!"
It went on like this for years. They'd ask what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday and every time I'd tell them the same thing: a hammer. And every time, they'd give me a new screwdriver. Well, everyone except my brother, who would misunderstand me and think I said I wanted to get hammered, so he'd go out and get some vodka and orange juice and make me screwdrivers. What was it with these people? Finally, this past Christmas was different. I spent Christmas Eve night at my parents' place, as usual, and the next morning when I got up to open my presents, what did I get? Well, a socket wrench set. But I also got a hammer!
I was so excited! Finally, the tool of my dreams! Sure, it was cheap and small and the head was covered in a peeling, greasy, black lead-based paint, but so what? I didn't have any kids and I sure as hell wasn't going to lick it. Besides, it's the thought that counts.
I couldn't wait to get home and try it out. All through dinner, it lay cradled in my lap. As we sang carols around the piano, it was nestled safely in my pocket. On the drive home, it sat serenely next to me in the passenger seat. As soon as we came through the door, I quickly unwrapped it, ripped it out of its cellophane covering . . . and watched in mute horror as the head fell off.
Oh my God! I thought. I've killed it. Frantically, I tried shoving the head back onto its wooden handle, but it fit too loosely. I grabbed some Scotch tape and tried to tape it back together, but the paint was too greasy for the tape to take hold. Everything I tried was to no avail. It was an ex-hammer. Sadly, I gently and somberly carried the remains to the garbage can and laid them to rest.
Now you must understand that I wasn't mourning the loss of just a simple inanimate object. Rather, I was mourning the loss of what it represented. The hammer was the foundation of civilization. Without hammers, we wouldn't have schools and universities to teach us the knowledge of the ancients and give us the ability to move forward; we wouldn't have hospitals that allowed us to heal the sick and prolong our lives; we wouldn't have cities and factories and churches and technology. Without hammers, we wouldn't be able to hammer out danger, or a warning, or love between our brothers and our sisters, all over this land. Without hammers, we would be nothing more than animals. I wasn't mourning for the loss of a hammer; I was mourning the loss of our humanity.
Oh well. There's always next Christmas, I guess. Until then, this battered old wingtip seems to be working pretty well.
During Spring Break a few years ago, while bored with my Sony Playstation, I was seized with a rabid fit of spring cleaning. After all, I had the week off from school and nothing better to do, so I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and toilet brush and set about doing those things that I'd been putting off for...well, ever since I moved into my new place four months previous. Now some people might have found the task insurmountable or at least tedious, but not I. No, I found this orgy of cleanliness to be rather soothing and, in fact, downright meditative. Scraping the congealed mélange of grease and dust from my stovetop and scouring the hardened specks of toothpaste and shaved whiskers from the bathroom faucet really allowed me to get in touch with myself, to find an inner peace, and to ponder profound questions of the universe. To be honest, some of these questions really weren't all that profound. They were more like the cheap wisdom found in fortune cookies or at the end of a particularly grueling game of computer tai-pei: pithy phrases that seem to promise enlightenment but don't follow through. You know, stuff like "Has anyone ever cleaned behind this toilet before," or "How the hell did the Cheetos get there?"
There was one question, though, that was so profound that I ruminated on it for days. While I was attempting to hang a framed poster for the Roadkill Cafe ("You Kill It, We Grill It") from a nail that I was beating into the wall with the worn heel of a battered wingtip, I thought "Why is it that whenever I really, desperately, need a tool, it's always a hammer I need, the one tool that I don't have?"
Think about it. Have you ever been in dire need of a screwdriver? Of course not. Screwdrivers are tools that, if you don't have one handy, you can always find something else that works just as well: a pocket knife, maybe, or sometimes a credit card. But there is no suitable substitute for a good hammer. Oh sure, you can try to use your shoe, or a rock, or, and I don't recommend this, your TV remote. But none of those ever work as well as the real thing; instead, you end up frustrated, with scraped knuckles, and every time you click over to the Cartoon Network you get some guy hawking zirconium in Spanish. Trust me, I know from experience.
The hammer is an indispensable invention. In fact, it was probably the first tool developed after fire. It certainly seems like a hammer would have been necessary to chisel the first wheel out of rock. Hammers were definitely in use during the middle ages, when blacksmiths used them to forge armor and weapons out of raw steel, and there was definitely a hammer around in Jesus' time in order for him to be tacked up to the cross. In fact, without hammers, there'd be no civilized societies.
In spite of all this, though, I never thought much about hammers until I moved away from my parents and into my own place for the first time. It was then that I began to realize just how important and necessary a hammer is, and how frustrating it can be not to have one. As soon as I tried to hang a picture on my mobile home wall and I found that Scotch tape and a thumbtack wasn't going to work, I saw all the versatile uses for a good hammer. Yes, you can hammer small pointed implements into walls, but you can also sculpt beautiful works of art out of stone with the use of a hammer, or even make music; after all, a piano's strings sound when they are struck with, yes, hammers. Thor used his hammer to create thunder and lightning and to fly, and if somebody cuts you off on the highway, you can follow him home and bash out his headlights with a hammer. Indeed, as they say, you could hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening, all over this land. A hammer is truly a marvelous work of human engineering, and I had to have one.
But how was I to get a hammer? Now, the more commonsensible of you will probably ask a very simple question: "Why don't you just go out and buy one?" Well, I have two very good reasons as to why not. One, call me effeminate, but I'm not the kind of guy who hangs out in hardware stores, scratching himself and buying things that he will probably never use, and thus it would never occur to me to buy a tool until I actually needed one. And two, come on, I was a young, single college student! When I actually needed something, I didn't have the money to buy it just then, and when I did have money, buying a hammer wasn't as big a priority as, say, getting laid. So buying a hammer was out of the question.
What other options did I have? If you're of a less-than-scrupulous sensibility you'd probably say, "Borrow someone else's hammer and conveniently forget to return it." Well, I'm too honest for that. I couldn't in good conscience steal someone else's treasure; I mean, what if they needed to bash out someone's headlights, huh? Think about it.
It seemed that the only feasible alternative was to wait until someone gave me a hammer as a gift. So when Christmas came around and my family asked me what I wanted, I told them I wanted a hammer.
"A . . . what?" they responded.
"A hammer," I said. "You know, a hefty piece of steel attached to the end of a long stick, you hit things with it. A hammer."
"Why a hammer?" they asked.
"Because," I said very patiently, "I never know when I might want to sculpt a beautiful work of art out of a stone, or make music, or bash out someone's headlights. Duh!"
So much for that, I thought. One hammer coming up Christmas morn. On Christmas morning, I was at my parents' place (I had spent the night there), and was anxiously waiting to open my presents. When the time came, I tore into the wrapping paper and extracted a shiny new . . . screwdriver.
"Isn't that what you wanted?" my family asked.
"Noooo," I said. "I wanted a hammer. A screwdriver is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hammer. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"
"Well, can't you pound things with the blunt end of it?" they asked.
"It looks like I'm going to have to, doesn't it? Philistines!"
It went on like this for years. They'd ask what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday and every time I'd tell them the same thing: a hammer. And every time, they'd give me a new screwdriver. Well, everyone except my brother, who would misunderstand me and think I said I wanted to get hammered, so he'd go out and get some vodka and orange juice and make me screwdrivers. What was it with these people? Finally, this past Christmas was different. I spent Christmas Eve night at my parents' place, as usual, and the next morning when I got up to open my presents, what did I get? Well, a socket wrench set. But I also got a hammer!
I was so excited! Finally, the tool of my dreams! Sure, it was cheap and small and the head was covered in a peeling, greasy, black lead-based paint, but so what? I didn't have any kids and I sure as hell wasn't going to lick it. Besides, it's the thought that counts.
I couldn't wait to get home and try it out. All through dinner, it lay cradled in my lap. As we sang carols around the piano, it was nestled safely in my pocket. On the drive home, it sat serenely next to me in the passenger seat. As soon as we came through the door, I quickly unwrapped it, ripped it out of its cellophane covering . . . and watched in mute horror as the head fell off.
Oh my God! I thought. I've killed it. Frantically, I tried shoving the head back onto its wooden handle, but it fit too loosely. I grabbed some Scotch tape and tried to tape it back together, but the paint was too greasy for the tape to take hold. Everything I tried was to no avail. It was an ex-hammer. Sadly, I gently and somberly carried the remains to the garbage can and laid them to rest.
Now you must understand that I wasn't mourning the loss of just a simple inanimate object. Rather, I was mourning the loss of what it represented. The hammer was the foundation of civilization. Without hammers, we wouldn't have schools and universities to teach us the knowledge of the ancients and give us the ability to move forward; we wouldn't have hospitals that allowed us to heal the sick and prolong our lives; we wouldn't have cities and factories and churches and technology. Without hammers, we wouldn't be able to hammer out danger, or a warning, or love between our brothers and our sisters, all over this land. Without hammers, we would be nothing more than animals. I wasn't mourning for the loss of a hammer; I was mourning the loss of our humanity.
Oh well. There's always next Christmas, I guess. Until then, this battered old wingtip seems to be working pretty well.
Thoughts on Turning 32
--Our society puts deadlines on life achievements. By the time you're 32, for example, you're supposed to be married and have 2.5 kids. If you don't, you're made to feel like a failure, especially as you see people around you achieve those things. So turning 32 makes you feel bad. What's really messed up is that even though I don't really want those things, I feel like I should.
--Popular culture sucks as you get older. You turn on the radio and it's all "some lame band (Nickelback) imitating some other lame band" or some singer-songwriter lacking testicles pretending to be sensitive. I swear, the next time I hear that "Lips of an Angel" song while driving, I'm going to run someone off the road.
--Television, too. I've developed a fondness for Sanjaya simply because he's sounding the death knell of American Idol. Die, Idol, die!
--Text messaging really ticks me off. I mean, what's the point of it? Most people who text message do so on their cell phones. Why not just call the person you're "texting"? The only reason for it is to communicate with someone secretly, which means you're either avoiding a conversation or cheating on a test. Either way, it's rude.
--By the way, "texting" is not a real word and I get really annoyed when somebody uses it as one.
--Note to the neighbors' kids: get off my lawn!
--Your body just doesn't work like it used to do. Okay, I was never an athlete in the first place, but at least I never used to hear loud popping sounds coming from my body unless I had a mouthful of Pop Rocks. I get a backache from sleeping. From sleeping! Sleep is not supposed to hurt!
--Middle-aged women who get tattoos and body piercings because they want to be seen like their daughters? That's just wrong. And those pants that say "Juicy" across the seat? (full-body shudder)
--Speaking of pants: hey, wanksta, pull your pants up and buy a belt! All you're doing by wearing those is displaying your shortcomings, if you know what I mean. Actually, I hear that the police catch a lot of thugs on the run because their pants fall down and trip them up. Hmm . . . maybe there is a point to those pants after all. They remove stupid people from the general populace, thereby preventing them from contaminating the gene pool. Darwin lives!
--Popular culture sucks as you get older. You turn on the radio and it's all "some lame band (Nickelback) imitating some other lame band" or some singer-songwriter lacking testicles pretending to be sensitive. I swear, the next time I hear that "Lips of an Angel" song while driving, I'm going to run someone off the road.
--Television, too. I've developed a fondness for Sanjaya simply because he's sounding the death knell of American Idol. Die, Idol, die!
--Text messaging really ticks me off. I mean, what's the point of it? Most people who text message do so on their cell phones. Why not just call the person you're "texting"? The only reason for it is to communicate with someone secretly, which means you're either avoiding a conversation or cheating on a test. Either way, it's rude.
--By the way, "texting" is not a real word and I get really annoyed when somebody uses it as one.
--Note to the neighbors' kids: get off my lawn!
--Your body just doesn't work like it used to do. Okay, I was never an athlete in the first place, but at least I never used to hear loud popping sounds coming from my body unless I had a mouthful of Pop Rocks. I get a backache from sleeping. From sleeping! Sleep is not supposed to hurt!
--Middle-aged women who get tattoos and body piercings because they want to be seen like their daughters? That's just wrong. And those pants that say "Juicy" across the seat? (full-body shudder)
--Speaking of pants: hey, wanksta, pull your pants up and buy a belt! All you're doing by wearing those is displaying your shortcomings, if you know what I mean. Actually, I hear that the police catch a lot of thugs on the run because their pants fall down and trip them up. Hmm . . . maybe there is a point to those pants after all. They remove stupid people from the general populace, thereby preventing them from contaminating the gene pool. Darwin lives!
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