PODCAST HELL

I just need to know. If you're reading this than you are probably someone close to me. I haven't posted an episode to the feed for a month and a week now. People who are involved in the podcast: What can I do to make this work? After talking to my therapist, she agreed that I need to continue making these episodes. Do we need structure? Should we talk about whatever we want without abandon? Does anyone have time out of your busy week to talk to me and others for like an hour? Anyone want to write music or create art for the show?

Here's the thing: I need to do this. I need it. I don't care about all of this unaired stuff that we're sitting on. If whoever wants to complete those two episodes let me know if I can help in any way I can. If no one wants to work on those old recordings then seriously let's push forward. If you want to do this I'm ready to go. I haven't been doing anything the last two weeks in terms of podcasting because of New Orleans and my computer is all infected with something, but I've killed the problem hopefully. Oh yeah and my room flooded again so my "studio" is all messed up. Don't worry about that, I'm ready to record.

Tell me what I'm doing wrong please. You want to talk about something? Go. Do I talk too much? Tell me to shut up. I try to let everyone say something but I don't know. If no one wants to participate then I'm going to experiment with doing shows on my own. Like my therapist said I need and want to do this.

Ken Flowchart

I'd Beat Ums: Mardi Gras Edition

No pictures and I'm avoiding moments that shouldn't be mentioned on this blog. I'm going on the best and the worst moments of Skweeze Mardi Gras 09 aka Bachelors fo' Leeze. Here are the best "you had to be there" moments. Aye mang, urrrybody gotta dream mang.



5. The food


With one exception (Fuck you Carlos Mencia's Suave, you horrible horrible man. Really? Tan can't have chicken in his burrito? It's 2009 you obnoxious fuckface). We ate so much good food, specifically at this place called Mother's. We spent two hours there ordering more and more food and no matter what we had, it was amazing. One regret from the trip was we didn't find this place sooner. I could eat there everyday but I can eat New Orleans cooking everyday. We got to try all of the local dishes like gumbo, beignets, jambalaya, muffaletta, oysters, and yes the po'boy. Which leads into...



4: "Can I have (insert number here) Po'boys?"



Not sure how that got started but I think Dave and Derrick started it. We kept asking each other that question above over and over in high pitched southern accents. Everytime we tried some new food we would add on or replace foods. "Can I get 14 po'boys and 3 orders of beignets? With some cawffee. And don' forget a bowl uh gumbow." It might have gotten annoying to some but I couldn't help but laugh. I think all of us left with a slight New Orleans accent.


3: Chris Owens


One of the most ghetto ass spots on Bourbon, but Dave really wanted to go there. I couldn't justify paying a cover to go anywhere on Bourbon but I could really appreciate Dave's passion. It became a running gag after awhile. "Where we going?" "Chris Owens yo." Then I find out she's some burlesque dancer who wanted to open a club in the French Quarter. I didn't think she was a she and I most certainly didn't think she was a burlesque or cabaret dancer.

2. Blue Blaaaaaaazer

Owen Hart was the original, but Dibs took it over. Dibs was too bourgise for us huh? "I only drink Grey Goose and I'm gonna wear my blue blazer. I only eat beignets from Cafe du Monde. Gotta dress to impress man." Honestly I can't say if Cafe du Monde had the best beignets because that's the only place we had them, but I didn't really like them. Anyway, it wasn't like that with the blue blazer, but there was sort of a powerful aura that surrounded Dibs when he wore that coat and maybe we should have dressed up a little. I didn't really give a shit though. I was good with my oversized "Groom to Be" hat and matching pimp cane. I think we all brought nice clothes to wear to the fancy restaurants we were supposed to go to, but that plan fell through because we were flat broke by the end of the trip.

1. CHESTER?

I didn't think it was that funny at the time and I don't remember why I was trying to get Chester's attention, but we were about to leave the hotel and I was waiting in the hallway. I called in a high pitched voice, "Chester!?!" and when he looked at me, I gave him an enthusiastic wave, like "HALLLOOO!!!!" All excited and shit. I guess the way I said it made people crack up but the excessive waving put that inside joke over the top.

Honorable mention: Late night Telemundo/Japanese Movies

First people are running from each other, then they're raping each other, then there is consensual kissing, and then they die. WHAT? CJ wanted to ask one of the maids to come hang out and translate for us.

Honorable mention: Dibs on Tuesday morning

I went downstairs to the hotel lobby ready to go out and in walks Dibs with a bottle of Bailey's in one hand, a fake cigar in the other and beads around his neck that go all the way down to his knees. "Parade." That's all I remember him saying. He said more, but we were both in such a daze that I can't be relied on to tell the story completely accurate.

NEXT TIME: The worst moments of Mardi Gras

Expect A Podcast by Saturday

I don't give a fuck. I'm going to put something on that feed. I've already started and I can work all Friday night just to get it done. Hopefully making the show will be the calmness that I haven't had lately. Wish me luck.

EDIT

Shame on you for thinking I would actually do it. I'm off to Mardi Gras. See y'all next week.

It's SF IV Day so Why Ain't I Celebrating?

I've just been having many moments of anger the last few days. I don't know what it is. Every little thing has been setting me off. I was picking up Andrea at the airport and the train took like 30 minutes to get there. I'm grumpy at work. I don't know.

I saw someone I knew on the train yesterday, but I didn't say hello. I was scared she wouldn't remember me and I didn't want to deal with the awkwardness. The way I handled that bugged me even more and I got really angry with myself. Then 7/11 didn't have Street Fighter and they were supposed to. I demanded a refund and vowed not to buy beer there anymore. I'll go to the hip but overpriced wine shop to buy beer from now on."Bullshit...bullshit," I said. I couldn't believe what I was saying that because even though I feel angry, I usually don't vocalize my anger so openly. I had to walk like a mile and half to Best Buy and they didn't have it either. I made a last ditch effort to look at Gamestop but I knew that they wouldn't give the game to me because I didn't pre-order. Why can't I walk into a game store and buy a game? Is that too much to ask?

Of course Gamestop had to prove me wrong. They had plenty of copies. The fact that they had it pissed me off too, like "You're Gamestop! You're supposed to be the facist juggernaut of the gaming industry. You're not supposed to have unreserved copies of a brand new game." I felt inconsolable, but as I waited for the bus a homeless man asked me if I was alright. You wouldn't be able to tell he was homeless unless he told you. His clothes were pretty clean and all he had was a backpack. He wanted directions to the nearest Jewel so I gave him directions. He told me about how difficult it's been for him and I felt embarrassed telling him about how I've been angry lately. He was very comforting and for the first time in years, I wanted to give a homeless person money. A couple of years ago a lady hoodwinked me out of 5 bucks and I vowed never to give a homeless person money after that. I stopped carrying change so that my pockets wouldn't jingle and I'd just ignore anyone who talked to me on the streets. I wouldn't even let them finish their question. One time I told someone to fuck off.

Anyway, I didn't give him money. He never even asked for it. He just wanted directions and I guess he wanted to talk to someone. So that was nice. Hopefully I'll feel better before Mardi Gras but I'm not that optimistic.

Before Mardi Gras

-My Gamerscore is over 9000.

Finally, check out these amazing wallpapers. I put the Street Fighter one on my desktop, but those Sonic and Zelda ones are just beautiful.

Spiz Vs. Water: Part One

I hate swimming. I hate things that I don't understand. I can't swim.

I had a few experiences of complete panic in the water as a kid. I never learned how to swim and I was thrown into the deep end more than once, usually as a joke because people didn't know I couldn't swim. I had too many negative experiences as a kid and I still have a lot of phobias. I do not enjoy not being in control of a situation and being in open water scares the hell out of me. Andrea and I rented a canoe in Carmel/Monterey a few years ago and despite being completely inside a canoe while wearing a life vest, I was hyperventilating and I couldn't bend my fingers. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that feeling when your fingers are stuck completely outstretched and if someone closed your hand into a fist for you, your fist would slowly open and your fingers are outstretched again. That happened to me after riding my first roller coaster and it happens to me whenever I'm in water.

I made the stupid agreement with Andrea that we could never get married until I learned how to swim. It might have been something I said just to get some sex, but of course Andrea took it seriously. Plus we're going to Aruba for our honeymoon which is an island. Islands are surrounded by water and people that live near water like to go into the water to do activities like finding cool shit and swimming.

For the longest time I had this plan that I would just not learn how to swim. I would live in some state smack dab in the middle of the country that didn't have the Mississippi running through it. All I had to do was just not go to pools and I would be fine. Why learn how to do something when you never had to do it? I watched all the kids swimming at parties and when the host parents asked me to join the other kids I replied, "No thanks. Can I play your Nintendo though?" I even persuaded my parents to let me go to Moreau instead of Logan just so that I wouldn't have to learn how to swim because swimming was a requirement at Logan because they had a pool on campus. Obviously I didn't avoid going to Logan just because of that. It was Union City after all. You know how it used to be. Moreau wasn't any better, but that's another story. Anyway, I stayed dry at Moreau so that was awesome.

So I agreed to have Andrea teach me how to swim. If she can teach me how to swim I will view her as more powerful than Gandalf the White. I have tried to learn before although I admit I either didn't try hard enough or I just got so freaked out that I just gave up. I had my first lesson today and as soon as I got into the pool my fingers went straight and numb. Andrea held me up as I tried to float, making my body completely straight. When she tried to pull me away from the edge of the pool I splashed and flailed wildly trying desperately to grab the edge of the pool. She was completely patient with me which I am so grateful for. I felt frustrated and embarrassed. Thank goodness I didn't have my glasses on. That sort of help me because I couldn't see whether or not people were looking at me. I could just focus on trying to learn how to fucking float.

I just try to let go, but I'm so tense. I take a breath, kick my feet up, arch my back, do whatever Andrea is telling me to do, but after a second or two I feel my hips sinking. I'm going down, I lose my breath, and I start kicking as if that is going to help at all, but nothing is stopping me from just fucking sinking. I'm at the shallow end so there isn't any danger that I really have to worry about, but I'm trying to make myself believe I'm not in 4 feet of water. I need to forget about the safety of the floor below.

We tried different things. I practiced kicking, paddling, kicking with a floatie and after two hours I could go 10 feet away from the edge of the pool with the help of a floatie, but I was going at a snail's pace. It took me like 30 seconds to go 10 feet. I figured out how to float but only while kicking my legs and I can't paddle for shit. My legs are on fire now. I can't remember the last time I've done anything active. I didn't feel hung over before my first lesson, but I think all of the physical and mental strain gave me sour stomach and a headache. I ate a mad amount of pickles and drank a lot of tequila the night before. I felt salty, but I felt good. I could do more than I ever could before, but still I can't do shit in water yet. It's so hard to learn new things when you get older. You have to unlearn bad habits.

I'm going to post an entry after every lesson. We're planning to go to the Gym every Sunday until I figure it out. I've got two months to learn how to swim. Cross your fingers for me.

flipkick friends

It's a quarter to 11 on a Saturday

And I'm seriously considering going to bed. Fuck that. I'll show you sleepies!