Fun at the Laundromat

I just got back from another liberating experience at the laundromat. I love going to the laundromat. It's my chance to do my laundry, read, and be entertained by the weirdos in my neighborhood. I'm a fan of weird. Do you think geniuses are everyday, normal people? You can throw all the weird at me and I'm fine with it. But there comes a time when you realize it's just too much. Mental overdose. I entered the laundromat to that sweet clean clothes smell and recycled warm air...Thursday nights are usually dead there. Just a couple of odd folks. An overly obese lady with a nose-mole reading Desperation by Stephen King, testing the maximum load of the patio chair she was posted up in. She's got 3 kids and a Mexican boyfriend. Typical. I make my way to the area where I normally do my laundry. Sitting in my favorite chair is a malnourished man/woman/homeless person-thing patiently watching it's laundry. Said thing had a ponytail and was wearing what looks to be a man's long sleeve shirt, women's pants, and beach sandals. You can see the flaky, crusting skin around it's toes. A bonafide homeless tranny that looks like hammered shit. I was thrown sideways by this. I've seen weird. I've done weird. But this still manages to creep me out. Transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, cross dressers, and whatever other hodgepodge of sexual/mental/emotional turmoil brings out in people all make me cringe with tribal fear. I'm a big fan of doing whatever you want, as long as you aren't making life difficult for one or more other people. Do what you want. Be who you are. Express your inner fucked-upness. Go back and figure out why they snipped your emotional umbilical cord when you were 6 years old. Let it all out... Fine. Just don't expect any pity or attention from me.



Then there's a hunchbacked old man, also with a ponytail, greasy Coke-bottle glasses, and strong opinions. Some guy comes in and asks if he can turn the TV off, fine with me, and the Hunchback of North Park starts giving his loud opinion about how if it was his laundromat, he'd take the TV out. Ok, sir. We got it. No need to say it 4 times. Right as I'm about to leave, there's another typical scenario: the fat, aging Mexican mother with her budding community of children. 4 kids trail in behind her, all of them ready to flap their lips in a language I don't understand and get on my nerves. No father in sight. And they do...all 4 of them rattling on...needing, wanting, and not getting. I exit, telling myself that when I get my own house, I'm buying the fanciest washer and dryer set ever made, just so I don't have to see these fucking people ever again.



I drive home to find (for the second time today) a homeless trash digger going through our dumpster. He's trying to hide behind his cart full of a heaping pile of unwanted junk, shielding himself from my headlights, and scurrying off as I pull up. Ok...I can deal with trash diggers. I don't like the idea of it, but...it's not that bad. I tend to ignore it. I see it a lot. After a while, you just accept them as part of the overall picture here. Urban decay, live at my dumpster, at any given moment.



My sister called me at the laundromat because she needed me to go online to find out some information for her. After I fix some coffee, I sit down at my computer altar. I'm messing around on the NBC website and I clicked a wrong link. I'm glad I did. I read, San Diego County Sex Offender Map, then click. Just what I need. Another sobering slap of reality. Input address, hit enter, and then a punch to the face. Reality again. Within an 1100 foot square of my house, there are over 45 blue circles and yellow squares peppering the map. A blue circle means Serious Sexual Offender and a yellow square means High Risk Sexual Offender. A High Risk Sexual Offender lives less than one block North of me. Pan out to 1700 feet and the blue circles start to overlap so much it looks like maybe some of them live together.

So that did it. I'm moving. I'm moving to a nice neighborhood where I don't have to see hunchbacks, homeless trannys, trash diggers, gang members, Mexicans with their rude children (ok, I probably can't escape that), and the harsh reality of knowing a High Risk Sex Offender lives a block away, and Serious Sex Offenders live within walking distance. Complain about the rich people at Starbucks all you want. It's better than homeless transexuals, trash diggers, hunchbacks, chomos, and rapists. Give me a rich asshole over people with severe identity/emotional/financial problems any day.

And what is it with sex offenders having that god-awful beard or way too long moustache. Every one of them. Always creepy looking and always with that moustache or beard. Child molesters always have that. Must be some sort of calling card for them. You never see a clean-cut child molester.



I thought I could handle the "bohemian/artistic" neighborhood I live in. It's too raw even for me. Here's the link. See for yourself.

Photo Post - G5

This is my new, 1.6Ghz Macintosh G5. I have never used a Macintosh before, but I absolutely love this computer so far.

The beast is finally home:


Apple is known for their stylish packaging, and this is no exception. Honestly, this is by far the nicest thing I have ever opened in my entire life, bar none.

Los Angeles Sucks

Los Angeles is the shittiest city I've ever been to. On our way to see the Manson concert in LA, we seen a couple of wrecks, but nothing impressive. As we finally reached the city limits, we felt the smog and pollution growing heavy in our lungs. The signs on the highway were darkened from the smog. My car had a film on it like someone washed my car in soot. The city itself is horribly fake. Everyone we saw was either a genetic defect or a perfect Barbie/Ken doll come to life. It wasn't pretty.

The show went well, save the fact that Manson didn't play anything from the first album circa '94, which is around the time that I had discovered the band. A friend had told me that if I liked Nine Inch Nails, I might want to check them out. So I did, and I've been a fan since the day I first listened to them on my CD walkman at the Taco Bell in Dyersburg, TN. I first saw Manson in 1996 at the height of the Antichrist Superstar tour and I was a changed person. I finally got a raw taste of everything my parents hated and I loved. I took a lot of shit for it in High School and I didn't care. I don't care now. Think what you want. I knew even when I was 15 or 16 that there was more intelligence and rebellion to this band than I had ever seen before and haven't seen since. Most people scoff at the idea and say that he's a loony, without really knowing anything of which they speak. Well, I've heard it all. I've been in conversations and I've heard all the ignorant, close-minded fuckhead arguments you can envision. It bores me. But I'm not going to defend Manson. Either you like him or you don't. If you don't like him now, you never will. About the show...the Greek Theater in LA sucks. There were around 50 people in what would normally be called a "pit" area. The pit was pitiful. Behind that, we were all sitting down in ampitheater seating. Boring. I was pretty much dead center to everything, so I couldn't get quite the experience I was hoping for. I wanted a balls-to-the-wall full-frontal assault on my senses. I got low-impact theater seating around a bunch of people who stood there looking irritated. Actually, a lot of them were smoking marriage-you-wanna and putting it out as soon as they seen security coming close. I just kept throwing my fist in the air and drinking more beer. The show was impressive, but I wanted to be near the action. If I ever go see them, or any other band, I won't go unless I'm close enough to see them playing the music.

As Manson closed up the show, we made our way out to the parking lot and waited to leave. On the drive home we decided to get some more beer and go back to the hotel and party. The after-show festivities were more intense. Other than the fact that I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard on a Friday night with a beer in my hand and no one saying anything, we kept out of trouble. Yes, I know this is illegal. But, it's harmless. As long as everyone isn't doing it, it's fine. We're making our way down Hollywood Boulevard and we notice two females bickering. Guys pile around a skimpy firecracker Mexican in a short skirt and a floozy white chick in grunge dumpster fashion. It didn't take long. Soon they were dragging each other by the hair and punching whatever they could hit. Nothing brings guys together like two dames scrappin' or making love. Whitey finally pins Mexico on the ground and starts thrashing her face into a bruise farm. As grungy is pouncing on the senorita on the sidewalk, her skirt is wide open to the world sans underwear. The Mexican is getting her face hammered on one side and drunk men are crowding around taking a gander at her gaping fish taco on the other. Sex and violence on the streets of Hollywood. As I'm standing there, beer in hand, LAPD swoop down from the sky and break it up. Actually, they ran from the street, but you know... The crowd of men split and we're high-tailing it to get something to eat. Drinking and watching two amateur female prizefighters makes you hungry. We were surprised that there wasn't more illegal activity going on. I was expecting police brutality, overturned cars, and burning buildings. No such luck. Maybe next time.