My Aunt Is Hot

The recent record setting hot weather has me thinking about a summer favorite that doesn’t get enough attention: The Ice Cream Cone. They are super versatile little pieces of edible engineering. They have those criss-cross shit at the bottom, and are cylindrical, but also at the top spherical.

In many ways, they’re like a delicious 3D waffle. How many other foods do you eat which have words printed on them? Or pictures of little kids? The ice cream cone stands alone in the world of delightfully decorated deserts.

Let me set the stage. It’s very late. Or very early. Depending on how you think about the hours after midnight. Your stomach rumbles. Is it really weird to think, “Ice cream cone. Yeah… I’m gonna snack on one of those bastards.” ?

I think the ice cream cone is interesting in that it’s been under utilized for the last 100 years. It’s shape lends itself to so much more than frozen stuff. I mean, why can you put some jelly(s) in a bowl and get your dip on? Would it be a crime to get some Fluff (Marshmallow creme), Crushed up oreos, and and peanut butter in that bad boy? For that matter, imagine the excitement of a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich that had a crunch to it.

Bystander: “What’s that?”

Me: “Oh, It’s a PB&J Cone”

Of course, all of this is just a distraction to the fact that I’d eat cones by themselves. So help me in making 2008 the year that we liberate cones from it’s cold, smothering master.

Is anyone else ridiculously attracted to the girl from the new Death Cab For Cutie video? I’d marriage her ass.

I have such random weaknesses.

And here is the video where she treks around the world all hot like:

I bought a pair of shoes last summer that I consider to be trusted allies. They’re my favorites, and oing with the theme of “Favorites” this week, I decided to try and replace them with the same, or a similar pair of shoes. Apparently, in one year, a lot has changed in the illustrious world of Men’s shoe fashion. Not that I have ever been very fashionable. Here are my main criteria when shopping for a shoe:

• Doesn’t weigh 12 million pounds
• Makes good use of color
• Very Comfortable
• Doesn’t encourage people to make incorrect assumptions about my sexuality.
• Durable enough to hold up to the many asses I kick. (I have a similar requirement about pens I use to be able to hold up to all the names I take, but I digress…)
• Not Lame.

I don’t think this is an unreasonable set of demands for something I have to wear for the better part of my waking life for a while. In fact, I think that’s pretty easy going. Regardless, a trip to the mall had me reeling in disgust.

For the record, I’m not a professional motocross rider. I’ve never made any claim to be one. However, it seems that pretending you ride freestyle motocross is the newest hippest fad along with pretending you’re an ultimate fighter. If you’re looking for 20 of the same shoes, slightly tweaked to prevent idiots from seeing they’re all essentially the same, consult your local mall. Pictured Top Right, is pretty much what I was confronted with at every single store: Black and white with black and some squiggly black or white highlighted with black. Or white.

What’s a guy to do? Call bullshit on the myth that “Well, I can’t do any better”. I bought a pair of White Vans for 30 bucks, broke out my airbrush (A Badger 155 Airbrush), and held up the finger to conformity. I did some planning in photoshop (Pictured Right) but once the paint started flowing, creativity took over a little bit. Below are some pictures I took while painting my new kicks. If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to leave them in the comments. Click to see the larger version.

The shoes turned out VERY vivid and bright. Not really how I envisioned them looking, but I made them, they’re EXACTLY what I want, and they cost me 1/3 of what “The Man’s” shoes would have cost, and if I want, I can still go pro with my freestyle motocross riding.

I like to feel prolific. I think everyone does. It’s unfortunate that girls will never know how prolific it is to pee all over things. Sometimes, you just have to douse something.

After a night of drinking, and closing down the bars, my friend Ryan and I found ourselves on Mill Ave. a little bit intoxicated, and very in need of a bathroom. If you’ve ever been to Mill you know that once the bars close, that’s it. It’s like a ghost town. Their are no bathrooms to be had. With over 5,280 feet to my house, I had to take desperate measures. We started walking, and passed a parking garage. I told my friend Ryan that I’d be right back, and started descending into said parking garage.

I’m a little bit of a shy pee-er, I really like my privacy. Even when drunk. So as I’m descending the second set of stairs I hear — THWACK - crumble. Apparently Ryan hucked a boulder off the top of the stairs into the stairwell. Just for giggles. I’d have laughed, but I’d have wet myself.

I find myself in the bottom floor of this three story parking garage, standing in an empty corner, fly down, teeth whistling, and posed like a drunken referee indicating a field goal. I was peeing like there was a fire, and I was extinguishing that shit. I felt prolific.

Just about the time I zip up my pants, and start to move towards the stairs, I see the door open. I see two “TEAM Security” guys walk out. And I say to myself “Oh Shit”. I slowly dig my right hand into my pocket and fumble for my keys. As I’m pulling them out of my pants, I hear one of them say, “What’s going on Sir?”

As I turn to them with a “Oh, you’re talking to me” look, I slowly raise my arm, keys in hand, and start to jingle them slightly as if I’m pressing the button on my car alarm. The rub here is that I do not have a car alarm. I was not even parked in the garage, but I kept jingling like I was waiting for a “Woop Woop”.

The other security gaurd, in what I can only imagine was a carefully rehearsed “Good Cop, Bad Cop” act recited, “What were you doing over there?”

I answered with what seemed to be the most sensible answer, “I’m looking for my car. It’s blue. I parked it somewhere around here” . “Well, their aren’t even any cars in this section of the garage. In fact, It’s been closed all day. And, what happened in the corner over there?” He said gesturing towards this massive puddle slowly creeping it’s way from the corner.

I gave him my professional opinion, “Looks like you have a pipe leaking. I’d get that checked out.” Which, in retrospect, wasn’t as outlandish as it seemed at the time. The quieter of the two security gaurds said, “Ok, let’s go”. I started walking up the stairs and as I got to the part where my eyes were level with the ground, I saw Ryan giving me the international sign for “WE NEED TO DIP THE FUCK OUT OF HERE”. I turned to both of the security gaurds, and I said, “You guys should keep up.” As they looked back at me puzzled I started taking steps 4 at a time. I wasn’t just fast, I was running at the speed of [bud] light.

Needless to say, I’ll find a tree or something next time. I should have learned, this hasn’t been my first run in with urinary delinquency.

Everyone has them. Not assholes or elbows, not opinions: favorites. I have favorites of everything. Favorite socks, favorite couch spot, favorite toothpaste. Pretty much, if their is a decision to be made, I’ve evaluated all the other options, and have ranked them in some fashion, producing a favorite. However, there is something awesome: When you have more than one favorite. I found this situation occurring recently after I finished folding a load of laundry. I was on my way out for the evening and realized in front of me lay pretty much every piece of clothing I wear, and all of it was clean. It was like Christmas morning. I had my pick of the litter, and in a little bit of a gluttonous splurge, I wore 2 shirts, one over the other.

I’m fucking sick and tired of meeting girls with boyfriends… who wait until later to mention that they have a boyfriend. This has happened to me FOUR times in a row. I even went to far as to ask girl #3, “You don’t have a boyfriend do you? I’m having a terrible streak of boys with girlfriends”

She replied, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” Only to tell me the next night, when we were going to hang out, “I have a confession — I have a boyfriend who lives in Washington DC. We’ve been dating for four year….but I thought you were really cool and didnt want to scare you away because I had a boyfriend.” Greedy whore.

The latest in this little string of disasters was a girl I met at Dos Gringos. It’s a really trashy establishment, and brings out total morons with little or no intelligence. So, when I met a girl who was a museum curation major, I as pretty surprised. I talked to this girl for the better part of an hour. I don’t know about what, but she was pretty fun to talk to. I get her number, and give her mine. I called her once during the next week and gave up on her as a lost cause. Then, I get a voicemail from her….
Boyfriend Blow Off Phone Call

I do give her props for having the courtesy to call me so I wouldn’t think she was uninterested, but I give her mad unprops for having a boyfriend and being deceptive about it. This is the kind of shit that makes me want to NOT have a girlfriend because she could be out doing shit like this.

Maybe it’s because every year I give this post the same title, but it seems that my birthdays seem to be getting closer and closer together. Like I’m living on Venus where time moves really quickly. However, I notice that my birthdays are getting better and better each year.

This year, I made reservations at my favorite dive bar, Iguana Macks. How can you go wrong attending any establishment with “Mack” in the title? The 3 days prior to my birthday, it rained. It rained all day on my birthday, but luckily just hours before I was to go to my reservation, it magically stopped. It was perfect..well as perfect as it could be, it was still as cold as a mother fucker. I use the term “Cold as mother fucker” in all relativity of course. It is Arizona.

I had 5 or 6 close friends drinking with me. I like to drink Coronas. They’re my all around stand by. However, on special occasions, I like to mix it up. Mix it up I did. My friend John, the only other guy I know in the world with a “boca” (the ability to talk) like mine, insisted that I try “Soco and Lime”. I, after some coaxing, agreed. Our waitress, the quintessential blond, brought us these very brown, very large shots.

“John, These soco shots look and smell an awful lot like Tequila…” I said somewhat suspiciously. Alcohol makes me a skeptic.

As I suspected, even in my somewhat drunk state, they were tequila. We told her she brought us the wrong shot, and she apologized and scampered off to make it right. She brought us back our limey drinks, and we drank them. Much to my chagrin, they were good. Then, a few minutes later she came back with the tequila shots. I kidded with with her, “The bartended didn’t have a funnel to pour them back in the bottle?” She blushed slightly. The kind of blush that made me think she hadn’t thought to try and use a funnel.

These were damn close to triple shots. Served in a cocktail glass, about 1/3 of the way full. I like to use the term “raunchy” to describe them. We cheersed to something drunken but celebratory. Free tequila will have that effect on people. I watched as Brooke, the beautiful 110 pound girl across from me, slammed down her glass in victory, followed by several other. I found myself still drinking, my top lip totally submersed. This was a lot of tequila.

I finished, but felt very sick. I stood up just in case I needed to make a dash somewhere. Shooting tequila is fine. Drinking it like water on a hot day is not. My friends, knowing me very well, knew that I was sick. Apparently I have ‘a look’. Someone, and it’s only because I was trying to not spew that I do not remember, suggested I just “mosy to the bathroom and come back when I feel better”. However, I persevered and totally impressed everyone by sitting down 2 minutes later, totally composed again and drinking a beer. Sometimes, I do feel like a rockstar.

Unfortunately, after that moment, things start to get hazy. They had an awesome wood burning stove that kept everything really cozy. The next morning, our clothes smelled like a campfire. It was a great birthday.

For the majority of the semester, I’ve been kicking ass in all of my classes, in particular Sociology. It’s simple. I understand it, and I feel like on some level, Sociology understands me.

Anyhow, after the midterm (on which I got a 92/100 on) my professor, the esteemed Dr. Lori Girshick (Author of the riveting book about lesbian non-consensual sex; “Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She call it Rape?” You can visit her website about lesbian battering, and other non-traditional domestic violence the catholic church would frown on http://www.loribgirshick.com), started a new policy that if you do not have an outline of the reading, you were not allowed to come to class. She was not pleased with the low grades on the test.

The day she instituted this policy, I asked her, “How is preventing someone from hearing the lecture, of which a lot of the midterm was based, working towards higher grades for the class? Does that not seem a little counter productive?” Her answer was “Well…This is the way we’re going to do it.” So much for intelligent, mature, discourse.

Anyhow, I was sick one day. Missed one class, the first one all semester. I showed up the next class, and did not have an outline. I showed up early, to talk with her about maybe handing it in after class, or doing it for the next chapter, or some other equally amicable compromise. She would not oblige. I didn’t have the outline, and she told me I could not, under any circumstance stay in class. I knew it was time to bring out the big guns, and appeal to her reasonable side. I said, “But Dr. Girshick, let’s level here, I’m a straight A student, this is the only lapse I’ve had all semester.” All she could say was, “You gotta go.”

I stepped it up a bit, I made some concessions. “Let me stay and listen, but give me a zero for the day, as if I’m not here. That’ll accomplish the same effect.” She said, “No, you MUST leave.”

In all desperation, I tried one last plea, “But Dr. Girshick, This will make me have missed two classes in a row. And you only need three to fail the semester! I can’t handle this, I’m a straight A student!”

She replied one last time, a little bit flustered, “You have to leave. We’ll talk about this later.”

Realizing that I was not going to win, I figured I might as well have some fun with the situation. I found myself perched forward while I was pleading. Realizing that my efforts were in vein, I leaned back, crossed my arms, put my right leg over my left, and said “What happens if I don’t leave?”

“You have to leave, or I am going to call security” She stated rather matter-of-factly.

“Welp” I said with a very intentional “P” on the end of that word, the kind of P that might precede the phrase ‘I best…’

“I don’t think I’m going to pick up and leave a class I paid an awful lot of money to attend.” I cooed at her.

“Well, then I’m calling security.” She pouted.

I quickly chimed in at her as she was walking towards the phone, “Make sure you tell them why it is you are kicking me out of your class!”

As I sat there, I kind of started to freak out. I was way too deep to turn back now. I just kept pretending like I was staying in class, I opened the book to my un-outlined chapter, and took out a piece of paper for the quiz.

In a few moments security arrived. It was two guys. They were big. They sounded like cowboys when they walked because of all the jingly shit hanging off of them. As both of them walked up, one stood on my right, and the other took up post behind me. The one on my right folded his arms.

“You really need to leave.” Said my professor. At this point, I was feeling really intimidated, but still like I was doing something right. I’ve never gotten in trouble for GOING TO class before, so if nothing else, it was a welcome change.

I put my right hand on my chin, and said, “Mmmmm … I don’t think so. What happens if I don’t leave?”

The security guard to my right closed my book and picked up my bag. The one behind me said, “It’s time to go.”

Sitting there, with nothing in front of me, and nothing left to really lose, I said, “Wellll, I’m not leaving.”

It was at this point, the security guards picked me up under my arms. I didn’t really think they could do this, but then again, I didn’t think you could get kicked out of class for not having your homework.

I was really cool and polite up until this point. I was trying to have mature discourse about a conflict between myself and the professor. However, as soon as they put their hands on me, I started having a good old fashioned freak out. I threw my arms around so they would let go of me, and started yelling. “You fucking rental cops get your filthy hands off of me. I’m a fucking student.”

I took back my bag and said, “This is fucking bullshit. All for wanting to stay in class.” As we were leaving the classroom the bigger of the two security guards had to get his jab in, “I’m not a rental cop, I was a federal agent for 21 years.” This absolutely infuriated me. It trivialized my cause. “Ohhh a fed” I said while doing the jazz hands, “We’re all realllyyyy fucking impressed”.

After I left the class, I actually apologized to the security guards. They were actually just doing their job. They were actually sympathetic to my cause upon finding out what it was they were called in for. I ended up getting a refund and a withdraw passing. The administration told me I would have to apologize to the class for “scaring them” and “causing a scene” if I was to come back. I told them, “There is no way I’m apologizing because I didn’t do anything wrong.” They said if I didn’t apologize, the teacher would have to make a statement saying I was sorry. That’s complete crap. I very professionally told them they can stuff it, and to give me my money back.

I feel as though if I had a phenomenal rack, this would have turned out differently. Sometimes, I wonder how I get myself into these situations.

Disclaimer: Sadly, No that’s not my ass.

Years ago I started a Facebook group called “Go Commando Or Go Home!!” one drunken night in the dorm. We made stupid titles for each other like “Commando in Chief”, “The Sultaness of Skin” and of course, I was the “Barren of Boxers”. For some reason I’m really good at making puns full of alliteration when I’m drunk… but I digress. The groups missions statement was “For those who enjoy life sans skivvies.”

About a week ago, I received a message from a writer for the Arizona State Press Magazine. She was writing an article about “Going Commando” and had found my little pet project on Facebook. She asked if I wouldn’t mind answering some questions about not wearing underwear. At first, I wasn’t even going to answer, but as I thought about it more and more, I saw a potential opportunity.

If you know me at all, you’ll know I always wear underwear. Sometimes I wear underwear when it’s OK not to wear underwear (In bed…with another person…long story. ). If anything, I should be the leader of the Concerned Citizens Against Going Commando. Underwear is a part of my life. But so is bullshit. Lots and lots of bullshit, caringly hand fed to anyone who will listen.

I decided that I was going to be Josh. Josh who doesn’t wear underwear. And that Josh was going to be part of a very prevalent counter culture of people who don’t wear underwear. I started scheming. I had to have a whole back story. I had to make myself believe I haven’t been wearing underwear for two years. I had to get out of my drawers, and into character.

What makes counter cultures interesting? They have elements that only other people in the culture can identify. (Thanks Sociology class) I became the commando counter culture whistle blower. I started thinking up things that one might do if they were part of a secret underwear free under ground. The very first idea I came up with was a verb: Boxing.

Boxing [boks-ing]

-verb:

1. The act of wearing underwear, esp. “boxers.” Back when I was boxing, I could take off my pants anytime I wanted.

Now that I had at least one piece of slang to use, I had to come up with my “Transformation.” Like any good superhero, I needed a story of how I became so great. (I am after all the Barren of Boxers) The legend goes that one day I was late for class, and we had a test. Being fresh out of boxers, I had a terrible decision to make: Miss class for lack of underwear, or man up and go commando. Underwear be damned, I went to class. That was two years ago this April. Ever since then, I’ve been ditching the drawers and loving life.

No super hero has an easy time with their super powers. Clark Kent is always running into phone booths. Peter Parker never manages to get a picture of Spiderman, and Rogue can’t touch anyone. But honestly, what trouble could someone who doesn’t wear underpants get into?

It was a warm fall evening, and barren had potentially found a barreness. She was cute, smart, and just a little bit conservative. They’d been out several times, and she invited him to spend the night at her place. One thing lead to another, and the question of, “What exactly did you think was going to go on tonight?” was sprung upon him. It was apparently unthinkable to be without undies. They never spoke again.

Months later, the Barren found himself under the weather. In an effort to get back to fighting the injustices of the intimates, he went to the doctor. After a short wait, the nurse lead him to a small examination room. “Go ahead and take off your pants and shirt” she said. A grim prospect for the barren. Should he explain the situation, or rely on the nurse’s professionalism to keep her from looking shocked when she turns around to the barren being nekkid.

All of this is nothing compared to the Barren’s achilles heal. His fly. When you’re free of underwear making sure your fly is up is a high stakes game of hide and seek.

These were just my troubles. My “girlfriend” went as far as to sew seems into her skirt so it would look like she had panty lines so her coworkers wouldn’t think she was a slut. These were the trials and tribulations of people who wouldn’t be held down …or up… by the man.

This was all painting an excellent picture of what life is like for someone who prefers purely pants. However, how would these people identify themselves to each other? How could one ask very discreetly, and without offending the other person if they were wearing underwear or not. It was a “touchy” subject for sure.

Enter the “C”. I’m sure you’ve heard of “the crips”. I’m sure you’ve heard they have a gang sign that’s basically a C. I decided that people who go commando needed a special gang sign to throw at each other to identify themselves. I chose the C, as indicated by the red arrow to the left. Not only do we have a universal “I’m not wearing underwear sign” but we also have a dance. For this I was also inspired by the crips. They have a dance called the “Crip Walk” or C Walk for short. To the uninitiated it may just be a stupid dance, but see this dance at a night club, and you’ll know you’re amongst those liberated from long johns.

When this reporter called me, she asked me pretty much every question I had answers for. I told her about the c-walk, the sign, the girlfriend, the doctors office, the date, the transformation, everything.

It was hard to keep a straight face. She kept saying things like, “I had no idea there was such a sub culture about this. You’ve totally opened my eyes” and when I told her about “boxing” she was like, “Oh wow, nice.”

This article gets published in next Wednesdays State Press Magazine. And I can’t wait.