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So the Victoria's Secret next to the St. Francis (torture, I tell you, this job is TORTURE), has a sign in the window next to a display of particularly naughty panties that says "Give pink."
And I'm thinking, "uh, who is this message for?" The panty buyer? Or the panty wearer?
Either way, everyone wins.
Dammit do thses people ever know how to pitch their product.
So I’m back in San Francisco. Back downtown. Back at the St. Francis. Back at Millennium for dinner.
I have a strange relationship with San Francisco. All the things I love about where I live are what I hate about San Francisco. All the things I hate about where I live are what I love about San Francisco. I like having San Francisco close. I like escaping to the Bay Area for a little fling. I like having her around for those times when I’m sick to death of SoCal and silicone and smog. San Francisco is like that girlfriend I can’t seem to leave completely. We both know that there’s no way it will work out long term, but when we do get together, we really like to fuck.
San Francisco is a city of amazing contrasts. It’s loud and yet intimate. It is mild and temperate but blisteringly cold. It is dirty and disheveled and remarkably green. It’s suave and sophisticated and grungy and rarely shaves it’s armpits. It physically fit and smoking a joint. It’s quirky and independent and artistic and wildly commercial. It’s destitute and shockingly affluent. It’s timeless and living on borrowed time. It’s a pinstripe suit and studded leather chaps.
Damn I do so dig this town. Really, there’s no place like it anywhere.
So I’m sitting here at Millennium typing away, it’s been 70 degrees and sunny today, and I just finished the most amazing dish of abalone mushroom “sushi" with this inconceivable pinenut “rice” and wonderful wasabi dressing. I swear to God I almost licked the plate.
If you have never had them, you really have no idea what you are missing. I am now thoroughly convinced that abalone mushroom is the single best thing I have ever placed in my mouth. Ever.
Think of it as fungal sashimi. Umm, only better. Ok, so maybe fungal sashimi doesn’t sound all that appetizing for even a starving billy goat, but you are gonna have to take my word on this. It’s incredible. A mushroom with the texture of tuna and a light, smooth flavor.
I just know this dinner is going to ding my expense account for just short of the liposuction I’m going to need to remove it from my hips, and I really ought to jog to Newport to burn off these calories. But seriously, unless this place starts providing complimentary blow jobs in the back, I don’t think they could have made this meal any better. And since it’s a vegan restaurant I’m pretty sure blow jobs are off the menu.
Then again, it is close to the Tenderloin, so you never can tell.
My brother once called Adam and Drew on Love Line and asked them if tomatoes "make a woman's 'oohyah' stink." I swear to this. I was there. He was promptly mocked. Although Adam did have to wonder about the impact of cherry tomatoes.
Ah, good times.
Since you all have been so entertaining lately, and since it's far too late for me to come up with anything worthwhile to write about, and since I am never likely to find out first hand, nor am I likely to give Dr. Drew a holler, I'm curious, does pineapple work?
I think I have too many hobbies. In an ideal world, my week would include a mountain bike ride, several days of rock climbing, a day on the water-ski, a spin on the VFR, dancing with a pretty girl, and at least one night spent outside somewhere. All that and I would still travel away from home at least two days a week, one week a month, and three months a year. And still have time to work out four days a week, read a book, have sex nightly and finish the great American weblog.
As it is, I barely have time to breathe between my inane comments on random weblogs, obsessively Google searching my name, masturbating to internet porn and blowing positively THOUSANDS of hours on messenger.
And now that whole "job" thing is expecting me to "work" again. I've spent the last two months without hopping on a single airplane. This week, after a meeting in Pasadena, back to San Francisco (and my sorely missed heavenly bed), and then on to Portland. Next week, I may have to scoot out to Hawaii to help my brother move, but I'm thinking a couple day laborers are gonna cost me less than the $420 for a ticket.
I really have got to be the only person who bitches about having to go to Hawaii.
I have the prettiest motorcycle in the world. And the color even matches my head.
PCH to Laguna Beach yesterday. The Ortega Highway and PCH today. Nearly 400 miles on it in seven days. Big swoopy turns and thousand foot hills and a big, bug-eating smile under the helmet. Sucks that Todd has to leave tomorrow.
Just another reason to go to Arizona. And soon.
Ok, this just cracked my shit up. World's Worst Album Covers .
Check out the "Let Me Touch Him." Let me touch him? And that was their best choice for an album title? Explains a lot about current events in the church, doesn't it? Look, I think even God saw that and went, "Whoa...boundaries, guys. Boundaries."
Tassy, I owe you big for this link. Seriously had me laughing all morning. As much oral sex as you want, whenever you want it.
Wait.
You already had that from me.
Ok, TWICE as much oral sex as you want, whenever you want it.
But I warn you. I think I might leave you for Joyce. That girl is just bangin!
Am I the only person out there who would sell a testicle to see a Diamond Dave era Van Halen reunion tour? Honestly now, I can't be, can I?
Look. Take separate limos. Sleep in separate hotels. Put up a goddam shower curtain on stage if you must, but really, TOUR. You will make MILLIONS. Kiss. Stones. Eagles. Shit, The Who is selling out and half of the damn band is DEAD!
I need a Van Halen reunion. Did anybody rock like that? Anybody?
I'm gonna go buy an Auto Trader and roll my t-shirt. I wanna listen to some "Mean Streets" or "Beautiful Girls" and drink a lite beer.
I kicked the habit years ago. Therapy. Intervention. The withdrawls. Parched. Dry. Bleeding. Tormented.
I had been clean for years. I thought I would be clean forever. I thought I could make it. But when I needed a little something to get me by one Saturday, and that was all they had, I gave in.
Sure. I thought I could manage. I could control it. I didn't have a problem. Just a little on the weekends. You know, for kicks. God, I loved how it burned. I loved that tingle.
But then I started keeping some at my desk. I was using at work. A little more in the afternoon. I told myself it was only when I really needed it. Finally I was reaching for it first thing in the morning. And soon I didn’t even know when I was using. I can't stop, and frankly, I don't want to.
Goddamit, how I need some now.
If I had only known, I never would have tried it the first time back in college. If I had only known how it would gain control over my life. I can't go anywhere without it. I can’t function.
I'm licking my lips. I'm in trouble. I...I have a problem.
I am a Carmex abuser. And I need help.
You pasty white-trash cracker son of a bitch. I know this is old news, but every time I read about it I get pissed off. Killing another person's pet for fun is, in my eyes, as serious a felony as killing their child.
If this is indeed fact, and you did in fact pick up and punt your neighbor's dog in front of him, then allow me to inform you that you are a sick, vile, ignorant, cruel, rotten bastard. The appropriate, tolerant, socially responsible response would be to get you help and find some compassion for you and the troubled life you have clearly led.
I'm not feeling so responsible as I think about how that family must have felt to have witnessed this atrocity.
In my eyes you just revoked every basic human right you were born with. You and your life means less to me than the fleas on the dog. Part of me hopes some Rampart-style cops beat you with a broom till you bleed out your ears. Part of me hopes you become everybody's bitch on the cell block and the tears a family had to swallow are nothing compared to the indignities you will have to swallow every day while you are getting raped in the laundry room.
I suspect this isn't too likely. So if you do get out of this with a slap on the wrist, I can't wait for a pissed-off dog lover to come by your house with a couple of well-trained pit bulls to treat you like a fucking chew toy.
Jackass.
I had lunch with BMW for the first time today. I drove the VFR down from Balboa, he took the Yamaha up from Laguna, and we met in Corona del Mar. Honda and Yamaha. Newport and Laguna. Gay and straight. And all was right with the world. If only we could get the Arabs and the Jews to sit down over a good burrito.
Brent recently started picking up some extra work for the local mortuary in Laguna. He mentioned that the faces of the recently deceased frequently look surprised.
Frankly, I’m not.
Maybe as our life flashes before our eyes we suddenly remember where we put those damn keys. Maybe the realization that the meaning of life was only to live is so profound that we, in our last breath, are blown over by the obvious simplicity of it all.
Personally, I suspect that hard-wired into the very building blocks of our RNA, regardless if we wanted it or knew it was coming, we resist the dying of that light, and at the very end we are surprised that the ride is finally, totally, completely over.
Either that or God looks exactly like that homeless guy wearing a mini-skirt in the park who always claimed to be talking to him.
Someone just found DigitalCatharsis with a Google search for "mountain biking hot girls sex." It's like he couldn't make up his mind. “Hmmm...do I want to go for a ride, check out some hot girls or have sex?"
Actually, if you added a little rock climbing to that query you would pretty much have my perfect weekend.
If only it were as easy as Google.
Sunday did, however, come pretty close. I had motorcycling, rock climbing and hot girl, but sadly, no sex. Regardless, by the time I pulled up to the house at 12:30 or so, I was positively desperate for sleep. You know that ground-in dirt kind of tired. That Red Bull is just making me cranky kind of tired. That skip the showering and brushing and flossing and fall asleep without masturbating first kind of tired. I was that kind of tired.
Oh who am I kidding.
I totally flossed.
So on Friday I finally took my DMV test. Finally got my motorcycle license. And finally, FINALLY got rid of the mulleted driver’s license photo in my wallet.
Who knew that I would one day be more self conscious about a picture of me WITH hair than without? Go figure.
I drove right from the DMV to Champion Honda in Newport and drove out with a 2004 Honda Interceptor. I don’t tend to do things half-assed. I am taking lessons and riding with experienced people cause if I don't this new hobby is bound to leave me half-assed. On the side of the highway. Hopefully the armored Joe Rocket pants I have on order will help prevent that, but really, I'd much prefer to keep that 500 pound vibrator upright. Regardless, I must have walked into my garage 25 times that night, just to look at it. If I could have found a way to take it to bed with me and cuddle, I probably would have.
On Saturday I work up to a day with my shiny new red toy, pulled on my jeans, walked outside, and looked down to soaking wet streets and looked up to a sky full of storm clouds.
Sigh.
I got nothing for you tonight. But I like this pic. So since you all bitch I never post pics of my face. There it is.
I just receieved this comment that reads:
Name: rageing erection
Email Address: asdgkj@hotmail.com
URL:
Comments:
Pee while your in the vagina, she'll like it I SWEAR!
I think this is the best single comment ever to be posted on this site. Look, even I couldn't make this one up. And I don't think it's spam as it includes no link. Mr. Erection, seriously, I hope to see more of you around these parts.
Wait a sec. Maybe that didn't sound just right...
I hurt in ways I have never known. Who knew that riding a motorcycle could be so physically demanding? My neck feels like someone stuck knitting needles in between the vertebrae. My right bicep is firing like it was attached to a car battery. And my head is in vice grips.
Any of you feel like coming over and performing a nice hour long massage will totally make it into my will. Happy endings are not required. Although I probably wouldn't turn it down. Hell, I need a massage so bad right now, I think I'd be willing to give YOU a happy ending in return.
Despite all the suffering, I'm currently in the market for one of these . Let's hope I learn how to ride it correctly, otherwise a neck-ache from improper riding posture will seriously be the least of my worries.
My friends are always thinking of me.
I've been in Arizona (click for pics) for more than week. Yesterday I went for my first real motorcycle ride. No, I still don't have my license, but that just means I'm not allowed to get caught. And really, on a Honda VFR interceptor, when 110 happens in a heartbeat, when you open the throttle up only halfway in second gear and experience a rush of acceleration previously only known on amusement park rides, I'm pretty sure, caught isn't what you get.
Dead maybe. But not caught.
We did a four hour ride. Three riding up the highway to Bartlett Lake and an hour on the dirt bikes in the Scottsdale desert trails, the same trails I rode on my mountain bike just a few days earlier.
Today we were depressingly rained out of a day on the lake, and tomorrow we were planning on a day at the shooting range.
What better way to celebrate Jesus than with guns, dirt bikes and powerboats. Really. I'm embracing my roots. Can you feel the mullet? I know I can.
I say planning because I think I have been here too long. And it's not good for me.
I'm feeling ulcerated. I'm feeling a little self-crucified. Only the holes aren't in my hands. I think it's time for a rebirth. I think it's time to go home.
So after one more practice run on the VFR in the morning, I'll be heading west.
I'll be heading home.
Who here has masturbated to the lingerie section of the Sears catalog? Come on, show of hands.
Uh, so to speak.
Seriously now. You know, when you were a horny, desperate, screwed up kid in the eighties. Like before the internet. And Victoria's Secret.
Anyone? Anyone?
Ummm...how about JC Penny?
Spiegel? Come on! Those chicks were HOT!
Anyone?
Riiiiight.
Oooookay then. Me neither. Just checking. I'm gonna go now.
Actually, maybe I won't. Look, a lot of you Generation Y (or Z?) types don't recall, but there was a day when porn was hard to find. Sure you kids have known how to download live teen anal action since grade school. But when I was a kid, sneaking a peek at "The Joy of Sex" at Waldenbooks was enough to give me a week long chubby.
You may not remember this, but less than ten years ago, the internet was still the new, new thing. I didn't have access to email until 94. A browser till 95. Victoria's Secret wasn't hitting EVERYONE'S mailbox (now seemingly three times a week) until just a few years ago. And Penthouse and Hustler and all those other raunchy rags in the back corner of the liquor store were pretty much soft core until the mid, maybe even late nineties.
Not that I would know this without a Google search and extensive interviews. Honest Mom. How would I know?
When I was growing up, porn came only on video. Or worse, in an actual theater. Anyone remember Pee Wee and his peewee? Kids, that was 1991. Renting a porn flick from your local video store, you know, the one where all your friends (and MOM) went was a big, BIG obstacle for a kid just figuring out how his dick works. If you were old enough to rent porn, you usually had to do it at some seedy store half way across town.
My dad had no stack of Playboys (trust me, I looked EVERYWHERE). When you were in junior high in the mid-eighties and a raging ball of testosterone and you live with devout Catholics (actually, maybe that's not a good example), the procurement of appropriate spank material required the skills of a swashbuckling archeologist or a secret agent.
Genitalia Jones and the Temple of Poon. Always seeking that elusive holy grail: the porno tape.
Digging through discarded stacks of magazines out in the desert behind your house. Sneaking into bedrooms of people (like you didn't do that too), rifling the underwear drawer. Peeking under the mattress of your best friend's older brother. Finding the stash of old Playboys in the foot locker. Unearthing the discarded stolen Penthouse behind the 7-11. The lucky break of a new Hustler stuffed deep in someone's closet.
Back then porn was something dirty. It was something dangerous. And it was hard to come by.
Uh, so to speak.
Now porn stars grace snowboards and music videos. Jenna Jameson is a certifiable celebrity, and Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson have found that a little video indiscretion can be a very profitable embarrassment.
As happy as I am that people are seemingly more comfortable with sex (Janet's Nipplegate notwithstanding), I wonder if this is just desensitizing us to erotica and making us dig deeper and deeper into the primordial ooze of our collective reptilian brain just to get a boner. Look, just the words, "live teen anal action" would have caused an immediate uproar just ten years ago. Hell, I bet you have seen that phrase six times in your inbox this week alone.
Times have definitely changed. What once required a healthy (or unhealthy depending on how often you go to church) imagination now requires nothing more than an ISP. And with WIFI and mobile technology the inspiration for masturbation is available anywhere, anytime. I can't imagine being thirteen today. Put that kind of access in my hands and I think *I* would have been in my hands pretty much 24/7.
What was once a rite of passage has now become, well, as easy as pie.
So to speak.
This totally had me chuckling all morning. Bush bashing is fully encouraged around these parts, especially when it's done so well.
And dude, I'm flattered to be included in such company on your link list. I'm totally not worthy of that crowd.
It was raining in the desert today. The clouds dressed the sky in its Easter best and the air was sticky and sweet with the familiar smell of creosote. You can smell rain in the Sonora miles away.
You can see it coming in the deepening sky. Feel the change of texture in the air. Hear the rumble of the clouds. But it’s the creosote you remember. The smell of rain. Heavy and earthy and pungent. It’s like the smell of spring. It’s like the smell of sex.
It’s the smell of life in a place oppressed. The desert is green right now. The ocotillo and the cholla and the palo verde in bloom. The desert sounds like laughter from all the birds.
I love the smell of rain in the desert.
But the smell reminds me of her. It reminds me of what I want. And what I do not yet have. Of what may or may not become.
The smell of rain is the smell of change. It’s the smell of opportunity. It’s the smell of hope.
Hope is a powerful intoxicant. There is no life without hope. No nourishment. No motivation. You never grow. But too much hope and you never live. You never learn. Too much hope can choke you and make you afraid, keep you rigid and frozen with indecision. Too much hope and you can be crushed under the weight of your own desire.
So I’ll sit on this patio and watch the sun setting, a psychedelic celebration before the release of night. I’ll sit here alone, the smell of spring and hope and her in my head. And I’ll know that tomorrow life will go on, and I will go on with the hope that, maybe, someday, she will go on with me. And I won’t need to hope any longer.
I bought her this shirt cause I didn't want to feel like one every time I stared at her boobs. Now I can claim that I'm just reading the fine print.
Just about the worst compliment ever.
The Mighty Jimbo: Better than diarrhea.
I should certainly hope so.
So, um. Yeah. Thanks.
Oops. I missed my own anniversary. Pink hair and porn stars on trampolines and a few too many gin and tonics will do that. My blog birthday. As of last Saturday, I’ve been a squatter on Hal’s server for two years.
The genesis of DigitalCatharsis actually started much earlier, back in 1992 when I began reading the memoirs of Robert Fulghum whose comic and candid explorations of the mundane first inspired me to put my pen to paper. His was the spark that started me writing.
If Fulghum was the spark, then he was the fuel. In 1997, during a climbing trip to Joshua Tree with my good friend Melissa, I was introduced to a young teacher by the name of Jim Styn who handed me a tiny business card advertising his brother John’s new webzine, Prehensile Tales .
From that first click the following Monday, I was introduced to not only one of the most intriguing people I have ever had the good fortune to meet, but also the concept of personal publishing, the idea of the internet as art, and eventually the blossoming digital subculture of weblogs and webloggers. It was his influence that started me writing again after a three year hiatus and eventually, after torturing him for years with spam broadcasted tales of my climbing adventures and travel stories, his mad HTML skillz and extraordinary generosity that finally put me on the web. Frankly, it’s all his fault.
Blame him.
553 entries (not including the 400 or so others on the old Blogger format), more than 4700 comments, 50,000 hits to my splash page (I have no idea how many to the site as a whole), and the half dozen or so gratuitous beefcake photos later, I’m still fascinated and deeply entertained by this electronic exploration into my psyche and both your reactions to it and participation in it.
I’ve made some amazing friends either directly or indirectly as a result of this adventure. Christy, Sabrina , Desiree , Jimbo , Pete , Bridget , Heather , Kat , Dawn , Melly , Brent , Tassy , your presence in my life whether it’s digitally or physically or both has been truely remarkable.
I’ve been inspired by dozens of other writers – people who remind me daily that I’m not nearly as talented or funny or provocative as I would like to think that I am. People who keep me writing if only out of total, shameless envy. People who are directly responsible for the HUGE drop in my productivity at work. People like Heather or Sarah or Greg .
Thanks for putting up with me for this long. It’s nothing short of miraculous, although more than mildly masochistic of you. Not that I mind. I love you all. If you haven’t ever commented here before, please, leave your mark. I’d love to hear from you. If you have, please do so again. This blog may well be all about me, but it wouldn’t be me without all of you. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me.
And John, thank you again for making possible this post as well as all the others before it.
The hose to my washing machine just failed. Well, I shouldn't say "just," as I suspect it had failed about 30 or 40 minutes ago and for the length of that time was rapidly flooding my garage and effectively hosing down everything stored on my shelves. Every cardboard box, every tool, every can of paint, my roommate's box of old photographs, even the Persian rug she keeps stored in there. Everything.
Well, that's not totally accurate. I shouldn't say "everything."
Her scuba gear? Totally, completely dry.
I've put a lot of me out there on this site. Sometimes perhaps a little too much. I've explored humor, travel, satire. I've talked about love and love lost. I've bitched and moaned and ranted and bitched again. I've written a few crappy poems. Told some stories. Took some photos. Took off my shirt. In the spirit of putting too much out there, I figured it might be tiime to try something, uh, different. I'm not going to say how much of this is fantasy nor am I going to say how much is reality. Those are details for me and me alone. All I will say is that I was...inspired.
Maybe not the best to read if you are oh, related to me or something.
Pressure
I lie here deep atop the white down comforter on my bed tonight, staring listlessly at the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead, doing as poor a job of cooling this heated night air as I am of cooling the heated thoughts searing my head. One hand on my stomach, one hand behind my head. One more night alone.
I lie awake again tormented by thoughts of you. Memories of you. Memories of us. I feel hollowed out and under pressure. A storm brews inside me. It churns and rages and will not quiet. I ache for you. My heart is heavy against the back of chest. It beats slowly, fatigued under the weight of my desire for you. My hands tingle and feel empty. They feel incomplete. I can still feel you in them. They open and close, grasping for you but finding only air. They long for the heat of your skin. The weight of your breasts. The silk of your hair. The curve of your hips.
I lie awake and stare into my own head. Into your eyes. Eyes that aren’t staring back at me. God how I ache for you. And it’s an unhealthy consumption. A desire that’s consuming me as much as I want, as much as I need to consume you.
I remember the first time I saw your photograph. A vision. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And probably the most dangerous. I knew I couldn’t have you. But that only made me want you more. An angel. A fallen angel. And I fell with you, for you right at that instant. I had never wanted anyone or anything more in my life. You were my fantasy. You were my future.
I still remember when last we met. I remember all of it. Those visions haunt me repeatedly. I can still feel your body against mine, feel the thump of the music, grinding to the beat that felt like our own. I can still taste that secret, stolen, intoxicated kiss in the bedroom. Your tongue forced into my mouth. The taste of alcohol and lust on your lips. And I wanted you then. Right there against that wall. In that room. I didn’t care who might know. I didn’t care about him. I wanted you.
I needed you.
And later. When he was away. And I finally had you alone. It took everything I had not to leap upon you. Consume you right in the doorway with every kiss and every grope and every thrust of my hunger. I feared that this may smother the fire that I felt growing stronger and burning hotter between us. So I held back.
And later still. I lie awake and I can still feel you sitting in front of me. Leaning against me. My hands finally complete. On your thighs. Feeling the soft, luxurious curve of your hips. Tracing invisible lines and feeling the warmth of your belly. The heat invocative of the passion it holds. Bolder now. Moving up your sides. Fingertips gently grazing the swell of your breasts. And I can feel you respond to me now. I can feel you react. I can feel the blood rush through your skin. I can feel it move toward my fingers. I can hear the breath escape your lips. I can feel you arch just ever so slightly. Pushing yourself back against me.
I can still feel your hair grazing my cheek. I can still feel my lips grazing yours. Can you still feel my breath in your ear? My teeth, my lips, my tongue on your neck? Can you still feel what the scent and the taste of your skin did to me? Can you still feel my excitement?
Bolder still as my hands began to caress your breasts. Feeling the weight of them against your thin cotton t-shirt. Sliding slowly up over your bare stomach. Lightly. Almost sensing the tingle in your skin. Guiding them up and under your shirt. Fingertips ever so gently tracing tighter and tighter circles upon you. Feeling you respond. I can still hear the air catch in your lungs when I first touched you. I could feel your heart race. A gasp. A moan. Harder now. And you gasp again. Biting your lip. Closing your eyes.
One hand reaches for your cheek, turning you to me, and finally kissing you like I have wanted to kiss you. Our lips and our tongues entangled and exploring, our appetites only whetted by the taste of each other. A shirt is pulled off, shoes kicked to the floor. We are rolled over and rolling around. I’m on top of you now. I want all of you. I am for you.
All I am is for you right now.
(I think that's all of this story I'm gonna give you right now. I might be talked into posting an NC-17 edit. The Penthouse version of this story, well, you're gonna have to ask me personally for that. Don't be offended if I tell you 'no.')
Crazy busy with work, the houses, finances, and trying desperately to find some time for an AZ trip. I have lots of stories but no time to write. I'm slacking around here. Forgive me. To make it up to you, how about some new steamy beef cake instead?
Well. STEAMED beef cake. With mardarin orange peel. Water chestnuts. And parsley.
Yummy.
Happy April 1.
