I am going insane.

Utterly and completely nuts. Full on, Skippy Super Chunk. I haven't been able to work. Haven't been able to sleep. I have a nervous twitch. I frequently shout obscenities at no one. I'm breaking out in weird rashes, and no, that's not from San Francisco.

I am being tortured. And I am losing my mind. If Rumsfeld is looking for a new interrogation method, he needs onle to send some prisoners to my bedroom.

I'm fairly certain a couple of my exes might agree.

The nice lady who purchased the house directly behind mine has been renovating it.

Since January.

Fuck. There goes that twitch again.

Since January, I have been awakened daily with a morning symphony of jack hammers and circular saws and air compressors. I live on Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. A circular saw is loud when heard behind closed doors several houses away in a typical suburban neighborhood. Would you like to know how far it is from my balcony to her backyard? Would you? About 25 feet.

Still, and excruciating as those experiences were, for the most part, it was agony I could deal with.

But lately it's become a Home Improvement Horror, and Bob Villa is my own private devil. The tile saw. Cutting concrete tiles for the patio. Located 25 feet from my bedroom/home office. And as we have no AC here on the beach, I have to keep my doors/windows open all day. All day. Open windows. 25 feet from a tile saw.

It doesn't stop. They show up at 7:30 AM to start working. All day. Tile. After tile. After tile. This whirring, shrieking sound cutting through the center of my skull as violently as the blade through the stone. I can hear it from every room in my house. I can hear it from outside my house. I can't make calls. I can't focus on email. I can't even surf for porn with out grimacing. And so not in a good way.

By about two or three in the afternoon I am reduced to a quivering little boy, hiding under the covers just begging for it to stop.

I have been desperate for solutions. I have been working from the corporate office frequently, but this results in me spending a fortune for lunch for the week, I can't complete sales calls successfully in loud, public cube farms, and I don't think well on the phone when I can't move, gesture and pace. And frankly, after about five hours in a cube farm I go almost as crazy.

Only my headache comes from beating my head against the desk. Not from the screaming demon from Hell Depot.

I wish I could say I want to be big about this. To be strong. But I think I could handle anything they suffer through on Fear Factor far better than I can handle this. At least on Fear Factor you know there's an end in sight, the bug is gone after it hits your stomach. This renovation has been a daily torment. And I'm beginning to think that when they are finished, they will just tear it down and begin sawing tiles all over again.

I want to be a grown up. I've asked them nicely to move the tile saw inside. Provide me with at least some level of insulation. It's still against the fence. Right under my bedroom.

But today, I snapped. I couldn’t take it. If I can't work, at least I can try to drown it out. For two hours I had 2Pac as loud as I could. How do you want it, bitch? How do you want it? Gangsta style. I'm throwing auditory gang signs out the window. Tomorrow, it's the complete Van Halen catalog, as loud as it can go.

I am considering a little midnight covert action with a pair of wire cutters and a hammer. Fuck it. I live on the harbor. I'm thinking that tile saw may need to receive some Luca Brasi style justice. Splash! The saw sleeps with the fishes.

I have suffered. Everyone in my neighborhood has suffered.

I'm thinking it's time to turn the table.

It might be time to consider moving the Kenwood and the JBL towers from the living room into my bedroom, pointing them out the door and playing the most repetitive, annoying drum and bass for hours. I'm thinking Riverdance. I'm thinking the Cotton Eye Joe. I'm thinking Achey Brakey Heart. On repeat.

But the real fun's gonna start when the construction is finally complete, and she moves in.

I'm parking my truck in front of her house, every morning at 6, and setting off the panic alarm from my balcony. Repeatedly. I'm going to spend every Sunday for a month, blasting the Macarena from my bedroom window. Like Hangin' Tough? Better learn to like NKOTB. You are bound to hear a lot of them. I am going to introduce her to the joy that is Rob Zombie. At 7:30 in the morning, every day. I'm investing in a good bird feeder and hanging it right on our shared fence until her newly laid tile patio is covered, covered in pigeon shit. I'm going to feed sardines to Seagulls from my back yard. I'm buying a Marshall amp and taking up the guitar despite the fact I have never played a chord in my life. I feel like playing a private game of Trading Spaces, only instead of showing up with a carpenter and a crappy designer bringing a tagger and a lumberjack.

But right now, most of all, I feel like having a big dinner of garlic bread and asparagus and using her fence as a toilet.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I think I have hit a wall with my career. I feel like a produce sticker. Totally functionless, and just a vegetable with a label.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

And people wonder why I spend so much time in San Fran. Ok, so you don't wonder that at all, but here is more proof that Tassy rocks.

Tassy's take on " the rules ." Cosmo really needs to hire her, although I think the world would benefit more if Maxim did first.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

So I finally have some pictures of Alexandra, the new bundle of poop and tears that shares my last name. Yeah, I know she still looks like Mr. Magoo in a beanie, but she has some good genes, I promise (both her mother and her father are gorgeous). Besides, her sister makes me smile uncontrollably every time I see her so really, I think she'll turn out ok.

Despite the aggravation inherent in living near a large Italian family that includes, well, people from my family, I do wish they lived a little closer to me. I only get to see the nieces and nephew once or twice a year, and I swear they grow a full meter between visits. Hell, I have seen my climbing partner's kids twice a month or more since they were born, and I think THEY grow at least half a meter between visits. I really don't know what kind of hormones they put into those Happy Meals, but at this rate I'm fairly certain I don't need to worry about my retirement as I have a full roster of future professional basketball players coming up to support me and my inevitable Vicodin and stripper habit in my old age.

I would move closer to them, but as no one in my family has any real interest in ever leaving Dallas, and since life in Dallas is just slightly less painful than a root canal performed with a rusty Black and Decker, the odds of me spending any real amount of time with them seems terribly unlikely. It just sucks knowing that you are bound to be the weird and eccentric uncle who pops in at Christmas and then disappears by New Years. I suppose I can always just buy their love. I hear that works well. I better start saving now.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I'll always remember that conversation.

You were teasing. Flirty. Predatory.

I said I could be there in an hour, and suddenly you realized this didn't have to be a fantasy. It didn't have to end hungry and alone. I could end with you and me. Where we had talked about. Fantasized about. Tangled and naked between the sheets of that Heavenly Bed. Exhausted. Satisfied.

I can still see you there. I can still feel you there. I can still taste you there.

For five days you were my haven. You were my intoxicant. You were my paradise. My holiday was wrapped in your arms, captured between your legs. I drank from your lips. And rested between your breasts.

Like any holiday, it was a fantasy that couldn't last. But for five days, even if only a fantasy, maybe I did see heaven between the sheets of that Heavenly Bed.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Moments when you might want to consider laying off the bottle for a little while and seeking professional help:

When you pull up next to me on your Harley and proudly state you have been tossing them back at the Goat Hill. I'm not impressed. I WILL be impressed if they don't have to use a spatula to clean you up off the 55 later.

When you climb up your neighbor's backyard fence wearing nothing but a miniskirt and bikini top, fall over and catch the side of their house with your hands, and then slowly slide, face first, into a big bed of rose bushes.

When you wake up in the arms of a beautiful fireman cause you started drinking at 11 AM. Yesterday. Only it wasn't in his bedroom. It was in the hallway of your dorm. And then receiving his $400 bill for ambulatory services. And an underage consumption charge.

When you decide to rob your neighbor for pizza money. And then punch the cop who arrests you.

When you are getting a BJ in the back of your friend's car and can't finish because you just threw up on her head.

When you stumble into your dorm room and find a 300 pound naked man asleep on your couch.

When you wake up and find that you are a 300 pound naked man asleep on a couch, and have no idea where you are, how you got there, or why you are not wearing any clothing.

When you are an attractive female and wake up naked on the couch in a strange dorm room, and have no idea where you are, how you got there, or why you aren't wearing any clothes.

When you are hauled out of the water because you sped down a dead-end street and launched your Toyota (and your five-year-old daughter) through the retaining wall and thirty feet into Newport Harbor.

When you wake up dead because you decided to shimmy up a street light in Las Vegas, hang off the wires, and then fall electrocuted twenty five feet onto your head.

When your mom sees you on national television standing on the roof of a car during a NCAA Championship street riot, your pants completely around your ankles.

When you stumble into your dorm room and have a 3/4 inch hole the length of your finger in your calf and no idea how it got there.

When you find yourself spun around and facing a pissed off Mighty Jimbo after you reached for the back of his favorite lady-friend and shouted threateningly at her because she accidentally bumped into you in a crowded hotel bar while en route to our table in the restaurant. A. You are bound to get tossed out of the place when you cause a scene in a $15 per drink bar on a Wednesday. B. You never, EVER want to square off with a woman from Oakland who has pink hair, a bad attitude, and a working knowledge of assault rifles. And C. You ever reach for my date again and you will have to drink that Pinot Grigio through a straw. Just cause I'm a metrosexual doesn't mean I can't totally kick your flabby, Armani covered, Yuppie ass.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I don't know what makes me more jealous about dating a beautiful, bisexual woman: that all the men I know want to jump her, or that all the women I know would rather jump her than me.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

In corporate America's never ending need to innovate to keep the public satiated with crap that we don't really need and can't really use, the hucksters of Madison Avenue have decided that the next great consumer product advantage is vibration. Remember when every beverage suddenly went clear? A few years later all the beers went "dry?" Recently when every toothpaste went "whitening?" Getting sick of "low-carb" yet?

Now everything vibrates. Everything. Cell phones, video games, toothbrushes, tooth "flossers," car seats, baby carriers, hairbrushes, and now, razor blades.

Vibrating razor blades?

Sigh.

You know what you call a vibrating razor blade? A jig saw. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of a vibrating razor is the electric carving knife my grandfather used to use to cut the Thanksgiving turkey. Sure, I'm looking for a clean close shave just like the next guy, but I'm not sure I want to be slicing off layers of my epidermis like well cured proscuitto.

I swear the marketers are the people leading our charge straight into hell. Is this just the latest corporate assault on the American zeitgeist? Another way for the ringmasters of the capitalist circus to extract even more money from our soon to be vibrating wallets? Another meaningless trend in consumer goods until somebody decides that what Americans are really missing and want in their lives is "blue."

Or did somebody suddenly realize something that the vast majority of American woman have known for a long, long time? If you're going to get fucked by a cheap piece of plastic, it certainly feels a lot better if it shakes.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

About ten years ago (can't believe it's been that long) I met Shawn. I was working at a four year old chemistry software company with about eleven people, and I had to hire someone to help me go peddle the wares. This was/is a tiny company by anyone's standards with a ridiculously cheap owner and staffed exclusively with computational chemists and computer programmers.

In walks this guy, towering above everyone in the office and wearing this three-piece suit (nobody wore three-piece suits in 1995), three degrees, and an IQ of like 190. To this day he is possibly the smartest and certainly one of the most erudite men I have ever met. A man who was turning down six-figure consulting gigs because he wanted to work somewhere he could make a difference. God was he wrong. Regardless, he was also an expert snow skier and one of the most fearless mountain bike riders I have ever met. I'm not sure it was really a lack of fear or the assumption that a 200 pound man on a 22 inch steel mountain bike can pretty much ride THROUGH any obstacle in his way. Including trees. Boulders. Timid Italian men carefully choosing lines in front of him. He is also the ONLY person I have ever seen while getting pulled face first underwater on his first attempt to waterski, by sheer force of will, hang on and manage to pull that ski out from under him and pop out of the water. I think he also managed to bed about half my female friends at the time, but nobody will confirm or deny any of this.

Why the hell he wanted to work there is still way beyond me.

Shawn was also an aspiring writer, and an exceptionally talented one. Now Shawn moved back to San Diego a few years back, and I sadly don't get to see him as often as I would like. He did, however, begin to distribute a weekly letter compiling his thoughts and observations on politics and philosophy and pop culture. The second it hit my mail box I realized he had better content than all but about .1% of the people keeping blogs, and, frankly, that includes myself.

He insists in his first letter that this isn't a blog. I insist that it should be.

He also insists that the community interest in his random, weekly creative purge would be met with resounding silence. I find this concept to be impossible as thousands of people seem to hang around here just to listen to me talk about my penis and occasionally bitch about Republicans.

I have been granted permission to repost his letters here. As much as I would love to do so, Shawn is even more verbose than I am, and frankly, I figure I lose half of my readers as soon as they fail to see an off-handed comment about masturbation. Pun intended.

Instead, I have created a temporary Live Journal home for his musings. I am convinced they are brilliant, but then again, I was convinced that Twinkies were not made of meat, so clearly I could be wrong.

Drop in. Wander around his brain a bit. And let him know what you think.

Notes From a Small Planet.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Happy Birthday Mom.

I love you more than anyone on the planet, despite the fact that I inherited your father's hairline. I love you even more than the dogs, although I know you probably don't believe that sometimes.

For your birthday I promise not to make any crass or dirty or suggestive posts and comments on this site today. OK, I probably can't make good on that, but I'll try as hard as I can.

Happy Birthday. I love you.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I feel guilty for not mentioning this earlier, but that bonehead brother of mine STILL hasn't sent me any pictures. I am an uncle yet again.

Of course, the day before she was born he decided to contract spinal meningitis which has been agonizingly ringing that bonehead of his, the disease the likely result of a tour of duty in Thailand. He has been in and out of the hospital since. Good times around the KJ household for sure.

I suppose that's a good excuse.

Probably a better one than why it's taken me almost a year to visit the little schmuck in Hawaii. Soon Joe. Soon.

No matter. I'll love this kid silly even if I never see a photograph. Besides, most infants look like larval versions of little old men anyway, regardless of how often their parents tell you they have the most beautiful baby in the world. What? Am I lying? You know it's the truth even if you are never allowed to speak it. Can't blame the kids. I'm sure I would look all lumpy and wrinkled too if my head was the consistency of partially dried Plah-Doh and forced through a vagina.

Speaking of, people always ask me how big and how long babies are when they are born. This I find a little odd because it's something you never really need to ask at any other moment in life unless you are going to the doctor or getting on a roller coaster. Women especially want to know this information and always look at me with surprise and even disdain when I don't know the answer. It just never seemed like an important detail to me, how big the baby was, but then again, I'm not the person who has to think about squeezing one out of their body.

And so with that moment of insensitivity, I would like to welcome Alexandra Mia, born June 16th at some ungodly hour in the morning in Kailua, Hawaii. She is the latest in a long line of beautiful baby nieces (and one bad ass little nephew), and I hope she will inherit my brother's eyes, and, with luck, my relative immunity to debilitating diseases brought upon by international travel to third world jungles.

I hope to post pictures of her soon. And I hope KJ gets to hold her without having to wear a surgical mask and suffer a migraine.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I've never been much for board games. To me it's always been spelled BORED games. Honestly, I always have much better things to do with my time, even if it is just obsessively clicking on Dooce to see if she has put up a new post.

But I think I may have found a game worth playing. When Tass and I get together again this week in San Fran, we are totally playing a game of Dirty Scrabble.

I'm looking forward to crushing her with a Dirty Sanchez for a tripple word score.

Bitch is going down!

One way or another.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Nothing reminds you how easily, how willingly and, frankly, how cheaply you can and will sell your soul than with one trip to a shitty San Bernardino Wal-Mart on a busy Saturday morning.

To be blunt, being poor sucks.

Although, does anyone else find it ironic that in America the size of someone’s wallet is inversely proportional to the size of their ass? It’s no accident that they put McDonalds restaurants in Wal-Mart stores. Shitty food is cheap.

This is, of course, the crushing irony of poverty. The poor work more, and are paid less. They eat less, but gain more. They need more, but receive less. It’s like falling in a hole, but being thrown a shovel. Wealth may buy your soul, but poverty can steal it.

This moment of haughty, insensitive, narcissistic self-righteousness and unnecessary social commentary on the painfully obvious has been brought to you by big corporate America and the soulless, yuppie life of Newport Beach, Orange County.

Addendum: The staff of Digital Catharsis would like to comment that they do not think disparagingly of poor people (there are limits to my hypocrisy), people who live in San Bernardino, people who shop at Wal-Mart, men who wear “No Fear” tee shirts in public, and people from Texas who wear sandals every day. Ok, so maybe I do think disparagingly of men who wear “No Fear” tee shirts, but they probably deserve it, and admit it, you mock them too.

Although I don’t particularly care for Wal-Mart, their culture, products, services, employees (although some of the Wal-Mart girls in Playboy were admittedly, surprisingly hot in a tube-top kinda way), half-drunk Wal-Mart raids while camping and climbing in quiet desert towns at 11 PM can be quite entertaining, and I do sincerely appreciate them letting people like me park and/or sleep in their parking lots overnight.

Addendum to addendum: This post reminded me of a little girl I met in Africa who had nothing to wear but an old bag of grain as a dress with holes cut for her arms and head. It reminded me of the smile on her face when I bought her a Fanta.

Meanwhile, in the United States, yuppie fucks like myself will spend thousands of dollars chasing fleeting goals and material desires in a vain, probably doomed attempt to find something that resembles zen or peace or clarity or self-actualization while those less fortunate will frequently wonder how we can feel so bad while they labor and toil in a desperate attempt to lead a similar life. It’s like we are caught in a cultural game of neighborhood leapfrog. Always trying to find someway to get ahead, always wondering why the neighbor's yard looks so green. Always so busy in an attempt to get more, to be more, to do more, to have more, to earn more that we forget to be thankful for the blessings we have already.

This girl in Africa will probably live and die impoverished by conditions completely and unavoidably outside her control. And yet she may still learn to smile and dance and love and be grateful for the gifts she has received – even if they are as basic as a single bottle of soda.

I don’t know what the secret is. Maybe it’s about balance. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle of acceptance and ambition. Between compromise and commitment. Between discipline and desire. I don’t know. Maybe the trick is, in the end, simply to love. To love yourself and to love someone else. Something else. Everyone else.

If you are lucky enough to love what you do, to enjoy what gets you by, consider yourself fortunate and by all means, teach me how.

I’m not sure how I made it from ironic to profound, satirical to sentimental, but I’ve long ago stopped trying to figure out how my brain works. What I do know is that it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m still a narcissistic yuppie prick with a good HMO who made it back home, happy and healthy after a four hour ride in Malibu on his 800cc petroleum powered attempt at self-actualization via unnecessary bodily risk - despite a high speed impact with a very pissed off (and to be very deceased) honey bee through my open helmet and into my now swollen temple.

And for that, I’m certainly thankful.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Anybody remember the Six Million Dollar Man? Steve Austin? Starring that hulking bundle of polyester masculinity, Lee Majors? So anyway the point of the show was that there was this guy, an astronaut, who piled it from 35,000 feet and didn’t die. Instead he suffered a broken leg, an arm, and lost an eye. Or something like that. Anyway, according to the show, they could “rebuild him.” Make him “better.” They apparently couldn’t make him better roles as his next show was “The Fall Guy,” but I suppose they never promised him a bionic agent. Regardless, he could do all kinds of neat stuff like run sixty miles an hour, jump over buildings, bend the barrels of bad guys’ guns and check out Lindsey Wagner’s ass from ten blocks away.

As I recall, and admittedly, it may just be my six-year-old brain screwing up my memories of a show that last aired more than twenty years ago, but didn’t he have just ONE bionic leg? Now I may have skipped that day in physics, but wouldn’t that mean he could only run sixty miles an hour in a circle? And I don’t know about you, but if I had just one bionic eye I’d be really damn dizzy all the time. What, they ran out of money? The extra eye would have made him the seven million dollar man, and really, that just wasn’t in the budget.

Maybe I’m over thinking this.

Remember the cool na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na sound whenever he hit the juice on those bionic parts? Although, I do have to wonder, since they did have to “rebuild” him, did he make that noise at any other times? Cause it would be real annoying if every time he turned left or bent over or scratched his head or reached for his wallet or had to take a dump he started na-naing again.

Still, I did love the whole na-na-na thing. That was pretty neat shit for a six year old. If you were a kid in the 70’s at all, you know you made that sound at least once while playing in the backyard. Only it’s pretty hard to mimic the cool slow-mo effect that went with it when you were trying to jump over the dog.

I’m thinking I need to make a belt buckle with a tiny speaker and that sound effect built into it, so every time I take off my pants...well, you get the idea.

Oh, come on! You know you want one.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

A girl calls Loveline last night and says she can only have an orgasm with regular intercourse. Oral sex just doesn't bring it.

And I'm thinking, wow, she really didn't come out ahead.

Thank you! I'm here all week.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I admit it. I’m all about kissing. I love to make out. Nothing lights the fire faster for me than a healthy, extensive make out session. And really, is there anything better than kissing someone you are in love with? Those people who kiss you and you feel the entire planet fall away underneath you. You feel like you have this live wire that goes from your mouth to that spot just below your chest and above your abdomen, and the second your lips touch hers she completes that circuit and POW!

Baby, you weren’t grounded.

Yeah.

I’m all about the kissing.

Not to kiss my own ass or anything, but I have been told by most of the women I’ve been fortunate enough to smooch that I’m pretty good at it. I assume there have been times where I didn’t have my game face on (so to speak) or had a few too many onions on my veggie burger for lunch. It’s bound to happen. But for the most part, kissing has been a mutually enjoyable experience, and I’ve been told so repeatedly. For those of you who are single, female, look like Angelina Jolie and doubt this factoid about The Occasionally Mighty One, I’m happy to test my theory at your convenience.

Regardless, I got to thinking that I’ve never experienced a bad kisser. Women talk about this all the time. I have been with women who were different kissers. What they were into was not what I was into, and we rarely seemed to get into sync. Maybe they liked puckery, goldfish kisses. Maybe they liked darting, slippery tongues without any lip action. Maybe they liked to go left, and I liked to go right. Whatever it was, we just couldn’t get it together. Doesn’t mean they were bad kissers. Just means they had a different style. Sometimes we were able to figure each other out. Sometimes we weren’t. No matter what, it pretty much spelled doom for a relationship.

Now, I’m sure there are bad kissers. I’ve heard horror stories. I think most of the bad kissers are probably men. You rarely hear men bitch about women trying to suck out their tonsils, and I don’t think men ever practiced kissing on pillows. Or teddy bears. Or with other girls at slumber parties. Mmmm…slumber parties. Sorry. I digress. If we do encounter an overly zealous lip sucker, most men just figure that it will eventually lead to sex, so they put up with it.

For women, it’s a deal breaker. If you can’t light the fire with your lips, you have almost no hope of adding any wood.

Although I have had no personal experiences with these smooch slaughterers, I hear these are the worst offenders:

The Zombie: The zombie just sorta sits there, dead and motionless. You’re lucky to get a pucker. It’s like kissing a mackerel. Only with less sex appeal.
The Remora: The remora is a little over zealous with the whole suction thing. He attaches onto your face and just sucks and sucks, leaving you feeling like you just made out with a Hoover.
The Anaconda: The anaconda is the stereotypical bad kisser, and probably most common among teenagers. The anaconda tries to swallow your head whole. He approaches kissing like he was performing dental surgery with his tongue. Open wide!
The Mastiff: I think everyone has experienced this to some extent. The mastiff is so slobbery he leaves your face looking like you just got freaky with Cujo. Or went down on a squid. Bring a bib.
The Vampire: The vampire either loves to bite or has really, really bad coordination. He is sharp and jerky and aggressive and generally leaves you with a bloody lip. Maybe even a severed tongue.
The Stevie: Stevie misses your mouth completely and ends up planting a wet one your left nostril.
The Mexican Buffet: I don’t think this one needs to be explained any further. Tic Tac?
The Pornstar: The pornstar is the guy who assumes that any reciprocal lean-in is an invitation to stick his hand down your pants. He is also the guy who tries to dry hump you on the dance floor.

I suppose a Mexican Mastiff Anaconda Pornstar is the worst kisser in the world, but thankfully, I haven’t had to deal with this situation. I suspect precious few people have as he isn’t likely to make out too often.

Now this list doesn’t imply that to be a good kisser you always employ the same style of smooching. Not at all. A smooch for all seasons is my take on things. Like a wide selection of flavors for my Chapstick, I appreciate variety in my macking.

I like the gentle kiss. Those exploratory first kisses that begin with your hands on her face as you lean in and get to know each other for the first time. I like the surprise kisses, the hard, fast stolen kiss in the alley behind the night club or in the hallway of the office. I love the dirty kisses. The bitten necks and the roaming hands and the aggressive tongue. I like the playful kisses, the bite on the lip and the lick on the ear and the kiss through the smile that you can’t seem to control anymore. I like the teasing kisses. The kisses that aren’t even really kisses, just the tiny instant of separation, the electric, almost intolerable moment or two above her, maybe a grazed bottom lip, the breath on a cheek, the light peck on a temple. I love, LOVE the hungry kisses, those sexy, passionate, animal bedroom kisses that consume you as much as you consume her.

But my favorite kiss is the uncontrollable kiss. The kiss that can happen anywhere, at anytime. The kiss created when you see your lover walking on the street or standing in the doorway or reading a book or brushing her hair. You see her and are overcome with this compulsion to walk over, to run over, to just grab her hand, turn her around and kiss her, kiss her hard, and the result is so overwhelming that it almost hurts to love someone so much.

That’s my favorite kind of kiss. And those are the best, best kissers.

Even if they had Mexican for lunch.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (1)

I’ve been back in Tucson the last two days. As beautiful as the desert is, I really can’t cope with this town anymore. I think I’ve either been too integrated into the SoCal subculture or I just desperately don’t want to trip over any of my dusty desert roots.

I’m a different person now. Tucson is a basically a small town with a million people. It’s a place for people who don’t want to live in a small town but want all the comforts of the city. It’s introverted and a little bit backward and isolated by the mountains and the desert that guard it closely and keep it locked away.

I think I’ve outgrown this town, and despite the nostalgia that bears down on me almost as heavy as the summer heat, I have no, repeat NO desire to ever live here again. Good rock climbing and good friends and good mortgage payments and good Mexican food not withstanding.

Driving around Tucson, I noticed what I think is the primary difference between California and Arizona, and no, it’s not the conspicuously absent big, blue, wet thing to the west. It’s not Republicans, it’s not affordable housing, it’s not the waddling, polyester-clad herds of octogenarians, it’s not even the difference in average IQ, directly proportional to the number (and average length) of mullets.

It’s about safety.

California loves adventure. In California you can surf and ski and dive and paddle and bike and ride and leap off cliffs - just so long as you don’t do anything unsafe. They assume, perhaps correctly, that you can’t be trusted. In California you can’t smoke, can’t loiter, can’t make a left turn on green, can’t exit the HOV lane, can’t drive without a seatbelt, can’t ride without a helmet, can’t bike without a helmet, can’t carry a firearm, can’t ride in the back of your pickup, hell, can’t let your DOG ride in the back of your pickup.

Generally speaking, I think these are good ideas. Not sure they need to be laws, but basically good rules to live by. And California is filled with smart people. People, frankly, who know better. These well-meaning, well-educated, well-financed people are really into, well, wellness. Yours and mine. And they write laws to protect us from ourselves in order to keep us, for the most part, well. So we can be healthy while we breathe toxic air as we sit stressed in traffic for six hours a day in order to work 80 hours a week to pay for a condo in Chino.

In Arizona, however, you can, for the most part, do and go as you please – so long as it doesn’t involve taxes or sodomy or Mexicans. With those notable exceptions, the good people of Arizona pretty much don’t care what you do. No helmet laws. You can inch out into a blind left turn at the intersection or carry a loaded pistol into the mall. Just so long as it isn’t concealed. Wouldn’t want the clerk at Subway to be unaware that you’re packing.

I suppose they take a Darwinian approach to things out here. In California, it’s all about protecting the species. In AZ, they want to thin the herd. Going to ride your crotch rocket sans helmet? Have at it, Mr. Knievel. Feel like stuffing your kids in the back of your pickup for a trip to the Walmart? Knock yourself out. Hell, if you want to take your mulleted head and load six kids, four bikes (no helmets), two dogs, and a dozen assault riffles in the back of a raised F150, do 75 MPH down the highway, weaving in and out of the HOV lane while chain smoking Marlboro Reds and making left turns in front of speeding Harley riders without helmets, nobody is gonna stop you.

Though maybe somebody should.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Sometimes I crack myself up. Really.

TMJ: how was your weekend? any sex and drugs and debauchery?
M: no debauchery
M: although I dont want to ruin my reputation so maybe I should make something up
M: let's see...
TMJ: you got drunk and took home an entire high school basketball team?
M: hardly
M: started flowing the the Ganges
M: that's chick talk for "started my period"
M: and am in pain so no gaggle of athletes
TMJ: bummer
TMJ: one more reason i'm glad to be male
M: as you should be
TMJ: yeah
TMJ: i would be a real REAL ugly chick
M: personally I just cannot fathom walking around with that whole thing going on between a guy's legs
M: I mean jeez
TMJ: "the whole thing?"
TMJ: really
TMJ: as much as i would like to think otherwise
TMJ: it's seriously
TMJ: depressingly
TMJ: no big deal

Posted by themightyjimbo at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is 115 MPH down the 55 Freeway considered passive-aggressive behavior, or just aggressive-agressive behavior? How about 120?

Just checking.

Oh don't get your panties in a twist. I was wearing a helmet.

So I've been riding a lot lately. The summer temperatures, the newness of the experience, my ever-increasing comfort level and, frankly, the $2.56 per gallon price of regular have made the VFR my primary mode of transportation around town. Sure, it's less than convenient for groceries, but considering how often I'm living in some other city this hasn't posed too much of a problem.

Although I could use a cup holder and a straw. Gets hot under that helmet.

I took the motorcycle on a solo ride up to Big Bear this morning. Rode through the dying, brown, beetle-infested trees to the lake, had a light lunch, put on the helmet and rode back along Highway 18 through Lake Arrowhead, past the charred remains of the forest, dodging the always present Los Angeles traffic, even on remote mountain roads. Despite the alsphalt cholesterol, it was a beautiful ride.

I'd have stopped to take pictures from any or all of the dozens of lookout points and scenic turnouts I passed along the way, but really, it wasn't about the view.

It was about the ride.

Of course, to get to all the beautiful rides, I have to spend fifty minutes or more on the most congested freeways in the country, traveling through lovely, cosmopolitan towns like Riverside and San Bernardino, but that's the price I pay for living in Southern California. Apparently twenty million other people appreciate 300 days of perfect weather a year. Go figure.

At least in California bikes can lane-split. Nothing quite like zipping through lines of slow moving Suburbans, just waiting to get clipped by a misjudged side view mirror, stung with a discarded cigarette butt, or worse, sandwiched between an H2 and a dump truck cause some goober saw an opening and tried to get and extra thirty feet ahead of the cars behind him without checking his mirror, now permanently lodged in my ribcage.

Regardless, I've been riding more lately. And I'm becoming more comfortable on the bike. When I first began riding, every time I sat on the bike I was terrified. Every time I started the motor I thought to myself, "is today the day you are going to die?" Riding is without question just about the dumbest thing you can do with your life. The guy who did my financing is a paraplegic after introducing his head to the back of an SUV. My climbing partner has broken several bones in get-offs and sudden impacts through his 25 years of riding. I have two dead friends. I recognize and understand the risks involved. It's like rock climbing - the consequences of error are quite severe. Unlike climbing, however, where you have multiple, redundant safety mechanisms built into the activity and a handy-dandy belayer at the other end of your rope, motorcycles do not have this advantage. Climbing has a relatively wide margin for error. If you climb, eventually, you are going to fall, and you (usually) have someone there to catch you when you do. If you ride, eventually, you are going to fall. But the motorcycle doesn't include a safety rope. Or a seat belt. Or an airbag. It's real narrow margin of error.

But maybe that's the appeal. It's that edge. Some people are comfortable in the recliner of life. They look at the mountain on the horizon and never wonder about the view from the top. They wade into the shallows but never want to swim. They may check out the precipice but never peer over the side.

Me?

I gotta look.

Still, I'm not totally sold on riding long term. It does still feel a little too risky at times. And, to be totally honest, I still like my mountain bike better. There is something fulfilling in getting there under my own power. And 120 down the freeway still isn't nearly as exhilarating as 25 down a fast and winding single-track.

But there is something sexy about the motorcycle. Something about that single-sided swing-arm, the back wheel spinning free, the exhaust tucked up under my seat. Something erotic about straddling the saddle, my hands caressing the sides of the tank at a stoplight. The feel and the position vaguely feminine, evocative of a woman's hips when she sits in your lap. The smell of the leather. The roar of the wind in your helmet. The heady, dirty, dangerous growl of the 800cc V-four as I push the bike past 7000 RPM and open up the valves of the V-Tec engine. The surge of adrenaline and acceleration when I open up the throttle off a stoplight, feel the bike launch out from underneath me, feel the front end get light as I roar toward the red line. Pushing the handlebar into a deep lean around a wide, fast, swoopy turn. Feeling the tires grip as I bank into the corner. There is something sexy about the motorcycle. The swagger in your walk the result of heavy leather and stiff boots. The wide eyes of young boys as they watch you from the passenger window. The girls who slow down to check you out, the guys who nod in appreciation as you pass.

Yeah, there is something sexy about riding a motorcycle.

It could be the leather and the rubber and the steel. It could be the bravado of the subculture, the ever-present cultural icon of the rebel on the open road. It could be the inherent danger of it all. The rush and the wind and the speed all keeping the endorphins and hormones steadily pumping in your veins. But it could be more. It could be that riding a motorcycle is a lot like sex. It's beautiful. It's exhilarating. It takes patience and technique and often as you want to open up the throttle and go full-bore, the real joy is in the gentle touches, feeling the bike respond as you work through the gears, urging it through a turn. Like love and sex, a ride on a motorcycle is inherently risky, definitely exciting, and when you fall, it's bound to leave scars.

Then again, it could just be the 125 horses all vibrating hot underneath your crotch.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

No matter who you are, or what you listen to, if it's American music, it was influenced by Ray Charles. He did it all in his day, from soul to jazz to blues to country, and he did it better than almost anyone. Thank you Ray. You will be missed.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Walking around with a shockingly attractive woman with shockingly pink hair is a unique experience. Especially in the lobby of historic, ostentatious, urban hotels. Or in the crowded elevators of historic, ostentatious, urban hotels.

Jimbo: You know what I just noticed about your pink hair?
Tassy: What?
Jimbo: For the first time in a long time all the people in the room aren't staring at your tits.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

Thanks.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Something is wrong. I've become far too self-destructive. And something is wrong. I've been in a state of massive self-sabotage. And something is wrong. I’ve been caught in a passive-aggressive process of systematically fucking up my life. And something is wrong.

I'm afraid of change and yet I'm forcing it upon myself. But in this way I think the change I need is not what I’m going to get.

I need a change of mind. A change of heart. A change of direction. A change of spirit. A change of clothing, now that I think about it.

I am not focused on work. And it's killing my career. I’m feeling adrift but unwilling to take up the oars. I’m feeling lost but unwilling to look at the map. I’m feeling unmotivated but unwilling to set better goals. I've lost my sense of self-discipline. I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars this year. Buying things. Replacing things. Fixing things. New toys. New clothes. New cars. A new motorcycle parked next to the house. And yet I can't seem to muster up the energy to call the insurance company that is canceling my insurance because they need a document that I should have sent them months ago.

I've been doing the same things and expecting a different result. So I've stopped doing everything.

I realized I spent six hours online today. And got nothing done.

I think my priorities are out of whack. I think I have some problems that need to be addressed. I think I need to make some tough decisions. I think I need therapy.

I feel lonely far too frequently. But then I isolate myself as a result. I really want a relationship. But I want it with people who never want me back.

I wonder if I'm too lazy to put in the effort to get what I really want. I wonder if I'm too afraid to take the risks to get what I really want. I wonder if I'm too insecure to even want what I really want.

I don't know anymore. But I know I need a change. Maybe the change is to start here.

I spent six hours online today. And got nothing done. I think I have to become a little less digital. I think the internet has become a crutch. A pipe. A chain. A way for me to escape from the details and the discipline and the disillusion of my life.

I may be turning off the comments. I may be posting less. But writing more. I may be taking a vacation from Digitalcatharsis all together. Not forever. I think I've created something good here. But maybe for a little while.

For I fear that being digital has been a way for me to escape from being analog. And frankly, it's not feeling so cathartic anymore. It’s feeling narcotic.

Then again, maybe this is yet another form of sabotage. A way to fuck up something else that has been fundamentally good.

I don't know anymore.

I just know I need a change.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (45)

Am I the only one who still winces whenever a movie or television show made before 9-11 flashes a picture of the Twin Towers? I suspect I’ll live the rest of my life without that nerve ever becoming numb.

Which, I suppose, is probably a good thing.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

How many of you get your blog ideas from instant messaging conversations? Probably half of my posts come from your muse. Well, so maybe you don't get me started on my longer stories, but from what I can tell, you don't read those anyway. You kids just like the empty calories of penis jokes and beefcake. Regardless, if that's the candy of this blog, than chat sessions are seriously like shaking the machine. I'm still not sure if that's a blessing or a curse, cause honestly, you people bring out the wosrt in me. Case in point:

TMJimbo: how is SLC?
TGP: it's good I suppose
TGP: It's really pretty out here
TGP: And hot
TMJimbo: hot!
TMJimbo: pretty!
TMJimbo: how i like my girlfriends
TMJimbo: only typically not mormon
TMJimbo: they dont usually like the festish parties and the masturbation jokes

Posted by themightyjimbo at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

So I spent the weekend in Arizona. I opted out of the long ride through the desert when I found America Worst had a nice $98 round trip fare if I returned on Tuesday. Suddenly the weekend became a no brainer.

It was a relaxed holiday, despite how the aches in my upper back and the congestion in my head might seem to indicate otherwise. We went waterskiing every evening (if anything would illustrate how out of shape I have become, it’s the repeated face planting I did just trying to plane a wakeboard), did a little climbing at the local gym (also a lesson in humility), and I took Todd's VFR out for a fun morning spin through the twisties to Bartlett Lake. Sure, I drank a little sangria but largely the weekend was spent relaxed and in the company of Todd and Lisa and his cat.

Todd has a generic suburban home in North Scottsdale – and that’s not a criticism. It’s certainly more of a home than I can afford in OC. It’s just the official state color is beige, and it seems developers in Arizona have decided that despite the umpteen million plan options you have when building your home, in reality, everyone just wants to live in the same house as everyone else. Suburban living, sterilized and homogenized for easy social digestion.

The best parts of life in Sonoran suburbia are the desert animals that have decided, maybe against their better instincts, to share their home with the hordes of beige people in the beige houses in the beige city. I suppose it makes sense. We move to the suburbs for a safe place to live and raise our kids. Why wouldn’t they? With the sole exception of the random kid with a bb gun, a fast moving SUV, or the occasional coyote, they are pretty safe to do as they please.

In Todd’s back yard at any given time you can see doves and quail and lizards and geckos and rabbits and chipmunks and hummingbirds and a vast assortment of sparrows and wrens that I couldn’t begin to identify. It’s wild kingdom, only in a family friendly, backyard format and endless entertainment for his cat Macy who spends hours just crouched by the sliding glass door, tail twitching idly behind her. Occasionally a lizard or gecko wanders a little to close to the door and sends Macy into a mad dash to the glass where she will continue to pace and purr in frustration for the next several minutes while the lizard goes on about his business of doing his little reptilian pushups on the wall and mocking house cats and out of shape rock climbers.

I will frequently spend a good half hour of every day sitting out on the patio or, while in the kiln of summer, sitting by the window, just enjoying the sight of it all. Sure, I can watch the fish jumping around from either of my balconies at home, I hear the seals barking in the morning, and with a short walk to the sand can watch the pelicans cruising gracefully, wingtips just inches from the water, but it’s the abundance of desert life that always fascinated me the most. I suppose primarily because life in a desert is so difficult to maintain.

My favorite part of Todd’s cul-de-sac of life is the bird’s nest that has been built in the potted cactus next to his front door and right beside the kitchen window. This spring two separate families of sparrows have built nests in the same fork of the same plant, a sparrow suburbia as it were, the first brood already raised and flown off or become food for some snake or owl or roadrunner, the second family still raising a noisy foursome of little yellow beaked toddlers now. As I was watching the nest yesterday, I watched as one of the chicks twisted its body around, hung it’s bald little butt over the side and promptly took a dump onto the rim of the nest. Now I wasn’t hoping to see the business end of a sparrow’s digestive system pushing regurgitated crickets and palo verde seeds out its featherless ass, but I was surprised to see how neatly the rim was lined with bird shit. This simple act suddenly seemed to me to be fundamental to a happy, healthy existence. It was something I had never considered before, but these bird babies knew to do instinctively.

Simply, don’t shit where you sleep.

Somewhere in our culture of chaos and consumerism and commitments and complexity, we seem to have forgotten this. Leave the stress and the bills and the job and the arguments on the floor next to your slippers. Don’t take the shit to bed with you.

Ah, maybe it’s a crappy metaphor, pun intended, but if I can find any inspiration in tract housing, believe me, I’m gonna run with it.

Posted by themightyjimbo at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)