BOOK REVIEW: Streets of Laredo

SPOILER WARNING FOR ALIENS AND ALIENS 3 AND I GUESS LONESOME DOVE AND ALSO STREETS OF LAREDO


It was difficult for me to enjoy Streets of Laredo, the sequel to Lonesome Dove, because Larry McMurtry seemed to be suffering from what I call Aliens 3 syndrome.
Basically what happens is the storyteller takes the survivors from the previous movie or book, and the good feeling when you were like "Ughhh, they killed Bill Paxton but at least the little girl got out safely," and they KILL THEM. IMMEDIATELY. No, no, that's not right. THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD when the story picks up.
I'd like to punch David Fincher and Larry McMurtry in the balls. You know what? Everybody gets punched in the balls today. BALL PUNCHES FOR EVERYONE!


In all seriousness you should read Lonesome Dove immediately.

The Aughts have been nothing if not unkind to the airline industry. But it only takes a few notes of "Rhapsody in Blue" to recall the former glory of the friendly skies: 





Gershwin's tune will always conjure visions of fat 747's gliding safely through the ether, of smiling stewardesses flight attendants demonstrating how to recline your seat, and all that rubbish. It's the fate of anyone growing up in the 90's. 


I recently flew on American Airlines for the first time in I don't know how long. After we landed, after the captain turned off the fasten seat belt sign (though the latches were clicking long before), I heard something funny. It happened on both flights, and I don't know if it's an attempt to pin the memory of a successful flight to a melody, or to keep people calm while they wait to deplane, but Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line" began to play over the loudspeaker. 





It seemed an odd choice to immediately queue up after each landing, but there it was. I think United had it right, picking such an epic song, and if American wants to claim a song of it's own, and insists on accessing the Gerry Rafferty catalogue, they would do a lot better to pick "Baker's Street." That saxophone solo is really something! Adventure! Intrigue in a new city! (Except I was arriving home so I was just sort of bummed.)

Songs in the Key of Peanut (Part I)

Depending on how well you know me, you may or may not be aware that I have a dog named Peanut. LOL, just kidding. If you have ever spoken to me, if you have ever made eye contact with me, if you have ever not made eye contact with me but looked somewhere in my general direction, then you've heard about Peanut. 

Some might say I am obsessed with her.

I'll give them that. 

Some might say I spend far too much time agonizing over what comes out of her butt and how often. 

Very well. 

BUT LET ME TELL YOU something about Peanut: 

Peanut—yes, 

this Peanut—saved my life. 

I quit drinking four and a half years ago. I made many, many idiot decisions that nearly proved fatal, and I had the choice to quit boozing or die. I spent some time drying out, talking about my feelings, and trying to figure out how to stop making these idiot decisions.

It could be said, and certainly my dad would have said it at the time, that buying Peanut was an idiot decision. I had a physically demanding full-time job, little money, and a no pets policy in my house. But those things seemed so trivial when I looked into her puffy little face or as she chomped on my fingers with her little needle teeth. She was so small she could fit in the palm of my hand. After playing with her for an hour, I put her back in her enclosure. She began to whine and pressed her tiny, penny-sized paws against the glass. 

"Ohhh," I said, worrying my lip, staring at her. "I can't afford her." She cost roughly 8 trillion dollars.  "I can't afford to buy her, I can't afford trips to the vet, or doggy food, or toys." 

"Well, you don't have to pay it all now," said the store owner. 

"You mean... You have a puppy payment plan?" I asked. 

"Uh... Yeah. We can split it up, is what I mean." 

"I don't know," I said, trying not to look at the little brown and white ball squeaking and jumping in her cage. The girl handling the puppies took her out and set her on my lap again. She began tearing at the crotch of my jeans. 

"Ohhhhh, I don't knoooow," I said again. But the thing was I knew Peanut was coming home with me the moment we made eye contact. I was walking past her cage to sanitize my hands before playing with the all the little doggy darlings, and BOOM I was in love. Letting her crawl across my shoulders and dart her tiny pink tongue up my nose was just a formality. 

I left a box of Milkbone's on my housemate Zoe's bed with Peanut's picture taped to it, and a note: "oh Zoe, I did something wonderful and impulsive and terrible. Get ready for a new roomie!" Peanut was home about a week later, and the horror/fun began.

Peanut wouldn't stop biting. She would run past you like a soft ball of white light, and you'd look down and your hand would have little pin pricks in it. If you picked her up you were probably short a few digits by the time you let her go. So there was an unexpected cost right there, having fingers reattached every time I tried to handle my dog. I even attempted a solution for "extreme" biters, which was to poke my finger down her throat every time she bit me. She would gag and choke and, the book assured me, after two or three tracheal tickles, she'd figure it out. 

Well, she didn't figure it out. Gagging her slowed her down for a second, but did nothing to deter the chewing. She'd make a weird KHAK! sound and then go right back to work. 

To break up the monotony, Peanut also licked. And licked and licked and licked. In your ears, up your nose, even on your eyeball. So here was another cost, forcing me to buy hair pieces to cover where she'd licked me bald. 

Also fun was the speed at which she moved. Like a little furry missile she was, back and forth and back and forth and LEAP in the air to bite your pinkie and back and forth, pausing to poop under the table. 

"Shit," I thought. "Shit, my dog is crazy." 

She was lonely, too. The first time I left her alone for a full shift at work, she greeted me with a desperate, sobbing scream. I fell on the ground and started to cry. I was the worst. The worst and the stupidest dog parent to ever pay 85 zillion dollars for a dog. Why did I think I could do this? I couldn’t. I would have to give her up.

(Fun Fact: The title of this post refers to my inability to sing a song without inserting Peanut's name into it, i.e. "Boogie On, Reggae Peanut.")

yam-yam

Untitled, a photo by marcinéma on Flickr.

Dangerous songs to get stuck in your head

A word of warning: If you get Blur's "Girls & Boys" stuck in your head and walk around singing the chorus at work, everyone will want you dead by the end of the day. If you replace the words "Girls" and "Boys" with your dog's nickname (Nut), they will put you in the looney bin and no one will visit you. 







Is it worse than getting caught listening to "Goodbye Horses" (a.k.a. Buffalo Bill's Song, a.k.a. the Mangina Boogie)on repeat? Probably not. But whatever. IT IS A GOOD SONG.

The Worst Time at the Gym*

Alec Baldwin is a liar. Schwetty Balls are not a tasty treat.

About a year ago I tried Bikram Yoga, which is practiced in a room kept at over 100 degrees. It was a full class, the population trending towards men over 50 wearing bright bikini bottoms. It smelled bad in that room. It smelled really bad. And that was before the stretching even began. As legs began to spread, thighs and hips opening and twisting, it became overpowering. Halfway through I excused myself and threw up in the bathroom.

Now let's gather all that sweat and old man pubes and vomit into one giant scrotum, and then wring it out all over me while I'm trying to run. That is basically what happened to me on this day, April 12 in the year of our Lord, 2011.

I usually get to the gym by 3pm because I belong to a chain gym and if I go much later I have to wait in line for 45 minutes for a machine I plan to use for 20. But I stupidly took a nap and got there late, when all the 9-5ers were showing up. Lucky for me, there still an unoccupied treadmill. Hooray!

The smell hit me before I even stepped onto the belt. It smelled like balls. Sweaty, hairy balls in a nest of unshampooed pubes tangled with old semen. Why I thought I could deal with it for 3 miles I do not know. There was a line forming for the machines, and I really didn't want to wait. I programed my machine, texted everyone in my phonebook that I was running next to a stinky, human crotch, and tried to power through.

I tried not to look at Stinky Balls, but he was making some weird movements that caught my eye. He was wearing a hat (The golfer-y kind Samuel L. Jackson favors), a long-sleeved shirt, and pants. And he was drenched with sweat. He looked like he'd just jogged out of a swimming pool. And he was wringing his sleeves out all over his machine. Every time he jerked his arm I felt the clammy prickle of his sweat. There were puddles in the cup holders. Even the man who runs in the garbage bag suit doesn't sweat like that.

Instead of, oh, I don't know, getting off the fucking machine, I kept running, with a bitch expression on my face. He kept looking over at me. His sharp exhalations cause sweat to ricochet off his lip and onto my arm. Suddenly he reached over to poke my water bottle. A rivulet of sweat tipped out of his sleeve and onto my legs like a stream from a teapot. 

"AHHH!" I said.

"Your water bottle..." he gasped. "It's going to... fall... if you keep running... that hard."

"I DON'T CARE!" I said and ran as close to the edge of the belt as I could. I was terrified I might misstep, my senses clouded with the sour stench, and he'd try to grab me before I fell, baptizing me into the Church of The Stinky Balls. I turned my head to the side and ran faster, like it would carry me farther away from him.

Somehow I completed my run without passing out/vomiting/crying (well, I cried a little bit)/changing machines. I wish I could say I told him off, or told the staff, or did anything but bolt from the building. Instead I skipped my cool-down and fled the gym and my leg was seized by a charlie horse halfway home.

THE END, a photo by Dill Pixels on Flickr.

*Even worse than the time I fell off a treadmill in front of Dave Grohl. 

Radio Lab, Live in L.A.