Born to Run: Live From the Road

12 hours from now I will be back in Columbia, working at the copy desk, thus ending the spring break trip.

Perhaps I will be the happiest I have ever been while working my 310 shift. I will be relaxed and what-have-you from break. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, they have to like me, or they can't put out a paper. Someone has to catch the AP errors and proof those stories on how it's no coincidence that MU (Mizzou) lost to MU (Marquette); let's devote twenty inches.

Observations: The Spring Break Special Edition

*Jake went the whole week without combing his hair or shaving. Additionally, he wore a doo-rag/bandana that, combined with his size, stature and posture, made him look like "Miami Steve" Van Zant of the E Street Band.
*Bo's apartment in Chicago has just about all the swords from his apartment in St. Charles. A good deal of what we did yesterday in his apartment was watch him tear the shit out of some boxes with those swords.
*Bo on top of me with one of those swords is a scary scary prospect.
*Jake said that my brother and I have a "very funny, very strange" dynamic with each other. I think he smells.
*I managed to go through this week using text messaging to communicate with Colleen (and thus Goodloe), Katy (from Irish lit), Jill and Jackie (the Bushmaster/Rogue Squirrel). Having only 160 letters to type directions and/or dirty, foul message (or dirty, foul directions) is a skill, one that would be served well by a lecture in 310.
*I think the fact that I am a gringo explains why my burritos in Chicago weren't all that great. Damn white folk. Oh wait, that's me.
*For the majority of the time Jake and I spent with Colleen and Goodlovin', they were drunk.
*Ipso ergo facto, we talked about the Missourian more away from Columbia than while we typically are in Columbia. Oh wait, no, no, no, it was the standard usual.
*Jill's boyfriend Mark is the shit and I want to clone him, shrink him and take him around to show people.
*I won a music trivia competition at Marquette's Annex. As I told Jill, "I may not be able to get a date, but I can sure win trivia!"
*My dad is pretty loose around Jake.
*My mother now purposely says "yo" and "you best be/not be" in sentences.
*My mother can contort her face worse than I can.
*I take lots of random pictures of random crap, usually out of focus and of little importance.
*Not spending a week with Keith, Crank or Lurch makes me miss all of them.
*"Will and Grace" is verging on being too sappy at points. Don't they realize that all we want is gay stereotypes and jokes about booze, drugs and failed marriages?
*Bo's one roommate looks like Jack Osborne.
*Upon seeing "Donnie Darko," I have decided that it is very well within my top ten favorite movies. I have to file it under "eery movies I can relate to and thus are that much more disturbing."

Nominees for the Best Text Messages of Spring Break 2003

Okay, so I told you that this break was full of text messages (messages sent from cell-phone to cell-phone using the keypad as a keyboard of sorts, pounding out Shakespearean verse using a total of 9 buttons all crammed in real close).

I thought I would give you the five best and then you could vote for the best. I know, I know, but it's late.

"Good morning boys hurry to town there is good beer" -- Colleen Pauley
"Ohmylord we are hungover. That's what happens when my sister's hot friends buy us shots" -- Colleen Pauley
"Lick your nuts! now i be the bushmaster, yo" -- Jackie Harder
"Arr matie its driving me nuts" -- Jackie Harder

Colleen or Jackie, eh? Let me know what you think.

And while I'm asking what you think...

What song would be perfect for your theme song?

Rachel Ellen and her friend Melissa (Pena) introduced Jake and I to a game in which you decide what your theme song would be if it had to be played every time you entered a room. Rachel said mine should be Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf," and that hers is the Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy."

I'm posting that for you all to chew on and ponder. Don't chew too hard. Ewww.

All... that... jazz!

We have landed in Chicago. Well, not really much of a landing. More of a "we drove here." That's because, well, we drove here. We had Courtney with us (we done picked her up in Antioch on our way from Milwaukee) and then we dropped her off downtown with Derek, who interviewed for an internship.

At the Virgin Megastore, we saw Ron Jeremy was going to be in the store signing autographs. Ahhh, reason to call my brother. He was on his way. Fantastic.

To kill the time, we walked around Michigan Ave. and ended up seeing this guy give a little presentation about math and numbers. It was a little trickier than that, though, for this presentation was not just about numbers. Neigh, my friends, it was about Jesus and salvation. Fair enough. We stayed around to watch it. As Jake put it, "I was not expecting any new theology, but a new spin as to how they were selling it." These guys turned out to be from the Moody Institute. Seemed like nice enough guys. They asked us how often we think about salvation and the meaning of life and I gave them the answer of, "Oh, just about any day that ends in 'd-a-y.'" They seemed to like that. And it's true, too. This week has been great time for me to just relax and detach myself from Columbia and everything I have built up to be my world there. I love it there but I needed the time to unplug and get out. It's after being away that I've been able to look (objectively and subjectively) at myself and my life in Columbia. Definitely this semester I've been thinking about the bigger picture(s?) and what "it all means." After camping the other night, I was unable to go to sleep so I ended up thinking about stuff. A lot of it was how blessed I am to have all the people I have in my life, as well as how I'm glad I'm sticking with this whole journalism thing, and how I am not as lonely as I thought (in more ways than one). More fodder for me to be thinking about was the stuff I had read in Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ." I started reading it last week at the Artisan before we left town and it definitely got me thinking about the likelihood of Christ being who lots of people say he is... Very very interesting.

So these guys were nice enough guys. I guess we would have stayed around longer, but we had a date with Mr. Ron Jeremy. Ironic, eh?

Ron Jeremy was underwhelming, and most disappointed was my brother, John (with whom we are staying while here in Chicago). John was hoping for a speech or some heartwarming tales, but neigh, such was not the case. All he was doing was posing for pictures with people who had bought the new DVD of the documentary based on his life. John was disappointed about this, because Ron Jeremy provided us with one of our funniest stories of the family: the story of Mom and Uncle Larry's porn. Oh well.

Right now we're in John's apartment listening to MP3s. John, the uber-computer nerd, has 7 of his 18 computers linked up to a network and thus are wired to a broadband connection. This is the shit, let me tell you. Quite cool. And it's my brother's place, so it's great to be someplace familiar, where I can see pictures and know the people in them (because I'm related to them). It's not exactly home, but it will be soon, and is where a lot of the heart is, ya know?

Summer days...

My summer will (knock on wood?) be hopefully spent here as an intern for Newcity Magazine. I have been playing phone-tag with the assistant editor for a few weeks now and I'm thinking we're meeting Friday morning. The S.C. paper didn't work out, though I was a finalist. You learn from everything, though, right? No regrets, and I am very much over it. There's always next year, and then again, there's always my career.

"Hey, we're drinking in the newsroom!"

While in Milwaukee, we found a great bar called, "The Newsroom." On the wall of said establishment were the signatures of countless people who had passed through on interviews (journalists and interviewees alike): Studs Terkel, Bil Keane, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryant, Barbara Bush, Bette Davis, Woodrow Wilson and a bunch of others. The bar is also home of the Milwaukee Press Club, the oldest press club in the country. And, this place was connected to the Safe House, a really neat spy-themed bar that is the second-oldest building in Milwaukee. It was really cool, so we bought shot glasses. By "we," I mean Goodloe, Colleen and me, and by "shot glasses," I mean six. Hey, you only live once, and you're only on spring break so often... But I do hope to be in Milwaukee again soon. I absolutely love that city. And I do think I will be back up here, especially if I am in Chicago this summer. Especially if I am in Chicago this summer. Milwaukee is home to Jilly, who I have realized this week is a sister of mine except for the fact that our parents are different people (though she did have my mom for psychology). We are a great pair together and I don't mind acting like a freak around her. In fact, I revel in it, especially if we can be telling Martell and Kyle stories, of which we have plenty. It was great to hang out with her, and also great that she hit it off with Colleen and Goodloe. I imagine she and Goodloe will be hitting the bars together once or twice (a week), those lushes, for Goodloe will be interning at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this summer. I must say that upon reading this morning's Journal Sentinel, I was quite impressed, especially because so many people had told me it was a "shit-rag."

We're still all on computers here, which is fine, but I do have to use the facilities, and I think we're expecting a call from Bo tonight. Thinking we'll hit his place, which I don't think is too too far from here (those two toos were intentional). Ahh, to be able to zip around in the upper midwest and see everyone. Isn't this great?!?! Boo-ya, yos, boo-ya.

The spring break trip is well under way, and while I plan on giving several updates upon returning, we do have the luxury of a computer here at Jake's brother's place in the 'burbs of Milwaukee.

Observations:
*Jill is one of the best drinking buddies. EVER.
*Jake's parents are really funny, and have about zero inhibitions.
*There is a town called Bigneck, Illinois.
*The deputy in Hancock County, not too far from Bigneck, is kind of peculiar. Of course, we were going 78 in a 55.
*Getting lost on a hike when you don't have a set plan is not really getting lost. It's pure fun.
*Josh J. will probably end up somewhere in a Pat script.

Jackie asked that we try to treat our trip like "Crossroads" and Jake could be Britney. I thought Colleen would be more prepared for said role, but then again, after thinking about it, I play Britney just fine, thank you much.

A new cheer for MU games, courtesy of Monty, Jake's father:
Cigarette ashes,
Cigarette butts,
We got KU by the nuts,
Pull, team, pull!

Happy Birthday to...
*Courtney's mom, Sherrill
*Luke, duke of Lapa. To all those in Columbia, make sure he doesn't get all sloppy drunk and gamble away all his money on casinos and places of ill repute. You know that Daugherty boy, he's a real phreak.

Godspeed You! White Emperor

When George W. Bush addressed the nation tonight, the backdrop looked mighty fake and there was a delay between the audios and visuals. It was like a bad movie, and that comment works on so many levels. Bottom line is that we're going to war.

And that's not scary just because a bunch of soldiers and civilians will die overseas, but because Saddam is crazy and has threatened land, water, skies and everything else (no sure what else there would be, but eh). I'm afraid he'll do something here in the U.S. (where, I don't know), and I'm deathly afraid that he'll retaliate not only against Bush, but Blair as well. I'm scared he'll touch Britain (and specifically London).

It was with all this on my mind that I went to the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show tonight at the Blue Note. I needed a release but there is no way to really escape the realities of what's going on around us. As the 11-member band (complete with 2 drums, multiple guitars, strings, brass and woodwinds) pounded away at its 20-minute instrumental songs, showing footage on the projector, I only thought more and more about the implications of tonight's speech. The images on the screen seemed to be in sync with my thoughts, and by the time they played "Storm," a resiliant song that's relatively not-depressing, I got to thinking that we will be able to get through this, whatever "this" is. I'm not sure how, what, when, where or even why, but I somehow got the hunch that we will be okay. I have to have faith in that.

I think we all have to have faith in that, actually.

I just typed a really cool blog posting and the damn thing got lost. Son of a bitch! And I'm at the copy desk with nothing to do, either.

News:
*Rachel Palencia Harper's son (Michael James) was born on Tuesday, March 11. More info to come.
*The Artisan now has mugs for $14.
*Scrapbooks suck.
*310 still sucks.
*The Black&Gold is still a dive bar.
*St. Joe lost the championship game.
*I miss Courtney when she's sick.
*My roommates now smoke up more often and earlier. I returned from Mass today around 1 and they were already baked.

I can't believe this computer lost my posting. I'm so pissed. It was a great posting, too. I even used the term "little shaver" in it.

Uh, maybe I need a key and a bed

My role at the Artisan has evolved to being similar to that of the following famed characters: Charlie on "Empty Nest," Norm on "Cheers" or Steven Wright in "Half-Baked." In other words, I'm always there, and no one really knows why. I have become so accustomed to answering the quizzes that I haven't paid for a cup of coffee there in quite a while. I think I've probably read the Missourian more recently. Yeah, no joke. It has been that long.

Today was gorgeous -- the type of day where you can strut around sans jacket or even long sleaves, and walk right into a breeze that seems like it would lift you above Boone County. It doesn't, of course, but still, it's sunny, breezy and quite freeing. It's a sign that spring could be coming, actually, even though we'll probably get three snowstorms (seven articles about each) and a monsoon or two before spring will be here for good. Oh well.

Days like today get me geared up for spring because the night has the cool feel to it: still warm but cooler, and yet certainly not gold. In Goldilocks speak, it was "just right." A perfect way to end a day that included wandering around campus and seeing people look happy for once to be in mid-Missouri, a day when I came home around 3:30 and saw that the sty across the street was already indulging in a hoosier block party (picture two couches in the driveway with a coffee table, a deck of cards for a game of "Asshole," with beer, Tang and vodka in a tequila bottle and enough Incubus radio shit to kill a mime).

What caps a day like this off is a nice rainstorm (read: monsoon). Spring rainstorms always get me in a good mood because they remind me of the days of spring break in high school when Becca and I would tool around on the rain-slicked streets of Brentwood, Clayton, North County or St. Charles (or even St. Paul). Ahhh, the memories. More recently, this has been replaced by me going to coffee houses, like the Artisan or in St. Louis, Coffee Cartel, so you will understand how perfect tonight was for the Pat.

I was at the Artisan to study for Trumbo's History of Journalism for Yankers 101 when who should I see but Katie Goodloe studying for Winfield's History of Journalism for Ascetics and Fascists. Fabulous-- we can help each other. I'm there trying to look up which paper William Lloyd Garrison was with and what-have-you when I overhear the guy at the counter sporting the Che T-shirt (whose quiz question on who was originally picked to play Indiana Jones stumped my cracker ass) say something about "Coffee Cartel." I freeze and give him the diva look.

"You know Cartel?"

"Yeah, I know Cartel. I'm from St. Louis."

Of course, he's never been there, he says. Man, is he missing out. Coffee Cartel in the Central West End. This is one of the more colorful (read: gay, black, dramatic) places in town. This is the place you go to if you're bored and want to be entertained, because even if you and your friends have nothing to talk about, the queen across the room will most certainly have something to talk about and girl, you will hear it. He'll be going on about how someone disrespected him, how someone's breath stank, how someone can't sing or how their mamas should be locked up for letting them leave the house dressed like that. That place is a ball. And in the summer it's fun because you can sit outside and the famed Central West End twirler has been known to walk by. I've seen it happen, too, when the Twirler walks by wearing a sock and calling it an outfit. Some teen boys were all hooting at him, calling for the police to arrest him for indecent exposure. Of course, this didn't deter him, and he kept on working it, to which a Fat-Albert-lookin' kid yelled, "Work it, bitch! Work it!" And he can work it. One time I was with my family before Mass at the Cathedral one Sunday and the Twirler walked by. The look of horror on some of the churchgoers faces made them look worse than the gargoyles on the gothic spires. It was that bad. Of course, any guy who can elicit this sort of reaction is my hero.

But the guy at the Artisan sporting the Che T-shirt has never been there, and not sure whether he's "family" or not or what his swaying is, I didn't think I should launch into a spiel about Cartel. Didn't think it would be kosher. Of course, Cartel isn't kosher, either -- it's a haven for behavior outlawed by the Old Testament. There's lots of meat there, but it ain't blessed, not in the least.

It's Friday at noon, meaning I'm being subjected to another rousing hour of "Class With Curt." Ass.

But, I have found redemption in viewing the Web sites from other J350 students. Among the sites was Seth Fletcher's, and continuing with my motif of quoting funny things from people I know, here is a funny thing from Seth's bio:

"Born May 16, 1979, in Columbus, Kansas, I spent most of my formative years in Joplin, which I now realize is a truly bizarre town. It is an interesting mix of rednecks, doctors, lawyers and closet homosexuals. I used to say it was a nice place to come from and then leave, but now I'm not even so sure about that, because once one leaves, one still has friends there that one loves to visit, and to visit them means to visit Joplin. It means to see one's high school classmates who never got out, and who most likely tend bar at a place with the word 'saloon' in the title."

My brother had a job interview today for a group home that works primarily with people with developmental disabilities. He'd be working with them and helping them in their day-to-day routines and in their group activities. Could be quite a rewarding job in more ways than one.

Well, he's been really excited with the big day of the second interview and so I left him a message this morning. He called back, and said that no matter what happens, he's got patience. His direct quote was, "I've got more 'Patience' than Guns N' Roses, and I got more patients than a Vietnamese hospital, and shit, that's a lot of patients."

And if that weren't funny enough, then I ran into my friend Ashlee today. We got to talking about the "fix-it syndrome" and she said, "You're not my child, I don't have to fix you. And even if you were my child, I'd probably just beat you into submission and send you to camp."

Top 5 spots of this past weekend (and I don't mean Jake's puke):

Jake's birthday
Getting a call from Erica
Coffee with Erin and Courtney
Copy desk with Patty Atwater
Mass with Fr. Ben

Yeah, that all sounds about right. :)

Hey, wanna cyber?

Okay, in addition to the cool movie posters above, my website has some new links to some other blogs, and I feel I should point all this out to maximize the visiting of said blogs. Clearly.

I have added D.P. and Megan Retka, as well as the psychosis of Jilly and Coley, whose site is not a blog so much (or at all) but is instead offered through diaryland.com. Hey, in the marketplace of ideas, all ideas are welcome, no? Take that Stephanie Cr@ft!

And last but not least, Erin's blog has been revived and updated. She's even got message functions. You may think that it's geeky, but if by geeky, you mean totally awesome, well, then yeah, you are correct. Clearly. I mean, for real.

"Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!"

Speaking of Jilly.... Her birthday is two weeks from today. She will turn 21 in Milwaukee.

And speaking of Milwaukee, where should Pat and Jake be going for Spring Break? Milwaukee and Chicago, yo. Gettin' the hell outta Boone County. Boo-yah.

"I'm talkin' the little spider monkeys that pee in the grocery store and bite people!"

Watching BET!'s "Comic View" has made me nearly pee my pants more often lately than just about anything else on TV. The best was the bit where the comedians were talking about Ja Rule being a little spider monkey that you put on a leash and vaccinate for rabies, then take him to the beach so he can scream and harrass people. I shit you not. It was one of the funniest things I have seen in recent memory.

That and Dave Chapelle's show. He had something on there called "The Mad Real World," mocking "The Real World" on MTV. Hi-lar-i-ous. They have a white guy move in with all black people (exaggerated stereotypes) and see what happens. I was crying I was laughing so hard.

Resolve stain spray: $3.99
409 Carpet cleaner: $4.29
The giggle I'll get when I look at those spots on the rug: Priceless

I'm planning on putting all the pictures from Jake's 21st birthday online. Plus, I'm getting the pictures to my Dad to have him write a Jiminy-type narrative of the evening. The pictures include me wearing a leather-wristband ala Sid Vicious and Billy Idol, my hair chickened up and my sour face hidden by a screwdriver. Such a butch look for a rather un-hegemonic little dude, if only you bar out the fact that neither Sid Vicious nor Billy Idol were playing in the background and instead it was INXS and Phil Collins.

'So, Pat -- and be honest with me on this -- how drunk do you think I am based on my behavior?'

To know Jake is to harbor that secret 13-year-old type desire to want to do nothing more but get him all boozed up and then roll dice on the outcome. A 45-year-old in a college student's body, Jake has a wisdom, maturity and compassion that he spares for no one. Truly is he a man of comfort and solace, such that the moniker "Grandpa" is well-earned. He is respected for not drinking, smoking or whoring.

Which is why it was so imperative for we humans to pump some liquor into him. And we did. Twenty-two drinks and shots worth, to be exact.

By the time Liam, Jessie, Beth and Jeff left, he was mumbling something ala Marlon Brando before taking a spot on the ground. Just a few feet away from Jake was Keith, groggy from some booze and some weird events. He too was rambling, in some weird sort of poetic sense. With the two of them saying inaudible things, I felt as though I were babysitting the Godfather and Kurt Cobain.

I don't remember all of what Jake had (he took with him the official list) but among his drinks were an Irish car bomb, a red-headed slut, a tequila shot, a Long Island Tea, and a whiskey sour. He broke the seal rather early, so to amuse him I scribbled "Jake eats balls" upon a tile above the urinals in a certain establishment at the corner of Broadway and Eighth Street.

We did of course end up back at our place. Sally Buxbaum brought a cat, and I'm still not sure as to why, but hey, it works. It even made Derek's rap.

The pictures will be up soon, so no worries. Jake is alive, and he got some water and pie this morning from Diner. Other pictures include Jackie's but, a bunch of people's clothed boobs, us acting like Liam's brother, and Jen Martin doing something entirely inappropriate. Oh wait, that's her existence. :)

In any case, thanks to all, it was a great night.