I’d Rather Spend My Vacation At Long John Silver’s [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Well, you’re certainly doing your job today, Mr Sun. It’s Friday, March 8th, Two Thousand and Nineteen. The weather in Glendale is 60° & Pantone 12-8540 and somewhere, somebody is waiting to make a left turn. Google had told them to take back routes in order to shave 2 minutes off the commute. What they didn’t account for is the impossibleness to turn left at a busy intersection with no stop light. The city DOT didn’t bother banning left turns there because they figured that nobody would be stupid enough to do so, or they’ll at least get the hint sooner or later. But there they sit, seething, waiting for an opportunity to be a part of traffic. This is just like middle school all over again. Waiting and waiting as your peers pass you by, never letting you be a part of the pack. Funny how these things follow you to adulthood. And me? I didn’t have many friends in middle school, either. But I took a right and then pulled a U-Ie. It wasn’t pretty, but hey, they’re the ones that are still waiting to turn. I also have some things on my mind…

– I was walking Rachel to chemo last week, because I realized that I need to talk about her in order to get hits. We got stopped at a corner and there was a guy on a bike. It appeared that he was trying to recreate that Aphex Twin video where the monster screams into an old lady’s face and it makes her whole body shake. He wasn’t doing a really good job of it. She really could not care less. From what I gathered, the biker had the green light, but the lady decided to cross the street anyway, as bikers are generally not a hazard to pedestrian’s well-being. But they are. And the guy was furious. So furious that after she resumed walking, he threw his bike. Not at her, but just in some general safe direction. And then kept yelling. This encounter really affected me. I thought for a long while about all the times I wanted to do the same thing to bikers. I guarantee that the guy ran multiple red lights on that same trip. I bet he also rides on the south side of the Manhattan Bridge if he deems it more convenient. Every day, I see a biker do something that makes me angry. Whether it’s riding on the sidewalk and the wrong way down a one-way, those spokeheads think they rule the road. I wish I had the gall to yell in all of their faces like that guy did. The only problem is that they’re on a bike and if I make them angry, they could easily hunt me down and stomp a mudhole in my jabroni ass. So what do I do with all of this anger? Do I keep holding it in only to have a minor implosion on my blog? Do I get a bike myself and try to set good standards for the biking world? Do I watch the movie, “Falling Down”, and stew about how I’ve been trapped on this idiot island for over 6 months and not sure how much more of it I could take? No, I shouldn’t do any of those things. Let yelling man jiggle cheeks all he wants. I don’t care anymore. I’m going on vacation.

– The plan is to go to 7 spring training baseball games in 4 days. Considering that I’ve never even taken in a double header, I might be biting off more than I can chew. And I have some really bloody gums. But with the way the Cactus League schedule is formatted, it’s basically begging me to. Typically, there’s a set of games around the 1:00 hour and then another set at 6 or 7. Because every stadium is strategically located in the same 40 mile radius, they’re practically daring us to customize our own doubleheaders. For a month out of the year, this area becomes an amusement park for baseball addicts. They know that we need our fix and don’t mind at all if we overdose. In fact, that would probably be “good for baseball”. Will I survive? How many Dodger Dogs will I eat? Will I find some grand purpose to my life? Find out on Monday when I piece together fragmented memories of every game!

– Despite this flurry of ball gazing, I actually have a good 6 hours to kill on Sunday. I looked up directions to the Grand Canyon and it’s over 4 hours away. Turns out, Arizona is much bigger than I anticipated. Or I just figured that they took everything worthwhile and crammed it into one place. Kind of like how New Jersey did the opposite with Newark and formed a proverbial black hole and sadness and excrement. You gotta round ’em up in one place and trap ’em. If you spread everything out, the rest of your “beautiful” state gets ruined. Nice work, Arizona, you done goofed. So then I looked up Joshua Tree, as it appeared to be closer. Nope. That’s 4 and a half hours away. I could go to Mexico just to stand there and say I did it, but that’s also 3 hours and I probably wouldn’t get back. Out of any viable options, I looked up Long John Silver’s. 20 minutes away. JACKPOT!

– Airplanes are generally very loud. Because of this, it’s really easy to fart in [or on] them. Or maybe that’s just what I think and everyone knew I was ripping ass for 6 hours straight.

– I still haven’t seen “A Star Is Born” but man have I heard way too much about it. Bradley Cooper’s ears must’ve burned off by now, because people will not stop gushing about it with their eyes closed. I don’t know why their eyes are always closed, I guess I’d have to see the movie to understand. A conversation I heard on the plane took the Star Cake.

“Have you seen “A Star Is Born”, with Bradley Cooper?”

“So good.”

“So so so so good. And I’m just having a really hard time thinking that it wasn’t based on a true story. Because it seems like a true story. It makes me upset that it wasn’t real.”

“Yeah, well you know, it’s an old story. This is like the third one…”

“Right. It was a book first and then a play.”

I’m not sure if the plane was loud enough to cover up my spit take.

– I was really excited to see an actual cactus. Aside from the little potted ones you see at [wherever it is that cactuses are sold], I’ve never gazed at the majesty of a real-ass one. And then I saw one. It was magical. Then I saw another one. And another. And another. I’m basically sick of cactuses now. What’s the point if you can’t even touch them? Why do they even exist? What purpose do they serve? Why am I here? I bet there’s a cactus out my window right now. Just staring at me. Plotting. Probably wishing to pop my car tires. Fuck cactuses. Forever.

– I ate Jack In A Box last night. I was so embarrassed about it that when arriving at my Air BnB, I hid the bag inside my luggage so that nobody would see what sins I was about to partake in under the privacy of my own bedroom. Now all of my jerseys smell like grease. I guess it beats smelling like New Jersey, amirite?!?

– Even before it’s over, I have to apologize about the length and quality of these thoughts. I’m still suffering from shock, minor sleep deprivation, and jet lag. I’m also writing this on a cell phone with uneven thumb nails.

– Try this trick over the weekend: Break off only half of your thumb nail and then try to write a blog on a regulation-sized iPhone. Have fun making 5 million typos.

Have an autocorrected weekend, everyone!

-TtCozee