Saturday, November 01, 2003

Tom & Dave                         My friend Tom Lester was a huge David Letterman fan ever since he was about fourteen years old.  He was into Letterman before anybody.  When he first showed me David Letterman, I didn’t get it at all.  Then I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.               Anyway, Tom Lester was a really funny guy himself, with a wry, intellectual sense of humor.  But he was also the lead guitarist for a terrible heavy metal band.  After high school, Tom didn’t really worry about college.  He played in his terrible band and worked a job at a restaurant and lived at home.              Years went by.  The band broke up.  Tom did some junior college and worked more jobs at kitchens, and maybe some telemarketing.  He also started to go bald.  Then he got this girlfriend who had just gotten pregnant from her last boyfriend.              A couple years later I visited Tom, he was almost thirty.  He was in this house with this girlfriend and this other guy’s baby.  The house was completely buried in junk and toys and crap.  You could hardly walk through it.    Tom told me he was going back to school to take creative writing.             Oh great, I thought.              A couple years later I saw Tom Lester again.  He was almost done with his bachelor’s degree.  He had gotten an internship too—at the “David Letterman Show.”  I could hardly believe it.  I was eating my heart out with envy.  I never even knew you could do that.  The internship wasn’t for writing or anything, but so what!  He would be working with David Letterman.             Tom did his internship.  When he was done he couldn’t get a job as a writer.  But they offered him a job in the mail room.  He took it.             Tom told me about David Letterman.  He was kind of an asshole.  He treated his staff like shit.  Employees were told not to talk to him or bother him.  Interns were told to hide when he entered the lobby.              One day Tom was taking an elevator at the Ed Sullivan Theatre.  On one of the stops, David Letterman got on.  It was just David Letterman and my friend Tom Lester on the elevator together.             Tom cleared his throat and said something to the effect of,             “Mr. Letterman, I’m a huge fan of yours.  I really respect your work.  You’ve been an inspiration in my life.”             David Letterman just rolled his eyes and looked away and didn’t say a goddamn thing.                     11:27:46 PM    comment []

where are these people                      I can’t believe that anyone is really smart enough to have invented things like computers, or cell phones, or hip, new SUVs, like the Nissan Murano.  I know I could never invent anything like that.  I’m an assistant tree trimming salesman.  When I get home from assisting in my tree trimming sales, I drink beer and watch tv and masturbate.             None of my friends seem smart enough to have invented computers, or cell phones, or Nissan Muranos.  Some of them are a bit smarter than me, like they could change their own oil or brake pads, or cook lasagna.  But how do you go from there to making semi-conductors.  Or launching satellites?  You could give me a million years, and a  zillion dollars and I could never launch a satellite.             Where are these amazing human beings that do amazing things?  Probably up north somewhere.   *composed with Foster's beer buzz. **probably not worth posting.            10:51:44 PM    comment []

you fuckers Why don't you fuckers ever leave any comments? 7:01:26 PM    comment []

my modeling career               When I was twenty-three or twenty-four I was working out in a gym when a guy came up and told me I should be a professional model.  He told me about this photo shoot he was planning to do which was going to benefit a charity for AIDs research, and asked if I would model.  I figured the guy was gay, but I was married at the time and felt secure in my masculinity, and had always been interested in modeling since it seemed like such easy work.  He said he couldn’t pay me much but he would take all the head shots and stuff I would need to start out as a male model, and send them to the right agencies in Miami.  Plus he would give me and my wife a copy of the final artwork.             I told him I might be interested, but I wasn’t going to get naked or anything like that and I took his number.  The little scrap of paper he gave me said his name was Todd Richardson.             I called the guy a few days later to get my modeling career rolling.  Todd Richardson said he had the photo shoot all figured out.  He was going to have me float nude in a lake among lily pads and shoot me from above.  I told him I really didn’t want to get naked, and he said not to worry about it, I could wear my underwear or a bathing suit or something.  You wouldn’t even tell the difference in the water with all the lily pads, he said. Todd also told me he couldn’t really afford to pay me anything, but once he got me those head shots I could make a hundred dollars an hour as a male model.             “Okay,” I said.             So, a couple of weeks later, my wife and I drove out to Todd and Jim’s lake house in Odessa.  It was a really nice place with cypress trees and a cozy, a-framed cabin on the shore.  I could imagine Todd and Jim becoming our gay friends and we could come over and hang out on this nice property with them and drink wine or whatever.  We got ready for the photo shoot and I stripped down to my bathing suit.  Todd  said the shoot probably wouldn’t work with me in a bathing suit.  You might see the bathing suit and the whole shoot would be ruined.  I could see his point.  Besides, I had my wife with me and I was secure in my masculinity, so I got completely naked and then got in the lake.             The water was really cold and my penis shrank to the size of a grape.  When I sat down in the water there was this slimy, gritty seaweed beneath me which rubbed up against my asshole.  Then the next thing you know, this little school of tadpoles swam up to me and started nipping at my scrotum.  I was freezing, with goose bumps all over, but I figured this must be the kind of thing that male models go through all the time.  Todd Richardson was up above me on the dock with his camera and bright lights.  His friend Jim  came over to take a peek and he had a happy look on his face.             Eventually, Todd got all of his photos and I got out of the water.  We went and hung out in their cabin and Todd passed a joint around.  I was still chilled to the bone.  My teeth were actually chattering and my hands trembling and the pot was making me feel a little paranoid.  Todd went and got a big red blanket and put it around me and then he took my picture with a Polaroid camera.             A few weeks later it was time for the big AIDS fundraiser where my picture was to be auctioned off.  It was a black-tie event at a posh Tampa hotel and my wife and I got all dressed up for the occasion.             As it turned out, the pictures in the lily pond didn’t turn out so well and Todd ended up using this other photo we did of me nude, holding big mirror.   It looked pretty cool, I guess, but I thought my hair looked like a mullet.             But my wife and I got a rude surprise when we got to fundraiser.  The doorman wanted $30 bucks apiece for us to get in.             “But I’m a model for one of the artworks,” I protested.             “I’m sorry,” said the gay man at the door.             “I’m a friend of Todd Richardson,” I said.             The gay man just looked at me.             We ended up just going home.                         I got a call from Todd Richardson the next morning.  He was walking on air.  His photograph of me nude, holding the mirror had fetched over two-thousand dollars.             “Wow,” I said.             Months went by, and my wife and I never got our copy of the artwork, and I never got any headshots to go to the agencies in Miami.  It was just as well, modeling seemed pretty stupid anyway.   (from Beautiful Loser, 2002)   6:40:13 PM    comment []

One of them               I have a permanent hangover.  It’s from getting drunk more days than not each week since I was sixteen.  Every now and then I’ll make a deliberate attempt to not drink at all.  If I go two days I feel like I should get a giant award and have my face put on cereal boxes.             But I don’t really know what to do with myself when I get home at night. Make a model airplane?  Dust the blinds?             I bought myself a bicycle.  That worked out pretty well.  I’ve been biking all over downtown each night after work.   St. Petersburg really is a pretty nice place this time of year.  It’s like living in a postcard.  Mediterranean hotels on the water.  Palm trees swaying in the crisp autumn air.  Young couples rollerblading along the bay.             Anyway, that kills about twenty minutes and I’m back home again with nothing to do.  I could work on my painting, but I really don’t have any fun painting.  I would just like to be a rich and famous artist already.  All the behind the scenes work is just kind of aggravating and lonely (for me).             I watch the news every night.  Now that I finally have cable I watch CNN a lot.  When the network broadcasts come on I’ve already spoiled the surprise by knowing everything they’re going to say.             Being obsessed with the news is pretty unhealthy.  I mean it really does me no good to know how many jews were blown up by a suicide bomber that day.  I don’t really need to see another report that American’s are getting fatter.             I know deep in my dark and twisted heart that I’m not watching the news to be a better informed citizen.  I’m just waiting for the next big disaster to unfold before me on live tv.  I’m waiting for another earth shattering calamity so I can morbidly indulge in days and days voyeuristic masturbatory fascination at the misfortune of others.             I do my workout during the news.  100 push-ups.  100 sit-ups.  100 knee bends, unless I’ve already done my bike ride.  Then there’s 10 bicep curls with sixty pound dumbbells.  I used to want to be a champion body builder.  I spent hours and hours in the gym.  I got a book by Arnold about how to grow muscles just like him.             I gave that up.  It seemed kind of superficial and queer.  But when Arnold was running for governor, I was working out and thinking about our history together.  Maybe he’ll write a book about how to be governor.             At some point I get supper.  I don’t cook at all, so it’s always take-out from a restaurant.  I can’t believe the effort it takes to make one goddamn meal if you make it yourself: buying the groceries, bringing them home, putting them away, cooking the meal, boiling this, simmering that, chopping this, dicing that, getting out plates, cups, utensils, napkins, salt & pepper, then clearing the table, putting food away, putting meats and spoilables in saran wrap, washing the dishes, taking out the trash…               JUST GO TO FUCKING TACO BELL ALREADY!!!  IT’S FOUR DOLLARS AND THEY DO ALL THE WORK FOUR YOU.               Anyway, after dinner, and my workout and watching the news to be a better informed citizen, then there I am again.  A man in his rental house with no purpose in life, with nothing to do.               So I get in my car and go downtown.                I don’t know what it’s like in other cities, but in St. Pete there’s always the same goddamn people hanging out and getting hammered.               And I’m one of them. 1:11:52 PM    comment []

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