Sir, lower your tone or you'll be asked to leave Shoney's

Where do I start? Okay:




I left Thursday morning to go to Flint, MI. It was going to be 4 days before I'd see my home again and I would be with no one but family members for 4 days. I'm not the biggest fan of spending quality time with my family, love them to death, but I don't want to be around them much. One of the positives would be that I wouldn't have to spend a dime until I got back.... I do like that.

This picture was taken in Flint, MI. Yep.

The first thing I noticed when I we got to my grandmother's childhood friend's house was a newspaper on her table. The headline read "Big Dreamer gunned down in the streets".... $#!t. That's when it really occurred to me that we were in a bad place. Over the course of the next few days I would see a lot of things that blew my mind. Like when we visited another one of her friends right after my grandfather's funeral, we parked about 5 feet away from where people made a memorial for a homicide. I didn't want to get out of the car, but I damn sure wasn't staying in it. It was broad daylight and people could tell by the smile I wasn't from round there.


People are taking basketball really serious up there in Michigan. Do not say anything against the Pistons.... or you will be shot.

I have a picture in my phone that I wanted to add to the blog today but couldn't. It shows a gas sign: Regular gas $4.18, Plus $4.28, Diesel $4.89, Marlboro $4.39 Apparently, these people love cigarettes.



I did not see Indiana Jones IV because if a 70 year old man attempted anything like the previous movies he should be shot to death in the opening credits. Somehow, I feel as though the movie is longer than 3 minutes.



I love to think of my grandma as a sweet, foul-mouthed, lovable old woman. This weekend I found out that she had weed-scapades of her own back in the day. I must say that my family slowly shows me we have plenty in common after all.



For the first time since she was born 12 years ago, I like my little sister. I love her, but wouldn't have wanted to spend a free moment with her before. But, now I see that being raised by the same woman means we probably have more in common than I would admit. For instance: We both hated staying with my grandmother's friend so we teamed up to get a hotel stay. I'm a big brother now.



There is a hot dot concoction called a Coney, I was told "Oh, you love Chili dogs, so you just have to try a Coney while you're here". My hopes were high, how do you compare something to a Chili dog.... especially when it tastes nothing like a Chili dog??!! It was gross, like someone vomited up corn beef hash on top of your hot dog then tried to cover it up with onion. More onion than should be legal, there was literally half of a good sized onion sitting on top of my Coney. And, I won't go into detail, but the next 48 hours were very touch and go....



I had to get shuttled from my hotel to a store to buy ciggys and beerzen on Saturday night. I met a very attractive Spanish and she said her name was Priscilla. We had to drive quite a ways to get to a store since they put the hotel very far from the slums of Flint. Over the course of the next 40 minutes the conversation turned from flirt to informative. She was 18, didn't bother me, but she had 3.....3...3 kids already. Damn, next thing I knew I felt like I was playing the role of being a nice guy. Cause I damn sure wasn't trying to hit on her. Too fertile.... poor thing.



My grandfather had many brothers, the most memorable to me was John. John's right hand doesn't move, kinda like Bob Dole. John's right leg doesn't work either, so he has a weird hop step about him. It's kinda sad but John talks in the strangest "Double talk way" you'd swear that he was smokin' crack. However, my grandmother insists that he only smokes weed. Weed does not do that to folks. We went to John's house right after the funeral to see what makes a man not go to his own brother's funeral. This man is sitting on the couch drinking and smoking cigarettes. After listening to his speak for about an hour, I say speak instead of conversation cause all I could answer back with was an occasional "Gotcha" or "Right", I spot a joint lying on the table. Right in front of my mother and sister, they never even saw it, but in my mind the whole time he spoke to me I was reaching to put it in my pocket.



During my Grandpa's funeral someone handed my mother Nitroglycerin that expired in 10/07. I'm too lazy to look it up, plus she threw it away, but WTF?!



Jeff Maurer crushed at the Arlington Cinema N' Drafthouse on Wednesday. I'd seen him perform before and wasn't the biggest fan. But, he came out there last week and was crisp, I knew he would make it to the next week after his first real bit (I'm not counting that "When I say a number you say the square root" thing he does to pump them up, the rest of his material is so smart). I'm a fan now though (like he would care, who the f*ck is Tyler Richardson) and just thought I'd d*ck ride for a second.... oh yeah, Randolph T or Terrance got through too. yay.



I'm afraid Will Hessler and I are mind linked. Will, did you have a dream about the two of us making Vanilla ice cream? Cause I did.



I would have just e-mailed Will that question, but he prefers I speak about him publicly and never straight to him. And no eye contact, he hates that.



I think I've gotten a good bit of random off my chest so I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Spy Lounge is on next Monday, we missed a couple of weeks due to problems last Monday and a holiday yesterday. Stay gold pony boy.



Laters.