Curtain Call To My Public De-Virgining
Tonight I take the plunge...well..maybe that is a bit overly dramatic of me, but regardless, I am shucking my shyness and forcing myself to read a couple of pieces at the BPM (beat, poetry and music) night I have been attending every tuesday for the last two months. This will be the first time since junior high that I will be in front of a microphone and the first time I have ever, ever, ever read anything that I have written. With a "HIGH HO, SILVER AWAY!", I dash to the Naked Bean and cross my fingers that I don't go down like a middle eastern kid at a spelling bee.
Just in case, dearest of diaries, you were curious as to my choice reading selections for my public de-virginizing, here you go. As always, enjoy:
1) My First Camping Trip.
In the days long lost, when I was till young enough for youthful indiscretions to be called such without the possibility of juvenile detention, my best friend and I decided to embark on a camping trip. This was no ordinary camping excursion, as we planned to do it all on our own. Once we hatched the plan, our parental units were surprisingly helpful; assisting in pulling out various bits and pieces of our combined families mismatched camping gear. My friend and I decided that all we REALLY needed was a tent, a couple of sleeping bags, a lantern or two, basic foodstuffs and enough military surplus survival gear to equip a Montana militia.
After raiding piggy banks and getting a moderate advance on our meager allowances we biked up to the local Surplus store and purchased what items we thought necessary for our overnight adventure. A few Meals Ready to Eat, folding military style shovels, dummy practice hand-grenades, some ninja throwing stars, camouflage face paint and a Rambo style survival knife (with compass) for each of us. Now these knifes were the COOLEST, the sheath held a sharpening stone to make the blade extra sharp and the bass of the knife was hollow. When you unscrewed the compass part inside you found; a mini-fishing kit, a mini hand held saw, waterproof matches and a rough piece of sandpaper to light the matches with. The matches were key, as the two items the parental units refused to provide, were the afore mentioned Rambo knives and any sort of devices used to make fire with.
I�m not really sure what the clerk as thinking, selling such weapons to a pair of 10 year old boys, but we regardless we were finally prepared for our outdoor adventure. A quick stop at the local Circle K and the final items for our trip were procured; two six-packs of Jolt Cola and a box of star crunchies.
Dressed in army style fatigues, faces painted and camping gear secured, we set off on our trek and before long we found a suitable campsite. And this is where our magical adventure began to go wrong. Assuming that parents know best, it didn�t occur to us that our rather aged sheltering device might not still have the original instructions on how to put it together, which of course, it didn�t. The sun was well set, when we finished putting up the tent by the light of our Coleman lanterns, one of which ceased working after five whole minutes. The MRE�s tasted like plastic, the camo-face paint itched, the shovels were unwieldy to use and the first few tosses of the ninja stars and practiced hand grenades sent them sailing into the underbrush never to be seen again. The inside of tent smelled like poop, our star crunchie stash had melted into lumps of caramelized goo and when we did get our stuff stashed in the tent, the celebratory first cans of Jolt we planned on toasting, exploded upon being opened; all over the inside of the tent.
While we sat outside attempting to dry off, we discovered that our really cool Rambo survival knifes, were just really big pieces of crap. The saw wouldn�t cut through a rotten log, the compasses were forever stuck on WEST and the matches may have been water proof, but they sure as hell weren�t JOLT cola proof.
And then the insects came.
It started with swatting a few mosquitoes, but little by little the buzzing insects began to multiply, more and more of them were in our ears, up our nose and sucking our blood. The moths were next, swarming the Coleman lantern causing disturbing shadows to jump all around us. The bugs kept, coming and coming; strange winged things that looked like flying twigs, huge beetles whose frantically beating wings we could here coming before we actually saw them and even a few Cicadas joined the fray. To a pair of young boys, bugs were little more than something to study and possibly dismember, so we paid them very little attention. But as soon as the first Bat swooped into our campsite, we fled to our tent squealing like a gaggle of teenage girls. In our rush we not only failed to turn of the lantern that was attracting the bugs and therefore attracting the bats, but we also kicked the front support of the tent out, causing it to partially collapse on us as soon as we were inside. Even after all these mini catastrophes and minor disasters and EVEN after a bat brushed the tent making the whole thing shake and EVEN after scratching randomly at an itch and squishing a large and unidentifiable bug on my leg, we did not flee.
The final straw for me came when I went to hunker down in the safety of my sleeping bag and the biggest, largest and sharpest of the many rocks that made up our campsite went right up my ass.
I�d had enough.
With a shout of painful frustration I declared, �SCREW THIS!� and raced from our backyard camping spot and into the serenity and safety of my own house.
2)Smoking The CNN Crack Pipe
*CLICK*
With a burst of static, the machine flickers to life.
Waco Siege, Columbine Massacre and who can forget 9/11. It looks like CNN is my new crack.
4 hours of sleep and approximately 8 hours worth of CNN makes me feel like a junky all over again. Bags under the eyes, loss of coherency, limbs twitching & shaking, minor hallucinations from sleep deprivation, I've got it all baby!
I went on a journey with the 7th cavalry from Kuwait to smack in the middle of Iraq, watched Iraqi soldiers live on TV stringing barb wire across a road and listened to debates on whether we got Sodamnn Insane with the first shot or just one of his body doubles.
Even when sleep finally takes me, my dreams are tortured. I have this horrid feeling of unease hanging over my shoulder, historical flashbacks to Nazi's marching across Europe and nations pleading for assistance. Turkish forces throwing a monkey wrench into the master plan and even nuclear mushroom clouds, courtesy of the mighty nation of Israel.
Suddnenly, Anti-air craft fire flashes in one corner of the screen as the 3rd infantry meanders past burned out buildings, destroyed vehicles and unexploded ordinance, all left over destruction from 1991...
...
Then with a start...I awake...remote control still held in my carpal tunnel scarred hand. It is near dawn and I am late for work, as I rise to try and start my day the electronic box of doom flickers yet again and I see myself reflected back: nothing more than a skeleton in tattered clothing, television still flickering images of war & death, all the while with the remote still clutched tightly in my fist...
They Say the first step to curing a problem is admitting you have one.
*DEEP BREATH*
"Hello, my name is Martin and I'm a media crack whore......Again...
*CLICK*
**EDITORS NOTE: I just read these to my mother and she was actually impressed. Granted she was still my mother and started asking me questions about using crack, drug addictions and chastising me for not getting enough sleep. But hey, at least she was paying attetion!
Comments Are Always Appreciated!
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com