Atlanta Adventures

I arrive in Atlanta, home to Outkast, Ludacris, The Falcons and my good friend Randy Robbins. When booking my flight to Honduras I was first rather peeved at the thought of a 15 hour layover in ATL, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. One could even say that the experience of hanging out with Randy in ATL for a night should have actually cost me a little extra.

I get off the plane, grab my bags, made a phone call to Randy and went and waited on the curb. After about 5 minutes he rolls up in his crisp ’99 Cadillac with some of the wettest tires I’ve seen and a custom plaid sunroof shade that just screams originality. Seeing him pull up in his Cadillac is a good sight and reminds me that dreams do come true. I’ve heard Randy talk about a getting his own Cadillac ever since I’ve known him (about 4 years when we literally ‘ran into’ each other while working at Maggiano’s.)

After getting some initial greetings out of the way, we hop in the car and begin our mini-adventure. Randy explains to me how the 2 main highways in ATL run like the seams of a baseball and meet in the middle. Interesting I think, but where are we going to eat? Randy had 2 places mapped out for us, choice 1: a sushi joint, choice 2: a New Orleans style grill. I am not sure how to politely say that I am not about to eat any sushi that needs to get imported into ATL while I’ve got fresh Seattle Sound sushi at home, but I get my vote out there and we head toward Front Page News (supposedly a great NO grill.)

Randy takes this time to catch me up in his life. This guy is a really solid human being, really involved in his church, strong values, a great personality, and probably the best Colonel Sanders looking broom on his chin out of any of my other friends. Things are going well for him.

I catch him up on my life: travelling super hero, selfless devoter of time to my local orphanage, modeling contracts…. I also think this is a good opportunity to share some of my new knowledge that I had acquired from my new book (230 Things you Thought you Knew But Actually Didn’t.) Turns out Randy didn’t know who was America’s first president or who invented the telephone. You probably don’t either though so let me tell you: Peyton Randolph and Antonio Meucci respectively. Open a book.

We get close to where we are trying to get for dinner and start looking for parking. We see a sign for “complimentary valet” and pull in. Turns out though that the restaurant we wanted to go wasn’t park of the parking HMO and it was $15. After Randy talked with the attendant for a minute to get the scoop on some cheaper alternatives we ended up handing the keys over. I was just about to say something about his sign being false advertising, but then he said that Randy had really deep eyes and I technically could not call him out anymore.

On our way to the restaurant some promoters outside of a new Latin club told us about some drink specials they were running that night and when we asked them where the Front Page News was, the washed out boxer looking promoter pointed us up the street and said, “don’t eat the food.” Randy brought up a really good point that that is probably not the best way to make friends with your neighbors if you were a new club in the area. By the time we sit down it is about 10:10 PM and all they are serving is their Late Night Menu (chicken fingers, jalapeno poppers, etc.) We decide to bail and get a hot tip on a place called Vortex that serves late.

The food at Vortex turns out to be really good. I guess they have won a bunch of awards for their burgers and Randy and I try 2 of their finest. I get a Raging Cajun burger (pepper jack, spicy sauce) and Randy gets an Elvis Burger with a bison patty (peanut butter, bananas, bacon, tomato.) He jokes with the waitress that he thought bison were extinct, she lets out a laugh and says, “nah, they grow them just for us.” Our waitress was a definite character and there were definitely awkward moments in my mind when I wasn’t sure if she was enjoying talking to us or just waiting to jet. Randy broke out his best Michael Jackson food poisoning joke involving a five year old wiener and that seemed to help things. After she left the table I told him my new favorite pickup line, “Do you have any raisins? Then how about a date?”

On the way back to the car Randy ended up recognizing a local rapper and belted out some lyrics with him. When we got back to the car, a different valet came up to us and handed over the keys, Randy started talking with him and ended up going back and forth with some freestyle. Randy also was asked by 2 girls if his name was Scott Johnson, I told them that his name was Scott Tompson. I guess he looked like a guy named Scott that they worked with and they decided they had to have a picture of him.

Rolling down the street Randy brings up trying my pickup line on ATL girls. Randy was up first and he pulled up next to 2 girls walking down the street, “Hey do you have any raisins? Wanna date?” I think her reply was something like, “No, no raisins, but I do have a middle finger for you.”

The pair that he finds for me to talk to is much friendlier and with my perfect delivery, they quickly find themselves laughing. “How do you do it?” Randy asks.

On our way back to Randy’s we get a little lost in the seams of ATL highway system and find ourselves needing to take a toll. Randy decides to give the raisins one more try and belts the following out over 3 lanes of traffic, “You have any raisins? You trying to get a date?” Smile achieved!

It turns out that Randy had just moved into a new house with 2 new roommates. His room had a standard number of corners, 4, but he chose to make a floor-bed for me in the one that had previously been occupied by a ferret. I guess he was excited to test whether he had done a good job of masking all the rodent urine or not. After a good night’s sleep, Randy decides we have time for one last Southern experience before dropping me off at the airport. To the Waffle House!

We roll up to the Waffle House in the Cadillac, stroll into the building and are told to seat ourselves at the jam saturated booth of our choice. Our server comes to greet us and is very pleasant. Her name is Ashley and she is friendly enough to agree to answer some trivia questions. Ashley gets one point for guessing that George Washington was not America’s first president, but she immediately loses that point when her guess for most dangerous animal to man is dinosaur. Most dangerous animal to man.

A ride to the airport later and after a couple of chest bumps I was leaving Atlanta and on my way to Honduras. I know it’s hard to believe that we were able to find so many memories in a time span of less than 12 hours, but hey that’s what you’re going to get when you two playmakers together…. life experiences.

Memory Lane....

The year was 2000. The city Seattle. I was a new college freshman at the University of Washington and living with 3 people that I knew from high school in a 2 bedroom apartment. Being an only child for such a large part of my life, living with 3 other people was definitely a new adventure. From time to time memories of that year of my life flash through my head and it is one of these memories that I thought I would share today.

We moved into a fairly new apartment complex. The location was really close to the University and as a result there were several college students in our building/floor. Since all of us were from Yakima, it was only natural that our apartment became the social center of our building. People were constantly stopping by to check in and see what we were up to. Us country boys gots mad social skills yo!

On one balmy Seattle evening my 3 roommates and I were sitting around our living room wondering where the night was going to take us. We heard a knock on the door and were glad to see our neighbor/friend, Emad. Emad was half Persian Prince and half hood hustler. He not only showed us how to dress fly and adjust our plumage to attract the hottest birds, but he also showed us how to scam department stores into giving you free Xboxes with no receipt. He was kind of our hero. He stopped by our place often, so when he knocked on our door, asked what we were up to and headed to the bathroom, we did not think twice about it.

So while we continued to debate what mischief we would be up to that night, Zac (one of the roomies) asked us a question, "Hey have you guys been using my mouthwash?"

The three of us looked at each other a little confused... "No Zac, none of us have been using your mouthwash."

Well that answer was not good enough for him, "Well I know that someone in here has been using my mouthwash because I've been monitoring the levels and it has definitely been going down quicker than I have been throwing it back."

The three of us continued looking at each other and wondered how hard times must be for Zac (whose father was a doctor and mom was a nurse) that he would be making such a fuss over a $2.99 bottle of mouth wash.

Nobody fessed up, which led Zac to pull out his big card, "Well, I've got a surprise for whoever has been using my mouthwash. I peed in it about 3 weeks ago so you have been rinsing your mouth out with my urine."

All of us erupted and were frantically trying to read each other's faces to try and get a read on the guy that had been swishing and gargling with Zac's pee. It was at about this time that Emad came out of the bathroom, wiped his mouth and asked, "Did you guys say something about the mouthwash in the bathroom?"

It turned out that Emad had made prepping himself in our bathroom before going out part of his routine for the last couple of months. And you guessed it... rinsing out his mouth was the last step of his ritual. Needless to say, he was not pleased to hear why we were all laughing so hard. The look of betrayal/confusion/disgust that crossed his face could be described as the look someone's face would have if they had walked in on their parents and then been caught in a perma-sneeze. Dry heaves could be heard shortly after Zac's big reveal.

That is not the best part though. After Emad and Zac talked out their differences and Emad was made to understand the importance of asking before putting things in his mouth, Zac had another reveal. Apparently after Zac peed in his own mouthwash, he continued to use it himself!

This latest detail brought the apartment into a raucous laughter and "no you didn'ts" that is only heard when Maury says the following phrase, "D-kwon, you are NOT the father."

Zac's "if it's yours it's sterile" argument did not cut it.

Ahhh, memories...

Have you ever?

Have you ever gone to the gym, had a workout, hit the showers, and then realized that you forgot your towel in the car? You then are faced with that difficult decision of either putting on clothes wet or using the hand dryer by the sinks in a way that they were not designed for (maybe even getting two of them going at once and contorting your body to be as air efficient as possible?(think skin-sail)) You feel all right about yourself until you sense the judging glances of the people that remembered their towels and are trying to get their shave on.

Yeah, me either.

My New Boss

I must be very clear about this. The following lines after this statement are not misguided fabrications, they are solid fact.

This is my new boss at Expedia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og0LWQVIpug. He is riding shotgun and wearing sunglasses. Or with a doo rag: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMGUFbsU9oY.

Butch Mosby is apparently one of the founding members of a European rap group called Black Attack.

My new job is incredible.

I had a dream

Last night....

It was me and Justin Timberlake playing the part of acting rivals (not too far fetched yet right?)

We were on a bus that was full of a boy's choir that was dressed in white shirts and blue jeans. The choir was travelling around Europe and Justin and I would run into them occasionally during our filming adventures. Who was in charge of the choir you ask? Faizon Love (he's on the left.) I think I'm remembering him as the boss at Gimbel's on Elf. Any way, I think there was an element of Amazing Race thrown in there as well because I remember Justin and I racing against each other and at times needing to stowaway on the bus. Faizon would give us a hard time. He was holding a clipboard.

What does it all mean?

Mystery Solved

Hello friends! I have made a very important discovery and thought I would share.

I recently returned from a trip to Australia. This blog is not about that trip though. This blog is about the misery that plagued me when I returned to the best time zone in the world, the PST!

I have returned from internation travel before, but for some reason I could not get back into the swing of things and my ability to throw down Zs West Coast style was severly inhibited. I found myself being wide awake until 5 AM and waking up around 2 in the afternoon. Nothing was working; food comas, unisom, other sleep inducing methods, nada. I was convinced that I was going to have to request to work nights at my new job, but then I stumbled upon the cure for what ailed me one night. I was up late at night reading up on the evils of sunlight when I decided to have a beer. 1 beer turned into 4 and in about an hour and a half I felt a sensation sweep over my body that made my soul jumpy for joy. I was drowsy! I repeated this ritual for the next several nights and before I knew it I was falling asleep and passing "in" to dreamland by 9 PM.

More people should know about this. Spread the word. Alcohol is a magical elixir that not only makes you extremely intelligent and charming in social situations, but it ALSO rocks you gently to sleep when the Sandman decides to sit on his ass for week.

I am up to 5 beers a night, but I can honestly say that booze saved my life.

Let's Talk About.... MOMM (Male on Male Massage)

Hello world. This story begins with a bang! Literally, a car banged into me on the 520 E on the first of February. It was this event that brought me to look for a doctor close to work. My friend, Joel, made a recommendation and I found myself calling Dr Sadri. Joel said that she was "very thorough." When I walked into the office, I must admit that I was very caught off guard. Walking into the waiting room, I could have sworn that I had accidentally crossed some sort of teleport and entered a waiting room in Eastern Europe. Everybody was speaking a different language from Iranian to Russian and I was pretty confident that I was the only "Joe" they had seen since G.I. Joe was taken off the air. After my examination Dr. Sadri asked if I would prefer physical therapy or massage therapy. Seemed like a no-brainer to me, "Massage therapy please." "Great," she replied "I will sign you up with Igor. He is the best, some people pay $150 an hour to be with him. You are very lucky." Lucky. Funny how people have different definitions to the same word.

First day of massage therapy. Enter Igor. I could tell we were going to get along great straight from his icy, “You wait there. 5 minute.” I made my way to the lobby and somehow managed to develop the hiccups in the 8 minutes he made me wait. No worries, I was convinced this would be a funny story that Igor would talk about during his best man speech at my wedding, “Joe good guy, you know. He come to see me, you know. Could not say what wrong with him without jumping like little Slovakian frog, you know.”

He walks me back to his room, asks me to tell him what brings me to see him and asks me to give him the details of my accident. After I told him about my rear end, he instructed me to strip down to my boxers and wait for him under a sheet and that he would be back to take care of me in 2 minutes. I got down to my boxers and realized that due to my incredible skill to shed my clothing, I had some time to kill (on a side note I have recently been trying to do 150 pushups a day) and I figured that this would be a good time to bust out a quick set of 25. Around 18 I thought about what kind of first impression I would make with Igor if he came in and saw me doing pushups in my boxers before I nestled into my sheet cocoon. How would I explain that? "Relax Igor, just trying to make sure I'm as toned as I can be for you before you oil me up." Thank goodness that his time quotes had not become more accurate and we did not have to cross that bridge.

He enters the room, as stoic as a domino, and we get to work. I lay on my stomach and he goes to town on my back. The hiccups end up disappearing and as odd as it may seem, we end up striking up quite the conversation. It turns out that Igor was born in Kazakhstan and moved to Belarus when he was pretty young. I asked him what he thought about the Borat movie and he did not seemed very bothered by it. He said that it mostly caused an uproar with the older population of Kazakhstan, but that he understood that it was meant to be a joke (even though he did not find it to be very funny from a comedy standpoint.) Apparently Igor was also a history/geography buff because he started spewing out dates and directions like nobody's business. Our one difference came when he started talking about the Berlin Wall. All throughout school I've learned that the Berlin wall came down in 1989, Igor disagreed and said that it actually came down in 1990. I did some research when I got home and I encourage others to do the same to come to their own conclusion. We quickly found ourselves gabbing away like two squirrels arguing over a nut. When he was done with my back he asked me to roll over and he would work on my chest/neck. I rolled over and was relieved to see that I wasn't doing a Zoolander impression (you never know...) He finished what he needed to do on my front side and we were done with our 55 minute journey. I was very, very sore and could barely get up off the table. I got dressed, shook Igor's hand and made my way home and thought about my newest adventure.

All in all, I was glad that I let Igor manhandle me. He said that his family has had a special healing power passed down through the generations and I was convinced. I'm glad that he dropped his surly demeanor and became the Chatty Cathy that I have grown to love and I look forward to seeing him twice a week for the next three weeks. Thank goodness for insurance.

I'll Give it a Whirl

I'll start this off with an admission: I am a lemming. Me posting a blog is not cutting edge. I'm definitely not a trend setter and make no claims of being original. But really, are there any thoughts left in the world that haven't been thought or expressed before?

My two inspirations to take on this task are Ryan "Viking Warrior" O'Connor (http://snocon.blogspot.com/) and Christopher "Dog Deserter" Lipe (http://livethelipestyle.blogspot.com/) I consider both of these guys to be extremely intelligent and creative and the intrigue that is sparked when I read their musings is infectious. Cue Prodigy's "Firestarter."

Naturally many questions race through one's mind when starting a blog: Who is actually going to read this? How deep into the rabbit hole of my brain should I take people? How many times a day should I check for comments? You know, the usual doubts/delusions of grandeur that come when you expose a part of yourself to the world. I think that the direction that you take with a blog is very critical and is shaped with your first few posts. Should I focus my thoughts and pump out pure comedy, should I treat this like a diary and type up uncensored tales of my daily grind, or tackle serious social issues? Let's try a potpourri approach and see what happens!

I'm not sure that I will even come close to the entertainment value that Tucker Max brings to the www (tuckermax.com) but we can give it a whirl.