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It looks like I'm not the only one reviewing Coca-Cola Blak. The Impulsive Buy, Lord Jezo, I Ate A Pie, and News You Can Eat have been talking about it too. Also, The End Is Now.
New posts coming soon, I promise. I still haven't reviewed opening day, and that was weeks ago.
This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.
aeonite gave me "B". He also mandated a first-person present tense presentation. I add the stipulation that the stories be linked. Here goes.
Bobcat
It's Homecoming and I'll be engaging in its original meaning for the first time. It's 1999, I'm a first-year master's student and I'm happy to be back in Athens and away from the boring life I've started in Ypsilanti. In the early October morning air, my friends are spreading out the supplies for a full day of tailgating. While they have coolers full of beer, brats, and burgers, I'm sipping a hard cider and carrying around a box of twelve Krispy Kreme doughnuts. By the 2 p.m. kickoff, I've already downed six of them and a half-dozen ciders (along with two or three bottles of Labatt's). I bring the rest into the game with me and proceed to gorge myself on them, eating one after every Bobcat touchdown. With each extra point I take a shot of Canadian Club whiskey from the steel flask I'd received for my 21st birthday only two weeks prior. Somewhere around the third quarter I lose my memory, but will never lose my taste for Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Beer
It's November 7, 2000. Readying myself to head to The Tower Inn to meet some politically-minded people for election night watching, I quickly down a six-pack of Stoney Creek Vanilla Porter, a wonderful beer that ought to be savored, not shotgunned. But I'm in a hurry. I drive my car the few blocks to the restaurant and settle into the back room where a hundred or so politics fans brace for the early results. It's 7 p.m. The Gore supporters fill the left side of the room, fittingly, and the Republicans are on the right. Hours pass by, and we do shots with every announcement of another state for Gore. When Brokaw solemnly announces Florida for Bush, it's late, and the restaurant should have closed hours ago. The charming immigrant owner permits us to stay and sober up. Of course, by the time that happens, Florida's been placed back into limbo, and the bar miraculously opens back up. At 7:45 I stumble out of the restaurant into the blinding sun, wander onto campus, and walk into my basement classroom at precisely 8:00, looking properly haggard and reeking of cigarette smoke. My class waits patiently, some with the same circles around their sleep-deprived eyes. I grab a fresh piece of white chalk, and draw the large block letters on the board slowly and meticulously. CHAOS. I set the chalk down on the desk, turn to face my students, nod, and walk out of the room and back to my apartment. I shrug off my brown tweed jacket and collapse into bed.
Bush
It's Christmas Eve and I'm a 2nd grader. My best friend, Todd, his dad, my kid brother Billy, and I are sledding on the golf course, the only place with hills in my flat, countryside hometown. It's getting late, and I have to be home soon to get ready for the 5:30 Christmas Eve Mass, one in which the entire school participates. For our last hill, we're going to sled down a narrow path near the frozen pond in front of the 6th green. I express concerns; there are rose bushes on both sides of the path. Todd navigates the trip fine and says it's really fun. I timidly mount the wooden sled with the red steel runners. I launch. The sled careens off the path and directly through a thicket. The thorns tear into the cold skin of my face and even in my numbed condition I feel searing pain. Todd's dad hands me a handkerchief to clean the blood, as well as my tears, and we quickly drive back to my parents' house. My mother dresses me and cleans the thorns from my thick hair. We drive to church. Still in pain, I sit in the balcony with my fellow 2nd graders and sing Angels We Have Heard On High. I have no idea what these words mean.
Billy
I'm eight and still sharing a room with my six-year-old brother, even though my parents moved into their bedroom upstairs a few months earlier, leaving what would soon become my personal bedroom empty. My brother Billy is in the bathroom, crying, as my mother forces him to brush his teeth with a bar of soap. His offense? Writing the phrase, "GREG IS DAM" in sloppy pencil on the back wall of his closet. Greg is a kid down the street who I thought was a friend of his, but maybe not anymore. I listen to my brother have his mouth washed out with soap and wonder why people take metaphors so seriously.
Bedroom
3 a.m. I'm weeks from graduating college and in an elevator with a colleague of mine and her friend from another school. We'd spent much of the night making out and I am now faced with a decision; as the elevator stops at my colleague's floor, the friend looks up at me and asks if she is getting off here. I don't respond, so she stays in the elevator for the trip to my 9th floor apartment. I have never taken a bra off in my life, and she ends up doing it for me. We awkwardly make out, and I try my hardest not to lose my virginity to this girl I'm attracted to but barely know. I succeed, and she leaves my room at 5 a.m., upset. The next time she sees me, years later, she pretends not to know me.
Bra
I stare blankly at the glowing screen, the only illumination in my otherwise dark house. It's midnight. I'm trying to buy lingerie for my girlfriend, but am utterly baffled at what I am supposed to do. It's for a surprise gift, so I can't ask her, and she certainly doesn't resemble the models on the Victoria's Secret web site. I only know her size is a 34C. After two hours of browsing, I settle on two very similar and conservative bras: one white, one pale blue. By the time I am ready to present them to her, she's broken up with me. I give them to her anyway. Years later, I wonder how many men have struggled to remove them from her body.
Broken
I am eleven years old. For a week the radio has been blowing up with the track Do The Bartman and I'm psyched to catch it on MTV for the first time. Sitting on the ugly orange sofa in my parents' basement, I have my mother's large radio reporter-style cassette deck in hand prepared to hold up to the television as the video comes on, so as to ensure I can listen to the song over and over as I lay in bed, amusing myself. Adam Curry appears on the screen after the commercial break of Noxema and an anti-drug commercial featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He informs me it's the #1 video of the week. The small television with the broken dial spits out a tinny representation of the cheesy song, but I diligently hold the recorder near its speaker. The video ends, and I press STOP on the cassette recorder. I turn off the TV and sprint upstairs to listen in my room, too quickly. I trip on the first stair and the recorder goes flying, smashing into the wall and emitting a terrifying rattling as it hits the floor. I know immediately it is broken and loathe telling my mother I damaged what I'm sure is a very expensive item.
Basement
We're probably in the third grade. berrydip is hosting a sleepover, and we're in his parents' basement with a few other kids. We're supposed to be asleep, but we're making crank calls. Actually, we never call them crank calls, but, rather, prank calls. It's my turn, and we pick the Riverview Lounge out of the Yellow Pages. I'm not the rebel type, yet, so I am nervous as the bartender picks up on the other end. I ask if Les Ismore is there. She assures me he is not, and informs me it's past my bedtime.
Bedtime
I'm in the fifth grade, ten years old, and my mom still tucks me into bed. That night I have a crazy dream about a girl in the grade ahead of me. It wasn't even sexual, really, but it sort of was. I didn't know what to think of it, having only learned about such dreams from sneaking a copy of Judy Blume's Then Again, Maybe I Won't from my mom's eighth grade classroom. On the bus the next day, I confide in my friend Brian about the dream. That evening, I see the girl as I go into the gym for basketball practice. "Are you sick?" she asks. "No," I reply, confused, and walk into the gym. I would say few words to her from that point on until running into her at a bar sixteen years later.
Basketball
Sixth grade, and we're playing our bitter rivals, the Lutherans. We're playing in their gym, much larger and nicer than ours. We Catholics have little chance to win, but we're trying hard. My father, our coach, barks out assignments from the bench as the game eclipses the final minute. I am guarding Jon Tassler, the taller of the Tassler twins, boys I've known since being teammates with them my nine-year-old year of Little League. He is a year older and much more athletic than me. Executing a perfect middle-school crossover dribble, he catches me off guard and I slide over in a futile attempt to play defense with my feet, not my hands. My ankle rolls and a sharp pain erupts from the outside of my left foot. He scores a layup, and I limp to center court. My father calls a timeout and angrily asks me what's wrong. I am yanked from the game, and shuffle to the bench where I remove my outlet-store Nike and examine my already-swelling foot. Emboldened by my father's assurance that I am fine, I walk on the foot for two weeks before an x-ray reveals my fifth metatarsal is snapped in two.
He was "flailing about." You gotta click it.
I have about four posts in progress. My attention span hasn't been decent enough to finish any of them. I'll try again tomorrow. Several of them have been in progress for a week or more.
With a $100 gift card burning in my pocket, I went grocery shopping at Target and came across the wonderful product known as Coca-Cola Blāk.Yes, with the line over the a. That might not show up correctly on your monitor. I'm sure my first-grade teacher Mrs. Inkrott told us what that line was called when we did phonics but I did not pay attention to one minute of my first grade class. I was enveloped in reading Encyclopedia Brown books and daydreaming about Robin Evans from TV's Riptide. Anyway, the line is there to inform you it is not pronounced "black" as in Big Blak Afrika of the Mau Maus:
...but "blake" as in Robert Blake.
Why they named a beverage after the In Cold Blood actor I'll never know. But the line above the A is there clear as day! See?
I felt the pangs of apprehension that I recognized well from pondering involvement with a Bush Voter... or a lesbian... or a student. But it was a scant $4.99 for a four-pack, so I thought I'd bite the bullet and do you all a favor in reviewing the fine product. With industrial pipecleaners I pushed down my inhibitions and placed the brown package in my red receptacle. (That last line is here just to garner google hits from creatively-languaged perv searchers.)
Kareem Wilson bobblehead approves. Will I? Click the jump to find out.
I opened the bottle after several hours of cellaring in the icebox. It had a bouquet of fresh chocolate and day-old diapers. Not to be put off, I took a heavy swig of the half-sugared half-nutrasweeted hybrid-of-all-hybrids:
I let it linger in my mouth for a few moments. Then it became unbearable.
It quickly became clear Tubgirl had bottled her product and shipped it under the Coke label.
My duodenum contracted and I felt the pangs of retching; I searched for a landing spot on the carpet I could comfortably later blame on the cats. Yet my stomach muscles would not provide me respite from the reeking monstrosity that was the Blāk. Held in and contained like my feelings for a certain woman I can't mention, it burned with the heat of a thousand fires. Perhaps the few hours in the fridge wasn't enough. I tried the product on the rocks.
With great trepidation I lifted the glass to my lips and sipped.
Initially the experience was exponentially better. My soul sang to the heavens in Hallelujahs for this... wait... ugh.
This was no improvement. The initial cola-excitement was being overruled by an aftertaste of burned Awful House coffee that hasn't been swapped out since 11pm.
That's when I realized that I was handling this situation entirely the wrong way. This is coffee! I ought to be drinking it from a coffee mug! That's where I'm going wrong!
Again the flavor was improved and I felt my purchase had been made with great wisdom. Then... Tubgirl.
Don't blame the mug. Much like the campus where it was acquired 5 October 2003 it is a champion. I could have used my Fisher-Coleman '98 mug, but I didn't want the flavor to be tainted by the stink of defeat. Ugly, ugly defeat. Smelly defeat.
Conclusions
Much like the post-Baretta career of its namesake, Coca-Cola Blāk is an abomination. At $1.2425 a bottle it is an overpriced abomination. Avoid it at all costs!
I made a phone post Wednesday night from Turner Field in Atlanta, extremely drunk and apparently while talking to some girls? I don't remember making the call at all, and it was marked private for some reason. Anyway, for your listening pleasure, or displeasure as it may be:
I'll write up a full post when I have a chance, things are a little crazy around here, we are constantly showing the house which is a pain in the ass for me, because it means I need to leave the house... and I have so much work to catch up on having been gone for four days.
Maggie Gyllenhaal knocked up, engaged
This is REALLY a bad week for me as far as girls I have crushes on goes. And all in time for my trip to Atlanta tomorrow morning! Meh. Maybe a change in scenery will be good for me.
I guess this 2003 prediction isn't to be:
Tina's birthday was a blast, and she took plenty of pics.
Most of them involve people putting various objects into my mouth. To wit:
He's not going to pick you,
He's not going to choose you,
He's not going to love you.
I don't need to hear your pathetic pleas in every week's recap, especially when we're constantly having reruns thrown at us.
I, however, will search worldwide for my big-eyed husky-breathed brunette Ivy League doctor. Soooooo ... gimme a call sometime?
So I've been in a really nasty funk lately, the worst I've been in in years. And I feel guilty, because as my friend watches his father die, I'm all worked up over whether or not a girl likes me. Meh.
Last night was a blast... crazy... and I hope I get to see the photos soon. Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a story janked from Sticks Of Fire.
Maybe this was on Fark, too, it certainly should have been.
A 92-year-old man was subdued with a stun gun after he severely beat his 81-year-old roommate at an assisted living facility, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said early today. Olin Holcombe is in custody for a psychological evaluation. Deputies said he repeatedly hit Roland Casanova with his aluminum cane.
Just down the road from me, even! I love Pasco County. We have murderous Nazis, wildfires, and dead bodies out by the Flying J truck stop.
Now, death and destruction are nothing to laugh at. But the way we do it in Pasco is a wee bit different than the rest of y'all. I mean, come on. The dude was BEATING A GUY NAMED CASANOVA WITH HIS CANE. Maybe he thought the guy was one of those nasty things from beyond the dead.
I'll lube my own crankshaft from now on. You treat me like a baby again I'll wrap this goddamn walker right around yer head!
Tampa is allegedly the nation's 36th best city for singles
This is down from 26th in 2004. I fail to see, really, how either ranking is really suitable. Then again, Forbes isn't exactly a publication with its finger to the pulse of Young America. Yet reflecting back on my social life here in Tampa, I really have to question what I think is so fabulous about this city in general, as far as being single goes at least. (Sports, Theater, and other entertainment activities are great, of course.)
I suppose it's okay to be single in Tampa if:
a) You're wealthy.
b) You live in South Tampa. [see "a)"]
c) You drive a nice car. I have been asked what kind of car I drive an amazing number of times; never once in Ohio was anything even resembling that query addressed to me.
d) You're really really ridiculously good looking. I am really good looking, but not ridiculously so.
e) You're female.
In all seriousness, I can count on my ten fingers the number of single women in Tampa with whom I've had extended conversations. It's not like up north, where women are happy to be single. Here, EVERYONE is involved, engaged, or married. It blows my mind, sometimes, but it's the honest truth.
I realize I'd meet more single women if I hit up the trendy nightspots. Yet this isn't really an option, because I don't fit into the qualifications noted above. I suppose I could save up for a month to go to HPC or sommat, but... for what?
The key, of course, is the chance encounter at Target with someone who rejects all the bullshit expected of the young professionals in this town, and just enjoys hanging out and being crazy. Best of luck that she enjoys your company and doesn't lose interest after a while.
More to come.
Re: http://mediamatters.org/items/200604030004
(via Hughes For America)
Seriously, how is it any way appropriate to refer to a rape victim as a "ho"? How is this man even still employed?
(Sorry I've been absent lately. Traffic, papers, I-75 traffic, work, and I-75 being a parking lot have contributed.)
