a pastiche
The great Salvador Franco responds:
Mr. Chambers,
I’m Mr. H_____’s personal advisor, responding on behalf of Mr. H______. We are very interested in discussing an arrangement with you, as we would find it a great travesty to see any part of the H_____ fortune needlessly lost. This is a unique situation which must be handled with the utmost expedience. Please contact me as soon as possible.
Thank you,
Salvadore Franco
My girlfriend was nostalgic tonight and found this on youtube. About halfway through watching the clip I freak out. Clowns always scared me as a kid and they still do. I remember arguing with my 9th grade Bible teacher about how clowns were evil. He railed against Stephen King’s It, how it ruined clowns and how he was a part-time clown. I couldn’t ever look at him the same way–knowing he was a clown and, thus, ready to kill me at any second. . . with his broom jijitsu skills.
This would have gone well with the suburbs post.
I think Budapest chatter needs a separate blog. This incessant Hungary-talk will get old fast.
Hungary made the New York Time’s list of the 53 Places to Go in 2008. Tojak, Hungary is #52. . .
So far we’ve purchased two Lonely Planet guidebooks to help us plan our May trip. The folks at LP do a great job of balancing the tried-and-true tourist spots with hipper fare. They obviously staff a great deal of barhoppers and adventurers. Where else would you learn that Monday’s men-only spa time at a certain thermal bath draws a heavy gay crowd?
We will definitely broaden our trip planning beyond Lonely Planet’s books. I’m wary about guidebooks anyway. They cost a chunk of money and they can generate a lot of hype. There is also some joy in exploring a place without a formal plan. I’m trying to seamlessly weave this trip into my life, so it is not a week-long escape, but part of a greater plan to enjoy more out of life, put down my guard, and see what this planet has to offer.
Madonna’s interview with a Hungarian newspaper. A complete hoax, but it’s still hilarious.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/misxlate/madonna.asp
“No problem, friend who is a girl.”
In the past several years I have developed an overwhelming need to travel. Part of this was due to the (wrong) assumption that Atlanta had nothing to offer in the way of adventure, aesthetics, and culture. I had been commuting to Alpharetta, GA for two years to do work I hated in surroundings I grew to loathe even more. “Office park” is an oxymoron. In the morning hours of 5/7ths of my week, my eyes were graced with a giant asphalt parking slab, dotted with the occassional island of trees (always two trees), surrounding an uninspiring concrete building.
My friend who works downtown at the capitol commented, “What?! No marble columns? No gold dome?”
In the summer months, I was always amazed at how quickly the tree parking spots filled up. “Gotta get my car some shade!”
Alpharetta is a giant strip mall/chain store blight on the landscape surrounded by neighborhoods of overpriced homes. Homes that look strikingly similar to each other. I do not judge anyone’s decision to live in such a place because I’m sure it’s nice to have an O’Charlies, TGI Friday’s, and Bahama Breeze so conveniently close to home. Problem is, I’ve been to these places enough for MY lifetime.
My friends and I spent teenage dates at Applebees and Chili’s, wandering malls, and making out in cul de sacs. We met after soccer games and awards ceremonies at Golden Coral or Ryan’s to shovel the bounty of suburban bliss onto our plates. We navigated a sea of buffet lines, passing the roast beef, cut open, glowing neon-red under heat lamps. It reminds me of driving through Lawrenceville in the summertime; Bountiful by every modern definition, yet completely desolate. Heat rising off the strip mall parking lots.
Eventually, I went to college and I changed. Driven by the opportunity to discover Atlanta and a little college-aged pretentiousness, I developed a taste for ethnic food (beyond Mexican), small restaurants, and local coffee shops. Spurred on by the general assumption of several of my high school peers that my secular college was pulling me to the dark side, I gladly embraced the evils of Flying Biscuit breakfasts and late night drives through Atlanta. I was simply happy to be somewhere different.
I began to suspect the banquet in Heaven would not be like Golden Coral. The suburbs and it’s bounty had been good to me. It had provided safe streets, safe schools, safe entertainment, and safe restaurants. A fashioned reliability, safe from too much variety. A place where you could, if you wanted to, relax and take most everything on face value, because it was easy. It was the milk of my youth.
But eventually I needed some MEAT!
11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.
12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 11:11-14
