orbitboy's Open Salon Blog

Richard Pryor on a Friday Night

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:09:24 -0400

Not sure why I'm inspred to post this video tonight, other than when I bought this album at age 13, I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. Thing is, it still is!

Here's a little Mudbone for your pleasure:

Tiptoes: The Worst Movie I've NEVER seen

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:07:34 -0400

When I first saw this trailer over the weekend, I was absolutely convinced it was a clever internet hoax. It just seemed too awful to be true. Plus, how could such a spectacularly bad movie—with so many famous people involved—fly under my radar like this? Unfortunatley it's no hoax, and this really IS a "real movie." How things like this don't ruin the careers of everyone associated with it is beyond me.

(h/t Sam Seder)

My Stupidest Run Ever?

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:04:46 -0400

Friday afternoon April 10th, the goal was a 6 mile tempo run in the Big Bend National Park in West Texas. I was coming off an extra day off, and my legs felt fresh even after a morning hike. The route I was going to run was (what I thought would be) a "fairly" challenging two lane road starting at the Main Park Road in the Big Bend National Park, and ending at the Chisos Mountain Basin area. Starting elevation was around 3,800 ft or so, and ending at 5,450, though the highest point would be closer to 5,600, I'm guessing. In other words, this 6 mile route would be straight up hill--or up mountain, as it were. (I'll let the math experts out there to figure out how many feet the route climbed per mile. I almost don't want to know!)

The temperature at the start was about 82 degrees, and overcast. I really have no experience running at altitude, so I had no idea how much it was going to affect me. I just knew I planned to run the six mile route as fast as I could. I'm probably good for 7:30/mile on a flat sea level course for 6 miles at this point, so I thought this run might be more like 8:30 or even above 9:00 as the road got steeper in the later miles. But I really had no idea how fast (or slow) I would be able to run. However, I was certain that the road started off "relatively" flat, and got progressively steeper as it went along. My wife--who thought this whole thing was a really bad idea--and her parents dropped me off, and I was ready to go!

The author at the beginning of the run.

The first thing I noticed right away was that there would be a stiff mountain breeze blowing right in my face. I hadn't bargained for this aspect, to say the least. I tried to stay relaxed at the start, but it's really difficult to get into a groove when you begin a run uphill, into the wind. At about the half mile point, my Garmin had me at about 8:30ish per mile, and the effort was roughly equivalent to running 400 repeats on the track. In other words: I would not be able to keep this up for long. I realized I'd better start loosening up fast or I was going to crash. That was pretty obvious. Right about that point, I noticed the first "interesting" landmark: A dead deer carcass. Only it wasn't a carcass so much as it was a pile of white, bleached bones. I didn't take this as such a great omen, to say the least. I reached Mile 1 in a blistering 9:17. For a "relatively" easy mile, it was obvious I had grossly misjudged just how taxing this "tempo" run was going to be. Holy mackerel! 9:17 and I'm running nearly flat out? With five more miles of mountain roads to go? Dang!

I decided to slow down some more, and try to relax. However, I wasn't able to keep all sorts of negativity from dominating my thoughts. This would not be a day for "running with joy" like I hoped it might. I did not feel strong or confident in any way shape or form. In particular, I began to worry about the prospect of what sorts wildlife I might come across over the next hour or so of "running." Anyone who has visited the Big Bend National Park has heard that there is a full and stable population of about 24 mountain lions, as well as a growing population of black bears. Right about that time, I saw a dead rattlesnake belly up on the side of the road. Again, not a terribly encouraging sight, but at this point I didn't really want to see live animals. Mile 2 split was a little over 20 minutes. Yuck! That blasted wind!! Those hills! The elevation!!

The view toward my destination, at the 2 or 3 mile mark.

There was a little bit of traffic on the road, but not much, really. The thing that was a drag, though, is that this narrow two-lane road had no shoulder. Just a strip of dirt/gravel about a yard wide at best. So cars had to veer over into the oncoming lane to get around me. But those cars were very few and far between, believe me. Generally, it was just me and the great outdoors. Somewhere around this time is where I passed a huge sign with the outline of a bear and a mountain lion, warning that we are in their habitat. Funny how that sign didn't seem scary at all when I was in the car earlier. But right about now, in my condition, it was terrifying.

Closeup of "the sign."

Maybe a half mile after that, I heard something to my left, and saw this big gray blur. Scared the crap out of me, to say the least! It was a really large deer, and apparently I really scared him/her, too! But out of the corner of my eye at first, all I saw was a gray blur that could have been anything... meaning a lion. So now my senses are on full alert, and I'm feeling more tired and fatigued by the minute. Great. As much as you'd think this irrational, panicked feeling would create adrenaline and push me uphill, it almost had the opposite effect. The wind was strong enough that it was hard to hear anything but the tall blowing grass, so I kept turning my head one way or the ohter to hear better. The grass--that came right up to the edge of the road--was about waist high. Perfect for some lion to hide and and prepare to ounce, I figured. Great!

I told myself that lions probably don't like the taste of humans that much, and prefer a steady diet of deer and javalinas, etc. But then I got these crazy thoughts like, "What if there's this lion that's really old, and can't really cut it anymore... and he knows his days are numbered, and all he really wants is that one last kill, for old times sake. I might be on his "Bucket List, as it were." Or maybe a mother lion wanted to show one of her young cubs how to kill something really easy--like me--and they wouldn't have to eat me, just leave me there once the lesson was over. This was my mindset at this point, a little over 3 miles into the run. I started taking walk breaks after mile two, and they were becoming more and more frequent. My head was going from side to side like a spinning top, looking for any sign of trouble. It also occurred to me that a lion would probably come at me from behind, so I did a lot of looking back, too.

One of the "tips" that the park service stresses if you DO happen to see a lion, is that you can you can be sure that the lion saw you long before you saw him. Great! They also say not to run away... to stand your ground. Great!

After white knuckling the "run" another mile or so (roughly 12+ minute pace by now!), I got to the highest point in the run, and began the descent into the basin, where our lodge was. This was very welcome, and I took full advantage, clocking a 6:58 5th mile. Now that's more like it! There was a little more uphill for the last half mile or so, and then I was finally done. One hour and seven minutes total for a 6.25 mile run! 10:40-something per mile! Yikes!! My wife saw me finish and said she was beginning to get worried! "Really?!" She asked if I would have felt bad if she had got in the car and come looking for me, and I said, "Hell no!"

So yes, I survived, and no, I never saw a lion or bear. (HEaven knows if one ever saw me, though!) But I certainly never plan to run that route again, at least not the uphill direction--and not alone, either! After some google searches, I found that lions are seen in that area maybe 8-12 times a month, at all times of the day. That's too many for me! I also found that the elevation of the finish is roughly the equivalent of Boulder Colorado. No wonder it kicked my ass so hard! I'm happy to be back in Austin now, with the heat, humidity, and cars, thank you very much!

Fear and Panic at the SXSW Music Festival

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:03:04 -0400

Diary entry for Saturday March 21. (Gratuitous name dropping and foul language to follow: you have been forewarned!)

I wake up around 10:30 or so, fairly hungover from the festivities on South Congress Friday night. We saw the guys from the Jayhawks for free--that was pretty cool. Anyway I got a call from Marc Maron who said he wanted to join our entourage at the music party at Maria's Taco Express hosted by Alejandro Escovedo, so I picked him up around 1:30. The day was fairly uneventful until it was time to head downtown for my friend Mario's (Alejandro's younger brother, and my houseguest for the weekend) Showcase, featuring his girlfriend Maren Parousel and her band. This meant we had to leave at the beginning of Alejandro's set, unfortunately. He always puts on a great show!

The plan was to catch a cab and bring Maren her amp and a guitar around 7:30-7:45. The cab is supposed to arrive at 7:15, giving us plenty of time to travel less than two miles. Theoretically. That's when "the fun" all started....

First problem: The cab never came. All of a sudden it's 7:35 and Mario and I are standing by the street with a borrowed amp and a guitar case, our dicks in our hands because we are stranded and fucked. He has a borrowed amp, because his girlfriend's amp is unfortunately being used by Alejandro's violin player, and he couldn't exactly walk up onstage and take it away from her in the middle of the first song.

Out of nowhere, "some guy" runs over to where we are standing (I still don't know how he knew what was going on) and tells Mario "Here, take my car down there, and I'll come get the keys from you later at the club." Neither of us had any idea who the fuck this guy was, but we're desperate, right? But first he wants money for a cab to get downtown, so Mario runs into the Walgreens and gets $20 from the cash machine to give the guy. He gives the guy the money, and he gives Mario the keys and he drives us off in the late '80s Celica with all sorts of laundry and trash in the back seat. The whole way down there, we're going, "I can't believe that guy just gave us the key's to his car like that??!!!"

We get down to 5th street at the proper cross street so Mario can run the guitar and amp into his Maren. It's probably 5 or 10 til 8:00 at this point, and she must have really been panicking! So I jump out of the passenger seat as Mario takes off running with the gear, and I try to start the car back up. Only it WON'T!!!! It won't fucking start again! I'm stuck in the middle of the intersection in a car owned by some guy I don't know, who's fucking name I don't even know, and I have no fucking idea what to do!! To say I'm panicking at this point would be putting it mildly.

One thing that started to calm me down a little bit was that my options were realistically so limited at this point that there wasn't really much I could do. It didn't take long before a sxsw employee came over to inform me that I would have to move the car. No shit!! Then a cop comes over to see if he can help, and I'm thinking "Great! I don't think I've had that much to drink...." So the cop and the employee push the car while I'm steering in neutral, to a relatively safe, yet totally illegal parking space. She informs me that I can leave it there for 30 minutes or so before they call a tow truck and give me a ticket.

I call Mario to tell him how fucked I am, as if he's gonna be of any help since he's at the club frantically trying to help Maren set up. He eventlually comes back over, but there really wasn't anything he could do, either. We pretty much figured out that there was a problem with the car's starter, but really, there's no one in the world who knows LESS about cars and car maintenance than I do. For whatever reason, I decided to call my wife, Sue. (Again, as though she's going to be of any help.) She's still back at the Taco place watching the end of Alejandro's show. So she goes about trying to find the owner of the car.

Pretty quickly, one of Alejandro's managers gets involved and throws a first class hissy fit screaming at my wife that "she needs to get this fixed, blah blah blah..." How the fuck is this HER fault? What's SHE supposed to do? Just as she gets him calmed down, they find the owner of the car, and the first thing he says to Sue is, "They may have just run out of gas. There was no gas left in the car."

I mean, "What the FUCK!!!" He gave us a car with no fucking gas? Are you shitting me? He gets on the phone with me, and also explains that the starter is indeed "kinda funny" and you just need to turn the key really, really hard." No shit, dude. I had already desperately turned that fucker as hard as I could a hundred times! Lo and behold, after the car sat there for a bit, I tried it again, and the fucking car magically starts! I almost died right there!

So I drive the car back out into the traffic and the first thing I thought was that I'd better get a little gas in the car before it runs. That makes sense. So I'm stuck in grid-lock, downtown Austin, 8:00 sxsw traffic, hoping I can make it to a gas station. Half the streets are closed or blocked off because of the festival. I'm driving in circles for a while, and I finally make it to the gas station, and it dawns on the that I'm still fucked, because how the hell am I supposed to turn the car off and put gas in it, since it's 99% certain to NOT start back up again!

So I just said "Fuck it" and pulled back out of the gas station to find the nearest parking spot and just walk away. I'm stuck in more grid lock traffic, still driving in circles, still freaking out, and praying that I can park before it runs out of gas. Things are made so much more complicated by the fact that half the streets are blocked-off/closed!! I finally found a lot with an open space, payed the chisler at the lot $10 and let out a huge sigh of relief as I walked away from that car.

It's now about ten til 9:00, and I've missed Maren's entire set. I also realize that I have the keys to the junk heap, the keys to my car, AND I still have the keys to my wife's car from when I took my wife's car to go pick up Marc. I called and informed my wife that she has no way of getting back home, or into our house until I got home a few hours later.... She just loved that!

I got to the club and breathed a further sigh of relief as a hand the car keys to the guy's car back to Mario. I couldn't get rid of them fast enough! After all that, I needed money and when I went to the ATM for and asked for $60, it double fed one of the $20s and actually gave me $80! I looked at the receipt and it said, "$60," so I have to say, that was a pretty cool, happy ending! The guy finally showed up to get his car and take the borrowed amp back, and Mario and I actually had to act really super nice and thankful, since it really WAS a kind gesture, on his part, despite the issues with his car.

Open Call: Brushes with Death

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 13:03:17 -0500

Yes, plural!

Apparently, I caused the 1994 Northridge California Earthquake and survived!
I also survived a waterplane ride where the engine died about 30 seconds after takeoff because someone put the wrong gas in the tank. I was riding co-pilot, and I had a front row seat staring right back down at the fast approching water!! It was very much like riding a rollercoaster, only there wasn't any track. Amazingly (or stupidly) enough, we changed the gas and our group flew on to our destination like nothing ever happened. What sort of person gets back in that plane? I was 14 at the time, so I was obviously too young (stupid) to know any better.