Fan’s Complaint

Getting into my car this morning, I was trying to decide what to listen to. Sure, I got a great reaction pulling up in the parking lot with Biggie saying “Somebody’s got to die / If I go you got to go” yesterday morning, getting good looks from middle-aged white men, but I didn’t really feel very gangsta this morning. So, I pull out of the driveway and put on some White Stripes. My iPod picks “Dead Letter,” which is a good song and all, but not quite what I was in the mood for. A block from my house, I thumbed my iPod to my “Self-Pity,” playlist, and get “Waltz #1″ by Elliott Smith. Not exactly the best thing to get me going in the morning. “Maybe I should try some Beach Boys,” I thought to myself, and put on “Surfer Girl.”

Then, out of the corner of my eye as I’m making a left turn onto Main St., I see a tall blonde on the street corner, waiting to cross. The wind catches her hair, and inexplicably she starts to smile, even though there was no one around to see her. For one moment, all I saw in the windshield was the golden sunlight of an early fall morning and a blonde, her hair in the wind, smiling, possibly at me.

A beautiful morning after a rainy night, a pleasant breeze coupled with a golden sun, a tall girl with long blonde hair on a nondescript street corner in Flushing… Somewhere in California, Brian Wilson must be looking out for me.

If only my life were more like this…

If grabbing her heart were a simple test of my driving technique, I wouldn’t have been sad the other night that there was a bucket of fried chicken in the passenger seat instead of a pretty girl.

Actually, I do remember her requesting that I not peel out after I drop her off. But I don’t know if her definition of peeling out was the same as mine. To me, peeling out would involve either a brake-torque launch or dropping the car into gear at 2-3K RPM.

I always drove like a normal person when she was in my car. Not once did I make her smell the sweet scent of burning rubber. Not once did I have to take evasive action because I yelled out the window at someone. I never even got the tail a little loose with her in the car.

Maybe that’s why I’m alone now. Maybe her new boy has a Ferrari, and does a better job of correcting bonus harts with his good driving skills.

No, that’s not it either. He probably has a real job (in the city), his own apartment, and takes the subway to work. He probably wouldn’t know an SR20DET from an RB26DETT, not to mention the cars they came from.

A girl who likes my driving is not going to be found in NYC, and if I were to ever find her, I’d be disappointed that she can’t hold a conversation with me about literature and the arts.

My car is the only one who understands me. She doesn’t get bored by my rants on politics, she likes the way I drive, and she never let me down, even when we went all the way to California. She even urged me on when I found myself behind a Corvette on the PCH.

Maybe it’s time I took this more seriously.

I remember settling in to watch a Rangers-Penguins game in the lounge of my dorm in sophomore year. ESPN was running some promotion to teach newbies about the game. There was a segment before the game started on hockey equipment with Mark Messier. They showed him in the locker room, putting on his skates, shoulder pads, etc. As he put on his elbow guards or whatever, Messier stopped and demonstrated how hard they were by rapping against it with a knuckle, as though it was really really important that all the viewers out in TV Land understood just how strong this piece of equipment is.

Later, during the game, he elbowed Darius Kasparaitis in the mouth for no apparent reason.

***

Of course I remember Game 6 and the guarantee. And the Cup. And the parade. And his first time back in a Canucks jersey. And when he came back for real (he’s gonna scare that Fleury straight, we told each other). And the disappointment.

Even though this has been a long time in coming, and is the last part of a sequence of events that started years ago, when Adam Graves was sent to the Sharks, I can’t help but get a little watery-eyed when I realize that the Rangers I grew up with are all gone.

Here is a shitty poem I wrote once about The Captain:

Mark Messier (2001-2002)

You trusted me back then,
fifty-four years after 1940.
From the News, the Post,
from every single grimy newsstand,
my ugly mug glared at the city.
I promised to beat the Devils
and the curse.
We Will Win Tonight.

At the Garden that night in June,
skating around the rink,
that thirty-five pound cup
felt light as a soda can.
A fan held up a sign
“Now I can die in peace.”

I’m forty-one now.
Leetchy’s still flying,
but Gravy’s in San Jose,
wearing that nasty aqua sweater
instead of Rangers’ blue, and
Ricky’s knees sound like
a bowl of rice krispies
every time he makes a save.

I played through a broken rib once.
Now the doctors say my sore shoulder
is a rotator cuff impingement,
I’m done for the season.
You say I should be done for good.
We will win next season.

There’s something about these stories that come together in one sitting. I don’t know what it is. I’m actually rather hesitant to post this here, as this is something that is fresh and rather flawed. But I sort of promised that I would put it here, and so here it is.

I was actually in bed around midnight, as I have work today. this morning. in about four hours. I’m supposed to be out the door by 7. But I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and just slogged through this.

Metatextual comment: this is what I do. It’s completely real, yet not at all. I make shit up and it’s the truth. I lie. Where do I end? Where does the narrator begin? And who’s h.?

Maybe one day I will outgrow these Austerian questions.

I guess what I want to say is that this did happen, sort of, but not really. The work that follows is embellished, and fictional, and should be treated as such.

(more…)

On Clouet Street, where a days-old fire continues to burn where a warehouse once stood, a man on a bicycle wheels up through the smoke to introduce himself as Strangebone. The nights without power or water have been tough, especially since the police took away the gun he was carrying - “They beat me and threatened to kill me,” he says - but there are benefits to this new world.

“You’re able to see the stars,” he says. “It’s wonderful.”

Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street - New York Times

The HHI for tonight has now dipped below -1000. It is clear that the scale needs to be revised. Here it is:

1000 or higher = blow
750 or 999 = “I’m flying high!”
500 to 750 = “Everything’s super!”
250 to 500 = “Doing fine.”
1 to 250 = “Eh. Could be better.”
0 = Neutral
-1 to -250 = “This sucks.”
-250 to -500 = “I’m fucking miserable.”
-500 to -750 = “My entire life has been a waste.”
-750 to -999 = “I’ve got another 64 sleeping pills in my car…”
-1000 or lower = I may be dead. / I am on a bender.

In tonight’s case, I am on a bender.

Behold! A new feature here at Fan’s Complaint! The H. Happiness Index (HHI)!

D_t = Days Since Trauma
D_a = Days Since Accomplishment
M = Money in the Bank
A = Alcohol Consumed (in this case, 0=1)
W = Weather Variable (-1, 0, 1 are acceptable values for bad, neutral, and good weather, respectively)

Today, September 6th, sees the HHI at -646.625. It has been 5 days since I did something of which I’m proud, and 2 days since something has really fucked me up. Seeing as it’s 3 in the morning and I haven’t been outside in over 24 hours, I have left W at zero. I have $44 in the bank, and I have had 7 drinks.

The HHI is now at -739.

The formula still needs some tweaking, as I do not yet have a variable for sleeping pills, or cigarettes, or amount of pornography downloaded.

The key to understanding the HHI is as follows:

750 or higher = “I’m flying high!”
500 to 750 = “Everything’s super!”
250 to 500 = “Doing fine.”
1 to 250 = “Eh. Could be better.”
0 = Neutral
-1 to -250 = “This sucks.”
-250 to -500 = “I’m fucking miserable.”
-500 to -750 = “My entire life has been a waste.”
-750 or lower = “…” / I may be dead.

Suggestions for improving the formula are welcome.

Kanye West is my hero.

Video: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

M.,

I’m sorry about what I said, but now, sober, I’m quite certain that there was truth to what I said. Intentional or not, you fucked with my head, got me so twisted up and turned around I didn’t know my heart from my head. But I guess that’s what you do. All of you.

If there’s one thing I learned in all those writing classes, it’s that annoying little maxim: “show, don’t tell.” Your words tell me I’m amazing and great, that I’ll never get anywhere when I hate myself so much. But your actions show me that I don’t hate myself enough, that it takes a sadder chinaman than myself to win your heart.

Well, I’m working on that. All the booze and pills in the world (in tonight’s case, six shots of bourbon and four sleeping pills) couldn’t drown my sorrows. You like chinamen with stories of death? I’ll see what I can do.

***

I’ll be fine.

“Of course my life is more interesting than yours. I have dozens of stories just from my escape attempts. There was this one time when a bunch of us who had been captured had to crouch down all in a line, so the guards could inspect the knots around our wrists,” my father proceeds to demonstrate, bending his sixty-year old knees and waddling around the kitchen with his arms behind his back.

“There was this one fella who was at the end of the line. He was eyeing the dog in the corner. I thought maybe he was afraid of the dog, but the moment the guard had his head turned, this fella waddles over to the dog and kicks it away. Then he started eating the dog’s food,” my father, still crouching, makes pecking motions towards the cat’s food dish.

“As soon as the guard noticed, he yelled and ran over. He starts kicking this fella in the behind, but the fella blocks the kicks with his tied hands,” my father says, as he pantomimes being kicked in the behind, while his hands are positioned over his tailbone. He starts to break out in laughter, “heh, damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. I was starving, but I still had my dignity.”

I remember the $6 broccoli and pasta with parmesan and vinegrette dressing I threw away at lunch for being soggy, and I laugh along with my father, uncomfortably, at the dog-food eating man’s utter lack of dignity.