Exerpt from Mexico City journal (part 1)

I will be posting some exerpts from the journal that I kept in Mexico City last fall, because otherwise no one will ever read it and I can't think of anything else to write right now. Anyway the following doesn't have much context but now you know a little about the setting. Please tell me if you like it/hate/don't care. Bye!

Mexico City 1st exerpt:

The other night Lee and I got absolutely trashed. It was Monday, and Lee suggested we get some caguamas (liter bottles of beer). I had 5 homework assignments due the next day (most of them make-up) so it seemed like the pefect way to "quit stressin'" and "take the edge off." We ended up "taking the edge off" pretty hard. By the end of the night I'm pretty sure the only thing I was "stressin'" about was maintaining a normal breathing pattern.

The excess in drinking owed itself to a lack of self-control and an eagerness to forget. Octavio Paz says that Mexicans drink to confess, and Amerians drink to forget. I think Americans drink to get fucked, and three caguamas and can of Cubaraima rum and coke was a good way to do it. We made several trip to the 7-11 across the plaza from Jenn's apartment that night, each time exhibiting an increased level of intoxication. By the third time we were quite sloppy and looking to indulge in our second round of Big Bites, which are disgusting 7-11 hotdogs that roll around in display cases until they are bought by an unfortunate soul. I became slightly obsessed with the oddity of the Big Bite and decided it was absolutely necessary that I steal the sign that said "Big Bite" in huge letters. In a moment of brash exuberance, while the cashiers were not looking, I grabbed the sign, folded it, and stuffed it in my shirt. Jenny's apartment wall now proudly displays a 4-foot long sign advertising 7-11 hotdogs that cost 8 pesos. Fucking sick.

Un-fun

I come to you tonight from minute 11 of me seeing how fast I can drink a gallon of Safeway drinking water. It is awful. I feel like absolute fuck. It probably doesn't help that an hour ago I was sitting in the whip with Kata and Barry chugging a different gallon of water because I felt I needed to hydrate. But hey, sometimes inspiration manifests itself in strange forms. The thing I can't stop thinking about right now are those people you hear about who take ecstacy and think they're dehydrated no matter how much water they drink which causes them to drink so much that eventually their brain swells and they die. However, I'm not on ecstacy (though I kind of wish I was, I'm bored out of my skull), so hopefully that won't happen to me. Anyway better get back to ruining my current condition with the elixir of life.

Cheers,
Boosh Clown

Double-u tee fuck.

I went swimming at the IMA today. My body is getting fucking soft. I may be a fatty. Anyway I went swimming and did a 100 and almost drowned. It didn't help that the woman in the lane next to me was 75 and looked like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Everytime she came up for air on her breast stroke she opened one eye and fiercely displayed her 4 yellow teeth. It was terrifying. It was like swimming next to a nest of angry water-mocassins. Anyway I'm really fucking out of shape, as displayed by me tiring quickly after 10 minutes on the eliptical trainer and my near drowning experience after doing 2 lengths in a 4 foot deep pool.
I hate doing the eliptical. I hate running for that matter, or exercising in any manner that isn't fun (i.e. soccer, skateboarding, ferret hunting). But I absolutely dread doing the eliptical. I always go to the fourth floor of the IMA so that I minimize the chance of anyone I know seeing me. It's so fucking boring. And the only thing that is ever on the TV is the Ellen DeGeneres show or something like Hollywood's 100 Craziest Celeb Moments. Do they tape these shows and loop them on the IMA tv's during all waking hours? Someone should probably investigate this.
Have a good weekend!
-Boosh Clown

Like of the Day: Hopefully playing greenlake with Andy and Barry tomorrow.

Hate of the Day: The song Funkin' Around by Andre 3000 and Big Boi. What the fuck is up with the intro? The accent that Andre 3000 tries to do sounds 1/2 southern, 1/2 English, and 1/2 down's syndrome.

Song of the Day: Shipping up to Boston by the Dropkick Murphys

(I realize my fractions don't add up to 1 on the Andre 3000 Is a Retard equation but its easier to pronounce 1/2 than 1/3.)

Shit I Hella Like and Shit I Hella Hate (Installment I)

I hella like Haribo Gummi Bears. If you don't like them you're kind of a dick. They make me feel like shit though. Absolute bung. I had a pack today and did a bunch of calf raises and almost passed out.

I hella hate Magnolia and West Seattle. Honestly, get real. Why the fuck do you live out there? You're a bitch to get to and you always act like you thought of it first and its really unique. Its not unique. Its fucking rich hippy shit. If I ever have to drive on California Avenue again I'm going to light the shuttle van on fire and drive it into a 7-11. Alkai beach is pretty tight though....

I hella like the Seth Cohen poster hanging on my closet. He's so dreamy, with that arm-crossed stance, and the lightly tousled hair. He watches me when I sleep.

I hella hate Trader Joe's, which is kind of untrue because I kind of also hella like it. I just don't like the smug factor. Peope that shop at Trader Joe's are smug. They show up with their fucking burlap sacks and they think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread because they sort of helped save a tree. However, I do hella like the gallon glass jugs they have of apple juice. It is delicious. I recommend the Gravenstein variey.

I hella like the song Flat Beat by Mr. Oizo. It's hella good.

I hella hate The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are not good anymore. They were never that good. The song "Under the Bridge" was somewhat life-changing but that's about it. The song "Scar Tissue" makes me want to shove an icepick in my ears.

Well that's about it for the first installment of "Shit I Hella Like and Shit I Hella Hate." I don't want to seem too pesimistic so I will end on a positive note with one last thing I hella like.
I hella like the song "A Lack of Color" by Death Cab for Cutie. I know, I'm a hella homo.
Cheers!

-Boosh Clown

Sprackers

spracker, n. 1. homeless or runaway person, characterized by the indescernable grunt-like "sprack sounds" he or she emits.
2. AVE Rat
3. one who spracks
(source Oxford English Dictionary Copyright 2007)

(Written a few weeks ago, I didn't actually go to Portland). I'm really excited about taking the train back from Portland this weekend. It is probably the thing I'm most excited about. I imagine us chugging our way through the fertile lowlands of southern Washington, with cows lowing in the lush, green pasturelands. It is so quaint and picuresque with the little stone walls instead of fences that at one point I'm convinced we're actually in the Scottish countryside, maybe drinking some Guinness and talking about how dental hygiene is for Nazis. But alas, instead hearing people with ridiculous accents that are obsessed with bad football teams (yes, I just used the word football to refer to soccer, fuck off), and a constant misting rain that penetrates everything to the core, we are just outside of Centralia, and and the misting rain is no longer as romantic, because I'm hungover as fuck and have an assload of homework ahead of me. Which probably means I A) Got hammered last night (see: coma) and B) Have no self control.
One thing is true, it will be great to get out of the U-District. This place is teeming with sprackers! There is an endless supply everywhere you look. A vast majority seem to congregate around the bus station at 45th and the AVE. The strange thing is, these people have never ridden the bus, nor do they have any intention of ever doing so. Their idea of fun seems to be: loitering near a bus stop for extremely long stretches of time, yelling at passerbyes, openly talking about drug use and/or raves, showing off their pit-bulls or equally mangy dogs, and smelling bad. Often times they will ask you for change in a way that to them seems clever but to you is just annoying. They'll say something like: "Ninjas killed my family" and hold up a cardboard sign that alludes to their lack of home and desire for "spare change." I hate these people. They are not funny, and they are not clever. They are vile.
For some reason, the one bus the sprackers DO seem to ride is the 44, which runs between the University District and Ballard. This bus is awful. I dread riding it. Every time I get on I think to myself, "OK, this will be the one time I ride this bus where there are no crazies. It's gonna happen." My fingers are clutched tightly on my U-Pass and I take a moment to quickly cross myself (I'm not Catholic).
On one particularly fine day I boarded the 44 to get to my sisters house in Ballard and, despite the haze from the previous night, moral was high, and I boarded the bus once again wondering if this would be THE day in which I rode all the way to ballard with no crazy people. I got on the bus on 15th near campus before it turns onto 45th, so I would have a better chance of getting a seat. As the bus rumbled into the stop I noted, to my despair, that it was one of the old buses. The old buses are white on the outside with an interior that consists of brown, cracked, fake leather seats. The bus on a whole is (usually) dirty and (always) smells faintly of earwax. In a nutshell, it is what Satan's lair would resemble were it turned into public transportation. Anyway, I got on the bus and much to my whimsical delight immediately noticed that my spracker radar was dead silent. Not a single BEEP. I pumped my fist to commemorate the small triumph and looked around to find a surprisingly normal, well adjusted crowd. To my left a young black girl pointed at things out the window while her mother looked on approvingly. Towards the back a girl in a scarf and wool beanie leaned forward, intently reading her novel. To my right a couple in their thirties chatted idly with Trader Joe's grocery bags on their laps. I almost said to myself aloud, "This is it, this is THE ride."
We got to the stop at 45th and the AVE across from the Neptune. My fingers were crossed. This was the make or break stop, the stop where all the crazies hang out and eventually board. Normally at this stop there are at least 4-5 sprackers, some passed out on the benches in front of Key Bank, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. People began to board. On stepped a skinny asian girl, followed by a balding fat man, but still, no sprackers.
And then they came.
My spracker radar started beeping faintly as a kid in his 20's with an abnormally baggy sweatshirt stepped onto the bus and looked around wildly. On his shirt read the letters, ICP. Insane Clown Possie. "God...save...us...", I murmered to myself. Behind him sauntered an equally dreadful soul: Jean shorts, gelled hair, and a chain reaching to his knees. My radar was now beeping healthily. I prayed to the Lord above that this would be the end of them and clutched the edge of my seat with white knuckles and sweaty palms.
But it was not the end.
On walked a girl in her late teens. She had black hair, pale skin, and a figure not unlike Jabba the Hut. She was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and black cargo pants. Her friend, who had multiple facial piercings, was led by a rotweiller on a leash. The bus driver looked somewhat disconcerted by the mangy animal but clearly had already felt the wrath of a spracker who had been asked to keep its pet off the bus and therefore kept his mouth shut. I prayed that they would not make it all the way to the back where I was seated but had neglected a cardinal rule in AVE rat theology: they always sit in the back. Always. They made their way closer and closer to me. At this point my spracker radar sounded more like an ambulance siren burrowing into my inner ear. I was beginning to sweat profusely. I thought they were going to pass, when, to my horror, the girl with the dog sat directly behind me. Her rottweiler, which upon a closer inspection appeared to be part pit-bull and part grizzly bear, panted directly on the back of my head, inches away from engulfing me in slobber. Then, directly next to me sat the bigger girl with the hooded sweatshirt, and across the aisles sat the guy with the chain and Insane Clown Posse sweatshirt. At this point I was terrified and fighting to stay in a rational frame of mind. The odor of spracker loomed heavily as the bus lumbered down 45th, and I several times I thought I might feint. They began to talk about raves and which member of the Insane Clown Posse was the craziest. It was horrible.
The sprackers continued with their loud, indiscernible banter as I looked at the back of the seat in front of my and tried to find a happy place. The outside world flased by through the window to my left, completely unaware of the veritable hostage situation inside our bus. Just as I began to enter a sort of meditative zone and become one with the back of the seat in front of me, I saw it. At first it was just a small flicker of movement. Nothing scary, but it caught my eye. I turned my head to the right. A tiny head poked its way out of the hood of the sweatshirt of the hefty spracker girl next to me. Then, it climbed out. A rat. A huge, white, disgusting rat. It scurried onto the sprackers shoulders exposing the length of its revolting pink tail. I let out a muffled scream and threw up slighly in my mouth. The girl had a fucking rat in the hood of her sweatshirt! A fucking rat! My brain scrambled with questions. Why the fuck did she have a rat in her sweatshirt? How was this legal? Did the rat shit in her hood?
The rest of the bus ride was spent in a dream-like state. To my rear was a dog with a jaw specifically designed for crushing human bone. To my right was a rat the size of a small cat, crawling on the shoulders of its owner, a girl that smelled like beef-jerky and weighed more than a small manatee. The remainder of the ride took 10 minutes that felt like 4 hours. I got off the bus in Ballard and watched it pull away. That was DEFINITELY not the ride.