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The Wedding Picture
Well, it's taking forever and a day for me to get the pictures of the wedding from anyone who has them. I really need to start carrying my own camera around.  The Happy Couple with The Amazing Captain Julio Thanks to Julio for sending it to me. Stay tuned for more. China Calls
It seems that fate has taken an interesting twist. No sooner do I melt down about the lack of direction in my life, when suddenly a bright and shiny new path is laid right at my feet. | ||||||
I'm tired of this.
I'm tired of my job.
I'm tired of the drunks, the junkies, and the hookers.
I'm tired of the lawers, the investment bankers, the salesmen, the travel agents, and the chefs.
I'm tired of being one of the oldest people in my job catagory. Tired of working in hotels. Tired of working in Service. Tired of working for a meager hourly wage at the expense of my dignity and self worth.
I'm tired of being expendable.
I'm tired of being someone that I wouldn't want my children to look up to.
It's high, high time I changed all that.
After all, isn't that why I left the city I love for this God Forsaken town? Why would I sacrifice my whole life if I'm not going to create in it's place one that's worth sacrificing for?
I need to bring this to a painful and screaming end. It's time I focused my energy on much more important things. Things that will make my life worth living.
I don't know yet what it will be. That's been part of the problem, lack of defined direction. It's time I chose a purpose, a goal, a definition and made everything I am a part of that.
I'll be dropping off the radar for a while, rallying the troops. Here's hoping the next time I bring my head above water it will be in a rushing torrent of victory and resolve.
I would hope that you would wish me good hunting. Cross your fingers for me and wait patiently for my triumphant comeback.
This is goodbye, but not forever. I will return, riding swiftly on a pale horse.
Boysies,
JonTheDoc
Well, the wedding was over a week ago, and I have been getting hounded from all directions to post my personal witness of the events. Well, I was hoping to hold out until the photos were emailed to me, but that hasn't happend yet. So, I'll just tell my story - sans photographia. When I get the pictures, I'll post them in a seperate "photo essay" format for all to enjoy.
And now...
The names have not been changed. Fuck the innocent.
It was the Saturday before Halloween, in the hills off Laurel Canyon Road. The house was decorated with over four hundred pounds of plastic skeletons, gargoyles, fake blood, rubber spiders, giant spider webs, and a small bloodstained dress laying just below a sign reading "ice cream."
The guests list included gypsies, mummies, cowboys, mad scientists, cops, vampires, werewolves, priests, pilots, super heroes, and Little Red Riding Hood.
This was no ordinary Halloween party. On this night, Andrew and Sienna are getting married.
I was there as the closest and oldest friend to the bride and groom, and as the officiator of the wedding. I took the liberty of being ordained by The Universal Life Church so that I would have the power to perform the wedding. As it turns out, online ordination is still legal in California. Just call me Rev. Doc.
It was already proving to be an interesting night. As the guests trickled in, I'm conversing with Ben, one of the bridesmaids. He is dressed in a very fetching black evening dress and silk scarf. We are both there when Little Red Riding Hood arrives. Her costume looks like it came from Madame Nasty's House of Naughty Fantasy Dress Up. She sashayed into the room with her low-cut top, high-cut skirt, and red vinyl thigh-highs with four-inch spiked heels. Her eyes swept over Ben and I with a look that would befit the Big Bad Wolf himself.
Ben and I turned to each other.
"Looks like it's gonna be a good party," I said.
"Glad I wore a one-piece," he replied.
As it turns out, Little Red is in fact an aspiring young singer/songwriter going by the name Chelsea Doll, who felt that her new Demo CD was an appropriate wedding gift. This is an understandable misconception for someone who is 15 years old. (We all spent a few minutes being creeped out by that, then went on with our lives.)
Andrew is playing host with the few guests that he is acquainted, as Sienna does her bridely duty and stays out of sight until the ceremony. An act of sacrifice that none could understand as she became more stir-crazy with every passing moment. I check in with her every few minutes to update her on the last minute decisions and assure her that everything is going smoothly. Meanwhile, her Maid of Honor does Sienna's nails as the band's lead singer does her hair.
Passing by the refreshments table, I came across Annie; wife to David, the Grandfather of the Bride. A gentleman is complimenting her on her eldest daughter, whom he feels is very "talented." He casually asks her what her daughter's age is. Annie says, "She's seventeen," with a sharp and pointed tone. He thanks her for her time and excuses himself. "That's right, pal," she says to his back, just loud enough for me to hear, "keep walking."
She turns to me. I immediately try to throw on my most casual "I'm not trying to fuck your daughter" smile.
"Wow," I say, "That must have been awkward."
"Not really," she replies. "He was the third one tonight."
Later that night, I retold that story to Sam, Andy's brother and Best Man.
"I think I was Number Four," he says to me, his eyes to the floor.
"Say, did you meet Red Riding Hood?" I asked with a grin.
"Shut up," he said, and left the room.
The highlight of the night came just before the ceremony. We were waiting for sundown, as the altar had been decorated with Christmas lights and glow-in-the-dark skeletons. Sienna was ready and all of the guests who mattered had arrived. I decide to check in with Andy before I give the order to have the guests take their seats. I find him talking with an old family friend, Suzy, proudly telling her how he and Sienna had made the leather vest that he was wearing, and the knife on his belt was Andy and Sienna's Mother's Day Gift to Sienna's mother.
As Andy introduces me to Suzy, Sienna's grandfather movies up behind him. Andy was standing at the top of the porch stairs, so at first I though that David was trying to get around Andy. Before I could say anything, David had reached around Andy and snatched the knife right out the scabbard (complete with dramatic metal-on-metal scraping sound).
Andy jumped back. "Be careful with that thing, man. It's sharp."
David was dressed as Dracula, and was playfully in character. He licked the tip of the knife, and flashed a wicked grin in our direction. "I've had sharper," he said.
This is where it gets funny.
David tries to put the knife back into the scabbard on Andy's belt. But, being on the old and unsteady side, misses the scabbard and drives the knife full on into Andy's leg.
Andy drops to the ground. Suzy and I both stand there with our mouths open as Andy pulls the knife out of his thigh. "You fuckin' stabbed me, man!" he screams.
I think to myself, we don't have time for this!
Suzy and I lift Andy to his feet and take him into the back room. Unfortunately, we had to pass through the main room and about half the guests to do so. Suzy, cool as cucumber, told anyone who asked that Andy had simply sprained his ankle on the steps.
Unfortunately, there were enough people on the porch to witness the event to spread the real story very quickly. Once in the back room, Andy's brother Chris took to the task of cleaning off the wound. "Dude, this is really gross. I can see your muscle," was all he had to say.
"You should go to the ER," his mother said.
Andy and I replied in unison, "We're not going to the fuckin' ER."
"Okay, we need gauze or something," Chris finally said.
"I'm on it," I say darting from the room.
"Doc, wait! Don't--"
"Don't tell Sienna, I know." She was stressed enough as it is. She would be better off not getting this news until after the ceremony. It's bad luck for a bride to kill her grandfather before the wedding.
As I run down the hall I nearly run full on into Sam.
"What happened? Is he okay! Are we going to the hospital? What's happening."
"Calm down, Sam. We got it covered."
I check the downstairs bathroom. No gauze.
I have to go upstairs. Shit.
I run upstairs as fast as I can. Sam is right behind me.
"I can't fucking believe this man! This is fucked! This is totally fucked!"
"Sam, chill the fuck out."
"Dude, we gotta make sure Andy's alright! We gotta get him to the hospital!"
I'm on my way back downstairs, gauze in hand.
"Fuck man! FUCK! What do we do?"
The bedroom door opens, Sienna steps out. "What's going on?"
I palm the gauze. No gauze here, lady. "Oh, nothing much," I say. "Just--"
"YOUR GRANDFATHER STABBED ANDY!" Sam shrieked, and ran past me down the stairs.
I freeze. Andy needs this gauze, but there's no way I'm leaving this spot until I've convinced Sienna not to follow me, and that may take some doing (possibly life-threatening).
Before I can say anything, Sienna turns back to the room. "Yeah, real funny guys," she says, as she closes the door behind her.
I skip merrily down the steps.
As I get to the bottom of the steps, Sienna's sister, Mariah, is there with a woman I have not met yet.
"Doc, is it true?"
"Is what true?" I ask, my version of coy.
"Andy got...hurt?" Mariah is always the best at sugar coating. She even made the wedding cake.
"Yes, it's true," I say, trying to stress my voice as best I could to imply I was in a hurry without seeming panicked.
"Well, you know Judy used to be a paramedic."
"Right this way."
Andy was patched up in time and the command was given to get the folks into their seats. Thankfully, the pants Andy was wearing were black, so no one noticed they were covered in blood.
Considering the situation (and it had gotten a little chilly out) I made the ceremony as short and sweet as I dared. The bride and groom were pronounced husband and wife and the crowd erupted into applause. When the applause died down, the newlyweds were still making out. So, Sam called out "They're not done yet. Keep clapping!" and the applause began again.
After the ceremony, things went more or less as one would expect. Toasts were given, music played, dancing, drinking, smoking, laughing, crying, etc.
Fun was had by all, and as far as I know there were no further casualties. Though, the Mother of the Bride did try kicking the Father of the Bride in the head a couple of times.
As of press time, Andy and Sienna are enjoying their Honeymoon in Guangzhou, China.
Not to sound cliché, but I can't really think of any other way to end this....
...And they lived happily ever after.
"There are few body parts that capture the imagination or invite attention as much as breasts do."
Alright, I confess, I love breasts. I can't stop looking at them. But then again, if you're going to wear a $200 bra that lifts them in the air and pushes them together like an inviting pair of feather pillows and then cover them (barely) with a top that V's down to halfway between your nipples and your belly button, then I get the feeling that...maybe, just maybe....you want me to look at your breasts. And that makes those "hey buddy, I'm up here" comments just a little offensive. Like those beer commercials that end with "drink resposibly." Who are you kidding, right?
God knows, if I could get away with showing off some testicle cleavage, I would. If I thought fasion was starting to bend in that direction I could patent the WunderCup and no one in my family would ever have to work again.
It's pretty clear that women have the advantage over men in that case. Just having tits is enough to get all the attention a girl could ever want, so long as she's willing to use them. If you've seen those Girls Gone Wild videos, you'd know that even the flat chested girls get beads thrown at them when they lift their shirts. Sure, the big boobed girls get all the press, when when you get down to it, tits are tits and we guys will take any tits we can get. Just like those guys that talk about how much they love a great bottle of Jack Daniels, but when you open their fridge it's full of Budweiser.
So, what is it about boobs that give them so much power? It may have something to do with their intimacy. After all, breasts and sexuality often go hand in hand. Even if a girl has no intention of having sex with any guy in the room, showing her breasts to them gives her an undenyable sexual strength. She now has all the power.
And really, why not? Sure, we can get all Fruedian and talk about deep seeded desires involving breast feeding, but anyone who's bothered to go past the elementary of PopPsych101 knows that Frued was a flaming dipshit and should be ignored for the remainder of time. It's not deep seeded, it's conditioned. For our entire lives, in every movie Bo Derek ever made, we are trained to beleive that a woman only shows her tits to the man (or men) she's about to have sex with.
It is also why you will find half-naked women with super-powered cleavage all over the place. On the TV, in the moves, on magazine covers (men's and women's), billboards, the sides of busses, serving Curly Fries, washing cars to pay for new band uniforms, etc. Fact of the matter is, in advertising and mass crowd appeal, a half-naked man appeals to straight women and gay men. A half-naked woman is sexy to everyone across the board. Why? Because they have the tits. And tits are sexy no matter who you shake them at.
First of all, God Bless The Bra! No amount of diet or excersize can keep your boobs in the same shape they were when you were younger, but a bra can. Don't think of them as harnesses or walkaround cages for your femininity, but rather something us guys wish we had. If there was a way for us to keep our dicks looking and acting as young as they did when we were teenagers, we would. There was more money put into the development of Viagra and Enzyte then there was for a cure for cancer.
Keep them covered and we will be that much more excited about their unveiling when you so choose to do so. Not so say, once we've seen them you've lost all your power. No, again the opposite is true. Show us once, then cover them again. Like a good movie, now that we no how great they are we want to see them agian and again (and even show them to our friends). Nothing has the staying power like a nice rack.
I consider myself to be a more or less law-abiding individual. But there is one crime that I commit on a daily basis and have absolutely no guilt for.
Media Piracy.
Most people would refer to Media Piracy as a victimless crime in order to dissuade their own guilt over the matter. Since I am a realist and have no guilt to abate, I am the first to admit that there are victims when copyrighted material is downloaded into my computer. Those victims are cruel, heartless, sadistic, greedy, narcissistic assholes that deserve as much pity as the parents of pregnant teenager that forbade her to get birth control. (Hint: None)
Sure the RIAA and all of it's little demi-whores are doing their damnedest to make you think that downloading music actually makes a difference. For instance, they go on to talk about how downloading has caused a vicious drop in record sales and that the artists are the ones who have suffered because of this.
I'm going to place my scrotum on these arguments one at a time.
1) Most new music is churned out in an assembly line factory floor manner that makes it difficult to tell one "artist" from another. I dare any non-hardcore fan of any of these "artists" to take a Pepsi Challenge between Shakira and Gwen Stefani. Ten bucks says that back to back they taste the same. I mean...you know what I mean. Has it occurred to anyone in the MTVLand that maybe, just maybe the reason why people are so quick to jump to the download is because they are sick of being asked to pay $17 for something that is worth about 6 cereal box tops?
2) As for all that money that the poor starving "artist" is losing because of lost record sales, a couple of episodes of MTV Cribs should put an end to that argument, good and proper.
But lets face facts people, the RIAA is not protecting the interests of the artist. They never have, they never will. They are protecting the wallets of The Industry. The only reason they have any of the "artists" speaking for them is because those little cronies have either been fooled into believing the same hype, or they've been informed that their contract includes a "Do as you're told and like it" clause.
There is one reason and one reason only that the RIAA is trying to crack down on downloading, and that is the Evolution of the Music industry. You see, as far as I can tell, the money made from CD sales is a fraction of the "artist's" money making potential. There is also concert tours, t-shirts, posters, window stickers, personal appearances, soundtracking a beer commercial, etc.
The fact of the matter is that the actual song recordings themselves have very little to do with an "artist's" income. If an artist could just upload his music onto a server, free for all to download and enjoy, that would give them a great amount of exposure without all of the rigamarole, butt kissing, and ball licking that goes into getting a record company's support in order to get your song put on the air at a local radio station or on MTV. With the download, it's just you and the end listener. If you suck, you suck and so does the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you're any good, you can book locations for touring. And at those locations, sell t-shirts, window stickers, etc. Now, if all of the musicians of the world, from the Metallicas to the Adam Gorens of all o'er the land were to figure this out the RIAA and all of the cruel, heartless, narcissistic, greedy bastards they represent would become obsolete. Suddenly, nobody needs a record contract, because they can use their parents' iMac to mix the music and upload it to MP3.com. Now they've got about the same exposure as Jennifer Love Hewitt's 3rd album, with no contractual obligation and you get to keep your money.
The Record Industry has already figured this out. They are pissing their pants over whether any body else figures it out.
The once amusing Harvey Danger is testing out this theory by releasing their latest album absolutely free. Download, share, enjoy. Go ahead, they're cool with it.
CD sales are still going to be made and dealt with. As I've said before, some of us are purists about our media and if we like something enough, we will pay the full price for the hard copy just because we want to have a hard copy on hand.
(My latest CD Purchase: Songs For Dustmites by Steve Burns. Fucking great album, worth every penny.)
So, download away. But if you like them, show your support by going to the show, buying the t-shirt, window sticker, etc. Hell, if you really like them, buy the CD. Let's see how many of these lumbering, overweight, dinosaurs we call Record Companies we can put out of business. When that happens, independence will reign and once again the world of music (one of the few forms of expression that can be found in any culture around the world) will finally be back in the hands of the people who love and cherish it, not those who wish to sell it off like an underage stepdaughter.
Kill 'em all. Let me sort them out.
JonTheDoc
I've been away for a few days, in Los Angeles (gag!) for the wedding of my two closest friends, Andrew and Sienna. The wedding was a success and they are now on their honeymoon in China. The story behind the wedding is one of great epic adventure with lots of room for social commentary, and so I am going to take some time to write it all out so nothing is missed. Hopefully by the time I've got it all down, the pictures will have been emailed to me and I'll be able to show those to you as well.
Sit tight and relax, "The Wedding" is soon to come.
