Challenge My Nuts!

"Challenge my nuts!"

I used to work with a guy who would shout that from his office. He'd bring in seasoned pistachios - wasabi, cayenne, and something even hotter - and try to get people to eat more of them than he could. Most people wouldn't take him up on the challenge, but that wasn't really the point. The fun was in the invitation. "Are my nuts too much for you?!"

English wasn't his first language, but he was fluent in it. Fluent enough to know that what he was saying was borderline inappropriate, but that if he said it with a heavy enough accent, nobody would call him on it for fear of embarrassing him. "What if he doesn't know what he's saying is funny?"

He'd been in the U.S. for decades. He knew. But he'd sit in his office and joyfully yell out, "Mike! Try to put my nuts in your mouth!"


I finished Emerald Across the Bay on Sunday in a less-than-stellar 1:43:15. I finished Bay to Breakers twelve minutes faster than that last year, even though I was laboring under the strain of trying to keep a Gatorade gel shot from tearing my guts apart from the inside. I was hoping for somewhere around 1:30:00 for EAB, given how much more training I've been doing this year. I'd like to blame Belligero for adding to my weight, but he's only about two ounces. More likely, the issue was poor pre-race nutrition, and a lack of pacing. I ran too fast early on, and lost steam at about mile marker 5.

I consider Sunday's finish a success anyway, because I felt good after I crossed the line, and I'm not limping today. In fact, I went out running with part of my team this evening, and we're going out again on Thursday. I'm learning that it's not the Olympics; I don't have to leave everything I have out on the trail during every run.

The question isn't whether I'll be able to finish the half-marathon. I already know that I can walk thirteen miles without breaking a sweat. The question is whether I'll do it the way I want to do it, running across the finish line, ready to turn around and do it again. I'm hopeful.

A couple of my friends commented on my picture when I put it on Facebook. "That's a *real* Suzanne smile!" Yes. Yes, it is.

Prep Talk

I sit on the bed for a long time with my jacket still fastened and my scarf around my neck. I know I should get some sleep, but I'm kind of...I don't know. It feels weird to be here by myself. Not at all bad, but weird. I feel like I should go back out and do something, like the evening shouldn't be over.

I spend half an hour carefully laying out my things for tomorrow morning, then rearranging them on the other bed to take this picture. I don't feel any less wound up.

I realize that I feel that way because this is the first time in my life - in my entire life - that I've gone out of town and stayed by myself without it being for work. This is my first solo personal trip.

I set the alarm clock and two separate alarms on my phone. I try to get the alarm for the Touchpad to work, but it refuses to make a sound. I spend longer than I should trying to get onto a network so that I can look for a better app for it. I give up after twenty minutes, when I realize that I'm just procrastinating, that I won't need the Touchpad. If I'm this nervous about waking up on time, I'm not going to need more than two alarms anyway. I'll wake up every hour between now at 6:00, anyway. That's how I am.

Everything is ready for tomorrow. I have my gel shots, my water pack, my spare socks, and my D-tag. I have my headphones, and my rain hat, and my race bib. I have Belligero ready to go into a secure location so that he can run with me.

I don't feel ready for tomorrow.

SuzannaBanana's First Snowman

Hey, kiddos! Belligero Clown again. This is me up in Truckee last summer. I'm not up there with the kids right now, on account of Doc's dogs maybe seeing me as a chew toy. I'm hoping next time, though. The little chick and I never even walked on snow before, so this was the first snowman she ever made. It was cool, no pun intended.

And check out how the snowman matches me. Dig those crazy eyes, would ya? Advil gel caplets. Yeah, the kids took 'em back down when we left. No mountain creatures took any anti-inflammatories on our watch.

The Great Train Caper

Hey, kids! Belligero Clown here, or, as I’m known on Facebook, “Belligero Klaun”, because the little chick doesn’t want anyone to catch on that I’m not a real goddamn boy or something and delete my account.

With all the kitchen sink drama and whatnot, you might be getting the impression that nothing fun is going on around here. It’s getting kinda morose, which is like a fist to the poly-filled jewels for a clown like me. What’s my raison d’etre if it’s not seeing people happy? Yeah, I said raison d’etre. I went to goddamn college.

Lately, the little chick’s been having a rough time, so I started whispering suggestions to her in her sleep. I might have failed to mention, but I moved up from the lingerie drawer a few years ago, and now I have a snazzy pad in the nightstand, so I’m pretty close to her ear. What? It’s not weird. It ain’t like I watch her dream or anything.

Anyway, I may have planted some ideas in that great big noggin. I’d say, “Work from home today. Haul your ass out into the sun, because that’s why laptops were invented.” Or, “Today, why not celebrate happy hour in Central time? You work with a bunch of broads from Nebraska. Who’s gonna know?” Or, “Go get that nose piercing you always wanted. You’re a wacky dame. Fly that flag, toots!”


This one is the one I’m most proud of pushing. “Jump on a train to anywhere. Drink some beer. What the Hell? You’re not driving the goddamn thing, am I right?” Damned if she didn’t do it. Here’s how it went down.

The little chick and her friend Ween were out in the cul-de-sac chatting, as dames do on a Thursday in the middle of the day…

Clown? No fair. Ween works nights, and I was on a lunch break during a work-from-home day.

…which was my idea, so you’re welcome. Like I was saying, The little chick and Ween were outside chatting about bon-bons and feminine products and, I dunno, chick stuff, and…

Hey! Knock it off with that sexist bullshit.

What? You want me to tell everyone you were having a roundtable about the economic crisis in Greece? How long’s that story gonna hold water, honey? I got the pictures.

Well…

Yeah, that’s what I thought. So the two of them hatched this plan to take the train to Sacramento the next day and wander around there. I don’t understand the appeal of wandering around a place that doesn’t have dancing girls and free booze, but whatever. It counts as travel, and I get to leave the drawer for travel, so I’m game.

They go to look at a rental house for Ween, because she and her old man are splitting up and moving out of the court. They spend a little longer than they should deciding that the place is an irredeemable shithole, and pull away forty-two minutes before the next train leaves. The little chick knows a thing or two about train travel, and she knows how long it takes to get from Hell-and-gone out beyond her old house to the train station in the next town, so it’s not like she ought to be surprised when it takes forty-five goddamn minutes to get from one spot to another. We get to the train station, and wouldn’t you know? The train’s pulling away. It’s not entirely an accident, is what I’m saying.


“Maybe that’s not our train?”

“Ween, that’s our train,” I hear the little chick say. “The trains out of this station follow a pretty accurate schedule. Trust me, we missed it. The next one isn’t for two hours. Hmmm…two hours in Martinez…and we’re not driving…”

I know where she’s going with this, so I’m not surprised when she pulls me out of the bag a few minutes later and we’re sitting at a bar.

Creek Monkey Tap House opens at eleven, and we roll in there at ten after. The place smells like Pine-Sol and dishwasher steam. Ween’s in the health care field, so she’s pretty jazzed about everything being so tidy. We set about screwing that up right off the bat.


At this point, the little chick’s had half a waffle and a cup of java, and not like she’s eating all that much anyway, because she carries all of her stress in her gut. So what’s the smart way to start off the day? With a whole bunch of samples and a pint of the house brown ale. They don’t list the ABV on her pint, and she doesn’t ask, but let’s assume it’s pretty f$%king high, based on how things go later.

They order chicken wings, but that’s not much of a lunch. Here’s a weird fact about the little chick. She was so traumatized as a child, when her mom explained anatomy and locomotion to her by making a roasted chicken “walk” across the kitchen counter, that she has a hard time eating chicken off the bone. So even as many wings as they get, delicious as they are, aren’t enough to fill her up, because she leaves a whole bunch of meat on the plate.

And orders another Creekwater Brown.Ale.


They talk with the head Monkey for a bit, getting advice on their garage beer fridges and the foam situation. Doc’s trying to buy Ween’s fridge when she moves, now that all of The Chemist’s shit isn’t in her garage anymore, on account of they split up, too. Yeah, it’s been that kind of a year. No wonder everybody’s drinking. Point being, Ween’s fridge is blowing foam, and the little chick’s taps aren’t much better, so the head monkey hands us his card and tells us to give him a call so he can come around and straighten them out. Nice guy.

Then we realize that we’re about to miss another goddamn train, so the little chick shoves me back in the bag and we run back across the bridge to the station, the two broads laughing like crazy. We make it on board right as the train’s pulling away.

Stay tuned for Part Two: Hell on Wheels.

Peaches and Cream

Norcross, Georgia, September 2010

Why I'm a Database Programmer, Part 1

I've been thinking about the nature of art. Specifically, I've been wondering what makes an object an objet d'art.

When we were in Amsterdam, going on six years ago now, we saw many great works of art. We also saw many, many mediocre pieces hung on walls, propped against pedestals, and projected on screens. Our biggest blunder was wandering into the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. Maybe it was the depressive effects of the illicit muffin I'd had for breakfast, or maybe it was just an off day, but the Stedelijk saddened and angered me. I don't say this casually. I became profoundly depressed and enraged, and I was completely unable to externalize those feelings. Gallery after gallery, my rage and disgust grew as I trailed silently along after Accountant Boy.

Standing in the gift shop, I composed the following soliloquy. Skip the rest of this post if you're offended by cursing or profanity, you are a practicing artist, or you are Dutch.

"It's all a joke. A joke being played on us. We paid to get in here, so we've fallen for it. God, I hate artists. Twenty-six contrasty, poorly focused pictures of scaffolding hanging at waist height in a gallery with unpainted, cracked walls ISN'T ART! It's f&$king LAZY and I'm pissed off because, obviously, it's also F&$KING WORKING, since people, including us, have paid to see it."

I saw A.B. across the gift shop, browsing through a magazine. "Why doesn't he SEE MY SEETHING RAGE? If I go over and tell him, I'm just going to look like one of those tourists who 'just don't get it'. F&$K! How long is he going to look at that goddamn magazine? HONEY! It's NOT ART! It's SHIT! Wait, didn't some guy throw his own feces at a canvas and build a whole show around it? He was probably Dutch, too. I hate the Dutch. I hate modern art. I hate...Donatella? Donatella's a practicing artist. I bet she's in on it. They all are. They must sign a contract when they get their degrees. 'I promise to keep our secret - that we are really duping the public so that we don't have to get real jobs and contribute to a PRODUCTIVE SOCIETY - and never produce anything that takes more than ten minutes to slop on a canvas or print at the Costco photo lab.' Next time I see her, I'm going to tell her exactly what I think of her."

I turned my gaze to the book on which my hand was resting. The cover of this book consisted of four photographs and the artist's name, which I refuse to remember. The four photgraphs were - clockwise from upper left - three coils of wire on a sidewalk, a woman's naked breast, a leafless stick, and a dead bird. "Oh, holy F&$K ME RUNNING! I can't take it! How much longer can I stand here before I start overturning tables and screaming? Would that in itself be art? Performance art? THE STUPIDEST OF ALL ART FORMS? What the Hell is this place doing to me? Why does the music in here sound like a recording of a man pissing in a urinal? Oh, Christ. That's EXACTLY what it is! I HATE EVERYONE! WHAT WAS IN THAT MUFFIN?!?"

At that point, I lost the ability to think in words and became flooded with images of myself destroying the gift shop, a diminutive redheaded berserker in an Eddie Bauer cardigan. It was a fantastic short film - grainy and jumpy, complete with a soundtrack consisting entirely of a single note being played repeatedly on the cello - screening only in my own mind. When A.B. finally ambled over to me and saw my face, he dragged me out to the street.

The picture above was taken approximately twenty minutes before my breakdown.

I did tell Donatella what happened in the gift shop that day, and we laughed about it. I don't have the heart to ask her if she really believes that what she produces is art. I don't really want to know the answer.

I've been thinking about it since last weekend, when A.B. and I went to SFMOMA to see the Friedlander show. I love his work, and I wanted A.B. to see it and maybe get inspired to pick up a camera again. It was a great retrospective show, really showed the continuing evolution of his artistic style, and...see? Was it all of that? Or was it just several hundred photographs hung on a gallery wall? If you or I took thousands of pictures over the course of fifty years, would it be possible for someone to find several hundred of them good enough to hang in a gallery somewhere? Why is Friedlander more of an artist than you or I? If Belligero and I sit in front of a big, colorful canvas of painted soap boxes and A.B. takes our picture, does that become a new, distinct work, or are we simply adding a layer to the original piece? I've always loved that picture of us, but is it art?

I pondered this as A.B. and I walked away from the Friedlander exhibit. He went through the next gallery door before me, turned immediately and pushed me toward the stairs. "You don't want to go in there," he said. "We don't want another Stedelijk incident."

Desert Plains

Hey, kids! The little chick and the guy've been busy lately, so I thought I'd tell you about my adventures, you know, while they're timely and all that.

I'm Belligero. I'm their travel clown. We go back a long way, the little chick and the guy and me. Remember when the MGM Grand Casino had an arcade and a kiddie park? Long time ago, maybe '94? They found me there and rescued me from a life of looking up at the underside of a bucket seat with chewing gum in my hair and a bent lollipop stick rammed up my ass. Rugrats. I shudder to think. There's more to it, but here's all you need to know. They saved me, and now when they go places, I go with 'em. No, it's not like that damn movie with the garden gnome. I'm a clown, fer Chrissakes.

Couple of weekends ago, they say they're going to Arizona, something about a car crushing robot dinosaur. I say, "Hey, sweet cheeks? I thought we were going to Italy. Why the f$%k are we going to the goddamn desert in the middle of the goddamn summer?"

"First of all, watch your mouth, clown. Second, Italy is next year, and third...technically it's springtime for another week...and it's my life's dream, one of them at least, to see a robot eat a car. Don't you judge me."

"Ari-f$%king-ZONA???"

"What did I just say? Watch that mouth! Do you want to go, or would you prefer a weekend of quiet reflection in the middle of the laundry pile?"

"Saddle up, toots."

So I thought, you know, 'cause the chick hasn't introduced us formally yet, I'd do the job myself by way of a slideshow.


If you're like me, you're asking yourself, "What the hell is that?" It's a guy in a sundress hitting on a bleach blonde on a plane. Two hour flight and this joker thinks the blonde's all into him, and I gotta hear about it for the whole damn time from his pals two rows back. Then I got to listen to his buddy on the way to the rental car building. "They were SO into it, dude. Dude! They might meet us at this bar later tonight. So f'ing hot!" Couple of things here. Firstly, "f'ing". Either commit to it or not, but don't replace "f$%k" with "f'". Especially if you're speaking, because it makes you sound like a pussy.

I have to break in here and say that I do censor this blog, for reasons even I can't explain. I just do it. Even I don't allow an uncensored "f$%k". Sorry.

So every time I say "f$%k", you replace two of the letters with other characters?

Yes. Didn't you notice me doing that? If it makes you feel any better, I don't ever say "f'ing" anything. I speak the whole word. I just don't spell it completely.

Chick, that makes no f$%king sense. You broads and your (deleted) delicate (censored) sensibilities.

Belligero, I really don't think this is the place...

(deleted remaining diatribe by clown regarding openings in the human body and flying objects that might fit into or fly out of them.)

Alright, so back to what I was saying. This gentleman was trying to impress the lady while quaffing a cold beverage and I observed quite bemusedly that even I -- a small, poly-filled clown -- even I would touch the silky, perfumed decolletage of a fair maid before this young chap came within twenty yards of a willing recipient. He was, after all, wearing garden party attire on an aeroplane...

Belligero! Goddammit, would you just get the fuck ON WITH IT?

Yeah, baby. That's what I'm talkin' about. See? All you needed to loosen you up was a little slap on the (censored).


So we get to the hotel, and turns out the guy's boss sent us a bottle of wine. That's classy.


The chick and the guy thought I might be lonely for home, so they took me to the Gila River Indian Casino. No dice. By which I mean that there were dice there, no disrespect, but it just wasn't the same.


The kids pissed off the car navigation system. After their third drive around the rez, she stopped talking to them. "Do we turn here? We're going to die out in the middle of the f$%king DESERT if you don't talk to us!" "Keep to the left..." "There IS NO LEFT!" "...followed in 1.5 miles by a Keep to the Left..." I liked her. She was saucy. I called her Mags, on account of her name being Magellan and all.


We made it to the racetrack at about 5:00, which meant that it was 116 degrees outside. I don't know how the little chick didn't spontaneously combust, but she hung in there.


Art shot. They should make a poster of it. I saw the little chick take this picture, and she was staring straight into the sun the whole time she was doing it. Crazy broad.


What'd I tell you? I copped a feel while ol' Seth/Beth was still trying to accessorize his ensemble. Nice girls, Trina and Starla. What? Those might be their names. You don't know.


We have a good time, me and the kids.


"You pick up any tickets you see on the ground. They have to look like this one. You pick them up and give them to Grandma. I'll give you a dollar for each one."

"Why, Grandma?"

"Because I take them to the Indian casino and they give me five dollars in Bingo money for each of them, so I make money and you make money."

It does a clown's heart good to hear a beloved grandparent turn her adorable young boys into scavenging urchins.


I gotta watch my language, but this guy's allowed to roam free? We didn't get a picture of his friend, Mr. "I May Not Be Mr. Right, but I'll F%$k You 'Til He Gets Here" T-shirt. Man, I hope those poor little bastards picking up the ticket stubs aren't old enough to read.


After a huge build-up and three hours sitting on the metal bench seats, the robot dinosaur came out and set some cars on fire. The guy and the little chick were too hot, grimy and worn out to get too excited about it. Anyway, she can check it off her list of life goals.

Oh, and you read about how the little chick has a black toenail and burnt eyelashes, but she was still gonna be good for that wedding coming up? Not all disfigured and whatnot? Yeah. Check this out.


Strangely hemorrhagic flea bites from the lawn at the Phoenix Biltmore. That little chick, she can't catch a break with two hands and a net.

Anyway, nice talking to you good folks. Stick around. I got lots more stories.

Belligero