An ode to my cooler!

I was deep in my very early career as a San Francisco resident when I found it. Or rather, it found me. It must have been about late 1995, a good chill swept through the savvy city by the bay, and my good friends and I were pillaging an abandoned basement apartment under an Edwardian flat a sort of friend was renting. Apparently the landlord, who lived in the neither reaches of China, kept the basement settlement as a storage unit for all of her crap. Boxes of financial files, old clothes and documents in both Mandarin and English were everywhere. After consuming much cheap beer and fine herbal weed just delivered from Humboldt, we decided it was a good idea to break in and take a peek.

The area felt haunted, deserted and even a bit sad. Somewhere in the center of all the mess piles and debris, a band had set up camp with a makeshift practice space. Good use of the living room I thought. We left the instruments and worn amplifiers alone and continued our flashlight illuminated search for absolutely nothing in particular.

Scaling through mountains of bankers boxes, heaps of moldy outdated clothes that even the cheekiest of thrift store adviser would turn away due to the reek of 1970's gloom held its pace; I found something that would somehow change my life.

No, let's say, make my life a bit more complete.

It was a cooler. A mid-sized red one, with a white top and an emblazoned Arrowhead Water sticker proudly regaling on the front. It looked new but felt, like much of the other scattered remains of the place, old. Quickly seizing the moment, I snatched the thing up and took it home with me.



Once it made its presence known and accepted, the cooler would be much more than just a container for ice and beer. In my room, in several rented rooms across San Francisco, it would be a chair, a table, a shelf and even a balance beam for a strange act of whoopee I engaged in one night. The cooler now had a memory, one that I could not erase, even if it did have an actual brain.

This cooler, which I gave the nickname “The Red Rider”, not only for its obvious color, would soon be my companion on many trips and excursions. It has seen horrors I dare not mention in Las Vegas, it nearly saved my life one night in Reno, it helped solve mysteries in Tahoe and every time I went to Austin, TX for the big SXSW festival, it would become a therapist, a close friend when I needed one and was a good desk as I typed away my daily adventures on my old Underwood writer.


My cooler survived a house fire. In mid-1999 I was invited to participate in an internet showcase for this new webcam hosting company called Spotlife. Myself and six others lived online, 24 hours a day, surrounded by orbital cameras and streamed whatever we did, even the unthinkable, on the rapidly growing world wide web. It was fun while it lasted, but later that year the house caught fire and nearly everything inside it was destroyed. Except, now here’s the funny part, most of the stuff in my room. I was away the night the place went up, sleeping at my then girlfriend’s apartment. When I got the frantic call early that morning I went over to the house to see that it was gutted and charred. I climbed the smoldered staircase up to my room only to find it was the one space in the house that still had white walls. Apparently with the door and windows closed the fire did not have a chance with such little oxygen, so I packed up my things and moved out.

There, under my fireman soaked poster of the Spice Girls next to my thankfully spared Castle Grayskull, was the cooler. The Red Rider now had magical properties.



That same year I would embark on a journey to some big event I was sent out to cover for a magazine called Burning Man. My cooler, of course, was my brave and earnest companion. That first trip to the playa, that week in 1999 would change me forever. It was really hard to go back to a desk job after having that kind of experience be thrust upon you. I did Burning Man for five years in a row and when I decided that I was finished with it and it was done with me, I sat on the esplanade, drinking ice cold beer, listening to Black Sabbath, on my old lawn chair with my feet resting on the cooler. It was a mighty tribute to a good run and I don’t regret a thing.



The cooler would see several girlfriends come and go, old and close friends get married and move away, and various apartments and roommates across the city. It was with me when I made a valiant attempt to move to Los Angeles and start a new life and would be next to me on that long ride home when my efforts failed. It saw me in the best of times and the worse. My cooler was always by my side. And I couldn’t that it any more than I am now.

In late 2005 my cooler was back at the apartment when three girls from Arizona bellied up to the bar where I worked. One in particular caught my eye. She was cute, chain smoking, heckling the guy playing guitar on the little stage, drinking massive amounts of beer and I knew I was smitten. I confided in my cooler that true love had finally caught up with me and I knew something drastic was about to happen.



In early February of 2006, I pared down my belongings to the bare essentials, throwing the rest of the crap out on Columbus Avenue with a sign that said “Take!” and selling the rest, rented a midsized car, stuffed it with the aforementioned essentials, and drove fourteen hours to get to Tucson, AZ, to get to the one lady I knew I would be with for the rest of my life.

My cooler, obviously, was one of those essentials, along with Castle Grayskull and my fog machine. I’ve been living in Arizona, with my lady She-Ra, for seven years now and the Red Rider continues to amaze me. Sure, it’s a bit worn down and, yes, it’s getting a little older, but my cooler is staying with me to the end. Heck, it’ll probably be the vessel that I keep my ashes in when the day Metal Mark has to split and go onto the next adventure. It’ll keep me safe from being blown around in the winds. Just as much as I saved it, my cooler saved me.

Thank you Red Rider. You my bestest friend…

Angst Giving

“Angst Giving”

11.30.2008





What I like to refer to as a “nice snack between Halloween and Christmas”, Thanksgiving is the seminal ushering in of the holiday season and the bellowing hell ship that is the arrival of family bearing casseroles. As depicted in the amazing movie directed by Jodie Foster and starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr., Home For The Holidays seems to encapsulate the essence of what it means to have to “deal” with those you grew up with and are forced to interact with as they are stapled to you with the moniker: Family.

I grew up quite different. My parents divorced when I was 4 and being basically brought up by my dad, Thanksgiving was usually spent with his old theater and art buddies in a large home in Carmel CA. My father and his friends openly drank, smoked pot, cursed and played music before and after the feast, all the while with some football game or parade twinkling on the television. I’ve only heard tales of horror and tension from others with their families and now that I am in a loving and committed relationship those tales are beginning to ring true.

But it has nothing to do with her family. Oh no. We get along famously. They accept my eccentricities because they seem to put up with their daughter’s. Coming from a military and political right family, my lady has somehow broken out and become a freewheelin’, life lovin’, three degrees in art havin’ independent woman. Now that she nabbed a heavy metal worshippin’, only child weirdness exhibitin’, freelance writer and Muppet Movie watchin’ man (that would be me) they’ve surreptitiously thrown up their hands and welcomed me into the family. Thanks guys!

Here’s the thing. Most Thanksgivings of the past have come and gone with little or no incident. In my almost 38 years here on Earth (gosh, has it been that long?) my experience with the holiday has been pleasant. You get time away from school or work, you cook and eat yummy food, you hang out with friends or family all day and what could be better than watching old man Kringle caboose a huge parade filled with huge balloons of forgotten cartoon characters and vapid boy bands?

She-Ra (that’s my lady) and I only received 2 full days off for Thanksgiving. Work would essentially shut down if we took any more time off so we dealt with it. That was the first snag.

We live in Tucson, AZ and her parents live up in Scottsdale which is about a 2 hour drive. We spent last Thanksgiving in San Diego, at her sister and brother-in-law’s place. Because they have two young kids and were dealing with Jay, her brother-in-law, leaving for Iraq (he’s a commanding Drill Sergeant) they wanted to keep it close to home. That meant She-Ra and myself would have to cook (that’s right, we’re the cooks, always trust in the chubby kids to put on a fantastic dinner) in a tiny kitchen with no counter tops, thermostat set for “3rd level of Hell” and eating on a traveling picnic table in the kids’ play room. They threatened to do the same this year and we threatened to not show up. So, thankfully, we ended back up in Scottsdale with a huge kitchen, counter space, two ovens and parents that are thrifty so the thermostat is set for “Off”, which equals a fairly non-sweaty environment.

We left early on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, because not only did we have a long drive ahead of us but we had some last minute errands to run. As we are driving up to our bank we are witness to a huge several car pile up right in front. It starts, I thought. Holiday drivers are the worst. Not only are they somehow in a big hurry to get to the big headache, but they are juggling cell phones, road maps and screaming kids all at the same time. It was barely 10am and already some people were doomed.

After the errands we finally get on the road and are on our way. We stop by a Sonic for some grub and tots and the lady at the drive thru window is so taken by our dog, Deacon, a pure bred Siberian Husky with ice blue eyes and a reddish coat, that she gives the guy some tots. The dog is so excited to not only be in the car but that some strange lady is giving him treats. Within seconds of ingesting the deep fried miracles, after pulling out and getting on the road, the dog vomits all over the backseat. It’s not much and, yes, we cover the backseat when we take him on trips because he is quite the hairy beast, but still. There is was, bright yellow dog sick on a bright sunny afternoon.

Just as we get onto the highway we are witness to accident #2. This one wasn’t so bad. Just a fender bender but the portly man who got rear ended looked quite upset at the small Asian lady who was on her cell phone. Ah, the magic of the holidays.

After the BBQ chicken sandwiches and tots are devoured, not 10 miles out of Tucson, what do we see? You got it, accident #3.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. “This is an omen!”

That gave pause to She-Ra who was driving, so she put the car’s cruise control to “Grandma” and we gently sped to our destination.

Twenty miles later...accident #4. This time I just slapped my forehead with disbelief.

As we reached the midway point, a curious and common occurrence took hold. See, Highway 10, west bound from Tucson to Phoenix/Scottsdale, is essentially just 2 lanes. The right lane is for huge 18 wheel trucks and stoners in VW bugs to chug along in, so the left lane is open game for everyone else. The posted speed limit reads 70, so She-Ra takes us off cruise and jams it up 75. The 5 mile window is of no concern to the police. It’s when you get over theat 10 mile mark that they start to take notice.
It didn’t take long for us to be a magnet for a dick nozzled tailgater.

It was a new white car, a Lincoln if memory serves me, but I couldn’t get the front license plate because it had disappeared into the trunk of our Impala. Other cars behind this guy, when the opportunity arose, drove around and passed us. We were doing the speed limit, more so in fact, and this guy was bent on riding us like a cheap Brazilian whore. We figured that maybe after a mile or two the guy would secede from his idiocy and pass us. But no. He kept on our bumper as if playing a game of chicken. He was so close, his windshield touched the top of our trunk. It was maddening.

“Tap the brake,” I said. “That always gets them.”

“No way,” insisted She-Ra. “This guy is going down!”

That’s when I noticed the speedometer dropping. She took us from 75 to 70. Then 70 to 65. Nothing. The maniac relented. 65 slowly became 60. People were passing us all over the place but the moron in the white sedan didn’t get the clue. In fact, I think it only fueled his hellish intentions. Maybe he wants to ram us I thought. Perhaps the sight of a Husky drooling out of the rear left window sets him off. Bad memories perhaps. But when our car dropped to 55, almost 15 miles since we picked up the jackass, he finally got the hint and got into the right lane.

As he sped up next to my window, we were in hysterics. The fact that someone was so dense and dedicated to the craft of tailgating made us laugh with a combo of disbelief along the proof element of the human micro-brain. When he passed we both pointed and laughed right at him. He was a young guy, somewhere in the 20s, standard looking, who tried to gaze at us with intimidation but soon turned head when he saw us calling him out on his own crapiness. To make things even better, or worse, when he dodged in front of us and sped off like a cork stuck in the barrel of a cartoon shotgun, we saw three Greek letters signifying that he was indeed a brother in the fraternal order of Pi Alpha Douche.

And there, just a few miles up the road, was accident #5. This was a big one. At least six cars had crushed each other in what was probably a chain reaction. There was a pickup truck, an SUV with screaming kids crying in every direction, a decrepit Oldsmobile and...what’s that? Can it be? It is! Holy crap, it was the guy that was tailing us for the last 20 miles! You have got to be kidding me! Right there, in the middle of the debacle, was our little butt lovin’ frat boy. Oh boy. Our car erupted in laughter.

“You have to pull over,” I said. “I wanna be the witness that the guy was a jerkoff and help get him off the road for good.”

The notion was vetoed as we had a family and friends deadline to meet.

Once we hit the Phoenix area, accident #6. Once we pulled into Scottsdale, accident #7. Seven. Count them, 7 frikkin accidents. This has got to be a record. It just has to be.

Knowing that we’d be shacked up with She-Ra’s sister, brother in law, their 2 kids and huge baby Dane dog, not to mention her parents, we opted to stay at a Motel 6, the greatest gift to thrifty travelers. This place is not only cheap, always boasting a vacancy and everywhere, but offers two things that we can seriously wrap our arms around.

They allow pets and there’s always a bottle opener next to the bathroom sink.

We check in with no problems but once we drive around to see where our room is we begin to giggle. Our room, all kidding aside, is literally a few steps away from the front entrance to a Dillard’s. As we unpacked the car and got the dog settled, folks were exiting the department store with sacks of retail goodness and hopping into their cars in the vast expanse of the neighboring parking lot. It was good because I had forgotten to pack a nice pair of shoes so after everything was in the room we just walked in, found a pair of low top black Chuck’s, got ‘em and moved on. Don’t you just love this age of modern industry?

It was a cold and grey day so I was craving coffee. The nearest place, big shocker, was a Starbucks. Mind you, I have no objection to this place at all. That is if you’re just getting coffee and you’re not in the center of yuppie and golf playing retirees hell. Which we were. The line was almost out the door and dorky middle aged Lands End catalog addicted Bluetooth wearing zombies were ordering the most outlandish crap. It was almost out of a bad comedy, those people. I held back my laughter as Brad and Dakota ordered half caff light foam nonfat touch of mocha sprinkle of cinnamon what the fxxks all over the place. Even She-Ra got caught up in the action and ordered some caramel concoction. Me? I just got a large coffee. Oh sorry, a “venti”. Venti means 20. 20 ounces. Clever...

She-Ra’s folks live in a nice, quiet yet very typical suburban area of Scottsdale. Once we arrive and see the chaos of the children and pre-Thanksgiving preparation, we thank the gods of intuition that we got that room.

Seeing as we can’t leave Deacon in that room (which was tiny) alone and that her folks have a big backyard, we threw caution in the wind and hoped the dogs would get along. It didn’t take but a second for the back door to open up for Cooper, the Dane, to come tearing across the lawn and get our dog by the throat. I wanted to help but was so shocked and carrying the coffee drinks that all I could do was step back and let my lady and the drill sargent take control. After a lot of barred teeth and growls, the dogs were separated. Cooper went into seclusion in the downstairs bathroom and deacon roamed free in the back forty. All was calm.

Now to deal with the kids.

Nick, who is 4, has quelled his obsession to punch me in the balls down to a dull roar. He comes close, but now he insists on pulling on my pants or shirt to get my attention. Natalie is 2 and is already showing flair to be a future Carrie Bradshaw. She is shoe and fashion focused and is always drawing me pictures. Mind you, they are hard scribbles done in crayon but still.

Turns out, deacon had torn a hole through Cooper’s floppy ear. This upset She-Ra’s sister, Erin, to no degree. Now the “fight” had become the fault of our dog. Time for beer #1.

I get along fine with her family, but seeing as we are both the “black sheep” the relative distance (no pun intended) is always there. They know about my dad’s, they know about my mom and that I haven’t seen her in almost a decade and they know I used to be a heavy metal DJ and just finished my first book about my kooky adventures in San Francisco, so the conversation deals more with Erin and Jay and the kids and so forth. I’m nervous of their reaction to the book once, or if, they read it. Yes, the guy that wants to marry your daughter had a serious cocaine problem and dated many insane women at one point. Oh yeah, I watched porn with Lemmy of Motorhead too. That should put a golden nail in my awaiting coffin.

After our visit we went to see her friend’s Jenny and Justin who just had their second baby. Catholic twins as we like to say: 9 months apart. Justin had been drinking all day and wanted to get into it about our Barack supporting, they being financial consulting Republicans. I just plugged my ears and drank the liver exploding cocktail he made for me. The babies were cute though. As we sat on the back porch talking to Jenny, Justin went to feed the oldest. After a while we wondered if everything was okay. He had passed out giving her a bottle. We hugged Jenny and took off.

Around 2am, after crashing around midnight, I heard a strange noise coming from outside. What sounded like announcements from a near by football field, I ignored it thinking it was just the mall next door getting ready for Black Friday. But the sound continued and I thought I had heard the words “we have you surrounded”. I couldn’t be sure due to the wall fan and white noise machine I always take with me were both purring away, muffling the voice. So I got up, looked out the window and let out a “holy crap”.

There were at least five cop cars, all with their flashers on, and a paddy wagon in the motel parking lot just a few doors down from us. So I went to the front door and peeked. Cops were out with guns drawn. The guy actually said, “we have the place surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”

This woke She-Ra up and she didn’t look pleased.

“It’s a raid,” I said. “We don’t have any drugs or stolen equipment on us do we?”

She just went back to sleep.

The next morning, Thanksgiving, as She-Ra showered and I took the dog for a walk (on the Dillard’s grassy front area thank you very much, he pooped in style) I spotted a guy coming out of his room that was right next door to the police scuffle last night. I then noticed a handy man nailing in boards over a broken front window.

“Excuse me sir,” I said. “Do you know what happened?”

“Some nut,” he said, “obviously on something, was screaming and tearing up the place. I went over there to see what was the matter and to tell him to stop or I’d call the cops. He apologized and was quiet for a few minutes. Then it was more screaming, more cursing and then, crash!, the guy throws a desk through the window. I called 911 and he was arrested. He wouldn’t come out of his room so the police had to storm the place.”

“Gee whiz,” I uttered. “Happy Thanksgiving huh?”

“And we’re in Scottsdale for crying out loud!” said the man. “What do you think this is? Tucson?”

I kept quiet.

Back at the house, we started cooking. All of our great recipes for garlicky mashed skin-on potatoes, bacon-y green bean casserole and a few others were nixed seeing as the kids wont eat anything that’s not super bland or microwaved. This coming from a mom that put a microwave lasagna in the oven and couldn’t understand why her gravy wasn’t cooking. The stove was off. So we obliged and cooked up a decent, yet safe, dinner.

After the Macy’s parade comes, of course, football.

“What team are you lookin’ at this year?” Jay asks me.

“Huh?” I chirped. “Um...football? I, uh...I don’t know.”

“Saints are lookin’ good. Cardinals have a strong defense.”

“Uh...yeah. Cardinals.” Then I had to think, is that baseball or football? Oh wait, the cardinals is the Arizona team. Right. I’ll go with that. “They look...good.”

Sure I’m a man, sure I like metal, sure I’m heterosexual...that doesn’t mean I know anything about sports. There’s a ball, they wear tight pants, there’s a lot of bending over and ass slapping then in the end they pour Gatorade on the coach. Bingo! There’s my extent of knowledge. I never go up to guys and say “Hey, who do you think will take the wing eating contest this year? Joey Chestnut? I’m hoping it’ll be Bertoletti. He’s got nimble fingers and has been training pretty good this year.”

The rest of the trip went by fairly easy. No more dog fights, no more arrests, no more severe car accidents, although we were happy to be home as a vacation from the vacation was in order. Isn’t that always the way?

I think for Christmas we’re keeping it on the down low and staying home.

But that’s another story...