A few days ago we were provided with a brief respite from the harsh Chicago winter we’ve been having. With temperatures climbing into the 50’s, people flocked to the streets and parks to make the most of the clement weather. Being the diligent student that I am, I didn’t let the warm weather keep me from my studies. However, on my way to class, I saw an unfortunate group of Mexican adolescents taking turns riding one skateboard and a group of frat boys exercising their latent homo-erotic tendencies in a game of tackle football. Seeing all this rigorous activity put me into a contemplative mood.
It reminded me that when I moved here, I left behind the two entities that were single-handedly keeping me from looking like this. Of course I’m referring to my baseball and basketball teams, the state champion Indians and the 2008 Slo-Break champion Drifters. Prior to moving, my teammates made me bury my rec-specs and swear never to don them again in a ritual that was reminiscent of one of my favorite sequels of all-time. Not wanting to be forever branded a rec-league slut, I’ve faithfully kept my pledge. After all, if I went back on my word, it might result in an exceedingly awkward scene similar to this one.
However, by maintaining my chastity, I’ve been left with a huge void in my life. After watching my fellow Chicagoans enjoy the warm weather, it became painfully obvious to me that I need an activity to replace my old teams. Without these teams, my most rigorous activities consist of moving from the couch to the recliner to avoid Lori’s vacuum and walking down the street each day to see which starting line-up action figures have been put in the $1 box outside of the toy collectible store (I’ve already got quite a collection going. I hit the jackpot by finding Jose Canseco and Roberto Alomar. I’m hoping the Robbie Alomar action figure really appreciates in value once this story finally gets picked up by the mainstream media).
You would think that acquiring a new hobby would be a fairly simple endeavor. This is not the case. The problem is that my entire life has been dedicated to excelling at team sports. If you don’t count the one winter I was in the glee club, nearly every moment not spent in school was spent travelling to or participating in a team sport. Since this is now out of the question, I’m not sure what activities to pursue.
Recently I’ve dabbled in gambling on horse-racing. This seemed promising for a while. However, when I learned that Illinois Off-Track Betting parlors have liquor licenses, I quickly gave up this pursuit. To maintain some semblance of order in my life, I’ve always tried to keep my vices at a healthy distance from each other (unless of course you count the time that ABC Family inexplicably ran a Gilmore Girl’s marathon on St. Patrick’s Day, in which case it couldn’t be avoided).
After my foray into horse-racing hit a snare, I decided I needed some guidance in this quest. So I decided to consult Lori. Knowing me better than anyone else, I figured she might have some insights into an activity that would be appropriate for me. However I should have known better than to consult someone who thinks learning to discuss eczema and shingles in 4 different Eastern European languages is a fun-filled pursuit. She was very quick to make some completely absurd suggestions. She thought I might enjoy taking classes to become a notary public. While these fine men and women provide a valuable function in our society, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of rushing to join their ranks. When I scoffed at this suggestion, she quickly countered with another equally fruitless idea. She thought I might enjoy taking classes to become a hypnotist. I'm not even going to comment on that one.
So with few enticing options being put forth here in Chicago, I thought I’d enlist the help of the JohnClaytonisarobot galaxy. I’m asking that you all take the time to brainstorm and come up with some ideas as to what my new hobby/activity should be. Please post these suggestions via the comments section. I’m at a loss for ideas and your input would be greatly appreciated. In fact, I'm so desperate that the reader with the best suggestion will win a Roberto Alomar Jr. starting line up action figure still in the original packaging. Just think...this prize could prove to be your retirement nest egg if Robbie continues to wage war on women with his AIDS stick.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Vietnam Revisited
I've been completely crushed with work for the past couple of weeks. I'm currently writing a book review for my U.S. urban history class. We had to read a book entitled Gay New York. It's all about the vibrant gay subculture that existed in NY in the early part of the 20th century. It's really quite fascinating, but unfortunately while reading it on the train I've left myself open to some unwelcomed advances.
Anyway, between this book review and a couple of other papers, I haven't had time to keep you all apprised of what's been going on here in Chicago. So rather than write a half-assed blog entry, I'd thought I'd regale our new readers with a post from the past. Writing about karaoke at the Korean restaurant brought back a flood of memories concerning our trip to Asia. So I decided to post a story I wrote when Lori and I were in Vietnam...
____________________________________________________
Good Morning Vietnam!!!!
The title of this popular Robin William's flick has been made into a highly grossing tee shirt for vendors here in Saigon. While this is wonderful news for tee-shirt and souvenir purveyors, far too many tourists here have not been able to resist the urge to don the shirts immediately after purchasing them. To me, this is akin to wearing the tee-shirt of the band that you are going to see (Don't be that guy!). Last night, we saw what appeared to be a boy scout troop (one man, four adolescent boys. I'm not sure exactly what was going on there, but feel free to assume the worst. The American soldiers may have left, but the flesh trade here is still thriving) parading through the streets in matching tees. However, even lamer than the matching boy scout troop was the pair of European men who sat behind me at a cafe. Lori and I traded knowing smirks as they walked by in their identical Vietnam flag tee's and capri pants. After a few minutes, Lori became even more flabergasted by their behavior, stating, "The only thing gayer than wearing matching Vetnam tee-shirts is sharing a Fanta while wearing matching Vietnam tee-shirts."
While we enjoyed the prices of goods in China, things have only gotten better here in that regard. We've continued to live a life of lavish hedonism, throwing our 100 hundred thousand bills around as if it was monopoly money. For example, last night, we purchased a liter of beer for 25 cents. However, before you get too jealous, I should inform you that the beer arrived in what appeared to be a former motor oil container. The taste was equally horrendous. It tasted as if the filthiest dive in Saigon had donated the ass of its warm kegs to this particular cafe. So, for the remainder of the night we decided to splurge and treat ourselves to dollar beers.
With the beer prices being what they are, we can't help but indulge a little bit. After a day of crawling through former Vietcong tunnels, nothing tastes better than a cold beer. And to our credit, some of the locals have taken notice of our beer drinking prowess. One night, the group of middle aged men next to us were impressed by the empty bottles we had accrued at our table (In order to keep track of your bill, waitresses will not clear away your bottles when your are finished with them. So, after a few rounds, your table will be filled with empty beer bottles). After being there a fraction of the time they were, our co-ed drinking team of two had amassed nearly half of the bottles that they had consumed as a 5 person team. After incredulously counting the bottles at our table, the men began raising their glasses to us to cheers every 45 seconds. With each cheers, one of the men would shout "Yo nam!" I thought this was Vietnamese for "cheers" so I responded with a resounding "Yo nam!' in return. After about a half an hour of this, I came to realize that "Yo nam" did not mean cheers, but rather he had asked me roughly twenty five times what my name was (the accent can be tough to decipher at times, even when the local is fluent and sober. This was not the case with this man). Worried that we might have come across as rude, we offered the men some Marlboro light cigarettes to make up for our conversational blunder. Touched by our overture of frienship, the men responded by offering us some Vietnamese cigarettes. So even though there was a difficult language barrier, we were able to start a crude cultural exchange program through the addictive power of cigarettes. With this touching display of understanding, I can't help but feel that peace and harmony is within our grasp...
Anyway, between this book review and a couple of other papers, I haven't had time to keep you all apprised of what's been going on here in Chicago. So rather than write a half-assed blog entry, I'd thought I'd regale our new readers with a post from the past. Writing about karaoke at the Korean restaurant brought back a flood of memories concerning our trip to Asia. So I decided to post a story I wrote when Lori and I were in Vietnam...
____________________________________________________
Good Morning Vietnam!!!!
The title of this popular Robin William's flick has been made into a highly grossing tee shirt for vendors here in Saigon. While this is wonderful news for tee-shirt and souvenir purveyors, far too many tourists here have not been able to resist the urge to don the shirts immediately after purchasing them. To me, this is akin to wearing the tee-shirt of the band that you are going to see (Don't be that guy!). Last night, we saw what appeared to be a boy scout troop (one man, four adolescent boys. I'm not sure exactly what was going on there, but feel free to assume the worst. The American soldiers may have left, but the flesh trade here is still thriving) parading through the streets in matching tees. However, even lamer than the matching boy scout troop was the pair of European men who sat behind me at a cafe. Lori and I traded knowing smirks as they walked by in their identical Vietnam flag tee's and capri pants. After a few minutes, Lori became even more flabergasted by their behavior, stating, "The only thing gayer than wearing matching Vetnam tee-shirts is sharing a Fanta while wearing matching Vietnam tee-shirts."
While we enjoyed the prices of goods in China, things have only gotten better here in that regard. We've continued to live a life of lavish hedonism, throwing our 100 hundred thousand bills around as if it was monopoly money. For example, last night, we purchased a liter of beer for 25 cents. However, before you get too jealous, I should inform you that the beer arrived in what appeared to be a former motor oil container. The taste was equally horrendous. It tasted as if the filthiest dive in Saigon had donated the ass of its warm kegs to this particular cafe. So, for the remainder of the night we decided to splurge and treat ourselves to dollar beers.
With the beer prices being what they are, we can't help but indulge a little bit. After a day of crawling through former Vietcong tunnels, nothing tastes better than a cold beer. And to our credit, some of the locals have taken notice of our beer drinking prowess. One night, the group of middle aged men next to us were impressed by the empty bottles we had accrued at our table (In order to keep track of your bill, waitresses will not clear away your bottles when your are finished with them. So, after a few rounds, your table will be filled with empty beer bottles). After being there a fraction of the time they were, our co-ed drinking team of two had amassed nearly half of the bottles that they had consumed as a 5 person team. After incredulously counting the bottles at our table, the men began raising their glasses to us to cheers every 45 seconds. With each cheers, one of the men would shout "Yo nam!" I thought this was Vietnamese for "cheers" so I responded with a resounding "Yo nam!' in return. After about a half an hour of this, I came to realize that "Yo nam" did not mean cheers, but rather he had asked me roughly twenty five times what my name was (the accent can be tough to decipher at times, even when the local is fluent and sober. This was not the case with this man). Worried that we might have come across as rude, we offered the men some Marlboro light cigarettes to make up for our conversational blunder. Touched by our overture of frienship, the men responded by offering us some Vietnamese cigarettes. So even though there was a difficult language barrier, we were able to start a crude cultural exchange program through the addictive power of cigarettes. With this touching display of understanding, I can't help but feel that peace and harmony is within our grasp...
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