One Year Later

For the record:

1) I am not dead:

2) There was a beautiful girl serving soft-serve frozen yogurt at Penguins tonight.

3) LeBron James commands hefty amounts of my daydream time.

4) Bean and cheese burritos are $2.99 at Fresh & Easy.

5) Hayden is alive and the others are growing:

6) "Messy, Isn't It?" is nearly complete and will be recorded (very) soon.

7) Been drinking Pomegranate 7-Up lately:

8) Obama is not black. He is half-black.

9) My glasses were eaten off my face by a child I work with.

10) Have been vegetarian for 9 months.

Al

I got a new:

a) pair of jeans
b) sweet job
c) awesome place to live
d) engrossing book
e) pair of soccer cleats:


f) new niece on the way!

al

Mamiya Summer 2007

While I try to scrounge up some money to pay for the "nice" European pictures to get developed and processed, I figured I'd put up some pictures of last summer. I took the pictures with my Mamiya 6. It is a great medium format camera that I purchased after my Canon AE-1 was lost on a BART train in San Francisco. Most of the pictures come from the DANGERS tour we did last summer. Some are from Princeton while I was staying with Tim and some are from our road trip back across the United States. My plan is to print most of these large (20x20 inches) and put them up in my new apartment. I hope you enjoy them.

I Went To Europe (and Morocco)

Hi. I guess it's been a while since I did any of this communal computer stuff. However, now seems to be the appropriate time to get reacquainted with sharing my silly life with other humans. Why? you may ask. Because: I went to Europe.

I am going to put these photographs up in two batches. The first will be all the touristy stuff taken with my digital camera. Me with the donkey. Me with the church. Me with the Mona Lisa. Me, me, me. Watch me grow and age and gain interesting amounts of hair as my surroundings morph from warm and Latin to cold and English. The pictures date from October 1, 2007 to December 19, 2007 and they are silly. You can see them below or click on the picture to see them larger and with more information at the Picasa site:



The next batch will be Europe (and Morocco) without me. They are a little bit more interesting. But I have to get the film developed first!

Soon.
Al

Jesus Christ has a Camp

Okay, I saw this movie a few months ago with Zed and Noelle. I've been talking about it an awful lot because it's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. It's called Jesus Camp. I won't say much about it. Jesus has a camp. Jesus lovers are scary. They speak in tongues and touch cardboard Bush's. Eerie. Watch this. Top priority. Watch part one below and then find the next segments on Youtube:



Al

Renouncing the Devil

This was the first year in many that I took the long flight back home for my Thanksgiving break. While the feast was quite alluring (my grandmother makes a mean ham), the real reason for the voyage was one Zoe Oar:



That is Zoe. She is the daughter of Brandy and Kalani Oar, the former being one of my most beloved cousins. The young babe is nearly a year old and is a fantastic example of human genetics at its finest. She's gorgeous, Zoe is, and quiet and smiley and wonderful to hold. A very easy human being to love.

I was asked by Brandy and Kalani to become Zoe's godfather. There is, admittedly, an odd feeling that came over me when I was asked. Firstly, I'm not religious. Secondly, they (the parents of Zoe) know I'm not religous. In fact, I do believe I've explained this very story to Brandy on at least one occassion:

When I was a youngster, in first grade, I attended Riviera Hall Lutheran School. It was a great little school at the base of Palos Verdes in Redondo Beach. Part of the education there was to go to chapel once every Tuesday and then to have Bible Studies on every Thursday. Chapel was pretty awesome because Pastor Cindy let us sing songs and rock out and I was always a big fan of that. I think we even did some singing in a round. How about that? Anyway, the other thing, the Bible Studies class, it wasn't quite so wonderful. Our teachers would have us snap out our Bible Studies book, which was really just a flimsy coloring book, and we'd color in pictures of Jesus and Mary and Saul. This wasn't so bad. But, we'd also have to talk about the stories in The Bible. And, as much as the stories were pretty cool as well, I was always frustrated because there was no historical evidence for their truth. Once, we were discussing David and Goliath. I thought this story was just the shits and giggles. A little dude just like me taking out a huge heiffer of a man, well, it gave me hope. But then I raised my hand. Mrs. Steves said, "Yes, Alfred?" I said, "So, uhm, where are the bones?" She was confused and didn't understand my question. "Well," I said, "where are Goliath's bones? How do we know he was really that big?" A nice grin appeared on her face. "Alfred," she said, "this is a story from The Bible. This is God's truth. We have faith in these things. They may have been a little different, but they did happen." That wasn't good enough for me, though. "Okay," I said, "so where are the bones? I mean, we have the dinosaur bones. Where are Goliath's bones?" Mrs. Steves was frustrated and kept deflecting my question until she finally said, "Out. Outside Alfred. Timeout!"

Well, since then I've never been a big fan of religion. The stories are pretty wonderful, and I truly do understand how they can help a person get by in life, but they don't mean much to me. I've found other things (books, music) which give me a lot more strength. Thing is, I've now studied enough about the creation of The Bible and the many hundreds of years it took to create it, and I've studied about how religion has, without a doubt, been used again and again to indoctrinate and dominate less fortunate classes of people. Well, phooey! That's what I say.

But, then, why ask me to be the godfather? Well, actually, I get it. Out of anyone in our family, I do believe I'm very fit to help raise Zoe. And, in fact, I think I'm very fit to raise her in the ways of the church. Just because I'm not religious doesn't meant that I don't understand and agree with many of the moral tenants of the church. I think, at its heart, the Catholic religion has a positive idea. And it's that idea that I'm very suited to help instill in Zoe. So, of course, I said yes.

So then there we were, Alicia (Brandy's sister and Zoe's godmother) and I, on the steps of American Martyr's Church, renouncing the devil and accepting Jesus as our one true savior. Holy apostolic church, holy water, a dunking of Zoe's head, and the deed was done. All I could think about for most of the ceremony was the fact that my own godfather, Bob Trumpeta, once did the same thing and how I couldn't see him getting through the thing without a hefty dose of laughter. Probably his bones were jiggling in his grave. Zoe was fussy, which is unusual for her, and I grabbed her and held her and, with the help of her holy candle, she calmed down. We feasted and hung out with family and it was a memory added to the memory banks. It looked like this:


Me and Zoe


Me and Thanksgiving (I made cream puffs)


Me and the room I grew up in


Syd Vicious, my niece


Brandy the Chef


dice game that I won


Mother Jo


Me and Sister Amy



Zoe and Uncle Zack


Thanksgiving Crew

So then came Thanksgiving and I won everyone's money during this dice-throwing game my mom made us play. I got $86 and that was nice. I've almost run out of it at this point, but it turned into some good sandwiches along the way. I played with my niece Syd Vicious a bunch. I went to Shellback (our local bar) with Tolga and saw old nobodies still being busy with their own lives. I tried to run and hacked up a lung. I slaved away at a horrible story. I ate lots of Mexican food. I watched my half-brother implode and start throwing shit at my family and then watched him drive off drunk as all hell, which, of course, is totally okay since he's a cop.

A classic Thanksgiving trip home. Cat Power with Michelle, too. And a trip up to the hills with Alicia and Mike:



And at least I got to renounce the devil. Fuck him.

Then my mom drove me to the airport in darkness:



Then I flew back to NYC:



Al

Lame En Fuego:

What's lame is when something you've never second-guessed puffs up in flames. What I mean is that I never ever even entertained the thought that El Sombrero wouldn't exist. For instance, it's like thinking about gravity just all of a sudden not being around anymore. You don't think about that. You accept the fates of our heliocentric world. You say to yourself, there is gravity, there has always been gravity, we will never be free of its horrendous shackles. Ball up, ball down. Now until eternity.

So too with El Som. Number five, light on the lechuga, all rice, no beans por favor. Chicken Sombrero Burrito. Root beer. And yes, more salsa. Always more salsa.

But now it has gone up in flames. Now sixty firefighters have come and doused it with water. Now there is no more roof and there is no more mural and there is no more lollipop dish.

Which, I guess, isn't entirely true. There is El Sombrero Number Two over on Artesia. And, surely, El Som will soon be back with the same food and the same cooks and Jose will still work there with his big thick moustache. This will come to pass. In fact, being so far away for so many months, I'll probably not even notice that it's gone. I'll notice new paint. A new stucco, flame-retardant building. I'll notice those but won't much mind.

But:

There is something frustrating about the booths being gone. About the tables being different. About my children never getting to experience El Som like I did. Beacuse it isn't just about food, somehow. It's also about the fact that that building held many moments of my life. Dinners with my sister and mother, me pouring salt on to a wetted napkin upon which I'd rub my chips. Eating cheese quesadillas or McDonald's because I hated Mexican food. Or then getting it, realizing Mexican food really is the only food you need, and ordering in Spanish because Ms. Galvin gave us extra credit. Or those group dates there. The salty smell of that tiny bathroom.

What's lame is having the husk swapped out for something I never wanted or desired. I was fine with the old husk. The husk that burned last night for five hours. That husk, that sturdy restaurant shell, it served me well and housed my growing up nicely. I think it would have housed many more growing ups with great success. But it will never get the chance.

Sentimental, but, well, lame.
Lame lame lame.
Etceteras.
Scooters razed.
Now this.

Shitty,
Al