And The Circus Left Town...

The Bates Squirrel Motel

The future is fantastic. More than anything it's because currently in the future, squirrels do not exist. Besides the band The Cranberries, I am not sure there is anything I dislike more than these rabid, poor-mannered monsters. They don't do anything productive. They don't pollinate anything. They don't really provide sustenance. They do however, provide rednecks with a target to practice and dogs something to chase.

In a past life, I lived in Winston-Salem, North Cakalaka. Yeah, I know. The Bible Belt. It's great if you're into cigarettes and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Winnie, "The city that makes Durham look nice" that's the city motto. Winnie who...Winston-Salem is without a doubt The North American Squirrel Capital™. Never have I seen so many of these bushy-tailed rodents running rampant with total disregard for civilized behavior.

I lived below ground in a old Victorian house in the historic West End. Not that this should mean anything to anyone, but it was funny the way they marketed the neighborhood. Winnie who, I had a giant oak tree in my yard and a dozen other smaller trees—mostly elms and a couple hickories. And where there are trees in Winnie, there is a family of squirrels ready to infest anything they can. Such as...my apartment.

The first time one of these cheek stuffers entered my domain, my mother was enjoying some Pinot Noir and I was taking the garbage out. I didn't want to interrupt my parent's witty banter, so I left the door open. The cheek stuffer jumped in front of my door and looked at me. I didn't move. When I made a move to the door, he cruised into my apartment. Over the counter - into the bedroom - into my shower - knocking over my 1972 reissued Gibson SG Standard and into my pantry in search of the apples imported from Wisconsin. After chasing him around, much to the hilarity of my makers, I shooed him out of the house like one of those old ladies who shoos things.

The second and third times I encountered the cheek stuffers, it wasn't as humorous (if you're me). My dramatic landlord who happened to occupy the rest of the house thought it'd be great to catch the squirrels, who now lived in the walls, with live traps—as to not hurt the little cuties. I didn't agree, but I didn't want to smell squirrel carcass or even worse, have to dispose of squirrel carcass. I put two huge metal boxes in my apartment that contained peanut butter and some nuts. Then I traveled to New York City for a week and came back to a house that looked like it was occupied by the Manson Family. Everything knocked over. Blood, feces, urine, fruit pieces,etc. And in the translucent,suspended ceiling panel was the shadow of a squirrel basking the florescent lighting, glaring at me with his beady squirrel eyes. I'll never forget the moment of pure rage when I noticed him.

Oh and there were two squirrels in the trap. Hungry and seizing with diseases, they were barking at me. The cleaning lady came over and the squirrel man released them into a field by Wake Forest and my landlord got me a nice bottle of wine.

In the final encounter, these little bastards chewed up my desk and shit on my bed. Luckily my dramatic squirrel loving landlord was chilling with his boyfriend when a squirrel interrupted their soap opera and he screamed his best Janet Leigh scream. The carpenter patched a hole. I bought some poison. I heard some more Janet-esque screams from upstairs, and I think I even hit a squirrel with a stone when I saw it casing out my front door.

Three cheers for the future.

You Smile...You Smile Pretty or I'll Poke Your Eye!

The Sweet Comfort of Cold Concrete.

This past weekend of the future, I took a train to the east coast to Qinhuangdao. The train left Beijing at 7 a.m. and it was the first time I'd seen 5:30 a.m. in Beijing without me staying out all night. The morning is quite peaceful if you don't have a head full of booze.
At 9 a.m. the express train pulled into Qinhuangdao. It's a small Chinese city of 2.8 million and there is nothing to do there. Nope. Nothing.



Except going to see The Great Wall and the Yellow Sea.



This woman loves the wall.

After we took a taxi back to the city, we tried to find something to do and ended up deciding to get our return tickets to Beijing. Before we left we were told we could get them after the game, but we decided to get them now, cuz we were all out of ideas for Qinhuangdao. We traveled to the station and decided to get some street beers. Then we met our Qinhuangdao running crew.



This is the guy who holds down the “chilling” part. That’s all he does and he plays cards. They’re a pretty subversive crew. One of them has the bus schedule on his phone and knows everything about the trains leaving. He just sits in the lot all day, which leads me to believe he’s part of the bootleg bus system that cruises Olympic folk back to Beijing. And one of them was a pimp. Two of his gals came to give him money when were hanging out and he threw them a few kuai. Just to clarify, our running crew doesn’t speak English and our Mandarin is shit. But we did communicate enough to find out that there was no bus and no train going back to Beijing.

So we ate a freshly beaten fish and went to the soccer match.



The game was great. Ivory Coast versus Nigeria. Nigeria scored two really nice goals and I cheered for Ivory Coast, who played like shit. The stadium was packed with about 95% Chinese people and a few Nigerians and some assorted whiteys.

After the match we met this guy. A Mongolian gentleman named Hans.



He has lived in Germany for the past 10 years and was more than willing to help us out after discovering our plans to sleep in the park for the evening. He told us he’d take us to a place that was 24 hours and we could have some drinks and wait until the bus came at 6 a.m. As it turned out the place was a German restaurant and the food was worse than horrible.



I ate a piece of a heart, some neck and something that didn’t sit too well. The beer was also shit. I guess, that's what we get for being dumb enough to eat German food. Especially in Eastern China.

The part of the night came when we decided we were going to sleep in the park. It was a nice park and I slept on my backpack. I don't think I've ever voluntarily slept on the concrete, but it was pretty cozy. I woke up at 5 a.m. to some old men doing Thai Chi next to me. I'm pretty sure I frightened them way more than they frightened me.

In the future, if your English buddy tells you that it will be no problem to catch a bus from Qinhuangdao back to be Beijing. He has no idea what he's talking about and you'll have to sleep in a park.

Olympic Fever Has Been Caught.

How to Strengthen International Relations in a Cute and Cuddly Manner.

In the days past, which were lived before you lived them, as part of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, there was the debut of a new game. This game took place outside of the Boxing Gymnasium and was exclusive to ticket holders prior to the main event.

It was named "Who Wants a Piece of Jingjing the Panda?".

The most fierce of all the Beijing mascots. The Game started out with great international gesture of peace and goodwill, a picture with Jingjing.

Then the game slowly turned dark. I wasn't permitted to turn the camera back on, until the massacre had be properly cleaned up. But you can bet Jingjing ripped that guy's arm off for poking him in the eye during the picture session.

And being the gentleman that he is, Jingjing spared this woman.



The same cannot be said for this woman, who could not be identified.



As an enjoyed finale, Jingjing took on the entire crowd at once. I threw him a cheap shot in the neck and pushed some children to get out of his way.

Once inside, some dudes fought in the ring for a while. Go Jingjing!

I Whooped This Chick One-on-One.

Gilbert: 1--------------The Man™: 0

Unstimulated by his job and bored to death by his co-workers, Gilbert chose sleep.

He earned it.

And my, does he do it with style.