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Spain: The Longest Trip

Spain was my first vacation. I’ve done the family thing before, sure – trips down to Florida to visit my Nanny coupled with a few days in Disney World. But as far as those week-long vacations to destinations we couldn’t drive to in order to do something besides visit family, never really had one of those. Not even in college – never did the spring break thing, I had fun hanging with my boys back in Brooklyn. Occasional weekend road trips but that’s it. I just never had the money for a vacation – my family never had that kind of bread (my parents still haven’t had a honeymoon) and working the grill at the dorm’s dining hall doesn’t really pay all that much.

I went to Spain a year after college – sort of a reward for kicking ass at TAO the first year. I was getting paid well, I wasn’t going out that much, Robin was already in Spain (after finishing her schooling at BU she did several months abroad to get a Spanish minor), and I was more than prepared to kick back and have some fun. There were some complications, of course – delays in getting my passport and the fact that I somehow fucked-up booking my airfare but both problems worked themselves out and I was off to Madrid.

Now, the full plan was to leave for Spain from DC and come back, with Robin (but different flight), to Boston. We were then going to pack a U-Haul and drive down to DC together. In order to do this and stay within budget, my trip wasn’t exactly straight forward. The cheapest airfare I could find on such short notice was from Dulles airport to Manchester, England with a stopover in Philadelphia – that was on US Air. From there, I flew British Airways from Manchester to Madrid, Spain. The time between the two flights was close to 8 hours, so any delays wouldn’t really kill me. On the way back, I had all three flights plus an additional one-way flight from Dulles to Boston.

A lot of room for something to go terribly wrong.

DC to Philly was no problem at all – forty-five minutes up and down. I get to Philly; find my way to my gate and my plane’s on time. I crack open BRAVE NEW WORLD and get to reading.

If I remember correctly, my plane was supposed to leave at around 5PM. I think the first delay was only for an hour. The plan hasn’t arrived yet – a common reason for delay. I decide to go and get a beer – there’s a little Mexican restaurant/bar near the gate. I continue to read my book.

The second delay was much longer – two hours or so. Weather was causing the whole system to fuck-up. I wasn’t worried – this was just eating-in to my 8-hour stopover, I had some more beers and some Mexican food to go along with it. Called Robin, told her I was delayed. She just got back from going out with some friends and was excited to see me the next day (late afternoon, I believe, was when I was supposed to get in).

The plane kept getting delayed. First there was no crew available. Then there was a problem with some part. It was a little passed 11PM when they announced they’ll be boarding us shortly (by then I was drunk and I finished reading Brave New World – a great book to read drunk, by the way) – over six hours delayed – and it was about ten minutes later when they told us they were canceling the flight.

I was devastated. I wanted to call Robin but I realized that I needed to get my ass to the ticketing counter before the hundred or so people who just had their flight canceled.

I fucking ran my ass off.

I was probably third online. I realized that I was going to miss my flight from Manchester to Madrid which was by a different airline – I was fucked and, most likely, the airline wouldn’t care. It was time to act and, as I learned in college, I wasn’t that bad at it.

I get to the counter and I’m not fuming, not yelling – my voice is shaky as I give the following sob story (paraphrasing, of course):

“Hi. Listen. I’m not mad the plane was cancelled – I understand – these things happen. But I was going to Madrid, there was a British Airways’ flight I was connecting with that was going to take me there. I’m going to miss it now. In my bag is an engagement ring – I was planning on proposing to my girlfriend in Spain. I have theater tickets, reservations at a very exclusive and expensive restaurant – everything was perfect. This was all going down Friday night (which would basically mean I’d need to get to get to Madrid no later than 24 hours beyond when I was supposed to get there). I can’t fly to Manchester and get stuck there. I’m begging you, please, get me to Madrid.”

The woman behind the airline is feeling it – who knows why. Maybe she recently lost a loved one, maybe at one point in her life the man of her dreams got away because of fucked-up chance – don’t know what it was, don’t care. But I had a 3PM direct flight to Madrid the next day which was at least double the price of my flight to Manchester when I was booking airfare.

I got the complimentary hotel and two meals, as well – took the shuttle there, checked into my room. Showered off, I was smoky, drunk, and depressed. I called Robin, at this point I was supposed to be in Spain in a couple of hours. Told her the bad news, that I was still in Philly – she starts crying. It’s such a lonely thing – being in a hotel by yourself in a city you don’t want to be in, hours away from seeing the love your life whom you haven’t seen for over two months, only to have her crying on the phone because you won’t be seeing her for about another 20 hours. She was excited – excited to see me, excited for me to meet her friends, they even had dinner plans set, got all her Spain friends together, and we were going to go out dancing afterwards.

I calm her down – tell her I’m coming soon. I ask her not to cry because it’s breaking my heart – she holds it back. I tell her I love her and hang up – go to bed.

The next day I need to check out of the hotel by noon. I spend some time in the pool, eat my comp breakfast, and make my way to the airport with three hours to go. This time everything goes smoothly, the plan takes off on time and I’m off to Madrid. I wanted to sleep on the plane but, unfortunately, I got stuck in the back row. My seat didn’t recline and I had an aisle, deadly combination for wanting to sleep. I instead watched movies the whole way there, read some books, talked to the girl who had the window until she passed out.

By the time I got to Madrid I was beat. But I gathered my bags, went through customs, and got the first stamp on my passport. I jogged through the airport, calling Robin to tell her that I made it and I’ll be outside at any moment. She was waiting outside for me, I guess international flights got filtered out a secure door – she was beaming. Huge fucking smile. She runs, jumps into my arms, starts kissing my neck and my face – all over, really.

Took almost an extra day but I was finally in Madrid, with my baby, ready to take my first vacation.

Oh, yeah, and five years later and I still haven't proposed. Fuck you, US Air.

Adult Parties: Woah – This Ain’t 1999 Anymore

I've updated this blog on Friday, Monday, and today. It's like the olden days all over again.

By far the weirdest party I’ve ever been to was New Years 2002. It was at a friend of Robin’s house who just happened to live two blocks from us. It was convenient, lots of people were to be there, and we knew a fair share of the attendees – there was no reason not to go to this party.

The host had a fun theme to her party – everyone who comes in pays twenty-dollars and, in return, gets twenty dollars worth of funny money. As the night rolls on, you need to try and convince other party-goers to give you funny money. By the end of the night, whoever has the most funny money gets 75% the pot, the other 25% goes to the house and pays for food and beer.

So, in theory, someone would serenade somebody else in exchange for a “dollar” or someone would attempt a split on the dance floor for two “dollars”.

In theory.

You see, in one corner we had one of Robin’s coworkers. She spent her evenings stripping down in Georgetown. She was a wild one – married at the age of 19, had a girlfriend on the side that she liked a lot more than her husband. Her stripping schedule was going from weekends to every night and her love life/social life was starting to become less glamorous with live-in separations/live-in girlfriends/abuse of certain substances.

In the other corner was some girl whose name I don’t believe anyone knew. She was an escort and one of the guys brought her to the party as a date.

I should probably add, now, that the person with the most funny money was going to be taking home over seven-hundred dollars.

And we had a coked-out stripper and an escort at a party where one of them could walk away with that seven-hundred dollars.

And there were a lot of dudes at the party since two of the housemates were single dudes, themselves.

You see where this is going – right?

It started innocently enough, honestly. The stripper’s husband was pimping his woman out – a lap dance for a buck. Guys were taking him up on the offer and everyone was laughing about it at first. It got a little more uncomfortable when the shirt came off and the lap-dance price went up to five dollars.

The guy with the escort – seeing an opportunity to make some money back from his nights purchased – started pimping his date out as well with the deal that they’ll split the money (or so I heard after the fact, I’m not sure why she’d agree to the split if she’s doing all the work).

Either way she started giving lap dances as well.

A lot of people left the party at that point. I guess adult parties aren’t supposed to have naked strippers and escorts walking around, giving lap dances in exchange for monopoly money. Robin was turned off – she’s not a fan of women whoring themselves, I guess – and spent most of her time outside with some other folks, chain smoking and chugging beer.

I had to be supportive so I went outside as well. However, when the “WOAH”s started we all ran inside to see what was happening next.

Nothing like two girls going at it with a pile of monopoly money around them to turn a party into a sausage fest.

At this point Robin’s friend had enough and told them to stop. Apparently the girl/girl action (and who knows what else) was moved to a roommate’s bedroom – where every guy without a date squeezed in. While the rest of us watched Dick Clark countdown the apple, we tried to ignore the chants and hollers coming from the dudes room (the girls because they found it disgusting, the guys because we wanted to be in there).

The best part? A genius amongst the living room folks realized that there were more of us than the guys inside the bedroom. We decided to give all of our funny money to one person, another coworker of Robin’s who’s a good guy and everyone liked (and who also lived in a shed, essentially, on somebody’s property) so he can get the money.

At the end of the night when the money was tallied the look on the stripper and the escort’s faces were priceless. They got second and third place and to add insult to injury, Robin’s friend gave them “runner-up prizes” which consisted of some goofy items that were lying around the house.

So, many lap-dances and 69s later, all they had to show for it was a bag of candy.

Adult Parties: Whig & Velvet

I guess once you graduate college you start going to “adult parties”. I find that adult parties are the same things as college parties except everyone’s trying to size up and see who makes more money than them. My first year out of college I found myself going to the equivalent of frat parties – nothing’s changed, bunch of dudes living together and throwing a party, most people are single.

Which is why I really bombed with my first “adult party”, I think. It was one of Robin’s coworkers, a freelance producer they used on a close-to full-time basis for their shows (Robin’s first job was at a post-production house where they put together various TV shows for Nat Geo, Discovery Health, etc). She was older than us, likely a little over thirty – they just bought a house in Georgetown (which, if you don’t know the area, means they had some serious cake). It was a “Wig & Velvet” party – the invitation said to wear a wig and wear some velvet. Seemed easy enough, right?

The day of the party Robin and I go to the Salvation Army to see what we can find. I find this velvet-like track suit and figure it would be really funny if I went to the party thug-themed. Robin agreed. I went to this Sally Beauty Supply joint next to the Salvation Army and purchased some braided extensions and a doo-rag; I used the rag to secure the extensions. I looked straight thug.

4 Life.

Robin had a velvet shirt and a silvery wig, if I remember correctly. It doesn’t matter – all that matters is that she wasn’t the one who stood out like a soar thumb.

We get to the party, I know nobody there. Everyone’s older than me, it seems, everyone’s white, and 95% of the people there looked like our founding fathers, wearing white wigs all curled up and velvety (non-lounge) suits. Some of the girls had outfits similar to Robin – everyone had dark colors and looked all dressed up and completely comfortable.

I had a bright blue track suit, braids, a doo-rag, and sneakers. I felt like an idiot. I’m usually the woo-hoo party fuck what everyone thinks type but at this moment, I just wanted to go home. And it got worse.

Everyone thought I was a pirate.

I had to explain what I was and all the white bread at the party had no idea what I was talking about.

“You know – I’m kind of like a thug. Like, how they dress in Compton. Well, it’s not really a stereotype, I mean, it’s how they dress in Compton. No – I’m sure white people dress like this too. Ok, so maybe not just Compton…”

It was excruciating. All these cut-off but compassionate white folks with serious paper all thought I wore the equivalent of a modern-day black-face to this party. Robin was having fun, I was trying to have fun but I instead found myself hiding behind the food table and swallowing cocktail shrimp, occasionally escaping for a cigarette.

One girl shows up to the party – about my age, dressed like Robin’s dressed. We get to talking – she’s trying to get a writing thing going as was I (not comics, at the time) so we hit it off well.

One could say I was flirting.

Robin caught me and instantly shot me a look, I excused myself. Told Robin, “Ok, I was flirting a bit, but she’s the only one talking to me. Can we go?”

Robin tells me to chill out and mingle – she takes me around with her. I end up having a good time, meet some new people. With a couple of beers in their system people become less judgmental. Robin introducing me as Jason Rodriguez gave me more minority cred, too, so my costume didn’t seem as racist to them at that point.

We ended up being the last couple to leave. Thanked everyone for the wonderful party and drove home.

We weren’t invited to another one but that one wasn’t so bad at the end of the day.

Baked and Baked

And I’m back. I guess I just didn’t feel like finishing the “Robin away in Spain” story I was working on, I’ll probably return to it when I talk about my own trip to Spain.

Anyway, I was watching Conan O’Brien last night and Paul Reubens was on, promoting the re-release of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse on the Cartoon Network. Reminded me of a story…

I was a fan of the show growing up. I wasn’t the coolest kind in the world but one thing people seemed to get a kick out of was watching me do the Pee-Wee Herman dance. I was like a fat kid with a magic set – able to fend off insults by being so damn cute and entertaining.

Robin was a different kind of fan. The kind that bought the VHS box set in college and would get stoned every night (and Saturday morning) and watch an episode. It was like a religion to her. I’d come over her place and she’ll be sitting with several people – staring at the TV as if Pee-Wee was their God.

At that point I wasn’t really smoking anymore and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was a novelty from my childhood so I never really got into that aspect of her life. As the year went on she started watching it less and less. By the time she moved out to DC with me she was essentially done with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and dope.

Until this one evening, a couple of weeks after she returned from Spain. We were putting up Gerry again and they decided to rekindle the past and watch Pee-Wee’s Playhouse baked. I figured I'd join in and invited my boy, Mark, to join us.

Gerry got the dope. No idea where he got it from. He baked it into some brownies and served them up. About ten minutes into eating special brownies we’re all vegetables. No idea how much he put into those things or if the dope was treated or something but we couldn’t fucking move.

At all.

We sat down on that catch and were mesmerized by Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Every joke was suddenly sexual – every time Pee-Wee winked he was talking about drugs. It was all so obvious to us. I think that night was the closest I’ve ever come to a revelation.

About two hours in Robin goes into the bedroom. I get up and follow her, find her passed out on the bed. I get so angry, I tell her, “What the fuck? We got guests. Don’t be rude.” She gets out of bed and goes back into the living room.

I lay down on the bed and go to sleep.

She falls asleep on the couch. Twenty minutes later Mark wakes her up and asks, “Hey – I can’t drive – so I’m gonna sleep here. Can I have the couch?”

Robin gets kicked off the couch and comes back to the bedroom.

The next morning Mark is passed out on the couch, Gerry’s on the floor watching more Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. He claims he went to sleep and woke back up but the remaining brownies are gone – I still believe he stayed up all night watching them. Robin’s pissed at me for kicking her out of the bed the night before but she gets over it.

I haven’t watched Pee-Wee’s (or eaten dope) since. I’d rather keep my memories of that magical night pure – go out on top, as it where.

Empty Chamber

I haven't updated in a while - apologies. Been busy, I'll have some new stuff up here this week, though.

I did want to direct you all to A. David Lewis (writer of the Harvey Nominated Lone & Level Sands - one of my favorite books from last year) and Jason Copland's Empty Chamber preview on Newsarama. The book looks fantastic and I've been following it's development for over a year.

Go check it out and order the book.