GROETEN VAN PARADIJS, BITCHES!!

greetings all, and welcome to the first correspondence from my wicked awesome tropical paradise.

i haven't really gotten a chance to collect my thoughts over the past few days, but i did manage to take some notes...

ahem...

"very nice here. ocean is spectacular. local food good; i'm a big fan of the seasonal fish... mostly wahoo. many lizards on the island, predominantly whiptails and iguanas. i am completely and totally surrounded by dutch women. they are cheerful, fit, and prefer to sunbathe/kayak naked. well done there, netherlands. perhaps i will find myself a fine wife here. honestly, they're everywhere. i am happy ."

oh, and did i mention i'm surrounded by dutch women? allow me to reiterate. there are dutch women everywhere. yahoo for me! both the men and women speak a bit of english, but they seem perfectly content with my generic response to their queries: "how 'bout NO, you crazy dutch bastard?!" yea, they love that one.

the water is, of course, friggen' spectacular, and i've logged almost an entire day's worth of bottom time in the past five days. simultaneously, i've managed to finish off three and a half litres of venezualan rum the local bottle shop sells for 15 guilder. the combination has left my mouth tasting vaguely of whiskey and plasma which, in my current inebriated state, lends a piquant, after-dinner flavor to the pan-seared tuna i had for dinner.

that's about the best i can do, sadly, since my brain, no doubt, is filling with tiny bubbles at the moment. not to worry, though, i'm content to languish in the idle vacuousness of island life.... you know, like gauguin...

...but without the syphilis of course...

sleep tight...

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COLD TURKEY

i just realized that i'll be leaving the country for a bit and i'll be without the blessings of a computer whilst i'm away. therefore i will be without internet porn for a while. can i do it? will i crack under the pressure? will i pay some willing ukrainian woman to service me when my fortitude collapses into a dark, swirling, abysmal vortex of self loathing and despair? the answers to these and all of your questions when i return to my native soil. in the meantime, have yourselves a merry little christmas.

and if you don't celebrate christmas, please, please, please just ignore the rest of us. some of us are just fucking crazy. thanks for being so understanding... especially you jews out there... i realize it's a bit awkward, what with this being the season where we celebrate the birth of our messiah whom you promptly killed, but don't sweat it, the whole 'destroy the temple and exile you from jerusalem' thing was pretty harsh, too. Barukh atah Adonai, Elohaynu, melekh ha-olam, borei p'ree ha-gafen if you know what i mean.

and seriously, if you really and truly believe there's a war on christmas waging in the streets (or in the 'chood'... G-D bless you if you get that), then maybe you might think about easing up a little bit. sit by a warm fire, sip some eggnog or hot, spicy brandy, turn on some gentle christmas music and have a go at the 'ol missus. might do you both a world of good.

mazel tov, bitches!

what's that i hear? why... it's the sound of my heart growing three sizes today! hooray for who-ville!

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PS

this should come as a shock to absolutely no one, but i am the motherfucking king of VH1's I Love the 80's trivia game. hoooo-ya!

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THERE ARE NO PIRATES IN OUR FATHERS' HOUSES

my city is a specter tonight. the snow has frozen everything in place, but i seem to be keeping one blue spark alive for the ghosts lurking behind the dusty broken trees. what a generous winter that would cast such a dream on this place

old voices have left fingerprints on these memories. they echo and fade without the vitality of presence, and tonight i feel as if i'm the only one keeping them alive. should i choose to forget, they would dissolve and scatter into the dim

strange vibrations on this night at home. strange characters resurfacing with old thoughts, old photographs, and old letters. how easily i concede to the muddled drudgery of nostalgia, and how tragic the quiet ticks of age

in my absence, everything has changed. but while i am absent, memory is stone and unmoving. what a generous season that would cast such a dream on this place...

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i couldn't really say why this visit home has come with so many surprises. if i absolutely had to, i might say that this will be the last time that i and everyone else will indulge in reliving the well-worn events of our shared past; that we have finally outgrown whatever it was we cherished so dearly. these halls resound with laughter, but it's beginning to sound like a childish, unfamiliar laughter, and sooner or later we'll walk away from it leaving a few soldiers behind, like me, to guard the path out of history, and to keep it locked away for good. why should so many old faces reappear to me now, i really couldn't say. maybe its the last gasp of a dying breed of Us.

why now, Ms Chairlift o' Reciprocity, do you resurface? why still, Ms NYC, do you and i stand on opposite sides of the glass? and why have i resigned to scream and kick and bite and scratch and whine and bitch until i get my way?

well, we all have our talents. and all children, but one, grow up.

this is all much too serious for tuesday, i'm afraid, but sleep well under warm blankets of snow tonight, lads. there are no pirates in our fathers' houses.

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HAPPY DECEMBERWEEN!!

oh billy... why is bill o'reilly so darn angry these days. does he really believe a war on christmas wages on in our streets like rebel violence? well, i'm going to put his picture next to this picture of a kitty.

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NOEL = LEON

my roommate has been listening to frank sinatra christmas songs for three hours now. i feel like i'm back in fucking retail. humbug!

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THIS IS WHY I LOVE THE NYTIMES

it's a nice treat to wake up and munch warm, tasty oatmeal on a cool december morning and read this in today's new york times:

"Businesses like One for the Road, with its cooler of beer and phalanx of prostitutes, depend on plant workers as customers."

i really don't ask for much in this lifetime, but if i ever, ever, command a phalanx of prostitutes, i will die a happy man. the cooler of beer, of course, certainly helps. it's a good article, though, and something to think about.... when you're not thinking about a phalanx of nigerian prostitutes, that is.

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OH SHIT MAN...

oh shit nicole richie's single again. time to dust off my stalkin' pants. i.... mean.... um.... following trousers... yea... following trousers...

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RETURN THY PANTS, SATAN

my pants were gone for 24 hours. i did not know where they had gone. i searched high and low calling, "ahoy, pants! ahoy!" but to no avail. i lost them sometime last night, though i can't say where. i suspect i had been drinking.

well...

i woke up drunk this morning, so i deduce that i had been drinking, though my memory will not confirm such activity. all i know for sure is that landing the drunk-sober-hungover trifecta during a 9am microbiology class is too jarring for even my hearty soul.

ahhhhh, the barbarism. long live the barbarian, i. what shall we do when life hands us barbarians? why, we make barbarry jam, that's what! ho ho!

ugh. am i proud of myself, you say? i say nay. nay i say! methinks things are getting just a touch out of control, and i may have to bring things back to neutral with a surprise visit to the outside. maybe a solo trip to big sur? a quick jog up mt. tamalpais perhaps?

it's funny how i was just saying to myself how normal i've become lately. well... all prayers are answered, i suppose, but only in the order in which they're received.

this should do for now:

Two dozen other dirty lovers
Must be a sucker for it
Cry, Cry, but I don't need no mother
Just hold my hand while I come
To a decision on it

Sooner or later
Your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
Sooner or later
You hit the deck, you get found out
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
You let me down

Black air and seven seas and rotten through
But what can you do?
I don't know how I'm meant to act with you lot
Sometimes I don't try
I just now, now, now, now, now

Two dozen other stupid reasons
Why we should suffer for this
Don't bother trying to explain them
Just hold my hand while I come
To a decision on it...

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