Temporarily Fantastic

I feel very ill today. The worst hangover in a long time. I had four beers and a shot of Jager last night. That's hardly a lot. I have stood up to 16 shots of hard liquor in an evening. This morning I feel like I was lambasted by stomach mites. I went for a run about a half hour ago. Still feel crappy. I need to get some protein and coffee in me soon.



I pulled two hamburgers out of the freezer to thaw. These are amazing 10% fat patties. There's 29 grams of protein in a single patty. With the addition of some American cheese, there will be 60 grams of protein waiting to be consumed. The cup of yogurt with granola I had for breakfast has done nothing for me this morning.

I am fading. Actually fading. My feet and hands are now gone forever. The tip of my nose a memory. Knees and nipples finally freed from this corporeal vessel. Flesh stripped away by an errant molecule of ethanol that hath pierced my medulla.




So, I ate the hamburgers. I feel much better.

By the time you read this...

I only have ten minutes left on lunch and I am trying to cram this in with the limited time I have. I have not learned anything new this week. That's an indication that I now know everything, or I soon will. I know string theory. I have imagined 11, even 12 dimensions.

I live in a world that is not yours. I glide over the land as though I weren't even there. Water is space to me. Walking through walls has become easy. What walls? Everything is as transparent as glass now. Even more transparent. Everything has the same refractive index now that I know everything. I can see from one end of the universe to the other.

It is very important that I get this message out as fast as I can. My boss is coming in in a little bit and I can't let him see me writing. He must not discover my powers. He will ask to me to do things like slow time and hack our competitors data center to mine for sales leads. I have seen the inner workings of his mind. I watch every neuron work in communion and I saw every ionic impulse. He is a fast thinker. He suspects that I can see the future... That is, he will suspect I can see the future. I exist outside of the bounds of time now. Time is a ribbon that I follow back and forth.

Got to go. Lunch is over. I have written a blog tomorrow that chronicles two years from now.

The incredible and ghastly

One day, when this is all over, many years from now, there I will be sharing nothing with no one. As selfish as I may be, there will always be the hope that I will give in a little and learn to be one part of a whole. I am alone, and this has nothing to do with romance. I'm talking about being a fellow who has no home outside of himself. I have always contributed to the team, but have always kept to myself. I have empathy for others. I want to be part of humanity's expanse.

I used to be concerned with order, now I am surrounded by the cumulative debris of the prior month. I am not proud. I let people down. I am not everything I can be, or maybe this is what I am. I have taken so long to get here, and I'm not any more complete than I was in the beginning. When was that? How could I forget a birthday? Sentenced to the curvature of the Earth, her surface a painted marble trophy hanging in a mobile of the solar system. The Earth has one moon and is the third planet from the sun.

I have bathed in water and found I wanted more. I would live in water if it were possible. I'd become a shriveled monster. Children would come up to me and ask me how I go that way as parents realized what they were doing, rushing to drag them away from the serpent who stayed in the pool too long. A breeze would chill me and I'd return to the water where I belong.

Tragedy is not my life. I have had nothing but success. There is no reason to complain. An old punk rocker with tattoos had to be young once. That was the time when youth was wasted on him. He's still young at heart and his heart is pining over a 22 year-old named Janelle who likes to tease him and who calls him creepy when her friends are around.

I'll shave my head and write my novel before that happens.

Is this it?

Mine is not to enlighten, entreat, or disentangle.
Mine is not to preach, teach or breach your trust.

Then what am I to do?

If I were told that I was a good person, would I correct you and say, "No, I am not, madam. I am just a man."

Am I a troubled soul?

Where does Frank end and Frankie Android begin?
I know I lead a double life. Maybe not.

Mine is not to entertain, but I see you smile every now and then.

I used to know very little and thought I knew everything. Now I've learned a lot but know nothing.

"Why do you waste my time, " is the answer to the question on your mind. Thanks, Brandon.

I have an external hard drive to backup my photos. If I lost them all I'd be sad.

Life is a game of target practice.

Having the place to myself is like the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Staying in on a Friday. 'Nuff said.

How Starbucks Hacked My Brain

"Grande, bold drip." I start each day muttering these words to the ladies behind the counter. The hospital proudly brews and serves fresh Starbucks coffee. "What's the bold today?" The ladies at the hospital cannot answer this question, but a Starbucks barista would tell me strait up, "Café Estima."

Starbucks is unlike any other coffee shop. No other coffee house sells the experience of ordering coffee like they do. The Starbucks experience begins with an eager wait in the queue as you rehearse your order. You've been there a million times. You've ordered the drip, you've ordered the cappuccino. You've asked for the ventí iced mocha on hot afternoons. Now it's time to try the caramel macchiato. I had never heard of a macchiato prior to the existence of Starbucks, but evidently it is a real drink made with espresso and a teaspoon of cream.

The problem for me begins with the jargon. Here's were the Starbucks experience impedes upon my life. I remember when I was a newbee to the Seattle chain. I wandered in asking for a large coffee and was asked to clarify, "Do you want grande or ventí?" What? What form of madness is this? Ordering in Italian? "16 ounces." "That would be the grande." Now I am programmed to order in S-bucks code. The place that is named after a character from Battlestar Galactica is making me clarify what I mean by "large."

"Medium coffee."
"Do you want a drip?"
"Just a regular coffee."
"You mean a brewed coffee?"
"Yes."
"Okay, that's a drip. Do you want mild or bold?"
"Is the bold strong?"
"It's more robust. It's a darker roast."
"Okay, that's what I want."
"Okay, do you want tall, grande or ventí?"
"I want the medium one."
"Okay, that's grande. So, you want a grande, bold drip."
"Okay."
"Would you like anything else?"
"Do you have bagels?"
"Yes, would you like one?"
"That depends, do you have some weird naming convention for breads that I should be aware of?"
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind."

And so now I have learned a second language that must be used to buy coffee at Starbucks. If I don't use their language I'll have to play the game where I am the only sane person in a crazy world, a world where a medium coffee does not exist. A world where "room for cream" translates to a half empty cup.

Starbucks, I want my dignity back. I also want the zucchini nut muffin back. And I want you to know that I love you always.

-Frankie Android

Fatherly Advice

My father offered to have the "sex talk" with me back when I was 14 years old. I never took him up on that offer until a couple of weeks ago. Now thirty-two and thoroughly frustrated by the pitfalls of sleeping with a woman, I finally endeavored to speak to Dad.

"Dad, do you remember when I was 14 and you said I could talk to you at any time about girls. Well, I'm ready to have that talk."

My father is a mystery. In my childhood and early adulthood, I could do no right in his eyes. When I was a teenager had I told my father about all girl trouble I had been getting into, he would have had something like this to say, "Well, see what happens when you fuck around. You get your feelings hurt. What kind of a moron are you having a girlfriend. You know what, try not to go out with a girl until after you're married." My father hardly said anything constructive to me. I remember when I was shopping around for colleges and planning on majoring in Chemistry his advice was, "Why don't you become a bartender. It's good money." I guess slinging drinks to the public seemed like the superior choice to going pre-med and maybe becoming a physician. I don't know. I'm sure bartenders have done more good for me than doctors as near as I can recall.

I was expecting the patented Frank Salvo, Sr. hateful/hurtful response to my questions on dating. Instead my father took an unusual approach: it was both sane, rational and well reasoned. "Well, you know. Sometimes these things just don't work out. I mean, I am so lucky your mom stuck with me all these years. She's a living saint. God really gave me a great women, and after all I put her through she's still with me. And she gave me a beautiful family, you kids. I mean, God, I don't know how she does it. You know, Frankie, you just have to keep up your chin and take things one day at a time. You can't live in the past. You just have to keep trying. You just haven't met the right person yet."

I think my parents would like me to meet the "right person." I have different expectations though. I gave up on the Catholic's belief that for every man there is one woman and vice-versa. As my friend Mark Berman told me a few years ago when I told him I would never find "the one," "Oh, there's plenty of 'the ones' out there. Every girl you meet's gonna be 'the one.'" I get what he was saying. He's a brilliant man, and so is my Dad. Though, my father, I believe, was quoting from Dr. Phil.

And so, I hope to continue my quest to date. Though, that word sounds so stale to me. "Dating." It's a word people use to simplify an explanation of what's going on in a person's sex life. It's a stage in a relationship. If you like to break everything down into stages, then go right ahead. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you tell someone you are dating, that relieves their curiosities. Your friends want to know what's going on with you two. Are you "seeing" each other? Are you "dating?" Are you "going out as friends?" At what stage in the relationship are you guys? Seriously. I don't really think the word "dating" works for me. I think it's more accurate for me to say, "We are jointly participating in an experience of confusion, mixed signals, missed phone calls and awkwardness where each party in question does not know whether they want to get mixed up with the other party at this time and would be perfectly OK if nothing happened, though if something were to happen we couldn't let it get out of hand because we're busy with work and there's this other girl/guy and yadda, yadda, yadda, and my place is a mess."

-Frankie Android

Let It Die (a very short story)

Let it die and get out of my mind
We don't see eye to eye
Or hear ear to ear
Don't you wish that we could forget that kiss
And see this for what it is
That we're not in love

The saddest part of a broken heart
Isn't the ending so much as the start

-From the song "Let It Die." Lyrics by Leslie Feist.


I remember the day I asked Helen to move in. She was living with her old boss, a forty-year-old Korean immigrant named Sun who was also a self-proclaimed "sexy bitch." Helen was very deer to me. She was soft and sweet and open minded. I loved the way her hair smelled. I loved every inch of her body, every little impulse, every look from her eyes. She was getting kicked out of Sun's place. She told me that moving in with me would make her happy. I was very passionate about her. I didn't know what I was doing. I really didn't want her to move in, but I thought I was in love. Now that I look back, I was in love, but these things are never clear. We had only known each other for two months, but it seemed like much longer. From the night we met we spent nearly every spare moment together.

She had a boyfriend back in Ohio. After meeting me she had sworn him off. It was only after a month of living together that she began proclaiming how much better he was than me. I believe it. Prior to that I had become very depressed. So did she. She told me I couldn't touch her while she was sleeping. My full-sized mattress began to feel like separate beds. One night, she left her MySpace account logged in. I do not know if it was carelessness. She had been making plans to start dating someone else.

I told her I found out. She was going to move out and into a small room on Venis Beach. She loved the ocean. She began seeing the other guy while she was still living with me. One night she didn't come home. I took all of her belongings and shoved them into corners of the apartment. I didn't want any of her things touching any of mine. She came home, I didn't say a word as I left for a walk. When I returned she was in the bathroom, brushing her hair. She was moving back home. She was getting back together with her old boyfriend.

She lived with me for two more weeks. I came home from work the night before she left to find she had cut her arms. Not deep enough to cause any bleeding, just enough to be painful. That night we sat in bed. I placed my head in her lap. I pulled her arms toward me. As I kissed them she sang Feist's Let It Die.

The next morning, I walked her to her car. We kissed and told each other "I love you." She drove back to Ohio. I don't think I'll ever see her again.

Thursday Musings

Climbing the old cinder block wall on Ruth Drive was a daily activity when I was a boy. A baby boy. If thirty is the new twenty, I have spent the last ten years in adolescence. I must therefore be forgiven for my sins. I was a babe lost in Los Angeles, in and out of apartments... women. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was up against. I thought I could make a difference by being outspoken, a leader, a prophet, a messiah. I was crazy, not Manson crazy, just eccentric. I thought I was a candle illuminating the darkness. As it turns out, I was just another self-important moron. By now I have realized that you can't conform the world to you. At the same time you can't conform to the world. I can't. Maybe you can. If you can, god bless you. You are one of the fortunate ones. You have no problem going with the flow. You never have the urge to call bullshit on all the assholes in the media, in politics, in criminal justice, is business, in space, at sea, in the air. Yes, there are assholes in the air too. Shit comes out of them. Our living rooms are their toilets. We're all walking around with shit up to our knees.

So, I started with the wall. The wall was pink cinder block and the fastest route from the desert behind the house to the backyard. Once a man jumped the wall, came into the house and stole my mom's purse. At least that's what we believed happened. They only evidence we have is a missing purse. That's not evidence so much as lack of evidence, which is evidence in this case. Got it? Good. Walls were not walls when I was a baby boy. They were hurdles. You were supposed to go over them. None of the other youngsters would respect a boy who went around the wall, through the front door then into the backyard. So inefficient. Ah, the countless number of times a shirtless Frankie scraped his belly dragging himself up and over the wall. The wall was a tightrope, the line between our concrete patio and the neighbor's victory garden. Peril beset the wall on all side. Both of them, in fact. Falling from the wall was a big no-no. It meant certain injury, and a mother who would certainly be angry.

I don't climb over walls anymore. It's easier to go around. When did that happen? Is it simply not OK for a grown man to clear a wall? Is it creepy? Does hopping a wall now send the the following message: "Your wall is bullshit and I will prove it by going over it showing you that it in no way does it serve its intended purpose as a wall, and you will have to put up some barbed wire which will do a good job of keeping people off the wall and an even better job of catching debris like old torn-up grocery bags." Scaling a wall conjures presuppositions about a man's character. If I were to jump a wall, I would immediately be suspected guilty of something because who would jump a wall unless he was running to or from a crime? Is it a crime to go over the top of a wall? What if I just wanted to travel the shortest distance between two points? The two points being your front yard and your back yard. So, what? Maybe I just wanted to pet your dogs. Their fur is thick and shiny. You must be feeding them eggs. Excellent.

So the Lakers won and Kobe scored 40. He can jump a wall, but he doesn't because after that OJ murder ain't nobody trying that shit any more. Nuff said.

Horizontal Expansion

Today I am back at the weight I was at when I first got to town a year ago. I definitely have the IT professional physique now. Working at the hospital has not influenced me to practice good health habits. I don’t get any exercise anymore. I am on the see food diet (I see food then I eat it). I have extended my burger night from one day to several days at week. I was at a birthday party on Saturday. I just kept eating and eating. The spring rolls were fantastic, and they made so many of them. The little ready-bake quiches are a weakness for me. Then there was the hummus. Then they brought our fajitas. My band played, we had cake. Then I had seconds on the fajitas.

The hospital has not influenced me to eat well. I walk by the physical therapists with my head hung low. I really don’t want to make eye contact with them. Looking down is pretty bad though because I then have to see their calves, and their calves are built. I would never play them in a one-on-one of any sport, even if I were in shape. I’m a weakling.

I have become a chunky butt with cottage cheese ass textures. My belly flows over my waistline like a hot mercury bursting out of a thermometer. Tonight I will be visited by the ghost of John Candy. “If these fates remain unchanged, I see an empty office chair where Fat Frankie once sat.” Thank you, ghost of John Candy. I have felt like doing some standup again. I feel as though being fat might make me funnier. Looking like a guy who’s given up might be hilarious. Especially since many of my jokes have to do with failed relationships. “This guy’s never been in a relationship. Poor thing thinks he’s attractive. Married? This guy was married? I can see why she left him. He’s delusional… and fat.”

So here I am at work eating coffee for breakfast. Thought about having a kolache but changed my mind when I couldn’t slide my finger inside my waistline. I’ll have soup for lunch, and for dinner I’ll have a shitload of snacks. I’ll start healthy by trying to limit myself to an apple with peanut butter, but then I’ll have a hot dog, then the second hotdog, then two slices of buttered toast. I’ll probably eat the rest of the tortilla chips and then justify it by reminding myself that I did good today.

I’m going to eat the can of pork and beans tonight. With hot dogs chopped up in the beans. With American cheese melted on top. Over spaghetti.

Lentil soup and Hunter S. Thompson

There are multiple depressing elements in heating canned soup for breakfast. The first meal of the day is lentil soup. It was preceded by a sourdough pretzel appetizer and now accompanied by a a broadcast of "Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film." The soup has cooled off considerably since I poured it into my bowl. I feel guilty for not enjoying it while it was piping hot, and now I've realized that vegetarian soups can and perhaps should be enjoyed at room temperature, but who am I to throw the "should" word around when it comes to culinary delight. Perhaps every man should be granted the freedom to taste food subjectively without me and the stars of the Food Network criticizing them for their eating habits. Should pushes us away from our own nature and into the arms of the lady I call Sameness. She smells good and will give you children, a job, a home and hot soup. Ms. Sameness, who hates to be called Ms., went to the University of Tennessee and drives a Nissan Altima.

The tin can came from unknown origins. Evidently it is distributed by a Minnesota company. However, the analyst and cynic within is almost certain, without any evidence to back his suspicions, that the industrial-sized vat that birthed this lentil soup is located somewhere in Mexico. The can is a Mexican can and the truck that brought it to Texas... Mexican. The truck, a vagabond of the Interstate 35 corridor bearing produce and cans and a variety of generic products: aspirin, salt, white socks and everything imaginable. I am amazed at how the can has evolved since I was born. It now has a pull tab. Gone are the days when my mother used a special device call a "can opener" which had one purpose. It opened cans. There were openers driven by electric motors, most driven by hand, and some, the most recent incarnation of the utensil, designed with a child's safety in mind. I have played with these openers created to cut through the tin without leaving a sharp edge, they do the job. The advertisements for these machines shows a child reaching for the lid of a can held out to him by his mother. His own mother, giving the promise of a tasty lid betrays the boy when he discovers it is an instrument of death, slicing his finger. My good friend Alan will never know the tragedy of losing a loved one to a soup can, he has the safety opener. I feel very bad for the can opener. He's nearly obsolete. Like the brave thinker, the madman, the philosopher, the know-it-all. Better to hide away in anonymity on the internet than bring your political views into the open. That's what I would say to the disenfranchised can opener of only he had ears with which to listen.

When I was a child my mother made a delicious lentil soup from dried beans, chicken stock, onions, tomatoes, carrot and love. When I was very young I couldn't stand the bitter lentil, the dark brown broth, the gritty meat of the bean. As I got older, my mother's soup grew on me, or I grew into it. My favorite dinner growing up, at least in memory, was a bowl of Mom's lentil soup with a side of potato frittata. The soup I ate this morning was not cooked and canned by my mother. If you want, we can go to her house in Vegas and I'll let you taste her soup. But not today. Today, heating canned soup in a worn out pot, the one that lost its non-stick bottom months ago, is the emotion I am afforded which is unfortuante on a such an overcast morning. Today it would be better that I be sitting on the floor of my bedrrom, playing Nintendo, my mother's voice calling after me for 10 minutes or so until she appears in the doorway and says finally that it's time to eat. To which I reply, "But I don't like lentil soup." Which deserves a, "Well that's too bad." Reluctantly I pause my game and walk to the kitchen where my father sits spreading margerine on his whole wheat toast. The brown chunky liquid is steaming. I am allowed to pour grated cheese into the bowl, stir it around, take a spoonful from the edge, blow, and taste. I would not know until much later on in life that those days of eating soup for dinner would one day be a nostalgic anchor for an older Frankie. A Frankie who has to make his own soup now that he has no mother to take care of him.

Grocery list

Chicken breast
Riesling
Asparagus
Carrots

The 3rd Incarnation of Frankie Android

So, I'm at work inventing things to d0 like pricing document scanners and disabling user logons for former staff members. Those things are all job related. If I do those things I can take credit for them and gain recognition and praise. Though, what I really want to do is play Mob Wars all day. Actually, I need to be shopping for a new service provider for my band's website. By the way, I'm a Rock 'N' Roll addict. I think I've created 75 Pandora stations. They never seem to work right. I tried to do The Beatles with a twist of Roy Orbisson and I got a lot of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bobby Darin. Well, now that I think about it, what was I supposed to expect?

You know, I like blogging. Every now and then I write something really funny and I go back and read it and bust my pants laughing. I should do that now. The ladies in the registration area will think I'm nuts laughing out loud at some internet stuff. I should repost my emails. There are some gems between me and my good friend Teri. I had better not, we name names.

Anyway, I hear someone coming. Stuff is going down.

-Peace