Payne did not carry a pistol and tried not to limp

This line is from The Bushwhacked Piano. It's by Thomas McGuane. I read Panama after Peter's suggestion. I wanted to see if that's how McGuane always writes. I'll let you know how I feel later.

I got A Crackup at the Race Riots by Harmony Korine. I have a feeling it's not going to be very good but I'm pretty genuinely interested in seeing how the fuck that guy writes. I'll let you know how it is.

I'm listening to Texas is the Reason and feeling weird about it. Listening to emo at 23 makes you wonder how psyched you would have been had you heard it at 16. I'm talking about real emo.

I saw this PSA today with Wanda Sykes telling kids that it isn't cool to refer to things as "gay" in lieu of "dumb" or "whacked". See that? I typed that like a square. Whacked? That's how your dad would type it. Anyway, that commerical was gay.

Enough of that. Jour, trois:

This was on the way to Laguna for our beach day. I like this because who gives a shit whether or not God surfs. Are there stickers like this for every hobby? God flies remote control airplanes. Kewl.

This is South Laguna Beach. Kind of like that MTV show but with less ugly blondes and more old fat dudes. I went to the real Laguna Beach too. It was sort of like that show. They didn't wear shirts very often and they played a lot of volleyball.

This is called the "ocean fog". It looks overcast but give it a few hours, around 2, and all this stuff is pushed inland. See the picture of my brother as an example.

This is a seagull. I threw a cherry pit at it. It tried to eat it. Seagulls are dumb.

This is a shithead kid sitting on his skimboard, contemplating whatever it is a 14 year old shithead from Laguna, California contemplates. Probably puka shells or some shit. Or the latest Wavves album.

This is my brother. He has a dent in his chest. This is right before he jumped into the ocean. Did I mention that the Pacific is fucking freezing? The water actually hurts your joints after 30 seconds.

This was at a tiny shop called "Sanchez' Soccer Shop" or "Garza's Soccer Shack" or "Valdez' Soccer Hut" or something like that. My brother wanted to look at jerseys. There was a tiny Mexican woman who was running the shop and by running the shop I mean she was watching Spanish television and not acknowledging anyone who came in.

Pretty much every city in California has signs like this. Total bummer.

Coming up next, Magic Mountain and pictures of the epic sunburn I got. sssssick.

Punk is the new black

Kyle was in town last night and he left this afternoon so now I'm thoroughly bummed. To fill the void left by my eternal bro, here's day two of Californication. You know, like that RHCP song.

We had a rental car so basically, every night before we went to bed we'd decide what to do the next day. We caught wind of a shred park in San Clemente, about 20 minutes south of San Juan Capistrano, where we were staying with my aunt. LE'S DO IT.

My brother said, "Give me your camera". This is what he took a picture of. He said, "It's a Faggio, you know, from San Andreas". Referring to Grand Theft Auto. It was weird.

This is San Clemente skatepark. When skating blew up five years ago or whatever, California wanted to give kids a place to do it so they weren't grinding ollies all over their walls and shit. They found companies that would do it the cheapest who had no idea how to build skateparks. This park (and countless others just like it) was the result. Thrasher calls them "Certified Pieces of Suck". It was pretty fun though. There was also this total SoCal barney with high tube socks and Half Cabs getting gnarly on the tranny. His shirt said something about drinking a lot of beer.

After the skatepark, we went to the beach. Naturally.

I found at that when shoppping for beach front real estate, you only pay for the plot. My aunt said a lot of the time, people will just tear down the houses and rebuild when they buy a new plot. Oh yeah, those properties are worth around 4 million.

This is San Clemente pier. Hispanic folks fish off of it. You're really not supposed to do that because the bait attracts seagulls. They don't give a fukkk.

Surfer brahs! These guys were pussies. They'd pass on all the good waves and jump on these little shitters that didn't even break half of the time. Also, the Pacific is frigid. I can't imagine what it must be like to sit out there all day. But hey, whatever gets you laid.

This is a cat. He was mangy. I don't think he lived at the house he was chilling in front of.

This is my aunt's lemon tree. It's pretty tight to have a lemon tree in your front yard.

Next up, beach day and epic sunburns! I'll probably talk about food too. Catch you guys on the flipside.

People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles

I'm just going to do these one day of the trip at a time because I don't want to spend the time posting eight days worth of photos and writing witty commentary for each. I can only shell out so much funny at a time, nawmean?

el primer dia:

My first flight in, uhhh, 21 years. This is the view right out of Indianpolis. kewl.

Our airline was Frontier. I had never heard of this airline before. Each plane had a different animal on its wings. They had names. My favorite was Grizwald, the Grizzly Bear.

Have you ever paid $6 to watch Tom and Jerry for an hour and 55 minute flight? God, I hope not. I wish I had a printout of how many people paid to watch TV. It was also $8 for a movie. The movies consisted of Pink Panther 2 and Inkheart.

This little dewd's foot kicked my elbow the whole way from Denver to San Diego. sssssick. Instead of being an asshole to his parents, I just shoved my camera behind me and took his picture a bunch.

Seeing the Grand Canyon from a plane is like listening to a live album.

After the rental car company made me sign a bunch of paperwork that I had no idea what any of it meant, we spent our first day at the SD Zoo. It's massive at 100 acres and is one of the best in the world.

When it's hot out, the animals just tend to chill like this meerkat. I wondered how many kids said that this dude was Timon. Or do kids even know who that is anymore?

The zoo boasts the most koalas outside of Australia. They aren't in cages at all because they're too lazy and love eucalyptus too much to go anywhere. I like koalas. They look like Gus.

An otter trying to score a tan. Speaking of which, there are a lot of disgustingly tan people. Meemaws and pop pops tend to have the best leather-skin tans.

Red pandas are one of those animals that would make badass pets. How much would that rule? Waking up with one of these dudes at your feet?

Okapis are tight because they're like part zebra, part... something else.

This was one of those exhibits where people flip their shit and dads knock over other kids and grannies to get a video of the sleeping tigers. Those tigers would like to eat the dads.

Tapirs are fucking weird.

This mandrill was weird because it stared out at all the people the whole time. It makes you wonder what this dude would be thinking if he could, you know, think.

Fucking dinosaur bird, man.

Click on this picture for the larger version and you can see a big male gorilla, which is pretty badass. This was taken from a skytram thing which was cool because you could see the whole park as well as a lot of San Diego.

There was this huge, awful mural outside the Giant Panda exhibit that was borderline racist with squinty-eyed guys and dragons and yin-yangs and shit. It looked like they brought in a bunch of different people to paint pandas and this guy on the left was definitely the best. I may need to appropriate it into a painting.

Oh yeah, the pandas. Umm, there was a 2 hour line because they're like one of a few in zoos in the world. We didn't bother waiting because pandas don't do much. Also, you can watch them online at:

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam/index.html

Stairway, eeerm, walkway to heaven. This would have been a nice convenience had it taken us somewhere we hadn't already been about five times. kewl.

They make tequila out of agave plants. Tequila makes future Rock of Love contestants.

and in the words of my immortal homie, DRE

...so just chill, until the next episode.

Boys and girls in america

I finished Breakfast of Champions. I need something new to read. One time I tried to read Satanic Verses and I couldn't get into it and now I'm afraid to try Rushdie again. Besides, he's no American and I want to read something SUPERAMERICAN. Like Huck Finn. I may just read that because it's been a long time since high school. I would consider Mark Twain a good American. I want to read something that is like a mash-up of all the shit I liked in other books I've read. I think that would make a pretty good book.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a pretty badass movie. Clint Eastwood was cooler when he wasn't an old asshole. "Blondie" is a good moniker for someone who isn't that blond but is closer to blond than a bunch of Mexicans. I think most of the actors in that movie are Italian or some kind of white people. I just watched Fistul of Dollars and it's nowhere near as epic as The Good...

I need to post my vacation pictures. I'll do that soon. I would just like some ideas of shit to read.

K, thx.

I play my stereo loud and it disturbs my neighbors.

The title of this post is from a Beastie Boys song. It's off of Paul's Boutique. This is one of the albums I listened to during my vacation. I also listened to:

The Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Campaign - H1N1. Several times.
The Menzingers - Hold on Dodge
Nirvana - In Utero
Braid - Frame and Canvas
Waxwing - Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns

I forgot to bring CDs to listen to in our rental car. California radio sucks unless you like MGMT or things that X103 plays, so we stole some from my uncle which I'm guessing were his sons and not his, although I could be wrong about that. They were as follows:

Suicidal Tendencies - The Art of Rebellion
Neil Young - Harvest Moon
Pearl Jam - Vs.

Vacation was fun. We did cool things. The weather was nice. The weather was better than nice. It never even looked like there might be a chance of rain. It was in the 70s except Inland, it was in the high 90s. While white people make up over 70% of California's population, it often felt much, much less than that. All of the dudes look the same. All of the girls look the same. This was odd because no one was particularly or excessively attractive. They had muscles. And they had tans. Everyone looks like a skateboarder so it was impossible to tell who actually skated. Skateboarding is illegal everywhere. You can be fined incredible amounts of money for pushing around. There is lots of elevation in California. It's nice to look out and see ocean. It's nice to look the other way and see mountains. I do not think I would like to live there. Ben Gibbard wrote a song about not understanding how you would want to live near LA. Ben Gibbard is skinny now. I saw him on Conan on the plane.

I don't like flying that much. It's nice to get across the country in four hours but it makes me feel sick and makes my ears pop a bunch. I saw the Rockies and the Grand Canyon from the plane. That was cool. I read a book and I am excited about reading again, which is good because I did not feel like it for a long time. I read Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. I'm not sure how I felt about it. I would like to discuss the book with Peter and Anna. I started Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. This is the only Vonnegut I've ever read. I think I feel alright about not having read Slaughterhouse yet. I like the one I am reading now.

I will post pictures soon. I have a lot of them. They are very tourist-ish. I think having a camera somewhere you've never been before makes the pictures automatically turn out tourist-y unless you're trying to take pictures of trash and bums. Or if you crop everything way down.

Indianapolis airport was the nicest one I was in. That's probably because it is so new. There was a store called "Pacific Outfitters". This is a weird shop to have in the Indianapolis airport.