Mary: “Can I show you something?”
Clark: “Ah. I was just smelling – smiling. I was just blouse – browsing. “
Mary: “For your wife or your girlfriend?”
Clark: “What? What happened? Whoof! I guess it wouldn’t be any… Whoa! It wouldn’t be the christmas shopping season if the stores were any less hooter than – hotter than they are. Whoo! It is warm in here.”
Mary: “Well, you have your coat on.”
Clark: “Oh, do I? How did that happen?”
Mary: “Because, it’s cold out.”
Clark: “Yes, it’s a bit nipply out. I mean nippy out. (laughs) What did I say, nipple? Ah, there is a nip in the air though.”
Mary: “Can I take something out for you?”
Clark: “(laughs) I was just looking at something for my wife, god rest her soul.”
Mary: “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”
Clark: “Oh no no no, she’s not dead. We’re just divorced. She’s history. And, obviously she doesn’t wear underwear. And, there are plenty of shopping days left until aduteries – adulthood – which is to say christmas, as in yule, yule log. Not a log, I don’t have a log. I mean you know. If I had a log, not in the sense that you think I said I did. (laughs) Good golly. Tis the season to be merry.”
Mary: “That’s my name.”
Clark: “No Shit?!”

So anyhow, I didn’t want to stop talking to her, and for once I could tell that she liked me. I wanted to prolong the flirtation of the century for as long as possible….and like I ended up actually buying this sort of expensive necklace. And at first my plan was to be like “Hey, you know what I was going to buy this for someone but I don’t think she’d really appreciate it so How about if I just give it to you.” But I didn’t want to embarrass her or anything so I chickened out. Also, it was so quiet and there were a few other girls working there, you could have heard a pin drop. It would have been the most awkward thing. Not to mention things were going so well I didn’t want to blow it by doing something totally outlandish…and I have blown it many times before. But I didn’t want to disappoint her so I had to get something that would make her think “wow good choice,” and I think I was successful because while she thought I wasn’t looking, she looked in the box at the necklace I got and smiled at it.

So now I’m stuck with this necklace from Juicy Couture. It’s like that episode from Flight of the Conchords Season 2 where Bret likes the girl who works at the pet store, but rather than just ask her out, he just keeps going there and buying goldfish until the apartment is just filled with them. And I can’t even really give the necklace to another girl because a: there isn’t one and b: if I did try to give it to another girl then someday she would read this and get pissed off, because she would realize it wasn’t meant for her but instead was intended to be for the Juicy Couture shopgirl whose name I only know because they annoyingly call out people’s first names at Starbucks.

<3 !!!

G: !

B: Well at least I finally got your attention.

Anyways, there’s this really awesome black homeless guy who hangs out at Borders all day and just reads books. He never talks or does anything obnoxious. He just reads. Now that’s what I call making good use of your time. He even has the good sense to hang out in downtown Scottsdale. In a way, homeless people can live anywhere they want, so why do so many choose to hang their hat, and set up cardboard box shop in seedy, ghettoriffic areas. I’ve often thought that if I were super rich, I would seek out promising homeless people…and out of the blue give them $10,000 for a chance at a new start. No strings attached. Sure, some of them would just blow through the cash, and be back in the same position but you never know. It would be like in Clash of the Titans when Zeus, played by Laurence Olivier… stands Perseus’ figurine upright in the colisuem when nobody is looking so that Harry Hamlin can fight and defeat the Kraken.

But, Laurence Olivier is dead, I’m not super rich, and I just saw they’re actually remaking Clash of the Titans which is depressing. Will Hollywood never run out of things to exploit?
Whoever came up with the dumb idea of remaking so many classic movies, and why are they not in front of a firing squad?

p.s. when I was a kid I had a Clash of the Titans lunchbox

Also, with respect to making connections, I suppose it would help if I didn’t make obscure pop cultural references to things that came out practically before these girls were born.

Then it was off to Casey Moore’s. Hung out with Adriane mostly. Stayed until close, and we walked to a Tempe house party afterwords….which was 99% Mexicans speaking either spanglish or mex-ebonics. There was a not a conversation to be had with anyone. It’s always depressing to show up at a party at a house where lovely things once took place and have it be just be unrecognizable spanish hip hop and riff raffy sort of gangster people. I’m pretty sure we were the only white people there. Not that that matters in itself, but it seems silly to import a barbaric foreign culture that still celebrates male chauvinism and where female intelligence is de-emphasized when we’ve just spent hundreds of years correcting such practices and have finally started to reach a respectable point of civilization. All that progress… down the tubes.

I’m a lot like the dog Charlie from “All dogs Go to Heaven”. Seemingly friendly,yet a mangy, scheming, conniving, shyster always out for whatever scraps I can get….but you know deep down I’m all right. “Oh, you can’t keep a good dog down..”

I’m a lot like Justin from The Secret of Nimh, archetype romantic hero, eloquent, charming in a classical over the top kind of way, often to the point of making you want to puke or get creeped out.

Gone are the days of chatting it up with a girl until dawn about endless subjects and romantic nonsense, with the call ending with one of you(usually me,) falling asleep while still on the phone.

Nowadays a phone call is almost considered a faux pas.
“God, why is so and so calling me? Why don’t they just text me?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some epic, “Helen of Troy” caliber romantic text message conversations.
And text messaging suits me. It’s all done completely at your convenience, and it gives you time to always come up with carefully crafted perfect things to say. If you get caught off guard..you can always just not respond and claim you never got the text…or simply wait until you can come up with a satisfactory response.

Still it’s not the same. I can’t help but feel that something was lost when girls stopped talking on the phone for romance and recreation. Now even in text it’s mostly just business in a sense.

“are you going to be there?”
“yeah leaving now “
“k see you soon”

Nothing personal, it’s just business

http://www.brazilbrazil.com/vanburen.html

I never knew that the “Miranda rights” originated from this seedy street, which has apparently always possessed varying degrees of seediness:

In the early 1960s an 18-year-old woman was walking down Van Buren, returning from work to her home near 7th street, when she was abducted, kidnapped, raped and robbed by a certain Ernesto Pablo Montoya Miranda. Well, Miranda was criminal scum, but he was scum with good legal advice. His case was (in my opinion) one of the three most famous (or influential) cases ever to come before the US Supreme court (The others were the Dred Scott decision about slavery and the Brown vs. the Board of Eduation ruling, about integration and civil rights). In 1966 the Court ruled that Miranda had been denied his constitutional rights and thus was born the famous “Miranda” warning used by police today: You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney and to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at no cost. During any questioning, you may decide at any time to exercise these rights, not answer any questions or make any statements. If Van Buren Street had been a better place, this would not have happened, or not to the young lady. Oh yes, Miranda was later killed in a bar fight and his attacker was arrested and read his Miranda Warning rights. He then declined to give a statement, and so he was released and then fled to Mexico. Is that irony or justice or what?

The last time I made a trip down VB was when I was looking to purchase a used car last year. Van Buren is home to some of the tackiest car dealerships in town….Bunny Auto Sales and Jalopy Jungle just to name a couple. I went to almost every single place(there are at least 40 used car lots on van buren.) It was sketchy even during the day, and I could not find a single car in long term drivable condition. When I looked under the hood of one sort promising vehicle…the coolant fluid was black! I said no thanks….