Posts Tagged ‘fashion square’

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pay me now or pay me escalator

November 7, 2010

I met a girl on the escalator at Fashion Square today in Nordstrom’s. It was completely by chance. She was walking in front of me toward the escalator, but then she paused and walked in another direction because she got confused about which one was up or down. By the time she figured out that she had been going the right way before, I had passed her up. So when I stepped on, she got on right after me. Out of nowhere she said “Hey your shoes look really well loved” which I guess means they look dirty or used or something. Anyway I was like “Thanks I just got them three days ago.” “Really? Oh I’m sorry.” And you could tell she was thinking that she said the wrong thing. The whole time she was talking to me, she was trying to button the bottom button of her cardigan. So I shot back “having a bit of trouble with that bottom button aren’t you.” “Yeah” she said somewhat nervously. As we got off the escalator I said “See ya,” and we went our separate ways… and I thought about how she said “I’m sorry” like three times on our brief one floor escalator ride…and how we managed to squeeze that much conversation into such a small distance. Maybe time stopped. “And just like that, I’m in love again” I recalled the words of Mark Harmon at the beginning of the movie Summer School. The only thing I was sorry about is that it wasn’t a longer escalator ride and so I didn’t get an opportunity to ask for her name and number. Hell, even with just her first name I could have found her on Facebook or something…unless she has one of those new weirdly spelled versions of common names that seem to be so popular…(like Myshele instead of Michelle etc.) This could have potentially been a new girl to go on a few awkward dates and have it end horribly.

I’ve done the math in my head, and I’m certain that will never see her again.

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Guard well this shield. For one day it will guard your life

May 31, 2010

I attempted to clean out my room today, but about 15 minutes into it…I discovered The Zombies greatest hits cd that Brandie(an infamous ex from several years back who later became a reliable if completely invisible friend) gave me for Christmas in 2004. And so of course I got sidetracked and ended up dancing on my bed in my underwear(and an American Apparel tanktop) for about 45 minutes. I kind of wish I would have gotten it on video, but then again I kind of don’t. Lately my days are filled with such shenanigans. I conduct almost all my important art related business from my cellphone on the roof of the parking garage at Fashion Square Mall. A lot of Scottsdale girls walk by and either smile or scowl at me, but as of yet no one as ever bothered to ask me what the fuck I’m doing there.

Yesterday, I helped Jonathan put up his posters and promote his album. There was one that needed to be placed in a prominent position on Mill Ave, but he was too scared to put it up there because there are usually bike cops everywhere and he was afraid of getting fined…so I decided to run for it and just tape that sucker up, but before I did I quoted Laurence Olivier from Clash of the Titans(1981 version) and said “Fortune is ally to the brave.” It’s a quote that always seems to jump in my mind in critical moments of decision making or hesitation. I’m almost always the designated person who has to go up to a group of girls cold and talk to them, and pave the way for my friends. I will find any excuse to talk to them, and if I do not have one i will simply make something up. Life is too short to care about what some girl thinks of you, and most of the ones you meet turn out to be dumb as bags of hammers anyway. At best they tend to be unimaginitive and uninspiring. Not all of them though, and of course some of them, the most dangerous ones…you do care what they think. And so bravery does not come without wounds and battle scars.

But anyway, back to COTT. I had a Clash of the Titans lunchbox when I was a kid. That movie, like many others from when I was a child, became and archetype for the way I felt relationships and love should be….which of course causes a lot of problems. That’s how I always imagined it’s supposed to be, Perseus and Andromeda. Just solve the riddle, vanquish Calibos(who represents problem exes who make trouble or just scumbag competition), cut off Medusa’s head and defeat the Kraken, and the beautiful princess is yours. If only it could be that easy in real life, where you can just go on a quest and destroy some mythical beasts and walk away with the girl! Somebody lend me a helmet, a sword, a shield! I’m ready for anything, anything except the all too familiar experience of females analyzing every given suitor to death. There is nothing harder than having to shield my heart from the analytical superpowers of those few supremely likable females. I would rather do battle with cyclops’ and swordfight with skeleton kings. But I do what I must, because I am eternally courageous, which is often merely a euphemism for foolish.

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The Time Waster…a synopsis

May 11, 2010

I wanted to go out so badly last night, but fell asleep at like 9:15. I’ve been sleeping a lot the last few days…like 14 hours a day. I had a good run for a while where I went out nearly 20 days in a row, only missing a day here and there. It’s hard to imagine why someone would continue go out that many times without having fun…but I’m stubborn like that. My allergies mostly went away which means no more antihistamine induced nightmares. In fact I don’t remember dreams of any kind for the past few days, but I know they MUST have existed.

I’ve eaten at that “Blue Burrito” place at the mall every day for the last couple weeks. It’s damn good. Finally there is a decent place to eat in the food court besides Johnny Rockets(Pita Jungle is okay.) There’s enough stuff on the menu, that it may be impossible to get sick of it. It’s in that corner where the Steak and Potato place used to be…which was never a place to be seriously considered for dining, although they did have great diet pepsi. Never believe anyone who tells you that fountain drinks are alike all over. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Anyhow, you should all be proud of me because I gave up caffeine…which includes diet soda, and have not drank such a beverage for nearly 5 months. Those who have known me for a long time would be shocked by such news and might dismiss it as tabloid trash.

ZJRJ6SBRXS62

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Never a lightning rod salesman around when you need one

March 29, 2010

Saturday afternoon, after grabbing a turkey burger from Johnny Rockets at Fashion Square in Scottsdale, I cruised over to Tempe to distribute promotional materials and stumbled into the gigantic arts and crafts festival on Mill ave…which reminded me of South By Southwest except with less hipsters and more old folks. Still, I love going to these and wish the arts and crafts festival went on every weekend even though that would just cheapen the coin of the realm and less people would go. It always seems like the artifacts one could pick up at these types of events could lead to some cliche
horror movie haunting along the lines of the clock in “Amityville 1992: It’s About Time” Speaking of which, Megan Ward was so hot in that! Whatever happened to her? Many of my most romantic sexual fantasies from the 90′s involved her and that scene where she is seduced by her own reflection. As a further digression, I had a talking PeeWee Herman doll when I was a kid..the one where you pull the string and PeeWee says one of his catch phrases like “I know you are but what am I” etc. And I swear that occasionally that thing would just somehow talk on its own, which scared the shit out of me. It creeped me out so much that I made my mom hide it in the
closet.

The night at Casey Moore’s brought to town a metaphoric carnival of sorts, with various sideshows of drama, suspense, bearded ladies, merry go rounds and mirror mazes(sorry I have been reading Something Wicked this Way Comes and have these things on the brain.) I drank more than usual, so I wasn’t myself. Yes, I’m a lightweight, and two full classes of wine gets me more inebriated than I need to be and sets me off into full on mischief mode. I was trying to protect a super drunk girl who epitomizes female perfection from some really ugly, wack and disgusting guys…although it sort of turned out the girl didn’t want to be protected and was semi-enthusiastic about said dudes….which triggered a sort of “Invasion of The Body Snatchers” moment where I’m Dr. Miles J. Bennell and just discover by way of passionless kiss that someone near and dear has been replaced by a pod. Anyhow, as I’ve mentioned I’m reading “Something Wicked This Way Comes” which, aside from being a great book title, sounds a lot like the type of prediction I’m likely mutter to myself at the start of each day. The last time I saw the film version starring Jason Robards was when it initially played a plethora of times on HBO back in 1984. It terrified me as a small boy, but for some reason I could never resist watching it whenever it came on, usually in the mornings. It affected me deeply..and “the most beautiful woman in the world” as an evil temptress sequences may have contributed to my misogyny later in life(as well as induced some premature stirrings of sexuality down there.) I remembered how frighteningly traumatizing the movie was for me, and so I never saw it again even when I got older…but I think I’m ready now.

I bought a snazzy black denim jacket from American Apparel, which fits right in with my new phase of only wearing combinations of the colors “black and white”

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Last Christmas I gave you my heart..the very next day you gave it away

March 8, 2010

So I have to tell this story about what happened today. I have the hugest crush on this girl that works at Juicy Couture. I first saw her yesterday when we were waiting in line together at the Starbucks at Fashion Square mall. She’s kinda short and Scottsdale blond, wears all black. She just has that typical 20 year old Scottsdale look. Nothing special in that something special kind of way. I wanted to talk to her really badly, but I didn’t want to be that annoying cocky guy who strikes up a transparently pointless conversation. It’s painful to watch when I see jocks, old guys, or obnoxious bros do it and so I don’t do it, period. Anyway, so today just for the hell of it, I decide to go in Juicy Couture because I want to look at some of the jewelry and stuff even though I would have no one to give it to. Anyway, I walk in and it turns out this girl works there. Out of nowhere, she’s like “Can I help you find something” which she says in the most flirtatious way possible. So I decided to pretend to be interested in purchasing something and just see what would happen. I was all nervous and discombobulated. She even did the whole “Can I take something out for you?” It started to remind me of that scene from Christmas Vacation where Chevy Chase ends up looking at women’s underwear in the department store. Here is his exchange with the shopgirl:

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 !!!

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up to no good

February 15, 2010

Tweens are such horrible people. While I was in the food court eating my hummus with one extra pita, I could overhear a bunch of rambunctious, middle school aged kids horsing around at a table nearby. They were having one of those crude discussions
about various schoolyard fights that had taken place
“who fucked up whose shit more” and what have you.

“Remember when so and so fought whatchamacalit(sp?) and the result was such and such”

Anyways, one of them spotted an overweight, bookwormish, sort of homely classmate of theirs and they started calling out to him “Brandon! Brandon!” This is coincidentally what made me take notice of the situation as I heard my own name being called- whereby my first thought was ‘how the F do these kids know who I am?’

Sooo..the kid was wearing headphones like every other iPlod out there, and so he didn’t hear or notice their cat calls (which got louder and louder.) One of the heathens then sneaked up behind him and taunted the poor dude before jumping out and scaring him. The two of them exchanged a couple of inaudible little league insults and pushed and shoved each other a few times before calling it quits and heading off in opposite directions.

An oblivious lady came up to their table and asked if she could use one of the kids’ cellphones so she could call her husband. At first I was relieved that she didn’t come up to me, but listening to her talk to these kids “ohh thank you so much!” etc. she thought these children of satan were perfect little angels.

Boys can be such dickheads, though I must say that there were girls at that table too who seemed fairly complicit in their foul mouthed shenanigans. Innocent bystanders they were not.

Anyhow, it made me think back to all the cruel things I had done at that age: picking on the new kid, talking shit about someone to make myself seem cooler and be accepted by the group, selling people out, making fun of kids for things they had little or no control over, complete insensitivity. I would give specific examples, but my mind has worked hard to shield me from these sorts of childhood traumatic memories so I don’t care to bring them up now. I can only pray that those that I wronged in ancient recess times have long since forgotten these things the way girls often are able to forget that they’ve made out with me.

It’s sort of reminiscent of that episode of “The Wonder Years” where Kevin is on the yearbook staff and he comes up with those insensitive taglines for people’s yearbook photos like “let’s eat” and “oink oink”(in reference to a friendly overweight student.)

Or also that infamous scene from Flatliners with Kiefer Sutherland and the boy in the tree. “I’m gonna get you Billy Mahoney!”

I wish I could go back in time and be a nicer kid. Some of the people I used to act like I was so much better than(because of my own insecurities) were actually quite wonderful and interesting kids who were probably operating at a much higher level of maturity than I ever recognized at the time.

Just as in a man’s dog eat dog world one has to do unpleasant things to survive, so do those kids living in a brat’s world do what they think they have to. Oh the years we spend agonizing over the guilt of such things afterward. I’m not sure whatever actions which we benefited from in some small cheap way at the time were worthwhile.

When you start to imagine the reactions of the parents of kids you’ve made fun of, the same parents who love these children with their whole hearts and think the world of them, such thoughts may begin to haunt you for a long time…as they have me.

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when the going gets tough the weak go shopping

January 22, 2010

The ATM machine at Nordstroms is awesome. It lets you take out so much money, and every time a 20 shoots out it makes this cool electronic sound. I withdrew like 600 bucks, and it kept going off over and over….It felt like I hit a jackpot!(even though it was my own money.) If it weren’t for the fees involved, I would just take out money from the ATM and then go to the bank and redeposit it, then come back and re-withdraw it and just do that over and over again all day long. As if there weren’t already enough reasons to induct me in to the “creepy guys who hang out at the mall” hall of fame, I can offer this as one more.

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saturday in the afternoon

November 21, 2009

So I’ve finally recovered to the point where I can conduct business as usual. It felt so great to be able to go to the mall and wander around…a favorite childhood past time of mine. I’m still working on buying a place. The condo I had fell out of escrow, as apparently the banks won’t do loans on condos where there are too many rental units.

Its a great time to buy they say. Well, it would be a good time to buy if you are paying in cash maybe, but the reality is most of the places that are good deals are impossible to get a loan for because they are not at least 50% owner occupied or have other issues. The worst part is that it’s a catch 22. Since banks won’t do loans on these condos, that leaves only cash investors who are going to rent them out, thus further reducing the number of owner occupied units while at the same time “ghettoizing” the complexes with rental tenants.
As long as the HOA is financially sound, and the grounds are well maintained, who really cares who is living there?

I think one thing I have really come to dislike about real estate is that almost nothing seems to be done on a “case by case” basis or with any sort of objective human analysis. The whole process seems to be mostly just numbers run through computers and examined by the uncritical eye.

However, I do have a couple other places lined up so it’s only a matter of time.

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a lost mariner for whom black pearls are not sufficient

November 22, 2008

I don’t know if I should go out tonight or not. I just can’t decide. Also, I’m trying to find a nice 60′s style black leather jacket. I’m going on a mission at Scottsdale Fashion Square mall tomorrow…or maybe Target.

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new routine

November 3, 2008

Lately on saturdays I go to Fashion Square mall to walk around and daydream. I grab a burger from Johnny Rockets and then a diet pepsi from The Great Steak and Potato(their fountain drinks taste better.) I bring my little notebook and write in it when I think of stuff.  Usually I walk across the street and go to Borders for a couple hours. I’ll read a few pages of “The Fountainhead” or some such classic, but mostly just relax. For a while they would always have this Abba greatest hits cd playing over and over, and I heard it so much that I really got to like the song “name of the game.” And so I bought the cd, and of course my roommate heard me playing it and he’s like “really…? Abba?” I was surprised that he recognized who it was so quickly, and he said that his dad played it a lot when he was growing up. And I was like “I didn’t know you’re dad was an Abba kind of guy”…. “Yes, my dad’s an Abba kind of guy” he replied.

Anyway then after Borders and the mall I drive home and spend the rest of the day in my room watching mod movies like “Caprice” or “Danger Diabolik” while drawing or painting.  I like everything from the mod era, and i hate to like things outside of eras that I like, but then sometimes I still do.

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