So I'm driving back to my house today at around 2 PM, so I can meet a guy about adding stairs to my deck and to let my dog out. It's like any other day, it's nice outside, and I'm frazzled from the craziness that the early-Spring brings the poolman.
I make the turn from Old Georgetown down Tuckerman Lane and I'm in the right lane getting ready to turn into my neighborhood (OK, stalkers...now you know where I live) when I see the two cars in front of me slam on their brakes and come to a jolted stop. Great...they just got into an accident. I switch over to the left lane behind a UPS truck, but then things start getting weird.
The UPS truck pulls to the left and stops in the middle of the street, cars coming the other way all stop and people are getting out of their cars. I slow down, figuring these cars might be pretty messed up, when I realize what just went down.
I come to a stop right next to the first car of the two, an SUV...and there in front of that car lay a girl on the ground. She's not moving. This fucking intersection!! I've lived here for over 2 years now, and frequently walk my dog across Tuckerman to get to the park on the other side. And almost every time I try to cross, people come tearing down the street, completely oblivious to the reality that a car should yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. Pulling out of my street in my car is just as difficult and I've always wondered why we don't have a light here.
Sadly, it takes shit like this before the county will consider doing something like that. And there lay this girl, finally moving her leg ever so slowly. A man with no shirt is standing over her, a frantic look in his face. Women have congregated on the sidewalk, crying and making calls...assumedly for an ambulance, and the UPS guy has gotten over to the scene. I'm not a doctor and there's really no point in me getting involved, so I sit there in my car, rattled by yet another surreal experience going on around me.
As blood begins to stain the asphalt around her, I can only hope that an ambulance will get here soon and that she will be alright. She is likely one of my neighbors...though one I don't recognize, and as the UPS guy begins acting like a traffic cop directing me and the row of cars behind me past this scene, I am left to wonder.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Bienvenido a Miami
It's been a long time, but I have finally returned after experiencing some pretty crazy shit this past weekend, which had to be written about and saved for posterity. I hope you enjoy:
For those of you that weren't aware, this past weekend I made a trip down to Miami with some buddies to celebrate my friend, Kupe's bachelor party. In the past, we have hit up the likes of Las Vegas and New York City for bachelor parties and I've seen some pretty crazy shit during these escapades, as seen in some of the slide shows I have on this blog. However, nothing could have prepared me for the most surreal 2 hours of my life on Friday night.
After checking into the Fountaine Bleu hotel and seeing that my buddy Ike had hooked us up with a ridiculously large suite, we decided to get things started by heading to a dog track to watch the NCAA games and bet blindly on dogs running in circles. The track is out in the middle of nowhere and the clientele patronizing this establishment are reminiscent of a mid-week, mid-day Atlantic City outing. Nonetheless, we settle down at a table, order a round of $1 Rolling Rocks, several plates of chicken fingers and fries, and begin throwing money at random dogs such as Mo's High Steppen, who coincidentally won me no money. We knew it was going to be a long night when the waitress brought us our 4th round short one beer, informing us that they ran out and that we could have another, but it would be hot. Yes, hot.
We headed out of there, I was up about $20 by dumb luck, and we walked out to the parking lot to see absolutely no cabbies. Figuring we'd have better luck on the main road, we trecked out to the corner where a McDonald's sat and within a few minutes a cab showed up. Now this is when things start to get a little weird.
So, we tell the cab where we're heading (back to South Beach) and he proceeds to scratch the side of his car on the curb, before jumping it as he pulls into the McDonald's parking lot. Perhaps this should have warned us to reconsider using this guy, but hell, we're in Miami.
Within moments of driving, we've struck up a conversation with Jorge (don't call me Hor-hey) Sanchez, a Cuban-born, 60-something who drives his cab because it's fun, not to make money. In fact, he reset our meter after driving about 2 miles, laughing that he doesn't give a shit. Is he drunk??
So, we keep driving, he's telling us that he hates Cubans and hopes Castro dies so that "some of these assholes" will go back, and then we start talking about women. The converstaion takes a turn for the worst when he starts telling us stories about his ex-wife and how much of a whore she was, and that leads us to the most bizarre of all cabbies moments.
Old Jorge decides that he's gonna show us a picture of his new girlfriend. She's a crackhead, and she's in rehab now, and she used to be a hooker, but she's all his...and he usually doesn't like showing anyone pictures of her because then they want to date her..but hell, we're like family now. So he reaches for his cell. phone and is having trouble getting to the pictures, so all attention is on the phone, not the road, as illustrated by the three lanes we're swerving in. Again, we were suprisingly not upset by this. But we were upset by the series of pictures that ended up developing.
There before our eyes, on this old Cuban's grainy cell. phone sat a picture of a relatively fat black woman seated in his passenger seat. He instructed Kupe to push the button on the phone to continue to cycle through the pictures, which went from bad to worse. Now she's sitting there topless. Now she's got her legs up. Whoa...where did her underwear go? Oh my god, is that his wang? And her mouth? Yeah, I would have to say the last thing I would want to do is want to date this girl. Dear god, what is wrong with this city??
So, we eventually make it to our destination...The Clevelander, where upon our exit, Jorge once again lowers our $24.00 fare to an even $20...I mean he really doesn't give a shit...and he lives in his cab...he told us.
Happy to be out of that surreal experience I walk towards the bouncer for Clevelander only to have a couple walk right in front of my path. And they both have pythons drapped across their shoulders??!!! What is in the water around here?
We walk into the bar, house music is pumping, so you all know I'm super thrilled. I mean, get me a glow stick and a couple of small Asians and my night would be made. But instead, all I got was a guy dancing on a stage wearing a costume like the Last Samurai, with some sort of animals horns on his helmet, and his swinging a flaming whip to the beat. Uh yeah...normally all of this would be shocking to me, but I did just see a picture of a 60 year old man getting his dick sucked by a crack whore. And perhaps it's better I saw all of this, because it destracted from the $280 bar tab we ran up over the next 4 hours of drinking.
Bienvenido a Miami...and that's only our first night.
For those of you that weren't aware, this past weekend I made a trip down to Miami with some buddies to celebrate my friend, Kupe's bachelor party. In the past, we have hit up the likes of Las Vegas and New York City for bachelor parties and I've seen some pretty crazy shit during these escapades, as seen in some of the slide shows I have on this blog. However, nothing could have prepared me for the most surreal 2 hours of my life on Friday night.
After checking into the Fountaine Bleu hotel and seeing that my buddy Ike had hooked us up with a ridiculously large suite, we decided to get things started by heading to a dog track to watch the NCAA games and bet blindly on dogs running in circles. The track is out in the middle of nowhere and the clientele patronizing this establishment are reminiscent of a mid-week, mid-day Atlantic City outing. Nonetheless, we settle down at a table, order a round of $1 Rolling Rocks, several plates of chicken fingers and fries, and begin throwing money at random dogs such as Mo's High Steppen, who coincidentally won me no money. We knew it was going to be a long night when the waitress brought us our 4th round short one beer, informing us that they ran out and that we could have another, but it would be hot. Yes, hot.
We headed out of there, I was up about $20 by dumb luck, and we walked out to the parking lot to see absolutely no cabbies. Figuring we'd have better luck on the main road, we trecked out to the corner where a McDonald's sat and within a few minutes a cab showed up. Now this is when things start to get a little weird.
So, we tell the cab where we're heading (back to South Beach) and he proceeds to scratch the side of his car on the curb, before jumping it as he pulls into the McDonald's parking lot. Perhaps this should have warned us to reconsider using this guy, but hell, we're in Miami.
Within moments of driving, we've struck up a conversation with Jorge (don't call me Hor-hey) Sanchez, a Cuban-born, 60-something who drives his cab because it's fun, not to make money. In fact, he reset our meter after driving about 2 miles, laughing that he doesn't give a shit. Is he drunk??
So, we keep driving, he's telling us that he hates Cubans and hopes Castro dies so that "some of these assholes" will go back, and then we start talking about women. The converstaion takes a turn for the worst when he starts telling us stories about his ex-wife and how much of a whore she was, and that leads us to the most bizarre of all cabbies moments.
Old Jorge decides that he's gonna show us a picture of his new girlfriend. She's a crackhead, and she's in rehab now, and she used to be a hooker, but she's all his...and he usually doesn't like showing anyone pictures of her because then they want to date her..but hell, we're like family now. So he reaches for his cell. phone and is having trouble getting to the pictures, so all attention is on the phone, not the road, as illustrated by the three lanes we're swerving in. Again, we were suprisingly not upset by this. But we were upset by the series of pictures that ended up developing.
There before our eyes, on this old Cuban's grainy cell. phone sat a picture of a relatively fat black woman seated in his passenger seat. He instructed Kupe to push the button on the phone to continue to cycle through the pictures, which went from bad to worse. Now she's sitting there topless. Now she's got her legs up. Whoa...where did her underwear go? Oh my god, is that his wang? And her mouth? Yeah, I would have to say the last thing I would want to do is want to date this girl. Dear god, what is wrong with this city??
So, we eventually make it to our destination...The Clevelander, where upon our exit, Jorge once again lowers our $24.00 fare to an even $20...I mean he really doesn't give a shit...and he lives in his cab...he told us.
Happy to be out of that surreal experience I walk towards the bouncer for Clevelander only to have a couple walk right in front of my path. And they both have pythons drapped across their shoulders??!!! What is in the water around here?
We walk into the bar, house music is pumping, so you all know I'm super thrilled. I mean, get me a glow stick and a couple of small Asians and my night would be made. But instead, all I got was a guy dancing on a stage wearing a costume like the Last Samurai, with some sort of animals horns on his helmet, and his swinging a flaming whip to the beat. Uh yeah...normally all of this would be shocking to me, but I did just see a picture of a 60 year old man getting his dick sucked by a crack whore. And perhaps it's better I saw all of this, because it destracted from the $280 bar tab we ran up over the next 4 hours of drinking.
Bienvenido a Miami...and that's only our first night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)