Saturday, October 22, 2005

Waking up in four hours so I can drive eight. . . .

So in a few short hours, Eric Ernst and I shall make the harrowing journey to Decatur, GA, to participate in the world premiere of "Love is Deaf" at the PASTE ROCK 'N' REEL FESTIVAL. Instead of sleeping, I'm drinking Scotch and watching Conan while eating the left over craft service pretzels from "Melissa With A Heart Around It" (confidential to B.P.: if you want to save money on your food, you better pick these up soon -- I'm munching them into oblivion).

May I say that I hate Fridays? To be fair to Friday, I actually hate the entire weekend, save THE WEST WING on Sunday night, but since I get to go on a road trip tomorrow, it's basically just Friday I loathe. I have heard it rumored that in some cultures, Friday is a night of revelry and good humor. For me it is a night of, "Oh, shit, the only thing on TV is this Amanda Bynes sitcom."

Close friends will recall there was once a time I admitted counting WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU as a guilty pleasure. That was in its quirky first season, where it had a sweet offbeat sense of awkwardness, like all the most desirable teenage girls I ever knew. In its second and subsequent seasons, the writers realized that Amanda Bynes was hot, thus by extension cool, and the show suddenly adopted an unabashed policy of lavish cool mongering. Suddenly Holly (Amanda's character) and her sister Val lived in a fucking unbelievable loft apartment and Holly jettisoned her ultimate geek boyfriend Henry in favor of the built-for-hearthrob-status Vince. The show has sucked ass ever since, and yet I keep watching it, because, alas, I have no fucking life on Friday nights.

One of the reasons may be the fact that Angelyn, my wife, works on Friday nights. Much of what passes for Friday night entertainment amongst my peers involves behavior in which it's best a married man does not participate without his wife present. I'm not making the ball & chain argument or anything. I'm not saying married life is a drag. Honestly, I hate that shit anyway. I hate bars and clubs. Well, I hate clubs. I like bars you can walk to and bars in which you can actually hear what the drunk beside you is blathering about.

I miss downtown St. Augustine. I don't want to live there again, I just wish all towns were organized in the same fashion. I miss that neighborhood quality. What is the point of a bar you have to drive to? Part of the fun of getting really good and drunk is stumbling across town on uneven brick streets, doing your best not to end up in the hedge of a bed & breakfast. And for that matter, who wants to drive to coffee shops? To bagel shops? To school? To the park? I miss downtown St. Augustine.

When I left St. Augustine, I felt like the departure couldn't come soon enough. The town had a claustrophobic feel that was really getting me down. I loved the local flavor but I hated driving an hour to Jacksonville for a Best Buy or a decent movie theater. Funny, since now I hardly ever go to Best Buy or the movies. I prefer television in general to the shit they market at the cineplex, and I have an iPod.

I don't want to move back to St. Augustine. At least, I don't think I do. I miss aspects of it, but ultimately, it still reeks of the past. I'm not referring to its historical status but to the memories of a life I'm completely disconnected from now. Hell, I even went by a different name then (I won't say what for those who don't know). I don't think I can go back and keep moving forward.

But I do long for a neighborhood where I can walk to a bar and a coffee shop. Where my friends live less than ten minutes away from me. Where I can stumble into hedges in the dark.

My Scotch is almost empty, raising the great philosophical question, "Do I go to bed for three hours, or do I pour another round?" I might pour another round if I had my own hedges in which to stumble, but I recently pulled up the hedges. We were going to put in banana trees.

1 comment:

  1. Dude, there were like 50,000 new Sci-fi related shows that launched this Fall season and one that I really like is 'Threshold' on CBS Friday Nights. I believe NUMBERS is on that same channel Friday night too. No need to suffer through inane sitcom blather when you can follow Math geeks and invasion scenarios!

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