The Beastie's

The Beastie Boys, lookin' finer than a new set of snow tires.

I had the opertunity to catch the B-Boys in concert on Monday in Detroit. The show was so money! I was down at ground zero, and got a little crushed up against the front railing.

I honestly never would have guessed that I would ever get to see these guys in concert. I was like whoa the whole time!

So Wha cha wa cha want!

Me sucky-sucky, 5 dolla make you ROFL!

This one's for Phil

Dear Phil,
The other day I went to Chicago. It was cool. I did some stuff while I was there - but nothing particularly note worthy. Then I came home.

Thanks for reading,
R

Windy City, What?

Even though the summer days of braiding daisies into your pigtails and dancing barefoot down Main Street are ending. Last (wait, week before last) weekend was beautiful in Chi-town. That’s the answer to the last installment of Dude Where Am I – fuckin Chicago bitches. See the Sears Tower in the back ground?

I’ve been trying to think of a good way to tell the story of my crazy and fun filled weekend in Chicago but I’ve been struggling with finding the time to do so (this is so going be a novel) while all my spare time in these proceeding weeks went to much needed recovery and rejuvenation.

The trip started as a first date dare that went something like this:

“Lets go to Finland.”
“What right now?” I said. “No way. What about Canada, I haven’t been to Toronto yet.”
“Oh I don’t have my birth certificate to get across the boarder.”
“Ha! Good luck with Finland!”
“Ok well then what about Chicago, let’s go to Chicago right now.”
“Now, now?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright.”

So we got in the car and drove to Chicago. At five in the morning. Still a little drunk after an all nighter of awesomely random conversation. Before even sharing a first kiss. Spontaneously, on our first date.

Some where around Grand Rapids, Michigan, half way there, First Date (FD) turned to me and asked, are we really going to Chicago right now? “I mean like, we can turn around if you want.” I thought about it for all of two seconds and replied, “We are soooo committed to Chicago right now. There’s no turning back” I wondered if she even liked me. At eight in the morning. Dead sober and getting sleepy. Before even sharing a first kiss. Spontaneously, on our first date.

We rolled into down town and got a room at the first hotel we saw. The Hilton of Chicago, as it turns out was the largest hotel in the world when built, and still remains in the top 10. Our room was on the sixth floor, the first set of keys we were issued mysteriously demagnetized them selves in the elevator so we had to go back down and get them recoded. Strangely, hommie at the front desk insisted it was our fault for putting the keys in FD’s purse – which had “millions of things that could have demagnetized these keys. Does it have a magnetic clasp? That’ll do it, yes. Your cell phone has like eight magnets in it, one for the earpiece, one fore the speaker phone, you know. You should also be careful keeping credit cards in that purse of yours. There, you’re all set.”

Too tired to argue the point, and frankly just blown away by the absurdity and non-comprehendible quickness of these statements, FD and I took the new keys and crashed almost immediately. We slept till late afternoon. Now well refreshed. In Chicago. Before even sharing a first kiss. Spontaneously, on our first date.

We decided to get some dinner and then take a walk along the water front. Which was super cool – saw all kinds of awesome stuff. We must have walked a good 3 miles before we took a brake on a bench over looking the pier. Then I totally kissed her. It was awesome. We finished off the night making our way back towards the hotel, stopping at several bars along the way.

One bar in particular stands out in my memory. This was funny. It was a champagne bar, they specialized in a world of champagnes and fine wines. I saw something on the list that looked really good – a dry, higly-oaked, Chardonnay. FD ordered a cosmo, which was too strong and was replaced by a champagne cocktail. The bar tender and I got to talking while FD was in the bathroom.

“I can not place your accent, where are you from?” he asks me.
“… New Mexico” I didn’t realize I had an accent, especially one a German bartender would notice.
“Ahh, ye! New Mexico.” Giving me the thumbs up. “Brute. Very nice.” Brute is made in New Mexico if you didn’t know.

We exchanged names, chatted it up a little more about new mex wines and then I got to telling him what I thought of the chardonnay I’d had. I told him it would make a really good eveyday wine – something non-intrusive that goes with anything and would never offend (basic wino bullshit). The German is nodding his head vigorously agreeing. “Yes. Yes. Exactly. The owner selected this wine for the list for that exact reason.” What ever. It’s two in the morning. We’re having a great time, back on the streets of Chicago. Two miles away from the hotel. We took a taxi back to the hotel.

I’ve left out a bunch. Stay tuned for Chi-Town Volume2: The Art Museum. Good times in Chicago, seriously good times.

Dude, Where Am I? (version 3.0)

Frank The Seal

Phil sent me this link. So I made a seal, I call it "Frank the Seal."

This is in conjunction with a letter that my Dad wrote to Rolling Stone Magazine. I think it's a good letter, it spotlights my Dad's unhuman ear for music (the way noone else I know can hear it) and brings up a good point; I can read all about Jessica Simpsons failing music carrer at the supper market cashier line - there's no need for it RS. Here's his letter:

A Reader's Zappa plays Zappa in Albuquerque Concert Review to Rolling Stone

Dear David,
I always enjoy your writing and taste for the obscure or not so mainstream music articles. Last night I went to see Zappa plays Zappa and I really think it would be worth checking out and expose a new genaration(s) to this amazing tour. All I can say is that I was as floored as with any of Frank's concerts I ever saw.

He would have been proud of Dweezil given the fact that except for one special guest, the legendary Ray White, all the musicians were new to the scene and most seemed in their 20's or early 30's with only the second guitar looking older. All of them phenomenal. Given the enormous task to pull this off, it was not about Dweezil but about the music. He's a superb guitar player (Frank+ Vai+ Restrain= Dweezil), an effective bandleader (mutual respect and love in the band radiates from the stage) and close with the audience.

Even Frank himself was present a few times with the aid of old video footage and tight coordination, the band was playing back-up, with Frank playing and singing, including a guitar duet, Dweezil/ Frank. The concert lasted almost 3 hours spanning from the well known to the early stuff, Absolutly free to one from Jazz from hell. When given the chance, the mixed aged audience gave a loud standing ovation each time, normally saved to demand an encore.

So I ask, can you spare some Rolling Stone space?

Thanks for your time,
William Rotsaert

Note: I'm not affiliated with anything related to the Zappas, only my ears are.

A few things

1. Whos the Techie that coined "three red lights of death"? I'm going to kill them. On a side note; Dan, I blam you for these three red lights.


2. The Corrado is in pieces for a major revamp after the head gasket blew. Here's my turbo next to a Chevy Impala - man its big (thats what she said) (the turbo, not the Impala).

"Uggggghhhhhh, not guilty."

While in Municipal Traffic Court dealing with a minute traffic citation (operating a vehicle in the state of Michigan as a Michigan resident with New Mexico plates) I shared the company of, dare I say – some pretty sketch homies.

Best of all was the guy in front of me, an older man somewhere around the age of 40. He was wearing a well worn tan colored suit coat over a greasy dark blue button up shirt, with tattered and lightly stained blue jeans that came down just over of his tan leather work boots. His gray hair was parted neatly to the side – in stark contrast to a scruffy mid-length beard. Think Hobo with Combed Hair (HCH).

When called to the bench the Judge asked HCH:

“You’ve been cited for urinating on an officer, how do you plead?”

How the hell does one even begin to go about urinating on an officer, let alone getting close enough with your pants down? HCH paused, clearly thinking hard about what his plea would be.

“Ugh, guilty.”

The Judge leaned in a little closer.

“You realize that if you plead guilty you will be taken to jail? Also, you realize that Officer [average last name] is not present to defend this unusual citation.”

To which HCH (this was awesome) said:

“Uggggghhhhhh, not guilty.”

“Dismissed.”

I was less lucky, just over a hundred dollar fine. Ouch. I should have pleaded uggggghhhhhhh not guilty!

A Word about Michigan Drivers

As an outsider, unaccustomed to the driving habits of my new state, I have a few observations. I’m constantly in shock when it comes to my interaction with other drivers. Michiganders like it fast, impatient, and fast.

In Michigan there’s no such thing as partial throttle off the line at an intersection. It’s balls out or get out of the way. I’ve been passed in the median, on the shoulder (you name it) before I can even make it through the intersection – only because I babied it a little off the line. I love fuckin with people though – I’ll take off a little slowly and then accelerate in front of them before they can get all the way around me (median, shoulder, or otherwise). “Opps, sorry didn’t see you there trying to get around me while I negotiate the death holes (aka pot holes).”

In Michigan, every one drives in excess of the posted speed limit some times doubling or even tripling it. Grandma in the Buick has more donkeys packed in her trunk than she has grandkids – and you thought you hauled ass. I’d have no problem with this (I love a good top speed run on the way to work in the morning) except for the fact that Grandma and company know they’re haulin, so they all line up behind each other in the left lane, bumper to bumper, slowing them selves down, and leaving the right lane empty except for me and a few others (probably also from out of state). It’s a cluster fuck if anyone from the right lane thinks they might try their hand at moving into the left lane to pass a slower moving truck or delivery vehicle.

In Michigan, freeway driving is the opposite of California. Instead of speed up, on the cell phone, brake hard, complete stop, speed up; it’s more like speed up, try to instigate a race with the car next to you, no brakes, squeeze in to a hole in the lane next to you, speed up.

As an outsider, unaccustomed to the driving habits of my new state, I vow to pick up as little of these bad habits as I have to so as not to cause an accident.

When hidden camera goes wrong (In het Nederlands)

Even if you dont understand it, try to sit through it. WOW.



[there might be a loose traslation/summry here at a later time, drunky, time to bed.]

Cloned: The multi-vitamin, multi-blog, multi-grain, multi-twenty-something post

I was going to blog something about Volkswagens or more about my recent sobriety induced insomnia, but I know how that gets boring. So today I’ve organized a group effort – to one up some lame totally PC story about a [skinny twenty-something] with a gym problem. Best of all, you have the option of reading the truth of what happened at the gym, or the not so truth (below). It works out in the end because I’ve been looking for a good excuse to post this picture. Fish heads, fish heads, floppy floppy fish heads.


Our hero goes to the gym a lot, he has to. On the days Shorty doesn’t go he breaks out in a full body rash, followed by mild constipation and a sever drug induced euphoria brought on by the medication he takes to help get rid of the pre-mentioned rash (wow, he’s going to kill me when he reads this). At any rate, he has his routine down path. It’s like mad organized and shit by which day of the week it is. You could say, Shorty knows his way around the gym.

Enter [skinny twenty-something] a sweaty (from playing badminton), fish like creature – new to the gym and uneducated in proper gym etiquette. Like his fishy ancestors [skinny twenty-something] learns best by example. Basically as Shorty did [skinny twenty-something] followed, minus the weight and +bad form, ++flailing limbs, +++sweaty residue on the equipment. In fact [skinny twenty-something] idealized our hero so much that he followed him around the gym, repeating each exercise just as he’d observed it done previously; like white on rice, like dead on Elvis, like a ho in a trailer park, like shit on stink… excreta ( +++sweaty residue). Think wet floppy fish heads, on exercise equipment (gross, huh?).

In observing his recent follower (hommie couldn't help but notice he was being followed) he decided to make it harder to follow him. He’d adjust the equipment to its hardest setting and maxed out on weight to send his admirer into a world of struggle and unwillingness to return to the gym, any gym, ever again.

When that didn’t work, our hero just stood by and watched [skinny twenty-something] flap about. Moments later Grimmis and the Fry Guys joined Shorty on their day off from chasing the Hamburgler around the bush, to point and laugh as [skinny twenty-something] choked himself under a barbell.

I Saw That Show Yesterday

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, which in it self isn’t normally a bad thing, but lately I think it might be more bad than okay. What I mean to say is that all this recent thinking is different from my normal thinking. I think it’s been keeping me awake at night, but it’s hard to say for sure because the dreams I have now seem so real, but then they are dreams, so maybe I am sleeping, but it doesn’t feel like it, because, you know, like I said it seems too real, the people in the dreams that is, they’re the ones that seem real. That and I have an abnormally conscious ability to make decisions in these dreams where never before did I have any effect towards my own dream-plot-development.

Dreams are weird, I never used to have them, or if I did I don’t remember having them. The ones I do remember having had all already happened, like “oh I saw a TV show yesterday.” These new dreams are more like “I’m watching this TV show right now.” Old dreams didn’t always have me in them and if they did I always saw myself romping around as a deaf-mute, third person. New dreams always star Raven, and most times it’s me (first person) with the dialog/monolog – and the people are cheering!

Consequently this recent thinking is way less productive in my normal routine. At work I find my self making sketches and imaging what (this one happened this morning) I would look like with no hair. Yesterday I spent twenty minutes (it had to of been at least that long) yelling in my head to my self about how much I hate Michigan Lefts. Fucking Michigan Lefts, man. You know there’s a state published website dedicated to the history and functionality of said turning methodology. And sure, okay, fine, traffic probably flows better now… according to the web site it does. Who ever came up with that shit … according to the website it was a group effort Joseph Hobrla, and Joseph Marlow, cerca 1960 – anyway, what were they thinking! A u-turn to make a left, right lane to make a left, only on some intersections, others you can still make a traditional left, some times left lane, sometime you can even get turned around enough to where you don’t remember making a u-turn but you know you must have because you’re traveling southbound (or are you?), it’s just confusing. The signage is awesome though, Dan would have a field day taking pictures of this shit.

Last night I was a life guard on a beach, hard core bay watch styles, but instead of bouncing boobs and David Hasselhoff, there I was talking to Francisco about video games (“Did you hear they’re making a new Zelda game?” “Yes, I think so, it’s got zombies in it now.” “That’s right.”), while we watched the creepy possessed girl from The Exorcist drowning in the ocean (arms flailing about, her nappy black hair getting in her face, screaming (but off in the distance screaming, not the kind that’s concerning)). After that, I dreamed about Japanese tourists ("one more picture, please") and naked girls ("I'd eat soup off of that"). I dont feel well rested at all, but it was awesome.

..ummm, thanks Dan

Dan gifted me a car online. This thing is CLASSY! Thanks Dan - but be ready for a return gift.

UPDATE: this is the roof.

Torn up, Part 2

milkman said...
"Bajaja.
Oh BTW--I picked up an XBox Live Gold subscription. Online in 20 minutes? I'm tore up on wine."

You and me both brother!

Tonight I solute the good people of Bourgogne. They sure make a good wine.

Track day at Gingerman Raceway

I have two fullsized posters of the .:R GTI hanging in my living room. I love this car. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the track day this morning and saw this!!!


I love Michigan...