Crotch-rot wedding

So I had a taste of what it's like to direct a wedding this weekend. Friends of ours were getting hitched this past Saturday and we volunteered to coordinate things. Oy, what a sweaty ordeal.

The rehearsal began at 4:30 Friday, which took 3 run-throughs. My duties began at 2:30 Saturday, consisting mostly of hauling my sweaty ass back & forth between the chapel and the reception hall on a muggy May afternoon in dungarees and a thick cotton twill shirt. At one point I had to drive to a pharmacy to get a can of hairspray for the bride. I changed into my year-round, all-purpose gray suit around 4:00, but continued to run around doing this and that, like getting the band members set up and helping the florists, who were 30 minutes behind schedule and brought half-wilted flowers, all while wearing a 12-year-old pair of wingtips that were not designed for extensive footwork. Thank god I brought along a pair of walkie-talkie radios so that my wife and I could communicate. By the time the ceremony began, my shirt was soaked, my crotch was all sweaty in those damned wool & polyester pants, my collar was two-toned, and my coat pockets were bulging uncomfortably with radio, cell phone, sunglasses, camera, and keys. We wound up fucking up the order in which the wedding party entered the chapel, but I think the minister and the music guy managed to cover it up. The awkward moment came after the minister introduced the new couple. The music guy was supposed to play a song right at that moment, but fumbled with the controls and left the couple standing around for about 30 seconds, staring at pews full of people who had finished their applause and were wondering why the hell they were just standing there.

Our duties weren't over yet, as we had to coordinate getting the wedding party properly introduced at the reception, so I had to run back & forth between the photo shoot and the reception hall to update the band as to when they were coming in, while my wife had to track down the security guard to lock up the room where the bride's stuff was being stored. We also had to go fetch the flowers that the bumbling florists had left in the chapel and put them on the tables. At least we managed to chomp down some of the yummy wedding food, like ham biscuits, veggies & dip, crab dip, cheese platter, and these awesome roast beef & cream cheese pinwheels. By the time the whole thing was over, my feet were killing me, my wife's feet had their own share of blisters, and my crotch was raw from my sweaty, blubbery thighs slapping together all damn day. We slept until about 11:30 the next day. Thank god we had Memorial Day off, to make up for the lost Saturday.

I am excited about this coming weekend, as we have been invited to go to my father-in-law's rental house on the coast. As many of my readers are aware, coastal towns in North Carolina have a style all of their own, with simple houses built for ocean breezes and friendly streets that invite a gentle-man to don his straw hat and go for a leisurely stroll, rather than cram into an automobile and zoom through a suburban wasteland, to restaurants offering all manner of fresh seafood. We'll also have access to a local country club, where we can indulge for a weekend in the lifestyle of the "other half." We also plan on making more frequent trips to Wrightsville this year, in an effort to squeeze more enjoyment out of our family's condo, which they are threatening to sell. We hope that our increased usage of the place will convince them that the condo is still an appreciated asset and not a dead weight to be cut loose.

I kind of wish the place we're going had a place for horseback riding. I'm anxious to try out Mr. Shitesworth's 1930s cavalry officer's uniform for its intended purpose.

The '90s Room

At last, photos of my '90s room as it looks so far:




Sorry about the glare on the "I want to believe" poster. You can see the items I mentioned in earlier posts: the old computer, the '90s vintage TV set, one of my vintage A&F shirts, a replica Surge bottle on the desk, a cordless phone handset, and the big CD player.

While I wait for the boss to leave...

I thought I'd talk about my lunch hour strategy. My friends all know how much I loathe being at work all day. I try to be here as little as possible, taking frequent bathroom breaks and such. So one trick to reduce the minutes of my life wasted here is to wait until my boss leaves for lunch before I leave. We don't clock in & out so there's no way for my superiors to know exactly when I've left for lunch. So after the boss leaves, I allow a few minutes for the boss to go to the bathroom or come back for something, then I sneak out through a back door on the other side of the building where I park every day. This way I can enjoy an extra 20-30 minutes off, adding up to a good 1.5-2.5 hours not working per week.

Until just a couple of weeks ago, I had been eating lunch on my lunch break. What a waste of valuable goofing-off time! Preparing and eating lunch takes a good 20 minutes out of the afternoon, time that could be better spent catching up with stuff on the DVR, further adorning my '90s room, or playing with Mr. Shitesworth's costumes. So I've started packing my lunch and eating it at my desk. This makes me look good (working through lunch) and frees up more time to fart around at home. Three cheers for time-theft!

On a completely unrelated topic, I've been feeding my '90s obsession with TV commercials from 1998-99, widely available on YouTube. One particular gem was a 9-minute compilation of every commercial that ran during the series premiere of Family Guy, which aired January 31, 1999. See the video here. I watched this live, waiting up late after the Super Bowl in my dorm room, on my little 13" Symphonic. Of course the broadcast I saw didn't have spots for the local Chicago news or the Illinois lottery, but the rest is so strong in my memory, as if they ran last year. 1-800-collect commercials with Ed O'Neil and Damon Wayans. Poor Bitterman, they picked on him so. The early "Drivers Wanted" Volkswagen commercials. "Do you Yahoo?" And awesome teasers for X-Files: Full Disclosure. Plus the long-forgotten Fox station ID pieces. My god, what a time to be alive. I have downloaded this video via www.keepvid.com to preserve it forever, lest the ogres in the Fox legal department force its removal.

Hope you enjoy it. While you're on YouTube, look around for other great '90s commercials like the Got Milk? campaign ("Aawon Buhw!"), other 1-800-collect spots with Eva Savelot and Max Jerome, P.I., the Volkswagen "Da Da Da" commercial, and of course anything Surge-related. Feed the rush! Sometime soon I'll post photos of my '90s room.

Just a little update

This past weekend, I rescued the old Compaq computer I mentioned in an earlier post from my parents' house. Everything was there: computer, big heavy monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I'll have to research how to clean old nasty finger gunk off the mouse & keyboard. The contraption is now set up in my study. I also finally got around to putting up the "I want to believe" poster. The room now has a much more authentic late '90s feeling. Soon I'll move the old TV (encased in black plastic, not the silver stuff that became all the rage around 2000) and JVC CD player into the corner. I may locate some period posters to give the room more of a feeling of a student apartment circa 1998-99. I also brought back a few miscellaneous small items, such as a TI-81 graphing calculator, assorted 3.5" computer disks, and my 1997 vintage Advantix camera. Hmm, I just realized I need to dig out my autographed photo of Bill Clinton and hang that up.

To clarify my madness, I'm not re-living the '90s as they happened; rather, I'm constructing an alternate '90s reality for myself, in which I have female companionship, I'm not grossly obese, nor do I wear glasses, and I live on my own. Whether I have a job is ambiguous, since, while I like the income, I miss the more flexible schedule I had as a college student. So maybe I'm in school and have a part-time job. On my '90s days, I resurrect the same fashion sense and taste in music I had back then, which serve as memory-jogging cues for a greater feeling of authenticity. As I have stated before, I don't do the '90s thing every day. For one thing, I don't wish to grow bored with it. Also, I don't wish to lose touch completely with reality. Are you starting to understand why I chose my blog's title?

In other news, my esteemed associate and guest writer Mr. Shitesworth received his replica M1931 riding boots and World War II riding breeches yesterday, and is most pleased with his order. A drawback to the boots is that they resemble wrestling boots, but perhaps some stirrup straps will take care of that. He reports that the boots are also a pain in the ass to put on, as they must be laced up and tightened much like a corset. Anyone who wears Chuck Taylor high-tops can relate to that, by multiplying the trouble taken in lacing them up by 4. Still, he looks quite striking in his riding ensemble, pairing the aforementioned items with a stone-white safari shirt, replica 1912 cavalry officer's belt, and brown fedora. I think he looks somewhat like a rejected costume design for Indiana Jones.

NC-10: The forgotten main street of North Carolina

Whenever I take a long journey by car, the route sometimes takes me off the tiresome interstate and onto more picturesque stretches of back roads. But what we call back roads today were once major transportation arteries. Before the interstate highway system, travelers didn't whiz by at 75mph staring at an endless ribbon of asphalt. They saw the main streets of big cities and small towns, farms, pastures, and woodlands. Now and then, it's nice to return to those times by exploring the back roads of North Carolina. The old highway NC-10 holds a particular fascination for me.

A bit of history is necessary here. Around 1921 or so, it was deemed necessary to assign numbers to automobile trails that previously bore proper names. The major routes that covered long paths east to west or north to south were assigned two-digit numbers ending in zero. The number 10 was given to part of the Great Central Highway, running from the mountains to the coast of North Carolina. The number was later dropped entirely from this route and reassigned elsewhere.

I frequently travel between Raleigh and Greensboro, so I'm most familiar with this piece of old NC-10. With help from a wonderful website, http://members.cox.net/ncroads/index.html, I've pieced together the original route the best I can. Follow along a Google or Yahoo satellite map as you read how a traveler would have reached Raleigh coming from Greensboro at least as early as 1921:

Follow Wendover Avenue near US-220 (Battleground Avenue). The alignment in this area changed at some point after the 1930s, so it's not possible to drive the exact original routing. Follow along on US-70 (Burlington Road). My best guess is that Old Burlington Road is where the highway originally ran, but today this hits a dead end, so you'll have to take the current alignment of US-70. Stay on US-70 through Sedalia. West of Sedalia, turn left onto NC-100. Follow it through Gibsonville. Continue on Haggard Avenue through Elon. Follow Haggard Avenue/NC-100 all the way to NC-87 and turn right. Note: the 90-degree turn probably wasn't there in 1921, so for a moment you won't be on the exact original route. Follow NC-87 into Graham, but instead of turning left to stay on NC-87, stay straight onto Elm Street and follow it as it curves left and crosses NC-54, becoming NC-49. Take NC-49 to rejoin US-70 at Haw River and turn right. Continue through Efland and Mebane and into Hillsborough, but at Hillsborough, I'm not sure whether NC-10 took a right on Hill Ave. and a left on King Street to reach today's NC-86, or a right on Revere Road (US-70A) to NC-86. Either way, follow NC-86 south past I-85, then turn left onto Old NC-10. This is a truly forgotten piece of the old highway, as US-70, which replaced the NC-10 numbering in 1927, changed routing in 1930 to bypass this area. Parts of this stretch are frozen in time in a way, taking you all the way back to the earliest days of automobiling. Even before the road was numbered, bouncy rattleboxes would putter down this same path on their way to visit far-flung relatives, attend to important business in the Capital, or perhaps attend services for loved ones who had perished in the Great War. Stay on this road as it runs into Hillsborough Road, and stay on Hillsborough Road. Yet again, the 90-degree turn wasn't there 88 years ago, but if you look at it on a satellite image, you can still see the original path that cuts through someone's front yard. When you get into Durham, turn right onto 9th Street and left on Main Street. Follow it through downtown. Turn right on Alston Ave., then left on Angier Ave. This will take you through some seedy parts, so keep your wits about you and don't go after dark. The abandoned shell of a beautiful 1920s gas station can be seen on your left when you cross Guthrie Avenue. People use it as a bus stop nowadays. Eventually you'll turn right onto Miami Blvd. Follow it past I-40 as it becomes NC-54, but where it forks right, follow the right fork onto Church Street/Old Raleigh-Durham Road/Hillsboro Road into Morrisville. Turn left on Oak Street, then right onto NC-54. Take NC-54 all the way into Cary. Be on the lookout for Durham Road, a right fork just after Academy Street. Take Durham Road and make a hard left onto Chatham Street. This becomes Hillsborough Street past I-40. Follow the signs to stay on Hillsborough Street as it takes you under the old Seaboard Air Line bridge, one of my favorite sights in Raleigh. Hillsborough Street goes all the way to the State Capitol building.

The observant viewer, when following the route on a map, will notice that old NC-10 followed the railroad rather closely. This was true for many major highways across the U.S. and enriches the sense of history that can be felt on these roads. Their ancestry extends beyond their roadbed, rooted in railroads whose paths were blazed as early as the mid-19th century. Supply trains bringing much-needed provisions and equipment to Confederate troops may have rolled by some of these roads 147 years ago.

The trip down NC-10 between Greensboro and Raleigh takes a good 3 hours! Imagine taking this route 90 years ago, bouncing around in a rattling contraption with no radio and no cell phone, with only your passengers or your imagination to entertain you. Compare that to today's route via I-40, which takes no more than 1.5 hours. The old scenic route helps you feel more of a connection to what people had to go through just to get from the Gate City to the Capital, and shows you sights you'd never see on the interstate: historic buildings, open lands, forested roads, ancient railroad bridges, and the remains of a vanished world where tired travelers in their linen suits and straw boater hats would stop at a little cafe literally on the side of the road for a hot lunch, then get a full tank and some air in their belted tires from a full-service station down the street before rattling off into the wilderness of the automobile trail.

An Officer and a Gentle-Man

Ambrose Shitesworth, guest writer

In my last installment I mentioned that I had, during my fabulous week-end, engaged in horse-back riding and rather enjoyed it. My bride and I wish to return to the Vanderbilts' estate in Asheville this autumn, where we plan to participate in equestrian activities once more. This time, however, I plan to be suitably dressed for the activity.

You see, dear reader, last week-end I felt I was lacking the appropriate costume for horse-back riding. I had the fore-thought to bring along my black riding boots, but wound up wearing coarse, ill-fitting dungarees for lack of proper breeches. So, preparing well in advance for my next horse-riding session, I set about to acquire garments that suit my fascination with the graciousness of the early 20th century.

I decided that the appropriate costume for riding about a country estate would have a military influence, utilizing the rugged garments and accessories that served the mounted soldiers of the U.S. Cavalry around the time of the Punitive Expedition. Why, you may be pondering, would a gentle-man such as this prefer the Western style of riding over the English style? It comes down to matters of comfort and common sense regarding the environment in which I ride. I am not riding in England, so why make such pretense? Western riding is simply better suited for American estates, at least outside the realm of those contemptible gin-soaked New Englanders. I began researching the uniforms and equipment of the U.S. Cavalry and found a well-stocked online supplier of replica uniforms. My first inclination was to purchase items that closely resembled the appearance of a Cavalryman circa 1916. However, I came to the disconcerting realization that these items, topped with the M1911 campaign hat, would make me look like an overgrown Boy-Scout. God-damn it all! I then asked myself, were I a guest of the Vanderbilts, would a gentle-man such as myself be masquerading as a member of the Cavalry in the first place? Certainly not! The society page would be plastered photo-graphs of my bizarre choice of wardrobe. I opted instead to adopt a riding outfit which incorporated pieces of military issue that comprise an outfit unique to me. I settled on summer riding breeches made of khaki-coloured cotton, M1931 riding boots (anachronistic for the hey-day of Biltmore, but similar boots would likely have been worn at that time), my M1912 officer's belt, and my chocolate-brown sheriff's uniform shirt with matching neck-tie, topped off with a hat yet to be determined—perhaps a fedora, a wide-brimmed number, or my campaign hat. The end result will prove handsome, striking, and comfortable for a pleasant afternoon ride.

Song of the South

Ambrose Shitesworth, guest writer

I have returned from an all-too-brief journey to a place that meets all my gentle-manly needs. That place is S p r i n g_I s l a n d, South Carolina. Forgive the odd character spacing. It is a means of keeping co-workers from stumbling upon this blog, should they search for the name of my destination on the InterWeb.

I shared a rental house with my bride, her father & step-mother, her brother, and her brother's new lady-friend. We engaged in all manner of recreations: bicycling, horse-back riding, kayaking, target shooting, motor-boating, and of course eating, drinking, and conversing. It was everything a gentle-man such as myself seeks in a week-end retreat.

We arrived Thursday evening in the late daylight hours. After un-packing our belongings (sadly, an impoverished gentle-man such as myself must perform his own porterage), darkness set in, and no ordinary, city-fied darkness. It was a darkness that yielded it impossible to walk without aid of torch or lantern and not meander off the auto-mobile path or blunder into a tree trunk. While the absence of light pollution is certainly a refreshing change from the harsh orange-tinted lights of the city streets, the one major design flaw was the island's failure to reflectorize their low-mounted street signs. My in-laws called the house (as our cellular tele-phones had aenemic reception) to inform us that they could not find our street. Fortunately, I had packed not only a bright torch but also a reflective safety jacket, purchased for last year's Hallow-e'en fancy dress. These tools proved invaluable in guiding them from the main thoroughfare to our dirt road.

On Friday, after breakfast, my bride and I set out on a bicycle jaunt, covering great distances around the island and requiring a shower and change of clothes afterward. My step-mother-in-law prepared a fresh-baked turkey breast for the purpose of making sandwiches for lunch. We set out on yet another jaunt in the after-noon, then joined the in-laws on a drive to view the ruins of the plantation house. We engaged in pleasant conversation while waiting for supper to be prepared, which was a fabulous boiled feast of shrimp, sausage, potatoes, red peppers, and onions. My brother-in-law and his lady-friend finally arrived at half after eleven that night, at which time I repeated the task of showing the way with torch and reflective jacket.

On Saturday, after breakfast, my bride, her step-mother, and I bicycled to the nearby club-house, where we rented kayaks. I will interject here that kayak and bicycle rentals were all free of charge to residents and their guests, thereby preventing a gentle-man such as myself from having to trifle with currency or other means of payment. My bride and I piloted a two-person kayak, which proved difficult since neither of us had any kayaking experience. We left the step-mother behind so that she could soak in some sun (horrors! Why ruin an aristocratic pallor with the leathern swarthiness of a field-labourer?) and bicycled back to our house. My father-in-law and I attempted to go shooting, but the oafs who had reserved the time-slot before ours showed up an hour late, causing us to have to re-schedule for the next day. The family partook of a relaxing motor-boat excursion around the island's surrounding waters, then took tea and biscuits in the club-house. Supper consisted of thick T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, grilled asparagus, and marvelous green salad. We sat outside after dark by a fire and engaged in lively conversation, encouraged by all manner of spirituous beverages.

On Sunday, my bride, brother-in-law, his lady-friend, and I went on a pleasant horse-back riding jaunt, accompanied by a guide. We trotted through the island's nature preserve, seeing lush vegetation and wide open marsh-lands. At two o'clock my father-in-law and I went shooting. It had been many years since my last experience with sporting clays, so it took some time to regain my aim and stance. My shoulder was left reddened and sore from the unfamiliar recoil of the shot-gun. We finally departed at four, and arrived at home at half after ten, after a nerve-rattling drive through pitch-black back roads. Few experiences are more unnerving than listening to the opening theme from The General's Daughter while driving down S.C. Hwy. 452 at sundown.

The island is an ideal environment for gentle-manly living. Thanks to tight security and a private police force that keeps out non-residents and uninvited persons, doors are left unlocked with no fear of crime at the calloused hands of peasants. Bicycling is a pleasurable means of transportation instead of a terrifying ordeal as it is in any city burdened with automobile traffic. Motorists are courteous, as all know one another and would not wish to be seen displaying un-gentle-manly motoring behaviour. The roads are shaded by live oaks festooned with Spanish moss and the air is perfumed by magnolia blossoms. Picturesque ruins of a plantation house stand at the end of an avenue of oaks, as a poignant reminder of a slower-paced, more gracious way of life now vanished.

At this point in this post, many readers may find their panties in a knot, quick to wag their fingers and set out on a diatribe about the horrors of slavery and the evils of the plantation system. But have you not yet recognized that I have rose-coloured lenses permanently implanted? I ask only for license to drift into a reverie of a time when Southern gentle-men would swelter on the veranda in their linen suits, fanning themselves with large straw hats, imbibing mint juleps and gin & tonic, and chatting amongst themselves about matters of commerce and politics while the usual noises of a plantation in full operation would murmur in the background.

We can't deny, with the benefit of hindsight, that this method of agriculture and commerce would have faded away with or without a war. The farm machinery that would come along in the latter half of the 19th century would have rendered slaves cost-ineffective and obsolete. What we'll never really know for sure, and can only speculate upon, is what would have happened to the entire course of history of the South and the United States, had a blood-soaked war not ravaged the Southern states. Would the lives of ordinary people have been better? Worse? Would we have suffered two world wars and a great economic depression in the century to follow? Would blacks have received basic recognition as humans with fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property sooner, later, or not at all? These are the questions that pervade my thoughts whenever I visit antebellum properties. There's a dignified sadness to the remains of the Old South, like visiting the grave of a murder victim, wondering what could have been had she not been violently cut down.

Back to my fantasies about the life of the Southern gentle-man, my week-end of eating lotuses further reinforces my conviction that I am not meant to toil in a gray little cubicle 40 hours per week. Nor are my friends, who are thinkers and creators, not drones buzzing about a hive. We are the ones who deserve the leisure time to think, write, read, explore, travel, create, recreate, and pontificate, without sacrificing precious, irreplaceable hours of our lives in exchange for a pittance that barely covers the expenses necessary for a comfortable lifestyle. I was designed by nature to be a gentle-man who explores the world's places and absorbs the world's knowledge while all my basic needs are already met; but by unfortunate accident of birth, I was cast into a middle-class up-bringing, doomed to eke out a living in a soul-sucking office, surrounded by the constant hum of laser printers and the idle chatter of co-workers. With each passing week, I grow more and more weary of the day-to-day struggle for survival. It may not be a life-or-death struggle foraging for food, but it is nonetheless an environment wherein, if the work I produce is not pleasing to The Boss, my source of Federal Reserve credits which can magically be exchanged for goods and services will be cut off.

I feel as though Maslow's pyramid has been turned upside-down in my case. I already know what I want to do with my life, which is to live comfortably, observe the world around me, and partake of its simple pleasures without dirtying my hands with mindless toil. I simply lack the means necessary to sustain such a lifestyle. So, while I am already self-actualized in a way, I don't have what I need to make it a reality. While I bide my time, waiting for some sort of windfall, I turn to dreams, flights of fancy, and little week-end getaways to maintain my sanity and get me from one week-end to the next.