1 drunken frat boy down, 3,689,588 to go

 

Friday night was a dozy. Thanks goes out to the middle-aged black couple that live below a friend. Despite sharing not only an apartment building, but a wall/ceiling they still have never met. I got to know them too well, I won’t go into the chess-playing, blinko-drinking game details (and there’s plenty more not fit to post), but there’s a good chance you can piece together the events of the night from the 6 a.m. text. Sorry. I’m really trying to cut down on those.

 

So I battled Saturday in bad shape but sober, more or less, after a day of recovery. With a crisp feeling in the air and priorities fast approaching, generosity was the mood of the evening as the first two parties we hit up served free booze. Figures.

 

Drinking would have helped cope with the OSU annoyances in my neighborhood that come after such a lopsided and truly horrendous loss (it will be a long while before OSU football is taken seriously again on a national level), but I’m glad I was sober: If not I might have killed him.

 

About 10 of us ride to our next party and a drunk in a cab behind us starts shouting anti-bike epithets. Pulling a move I have tried a hundred times, one friend circles back telling the down-and-out Buckeye to get out of the car if he’s going to talk shit. When confronted, they never man up, even if they have the numbers in a car full of buddies. For some reason this guy wouldn’t back down … well, until it was out of his control.

 

There’s noting more attractive than a drunk bike-loving girlfriend take on a Neanderthal. She got in his face, pushed him around and gave him plenty of shit talk repercussion. The rest of us come back to see what’s going on, and we’re still in a decent mood, amused at the scene. We tell the drunk to get back in his cab, but he wanted any type of piece he could get from any of us.

 

First he was sexist, then homophobic, missed a few punches he wildly threw, said some intentionally inflammatory remarks … and we kept giving him the chance to get back in the cab.

 

Eventually I pushed him down and he got up ready for more. A left to the temple knocked him down again and almost into the path of a speeding motorist. A scared friend jumps out of the cab which immediately takes off. By now we have a group of sightseers waiting for the knockout blow, thirsty for the type of violence that promises to satisfy after a night of heavy binge drinking because you were let down by the most important thing in your simple collegiate life.

 

Still not backing down, the dude gets in the face of our toughest who delivers a direct shot to the jaw. I didn’t see it, but I’ve heard the shatter of a jaw before and this was much louder. In freefall the drunk goes limp, falls to the ground, bounces his head off the sidewalk. His friend, who came out from hiding, can’t seem to revive him.

 

A car of onlookers pulled over to the side of the road cheer triumphantly a collective approval straight from the Coliseum. If theses depraved drunks, many in worse shape than the guy who just got knocked out, could see this spectacle every Saturday night instead of a victory on the football field they just might take it.

 

Like everyone else around, before they have time to let the past minute sink in, it’s time to leave in a hurry.

Community news photo links

If anyone is interested in community news photography, here’s some of my favorites.

All Westerville, All the Time

Co-worker

Rival Publication

Also, on the national political scale it’s getting interesting. I just wish HST was around to cover it.

No email, no clue?

The view is holding his feet to the fire.

Happy Patriot Day

Am I the only one just learning about this bogus holiday? I read several different news sources every day and after all these years I’ve never heard of Patriot Day. I guess my finger’s not on the pulse of American patriotism.

On a side not, the Patriot Day resolution was approved in the House of Representatives in a 407-0 vote in 2001. So, who were the 28 freedom-hating members of congress who don’t have the balls to show up and vote? Just think of all the ways we could torture those pathetic representatives using Freedom Fries alone.

Semi-abandoned jail, Asheville, NC

Without the sign labeling this place the inmate laundry center and the freshly cut grass I would have broken in and explored.

   

Wild horses

Two facts about wild horses: they’re ugly and boring.

If an average domesticated horse is like a pure-bred, show-quality canine then their wild counterparts are the hair-falling-out, rib-showing, flea-ridden mutt that even the biggest animal lover won’t dare bring home.

The only thing the horses on Shackelford Banks did each day was eat grass slowly wandering around the island. No gallups, fights or anything mind blowing. By far the most exciting thing I saw one do was roll on the ground for about 15 seconds. After nearly dropping my camera in shock, I fired off at least 15 photos before he got up and resumed eating grass.

Still, wIld horses are amazing to see in person. There’s nothing like waking up in your tent, scanning the horizon and seeing a nearby harem (horse lingo for group).

The horses of Shackelford Bank are the oldest in the United States (they’ve lived on the island for about 400 years) and are one of the few groups on the East Coast. Experts think this group of 124 are the ancestors of ones that survived a Spanish ship wreck in the 1600s because their DNA matches a herd found near Barcelona.

As boring as these horses were, I will give them respect. Shackelford Banks is a barrier island and every decade or so a hurricane anniliates all nine-square miles. There’s little vegetation and no shade. Fresh water and food is scarce and the horses have developed a whole host of techniques to survive.

       

newsnewsnews

My two favorite Columbus crime stories are back in the news on the same day.

Urine Man

Naked Photographer

Not so wacky neighborhood news: “Light this (neighborhood) up like a candle tonight,” one of them said. “That’s what I’m saying.”

A man and his shack

Matt and I disagree over the speed civilization will take to collapse. I say it will be a slow transgression that I won’t witness in my life while he thinks it’s right around the corner. In preparation he’s been honing his survival skills. When I heard about his cabin in Asheville, North Carolina I knew I had to visit.

I imagined the shack being located at a scenic North Carolina mountain overlook in the middle of nowhere, an Appalacian Desolation Peak. Nope. It was at the base of a tall cliff owned by a fancy hotel next to a set of railroad tracks within the city limits.

But the shack was impressive: 11′ x 14′ (or so), half loft, locking doors and windows, moonshine.

Did I bring the Black Cloud 500 miles south with me to Asheville? It sure seemed like it. One night we returned to find this random dude named Donny sleeping in Matt’s bed. He gave us a sad story about just getting out of jail and needing a place to crash for the night. He was gone in the morning, but within less than eight hours of meeting him there were more unwanted guests. A team of eight bum camp raiding cops were patrolling the railroad tracks.

They didn’t see Michelle and I, we slept on the other side of the tracks because we were sketched out by Donny, but they found Matt being Matt – he was walking down the tracks brushing his teeth collecting buckets (which he claims are the most important survival tool). Matt was told he was trespassing and never to come back.

Later that day we returned to the shack and found all our water and moonshine emptied and his knives taken. I felt for my good friend, this was his home.

        

Bright-orange warnings

(photo by Doral Chenoweth III)

Here’s an interesting article from the Dispatch about squatters. The line that jumped out to me is:

“(Columbus Police Officer Ace) Trask said officers end up arresting people loitering on vacant properties on charges other than trespassing because squatters know they can’t be arrested if that sign has been torn down.”

The most metal town

http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n8/htdocs/aboriginal-headbanging-167.php

Is it real? Fake? Who cares, at least it’s entertaining.

Also, as a young punk Pennywise was my favorite band and this Don’t is hilarious.

*** Update ***

I did a little bit of Internet research and it seems like there really are aboriginal metal gangs in Austrailia. Say what you will about Vice, but their journalistic efforts are amazing. Track down Vice Guide to Travel if you haven’t seen it yet.

New to Everything #7 haiku review

Leanne’s seventh zine

Four short, fun and upbeat tales

from a Pittsburgh punk