A man arrested for driving under the influence early Monday after an accident, had his mug shot taken while he was wearing a t-shirt that said “Hold my beer and watch this.” PENNSYLVANIA MAN ARRESTED FOR DUI WORE ‘DRUNK LIVES MATTER’ T-SHIRT Connecticut State Police said around 1:20 a.m., troopers were called to a one car accident on Wilson Road in Putnam. Troopers said the car was traveling east on Wilson Road when it struck a stone wall. Police said the vehicle was unregistered, uninsured and the registration plates on the car belonged to a different vehicle. MICHIGAN MAN ARRESTED ON 14TH DUI CHARGE Harrison Wootton, 25, of Woodstock, was charged with operating an unregistered motor vehicle, failure to have insurance, misuse of plates, failure to drive in the proper lane and operating under the influence of alcohol/drugs. Source: http://allofbeer.com/driver-wearing-hold-my-beer-shirt-arrested-for-dui/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/driver-wearing-hold-my-beer-shirt-arrested-for-dui/
0 Comments
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got into a spat with a baseball fan at a game in Milwaukee on Sunday, his latest public relations snafu to cap a month of snafus. In a video posted to Twitter, Christie is seen leaning over a fan who heckled him, angrily calling the man a “big shot” before storming away with a bowl of nachos. The governor was at the stadium to watch the game between the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers. Christie’s son works for the Brewers. A local news reporter for the station WISN12, Ben Hutchison, said he was a relative of the man Christie confronted, Brad Joseph. Joseph told the outlet he yelled the governor’s name “and told him that he sucked,” which sparked the encounter.
It’s the second ballpark blunder for Christie this month. He was roundly booed by fans at a New York Mets game after catching a foul ball and giving it to a kid nearby, just weeks after he was lambasted in the media for closing some public beaches in New Jersey over the July 4 holiday weekend, and then vacationing on one himself. Source: http://allofbeer.com/chris-christie-has-another-bad-day-at-the-ballpark-after-yelling-at-cubs-fan/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/chris-christie-has-another-bad-day-at-the-ballpark-after-yelling-at-cubs-fan/ Last night in Paradise we finally said goodbye and fuck you to Chad, got to see round 2 of Nick Viall vs. Josh Murray drama, and my ED Evan gaydar scale practically exploded after his professions of “love” for Carly. This show is so unscriptedly (not a word? Idc) amazing that ‘paradise’ actually refers to how I feel sitting on my couch watching these losers talk mad shit about each other. So WTF went down last night? The Chad Breakdown ContinuesChad is definitely still wasted from last night, and Chris Harrison is def just pissed he has to interrupt his robe-lounging to deal with this. “It’s worth it for the **ratings**” – Probably a post-it on Chris Harrison’s mini bar. Chris Harrison:Where are you going??? Then Leah comes and I’m pretty sure all of America/Bachelor Nation is like, Leah who? ….mmm nope. Of COURSE she comes on the show and is looking for Chad. Could it BE any more staged??? – Leah talking about Chad / me talking about my dog said no one ever, until Leah Okay just had a flashback to Leah throwing Lauren B under the bus. Classy chick! However she does look like Mena Suvari in American Beauty when she cries. Nick / Leah / Amanda TriangleLeah gives up on the Chad situation and moves onto her next target, slick Nick. Nick:– Nick prior to running a controlled empirical study on Leah. Nick: Thanks for asking me on this date Leah:– that’s what she said. Leah:I’m very confident when I say I think I have a lot of qualities that you’re looking for Nick decides he’s just not that into Leah (probably either her lip injections or her fragrance of desperation, tbd) and moves onto Amanda, mother of 2. Nick: I love fires and sitting near them “No child left behind” – Not Amanda’s parenting philosophy. Carly and EvanEvan gets a date card and asks Carly and I literally don’t think I’ve ever seen someone want to cry more after getting a date. – Evan sounds like the 40 year old virgin describing boobs like bags of sand. “Evan does give me erectile dysfunction” – An amazing quote that I can’t believe we didn’t think of first Carly: My brother told me I have to stop dating feminine men…like my first boyfriend now has a boyfriend. And now this again. – Looks like somebody’s got a type! Carly and Evan have completely opposite reactions to the jabanero kiss: Evan: My mouth is on fire and I don’t know if it’s the pepper or from kissing Carly. Carly: I vommitted…and it’s not just from the pepper. Josh Murray vs. NickSo before we get into the ancient epic battle between Josh and Nick (more epic than the Sunni-Shiite conflict I can assure you), we feel it’s our duty to reveal what Andi Dorfman wrote about him in her amazing/scandalous tell-all. Basically, according to her (but also like, def true), he was seriously emotionally abusive towards her in all our favorite ways – accusing her of cheating, not letting her spend time with her besties, stalking her social media for signs of other guys, having humil screaming matches in public…you really have to read it to get the full effect. (We’re not even getting paid to say that!!) Josh on Andi: We were just like, very different in a lot of ways. – He is obviously very pissed about this book. The Bachelor producers LOVE fucking with Nick Viall’s emotions. Third time still not a charm. Amanda should’ve stayed with Nick. Other Miscellanous Lameness– Daniel Lace was sadly very uninteresting last night except her eyelash extensions, which are malfunctioning. Emily’s idea of sexy small talk is unreal: Emily: What are you thinking about? Jared is obviously conflicted about hooking up with Emily, like he’s not into her clearly but he doesn’t want to get kicked off. It’s muy interesante how whenever the guys have the roses the girls whore themselves out, and when the girls have the roses the guys pretend to have feelings. Feminist AF. Week Two Night TwoSecond week of paradise, second night of the week that I have to watch the same show for reasons unknown. This episode starts with Josh and Amanda incessantly making out in front of everyone, while making meerkat noises. Nick is obviously displeased so he continues to workout on the beach while taking breaks to shed a tear. Daniel is unhappy because theres a new guy in Paradise who is about to take his love interest awayChristian. I literally do not remember him but apparently Sarah is super into the guy. All we know is that hes really fucking smiley… like hes about to pull out Jamaican steel drums and serenade everyone on the beach. Daniel yeah or just Canadian. Meanwhile ED Evan cant shut the fuck up about his date with Carly. Carly has the talk with Evan where she breaks up with him even though all they did was go on one awful date together. If Carly were a guy she would like never talk to him, ignore him, and then hook up with someone else in front of him. Now that Evan is my ex-boyfriend Carly. Enter new guy Brendan. Even Chris Harrison doesnt know who Brendan is (even though Chris Harrison definitely knows who he is and that scene was literally more scripted than a fight on ). Carly falls in love at first sight but doesnt realize that Brendan is dumber than anyone who has ever been on this television show. Brendan picks Haley (or Emily?) on his date. This time Im doing a bad job in paradise. Like Last time I did a really bad job in paradise but this time Im doing like a worse job. Carly Before her sisters date Emily drinks a beer and gets wasted which was THE BEST part of this entire episode. My best friend is going on a date and like now that shes engaged Im so happy. I didnt mean to get like this!! Someone please give her more alcohol. Brendan and Haleys date was the most absurd thing Ive ever seen. I want to find a woman who wants to give 110% HE IS Brendan Frasier in . Why would Brendan even notice that the twins switched on him? I could barely tell the difference? But also like, he is giving this like loving we have a connection speech that I promise he would have given to any girl he would have picked. (But apparently not Carly). Back at the house, because Daniel was supes jealous of Sarah and Christians new connection he makes a little mini date on a daybed for them. Daniel: I’m an eagle and this eagle knows what he wants. Sarah: I Just want to be appreciated for who I am and respect who I am. Sarah: DAMN DANIEL! Sarah refers to Daniel as the goofy one who is weird and kinda dumb but makes her laugh. Can we all agree that Daniel IS Canadian Joey Tribbiani? Daniel, Romance Expert. PS Why are all the couples, the self proclaimed sexy six, all making out together in one bed and not like, alone? What is this, the junior prom limo!? Then the best thing to ever happen on this show happens. Evan self implodes. The producers first convince him not to leave. Then they somehow manipulate him into thinking that the girl he has the best chance with is Amanda, yes, the one Josh is about to engulf. Either I was like really high or this was SOOOO funny but watching Evan write a sad handwritten note to himself was probably the best television of life. Then he pumps himself up by calling himself by his full name. YOURE FRICKIN EVAN BASS .. however I am pretty sure he meant it in the sense that like, he is like related to Chuck Bass and thats what makes him cool. Yes I fully believe Evan watches . Then the producers convince him to walk up to Amanda and Josh while theyre hooking up to ask Amanda out. Whether this was scripted or not, this was good. The other reason for him doing this was his chance to get closer to Josh. Think about it, Chad was pretty hot and Evan loved stirring the pot with him on . Now he wants to get steamy with Josh. I can see that exciting little Evan. Aka Ogie from the movie (obscure but like, so accurate). Don’t do it Evan, this will end poorly!! – all of America. div.body_middle_part_right .bodypart:nth-child(n+2),a.prevBody{display:none;} Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-best-bachelor-in-paradise-recap-youll-ever-read-week-2/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/the-best-bachelor-in-paradise-recap-youll-ever-read-week-2/
Image: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images
The stormy highs and lows of life as an Olympics star hit Gabby Douglas in full force this month in Rio de Janeiro, her triumphs and tribulations alike compressed into just a few whirlwind days. The U.S. gymnastics squad dominated the team competition last week, helping 20-year-old Douglas earn her third career gold medal. But online and in the media, her every move was dissected by hawkishly critical observers. Was she supporting teammates enough? Why didn’t she put her hand over her heart for the national anthem? Why isn’t she acting the precise way we want her to act? The surprise controversy snowballed into a surreal online battle between Douglas’ detractors and defenders, who rallied behind her using the hashtag #LOVE4GABBYUSA . By week’s end, the dust has settled on that drama but it still lingers. Douglas’ Olympics are over and we’re speaking by phone. Asked to describe her tumultuous 2016 Olympics experience in just one word, Douglas pauses. “Extraordinary,” she says. Then she pauses again. “Or eventful.” Yeah. That’s it. “Eventful,” Douglas says again. She’s settled on the word now, and her tone is more somber. Eventful. Loved in London, ridiculed in RioDouglas at this summer’s Olympics represented a confluence of the strangeness inherent in both her sport and the modern social media age. Four years ago in London, the U.S. won the team competition and at just 16 years old Douglas became the first African American woman to win gold in the individual all-around contest. She was Olympics royalty. The Lifetime TV network made a biopic about her, called simply The Gabby Douglas Story. Her family’s life improved. Then, after some months, she faded from popular consciousness, as even famous gymnasts do in non-Olympics years. When the mainstream spotlight again turned to her sport for Rio, things had changed. Big time. Simone Biles was now the U.S. star, and being hailed as the greatest female gymnast ever. Aly Raisman settled into the co-starring role. Within two hyper-intense periods over a four-year span, Douglas had been relegated from celebrated to outdated and all before she could legally order a beer. Online, meanwhile, she became a target. When she stood with hands at her sides during a national anthem, columnists and commenters fulminated. Some also spun conspiracy theories when they determined Douglas didn’t demonstrate enough pep while watching a Biles routine. Trolls even went after the texture of her hair. The comedian, actress and Twitter celebrity Leslie Jones then organized a counter-insurgence using the hashtag #LOVE4GABBYUSA, helping give the sour story a slight redemption. Douglas now says she was “so grateful and really thankful” for the outpouring of support online, which “definitely meant a lot.” Even the topic itself is strange, though and indicative of a time in which viral online spectacles often overshadow the actual events that produce them. You’re in conversation with a three-time gold medalist, an Olympics legend, and the topic that’s been making the most headlines lately is … what some idiots said about her online? Douglas doesn’t want to talk about the episode much more. Can you blame her? What’s really realHere’s what all the the outrage and the counter-outrage and the subsequent think-pieces and editorials overshadowed: Gabby Douglas is one of the greatest female gymnasts ever. She’ll forever hold a place in history for her groundbreaking all-around individual win in London. And if this is the last we saw of her on the Olympics stage, she could have gone out a whole lot worse. Douglas has now won team gold medals in two consecutive Olympics. But this one came with extra sweetness as the U.S. gymnasts sent retiring national team coordinator Martha Karolyi off in style. The 73-year-old Karolyi spent her life with the sport and helped lead U.S. gymnastics to its current position of global domination. Douglas and her teammates Biles, Raisman, Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian dubbed themselves the “Final Five” on their quest to win Karolyi one last gold medal. Looking back about a week after winning, Douglas gushes. “Being a part of that was amazing,” she says of Karolyi now. “She’s done so much and under her umbrella they’ve really just developed this program to a point where the USA can be so strong. To be a part of her last journey is amazing. She’s so loving and I’m so glad I got to be on this team where we’re her last one. She’s a legend.” Douglas is a legend in her own right as well, lest we forget. She still has the trappings and obligations of a star, too, and says by phone she’ll stay in Rio until just before Sunday’s closing ceremony to hang out and make appearances. As an elder stateswoman of sorts in Rio at just 20 years old, Douglas also has a unique perspective on the fame that awaits Biles when the Olympics end. See you in Tokyo?Four years ago, it was Douglas who made history. Four years ago, it was Douglas whose magnetism the spotlight couldn’t resist. Four years ago, it was Douglas who was a revelation on her sport’s biggest stage. “For the most part it was just really fun, really crazy,” Douglas says of her post-London celebrity. Now, however, it’s Biles who’s about to begin the rest of her life after becoming a teenage Olympics star. “I’ve just told her to keep really good people around and have fun and enjoy yourself,” Douglas says. “It’s gonna get crazy, but it’s gonna be fun, so stay close to your family and the people who have cared about you, because that’s your best support system.” This isn’t quite it for Douglas, Biles and company as the Final Five, however. After the games, they’ll make a 36-city American tour meant to capitalize on their Olympics buzz. Soon after that, a decision about Tokyo 2020 will loom. Douglas definitely hasn’t ruled it out, but the mental and physical grind is a serious commitment. “I’ve already done this not once, but twice,” she says. Douglas is right, of course. With the passage of time, hopefully that’s what the world will remember: Her three gold medals in two Olympics and her historic 2012 all-around, not the online shenanigans that, as she says, made 2016 so “eventful.” Source: http://allofbeer.com/usa-gymnast-gabby-douglas-reflects-on-her-wild-ride-at-the-rio-olympics/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/usa-gymnast-gabby-douglas-reflects-on-her-wild-ride-at-the-rio-olympics/ These day ordering a craft beer in a bar, usually comes accompanied by a shot of confusion: How much will this pint cost me? I may pay $4 for a “pint” of pale ale at my local brewpub, or $7 in a city bar. Pints start at $9 or $10 at beer bars in Las Vegas, and I may be expected to pay up to $15 for a pale ale in Manhattan (seen it happen, friends). I say “pint” in quotes because in most places you’re going to get the standard-looking glass, but what it actually contains usually ranges between a miserly 11 ounces to the full 16 ounces. The amount depends on the owner’s whim (or profit margins), so caveat your emptor on that, too. So why does the price vary so much? There are a variety of reasons. First off, this isn’t Uncle Sam’s fault. Unless you live in the handful of states with abnormally high beer taxes (Tennessee, Alaska, Alabama, Georgia and Hawaii), beer taxes in the U.S. are relatively low. Even in Tennessee, it’s only $1.29 per gallon, plus about a dime a gallon in federal tax for most craft beers—that breaks down to about 17 cents a pint. It’s an annoying sin tax, but it’s not gonna break you. And production costs are fairly standard across the board. So why are there differences in price? Well, big strong beers cost more, for reasons both obvious and not so obvious. There’s more stuff in big beers, to be sure, but the way they push the envelope also lowers the brewing efficiency; it’s as if you have to add 50-percent more malt to get 20-percent more alcohol. But that’s true for almost everyone, everywhere. A standard craft-type IPA costs about $80 per 31-gallon barrel to brew, produce and package. That’s includes everything that goes into it: ingredients, energy, all costs of labor, equipment and maintenance. An exceptionally hoppy and hefty IPA will cost more, and a lager’s longer cold aging will raise the price a bit; a session beer, with less malt, may be a bit less. (And special projects that require exotic ingredients will, naturally, increase costs.) But, again, those differences in production costs will be pretty constant for all brewers. However, there are some exceptions at the extremes. A very successful and large craft brewer, think Dogfish Head or Deschutes, one that’s able to use bigger and more efficient equipment and get significantly better prices on materials, is going to have a notably lower cost than a tiny operation that’s working a lot harder to make a much smaller amount of beer. That’s how that $15 pint in Manhattan happened, for example; it wasMaine Beer Company’s Peeper, and they were brewing on a tiny and inefficient system at the time, which produced a very small output. You, of course, have to pay a premium for rarity. Once the beer’s brewed and packaged—and costs are higher for bottles or cans than for draft kegs; efficiencies again—they have to sell it. Sales staff, marketing, promotion, labels, all that stuff adds up, depending on how much a brewer wants to spend. (All those branded sun umbrellas, glasses and coasters aren’t free to make!) Don’t forget the last thing: profit. If a brewery isn’t making money, it’s going down. Again, the bigger the brewery the lower the profit margins, since they’re selling so much. Figure all that in, and it’s time to actually come up with the price, and that’s quite complicated. The brewer has to make money, but they also have to work through the steps between their loading dock and that beer sitting on the bar in front of you to figure out what to set their wholesale price. Up until recently, beer prices have been pretty similar across the board no matter which brand you ordered. Maybe a bit more for an import but not much. However, over the last 20 years or so, the number of small craft brewers have exploded across the country and has thrown the standard pricing system out the window. Many consumers equate quality and price and as a result a number of these upstarts are charging a premium to make themselves stand out. There are also two big steps that add 20 to 30-percent each to that price: the wholesaler, and the retailer. The wholesaler is like a grocery wholesaler, they provide choice and convenience and bulk sales to the retailers. They move the goods from producers to stores and bars. There’s an important difference, though: in beer (and wine and spirits, too), wholesalers are legally required. Except for a few loopholes, producers may not sell beer directly to retailers, they must sell it to the wholesaler, who then sells to the retailer…while, of course, tacking on their mark-up. The so-called the three-tier system—producer, wholesaler, retailer—was put in place to prevent the big brewers from putting pressure on retailers. That kind of economic pressure, and the graft and corruption it encouraged, was one of the major reasons Prohibition was enacted. When Repeal came along, the three-tier system was put in place to insulate retailers from the producers. A pint was maybe a bit cheaper in smaller towns and a bit more in bigger cities, like just about everything else. But there has been a lot of wholesaler consolidation in the past 20 years, which has cut down on competition, and allowed wholesalers to put more lobbying pressure on state governments. Less competition at the wholesaler level means that they can effectively set prices across a wide area, sometimes across state boundaries. Once brewery profit, advertising and promotion, shipping, wholesaler markup, and taxes are added in, that $80 keg is closer to $180. You might want to sit down at this point when you realize how much money that keg of beer brings in for a bar when it’s sold one pint at a time. A keg of IPA is going to realize $840 for a bar when it is sold at $7 a pint. But a bar, of course, has a lot of costs; even more than a liquor store. There’s the staff, the furnishings, rent, entertainment, licenses, a kitchen, maintenance, advertising and much higher insurance, including litigation coverage. And then there’s the question of how much people think they should pay. A bar that wants to attract an upscale clientele will raise prices. A bar in a college town that’s going for the dependable, high-volume newly legal drinker will lower them and sell pitchers. A restaurant will likely raise prices; a corner taproom not so much. When you think of all that, you realize that if the prices are too high where you’re drinking, you can almost always find a place where they’re lower. It’s a question of whether you want to drink there. If that’s not working for you, you can always drink at home. The prices are a lot more reasonable there, but it’s always that same old crowd! Source: http://allofbeer.com/why-does-the-price-of-a-craft-beer-vary-so-widely/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/why-does-the-price-of-a-craft-beer-vary-so-widely/ A faith healer was killed, and a Canadian tourist was lynched in revenge deaths that expose the dangers of the unregulated world of ayahuasca tourism All traces of blood have been scratched from the dirt under the palm tree outside Olivia Arévalo’s clapboard home in a remote hamlet in the Peruvian Amazon. A week later, it is as if the villagers want to rub out all signs of the shocking outbreak of violence that erupted here. Arévalo, a traditional healer, was shot twice under a midday sun on 19 April. Witnesses say she collapsed to the ground, gasping: “They’ve killed me! They’ve killed me!” as her daughter Virginia ran to cradle her dying mother’s head. Within minutes, anguish spilled into uncontrollable rage: Arévalo’s neighbours seized and lynched the alleged perpetrator, a Canadian man named Sebastian Woodroffe who had travelled to the region to learn about indigenous medicine. The horrific double murder has cast a harsh spotlight on the unregulated world of ayahuasca tourism. Ayahuasca, a plant brew that contains the hallucinogenic drug dimelthytryptamine (DMT), has attracted to Peru thousands of western tourists seeking to cure everything from spiritual anomie to drug addiction through traditional shamanic ceremonies. The boom has brought a welcome income for some of Peru’s most marginalized communities, but it has also been implicated in a number of deaths – and provoked accusations of cultural appropriation and profiteering. Arévalo, 81, was considered the spiritual mother of the Shipibo-Konibo, Peru’s second largest indigenous Amazon tribe, known for its rich artistic tradition based on a cosmovision inspired by the shamanistic use of ayahuasca. In the village of Victoria Gracia, Arévalo was known as Iyoshan, or grandmother – a term of affection and respect for the woman considered a walking encyclopaedia by the 40,000-strong indigenous group. An hour’s ride in a motorised rickshaw from the regional capital Pucallpa, along dirt tracks and rickety wooden bridges, the village now hovers between a tense calm and simmering indignation. “Do you think a police officer has ever come to this remote place before? Never!” spits out Becky Linares in the village’s tree-shaded plaza. “But when this Canadian died this place was full of them.” “There had to be a death for this to happen, but it was not because of the grandmother who was murdered, but because of the gringo,” she said to a burst of applause and cheers of agreement. Canada has warned against all non-essential travel to Peru following the killing of Woodroffe, 41. Graphic cameraphone footage of what were probably his final moments was posted online soon after his death, and appeared to show him appealing for mercy as a crowd, including several children, surrounded him. A judge has ordered the capture of two men identified in the video. José Ramírez, the community’s leader, and another villager, Nicolás Mori, could face between 15 years to 35 years for aggravated murder. Both have gone into hiding under the protection of Shipibo-Konibo communities deeper in the jungle. Villagers claim that before the murders they had taken Woodroffe to the police station on three occasions after he showed up at the village acting strangely, apparently under the influence of drugs or alcohol. “He never spoke, he never explained what he was doing here,” said Miluska González, a village leader, told the Guardian. “All he would do was open a can of beer and start drinking.” Source: http://allofbeer.com/perus-brutal-murders-renew-focus-on-tourist-boom-for-hallucinogenic-brew/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/perus-brutal-murders-renew-focus-on-tourist-boom-for-hallucinogenic-brew/ After a trip to visit my brother (named Mardi Gras) in New Orleans I found it best to go visit the free STD testing center run by the AHF here in Los Angeles. Every time I go there I run the full gamut of tests, partially because it just feels good to get a digital report card where everything negative is actually a good thing – chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, oral, anal, everything – and its completely free, no co-pays, no-nothing. When one is recently covered in a rainbow of beads, shirtless, with countless tongues and spicy shrimp in ones mouth and youre shoving your dick in more hiding places than even crawfish know, sometimes its best to take a moment and pause. It also didnt help my state of mind that I had a pimple on my dick shaft immediately following that blurry weekend in NOLA, which was almost healed, but still. I cant say I often get dick acne, Dacne? Dickne? Dimples? I should also mention that lately I havent quite found my way forward – or perhaps some other direction, not yet discovered, on some other plane of existence. Sometimes I like to think of myself as a river or an ocean or some kind of body of slutty water, and I just need sunshine to turn into some kind of ethereal vapor again, to roam and grow again. Its just been one massive damn dam after another in seemingly every direction, and to every one of those dams, I say thank you. God bless you. Because youre just a sneeze. Freelance life aint all its cracked up to be. In other words, freelancing aint free. I just got a notification for negative three hundred dollars in my bank account, which is sandwiched between two emails from the human resources representatives for jobs I didnt get – honestly, out of hundreds, over many months and many a moon, which makes one feel a bit like a loon and possibly soon like a raccoon, rummaging through trash bins, hissing… Back to the day of the STD testing. My meditation that day on the beach, ravenously drenched in sunlight and coconut oil, was let go and let flow, which is sort-of a mix between Taoist/Buddhist/Jesus-ish philosophy, which is tough for me, because to let go always sounds like to give up, which I was taught to never do. But I thought, okay, fuck it, lets try this. Lets try trying. STD clinics are always so somber, as if one is waiting to go get burned alive for past sins, or for simply existing. Perhaps this is the new church – discovering your STD status – and we were all waiting for confessional. Everyone is looking at their phone or sitting with their eyes closed, nervous, contemplative, ready to sing a hymn of praise or despair. Many fidget there with an aura of tamed shame. There was even one girl who just couldnt stand being inside the waiting area with all the other sinners. It was too much for her. She kept popping her head in the door, Did they call my number? No? Okay Uhgghhgh BYE Shed slam the door again and again, disgusted, as if by the sight of everyone else reminded her that there were witnesses to her recent sluttiness. Oh yes, my dear, we know. Were all the same. Youre one of us, we the slut-saints. I walked in and recognized a cute blue-eyed fella with the same green shorts of a cute blue-eyed fella I just saw at the gym earlier in the day, post-beach-meditation. I had previously tried to get his attention at the gym, sweatily sex-eyeing him there on the leg press, but it was clear he was making love to Candy Crush instead – the great sin of our time, sacrificing the present moment on the cross of being cross-eyed, in front of a rainbow screen of addiction. He knew it, too, because when I walked into the waiting area of we lady-whores and we man-whores and we trans-whores we nodded and started laughing, as if to say, YUUUUP, which began what would become a three-hour long obnoxious and giggly conversation between the two of us and two other homos that we roped in too. Who said you cant giggle in church? Everyone knows those are the best kind of giggles anyway, the ones that make you feel a little guilty. He was a Special Ed teacher, and very sensitive to the word retard. Another was a Filipino chef with a special kinship to soul food, which I could relate to, since deep down Im a morbidly obese giggly southern black lady in white face, with ample amounts of chest hair. And the other was a Latino restaurant manager who had just broken up with his long time boyfriend that week. His ex stole his TVs, but left the dog, and left him with having to pay all the rent. What ensued was the kind of man-to-man camaraderie that most people crave on a daily basis. Brutally honest connection. Schoolboy giggles-in-church laughter. Shooting the shit and fucking with each other the way brothers and lovers do. Im normally the kind of person who hates layers of formality and secrecy; everyone walks around acting all serious all the damn time, thinking being serious will somehow keep death – or sexually transmitted infections – away. This place just amplified that feeling for me, for all of us. We couldnt help but see the situation for what it was: were all basically here because we love to fuck and now were dealing with the consequences. You can be all somber and earnest and ashamed about it all, or you can just let the fuck go and laugh at it all. Youre a slut and Im a slut, lets break the bread of conversation together and then get pricked with needles that suck our blood, shall we? Thankfully all of us were negative after the HIV rapid test; it helps that all of us are on PrEP too, that once-a-day revolutionary pill that has helped a great many homosexual not get impregnated with an HIV-baby. We would find out the results of Chlamydia (Anal), Chlamydia (Oral), Chlamydia (Urine), Gonorrhea (Anal), Gonorrhea (Oral), Gonorrhea (Urine), and Syphilis in a day or so. The next day we decided to all meet up at one the guys places, on his rooftop (named hot tub). We drank shitty champagne and awesome micro-brewed beer in the LA sunset light, shirtless and drenched in coconut oil and chlorine, as bubbles massaged our balls. Bees swarmed around us for some reason, perhaps the countrys last remaining bees, and maybe its because they noticed we were all sweet with the sweaty nectar of giggling with strangers connecting over bad music blasting from a boombox. Later that night, we had dinner at blue-eyed-green-shorts place; he and his husband have a cute candlelit suburban bungalow with multiple cats. The Filipino cooked us a lovely meal. I brought the cheapest wine I could find. Some of their other friends joined – a perky-chested trainer and a muscled hairy Japanese fella (yes, hairy Asians exist, and theyre lovely), and we sat at a long found-wood rustic table and discussed the importance of taking care of blind people as they get old and close to dying. The Filipino was also a nurse. One of his blind patients paints these grand floral paintings and we all oogled-and-ahhed over how amazing they were, passing around the colorful screen of a phone, how he obviously remembered the details of flowers from his brighter days, even the right colors, the nuance of sunlight hitting the leaves and petals, shimmering petals for the dying bees that care more about hot tubs full of buttfuckers these days than pollen. And as all good dinner parties go, eventually we played strip Cards Against Humanity. Perhaps it was cards like Bukkake or Making love to a dolphin blow hole or Cutting off your best friends balls with garden shears – or maybe it was the importance of how many White Russians we lost count of slurping and burping, but all that simmered into one of us declaring, My dick is cold; you should probably warm it up. Which vaporized into a six man all-out sex-orgy on the couch, cards left behind, glasses completely empty. They became glassy Russian spies to how our giggles and sexually-frustrated wiggles replaced the air with groans and moans and the metronome of a dance. With my new friends dick in my mouth, and my new friends mouth on my dick, I couldnt help but wonder in that moment, in a trance of engorged and merging blood and flesh and light and words: Eventually I let go of trying to figure it out, flowing or not flowing, who the fuck knows, and simply enjoyed what we were all there to enjoy, what were always here to enjoy, the ecstasy of connection with whats right in front of us. And there we were, new waves of men crashing upon one another, a tide of something, a ride on something, and none of us thought about money or honey or whats not supposed to be funny. We werent even thinking at all. The next day we all got texts at the same time from the AHF. One by one, all clear. One by one, a fury of negatives that actually felt positive. And it stung me, sometimes pimples are just pimples and have nothing to do with the fact that youre trying really hard to fuck your way to the top of all your problems in the dark, meditating on the secret spaces between your soul that you have yet to discover, with the claws of one more breath, one by one, transcendent, light, clean, floating somewhere between care-free and probably a little bit careless. For more of Micah’s writing
|
AuthorHi my name is Samantha Roberts I am 23 years old and I just graduated with my BSN degree I love to enjoy going out with friends on my spare time and enjoying the Bachelor life. Archives
April 2019
Categories |