jackson panic's Open Salon Blog

black cat black out

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:04:31 -0400

So there I was clutching the cold white toilet, kneeling on the tile floor in front. The shirt I was wearing was soaked with sweat and my Patagonia sat in a puddle of what I hoped was water but felt fairly confident was not. I could hear Biondetta's voice in my head, gently repeating, "I told you not to eat any of those."

My body temperature was sky-high and my thoughts were coming at me fast and in muddled clouds of confusion. I had to focus. I needed to do the math and figure out how I got to this point. What did I remember? What happened to me? I channeled all my available energy into focusing on the time line of events of the past day.

From the other side of the stall door I heard a soft knock.

"Senor, are you ok? Senor?"

"I'll be fine. Give me a minute. Can you bring me a glass of water? And Ike - find Ike or Ikemael of whatever he's calling himself."

The gentleman outside the door shuffled his feet back and forth and hesitated before turning to exit the bathroom. There was another stall next to me that was empty. At least I wouldn't be taking up all the available real estate with my sweating and retching.

I closed my eyes and went back to my thoughts. I remembered walking through the streets of Avalon, the little city there on Catalina. I remembered renting a golf cart to get around and going to some kind of party. I could see faces, most of which were laughing and very happy. The Captain, the ladies and Ike and I had been together all day. I wasn't completely sure where I was at that very moment though. In the midst of these thoughts I heard a soft meow.

I looked down and creeping under the partition from the empty stall on my right was a black cat. Who let a cat into the bathroom? It came and rubbed against my side.

Side bar: I don't like cats. I don't dislike cats but merely prefer not to be around them. What I'm trying to say is that I mean them no malice. I don't kick them when no one is looking, but I don't get all mushy the way I do with a dog. They are slightly annoying and I'm perfectly happy living a catless existence.

Thus, in my most existential moment to date, when I'm not entirely sure if I'm leaving the bathroom on a stretcher, in a body bag or on my own two feet - I am being comforted by a scraggly black cat. I laughed to myself. Of course I would die next to a cat. Where the hell was Ike?

I reached down and pet the cat. I had no idea where Senor Whoever went and so this cat was my lone friend for the moment. He liked to be pet right on top of his shaggy black head. The act of petting the cat must have settled my nerves because I suddenly had a moment of clarity. I was back on The Melmoth with Desi and friends.

The Captain has just walked off to talk to or scold Biondetta for throwing the pomegranate seeds into the ocean. Someone did need to talk to these people about throwing bowls and cans into the ocean.

Desi had first wrapped her arm around my waist but then quickly wrapped the rest of herself around me, sort of like in the movie 'Alien' when those little slimy things would wrap around someone's face. She seemed genetically predisposed to upright, full body cuddling. I noticed Ike, we had dropped the Moby Dick bit except for Desi who continued to call me Starbuck, was wearing Cindy in a similar fashion. Look, if a woman in a bikini wants to drape herself around me, so be it. That's not a Jackson Panic law so much as just a general rule of thumb.

Ike was in heaven. We had chased The Melmoth almost since we left the Marina and all because of Cindy, the woman in white. Now he was standing on the deck with Cindy in his arms and a big stupid grin on his face. We were pouring flute after flute of Dom Perignon, the day was sunny and we weren't sailing back until tomorrow afternoon. This was going to be one hell of a weekend.

Truer words were never spoken.

Ike began telling the girls about how we met. He had all the details correct, about interrupting me at the cantina, the drinks over at the pier and the late night bullshit session in the parking lot with the varying groups of people we had met throughout the night. I wondered whether he would end the story there and leave out the hookers but that motherfucker fearlessly went through the entire story, even telling the girls about phoning up escorts after I went to sleep and the resulting scene that took place in my kitchen. He was ballsy and unapologetic - that was certain. It was also the first time I heard him admit the women he called were hookers and not merely dancers.

Desi and Cindy didn't seem to mind at all that Ike was the kind of guy who would bring over a prostitute to a stranger's house for a little fun. In fact, they thought it was hilarious. It was hilarious but normally when you meet an attractive woman you leave out little details like your car is a piece of shit, your credit isn't much better and occasionally you phone up a hooker and ask her to come over. Or, so I've been told.

I was in the middle of giving my version of the story - the one that ends with 'did you really bring hookers to my pad' disbelief, when Captain Alvaro returned with his overly courteous manners, smarmy smile and cigarette that now sported almost three inches of ash. He extended a crystal platter stacked with gooey, dark brownies, each of which was about two inches by two inches.

"Would anyone care for a magic brownie?"

Ike immediately brightened even more at the prospect of brownies with magical powers, but seeing as how we had all just met, I felt the need to confirm what exactly we were being offered.

"How magical are we talking, Captain?"

With this Desi leaned into my ear and whispered the word 'kryptonite.'

"Well, since I'm not Superman - what could it hurt? How many brownies does one recommend?"

"I would recommend not having any and throwing the entire plate overboard."

Biondetta and her icy demeanor had returned. Apparently she wasn't happy with the two things we had thrown over the side so far and felt the need to add another. It was either that or there was something about Ike and myself which she found entirely repugnant.

"What is the deal with you wanting to throw food over the side of the boat?"

The ice in her stare turned to an apoplectic sneer.

"Personally, Jackson, I don't care what you do but I thought I would offer you the courtesy of choosing to forgo the brownie and the resulting strange trip it is going to take you on."

I turned back to the Captain, "Back to my original question Captain - how magical are these brownies?"

"They are as magical as the legal medicinal limits in California will allow. As to your other question, I recommend half a brownie to start."

Ike beat me to the punch and grabbed a brownie and had bitten it in half before I had even moved. The girls, save for Biondetta, joined with equal zeal.

I looked back at Biondetta who once again had locked eyes with me and so I hesitated. Behind the outer layer of bellicosity, there was something tender to Biondetta, something earnest.

That thought was quickly lost as I grabbed a warm brownie and bit it in half. I looked at Biondetta again and she rolled her brown eyes and turned away to face the open ocean. The brownie tasted good. I love brownies and I love magic. This day was shaping up very well.

"Tell me something, Starbuck, or Jackson, as you seem to prefer - what is it you want to do with your life?"

The Captain tossed his cigarette into the water. Littering. Again. He then pulled another from the pack and offered me one. I don't smoke.

"That's kind of a heavy question for such a beautiful day. Don't you think Captain?"

"It's only as heavy as you make it."

"Fair enough - then I'd say I really haven't a clue."

"Ah, so no real plan for what comes next?"

"Plan? Not really. Here's what I know Captain. Do you remember the fable about the lazy grasshopper who just kicks back all year while the ants farm and stow away food? Then when winter hits he doesn't have any food and we're all supposed to learn that we have to be industrious and plan ahead. Here is what Aesop didn't tell us - both those insects are dead within the year. An ant lives a matter of months and a grasshopper just a little bit longer. They both died and the ants probably died first. All of this we see around us ends, no matter how much we plan. So, as of right now, yeah, I don't have much in the way of a plan but I'm still on the same course as everyone else - live for a while then croak."

The Captain was smiling at me again through clenched teeth that were anchoring his newly lit cigarette. He then removed the cancer stick and spoke, after a pregnant pause.

"Interesting. Some might think that somewhat pessimistic."

"On the contrary Captain - it is an open embrace of life and everything in it. I live to suck the marrow from the bones of the day."

The Captain then burst into laughter, which quickly spread to Cindy, Desi and Ike. I raised my flute to them all.

"Here's to life!"

We all toasted and drank and then the Captain walked over to me and poked his bony finger into my chest.

"I like you Jackson. Why don't you finish the rest of that brownie and embrace the rest of the day?"

He didn't have to ask me twice. Ike and I both gobbled down the remaining brownie and each took another from the tray. The girls followed suit. This was going to be a day to remember.

sailors do it wetter

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:03:36 -0400

There was a moment, standing there on Captain Alvaro's boat, The Melmoth, in which Biondetta and I locked eyes. She was defiantly glaring at me, perhaps trying to ward me off by letting me know I was not welcome, but at the same time, deep within the dark brown of her eyes, there was a pleading. Was she telling me to leave or was she asking me? I didn't have time to think about it for very long as the Captain, with his hand still on my shoulder, started pulling me along with him to the front of the boat where Ikemael and the two girls were talking.

"And here is where the party is at!"

The Captain's bellowing voice had the tone of a circus ringleader or a pitchman for an 'As seen on TV' product. He definitely resembled John Waters but he had the feel of some kind of shuckster, a smooth talking gentlemen with a great offer that will only be available for a limited time. He was almost too polite and spoke with a casual formality that seemed more like a presentation and less like conversation.

Ikemael and the two girls, both of whom were now dancing to Kanye's Gold Digger, looked over at us and smiled. Ikemael raised a flute of champagne to greet us and I saw the girls were holding similar flutes and there was a bottle of Dom Perignon off to the side. Obviously our new friends had more refined palates than the Tecate tainted ones we were sporting. Ikemael raised his right hand and the Captain gave him an enthusiastic high-five. During their exchange the other girl, not Ikemael's new love, walked over to me and handed me a flute of champagne brimming over with bubbly.

"You look thirsty, Starbuck."

While I gladly accepted the champagne I cringed slightly at the 'Starbuck.' This Moby Dick routine was getting old. As you may expect, there is another Jackson Panic law dealing with attractive women in bikinis who offer you a flute of Dom Perignon. You graciously accept while allowing her to call you whatever the hell she wants.

This new beauty, wearing only the slightest red and white striped bikini, then took my Tecate from my hand and threw it overboard. We then clinked glasses and took a deep drink of the cold champagne. It clashed momentarily with the residual Tecate lingering in my mouth but the fizzy sweetness then came through and it seemed like the perfect drink for this very moment. The bearer of my champagne was playfully smiling at me from behind the glass she held pressed against her lips.

"Thanks for the drink, but my name is not really Starbuck. It's -"

"It is today, Starbuck. I rather like that name."

There were strong tones of Italian in her accent. The kind that made you think you could listen to her read the dictionary and find it pretty hot. Of course, it helped that she was standing in front of me in a bikini holding a bottle of Dom Perignon and looked damn fine doing it. Fuck it - if she wanted to call me Starbuck then who was I to argue any differently?

"Okay, Starbuck it is, but I didn't catch your name."

"That's because I didn't offer it."

With this she broke into a girlish giggle and took a pull directly from the bottle of Dom and then handed me the bottle, indicating I should do the same. I raised my glass to tell her I had enough of my own but she pushed the bottle playfully into my chest, giving me a look that told me to just do it.

"Forgive Desdemona, young Starbuck, she's lacking a certain sense of refinement. She loves to drink fine champagne but does so like an eighteen year-old girl at a keg party."

The Captain was flashing me his incissor-heavy smile once again, with his cigarette firmly clenched and still dangling an extraordinary amount of ash. I looked back at my new lady-friend.

"Desdemona eh? That's not really one I come across very often."

I then proceeded to drink directly from the bottle myself, a much bigger drink than Desdemona had.

"Well, now you've come across me. Or at least you will if you're lucky."

I admit it - I choked, literally. I coughed up champagne onto the back of my left hand that was holding my flute. My eyes watered up and I felt the champagne seeping down the wrong pipe. My current predicament wasn't eliciting any sympathy from Desdemona though, as I heard her peals of laughter coming from beyond my now blurry vision.

"Careful Desi - you don't want to kill our new friend with champagne."

There was something about the way the Captain said it that I didn't like.

"Are you okay baby?"

Desdemona, or Desi, walked over to me, still giggling, and began rubbing my face.

"Yeah, I just choked a little."

"Here, I'm sorry for making you choke."

With that she gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I would have been more grateful had I not still felt the need to cough and were my eyes not still watering, but the kiss was a nice gesture. She remained close to me as I blinked and sniffled a few times.

"I guess I'm not good at holding my liquor."

"So what are you good at holding?"

It seemed like everything she said was purred forward bursting with double entendre.

"Ah, well, certainly not my own since you definitely got the better of me just then."

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Starbuck. I'm going to get the better of you every time. I always end up on top."

So there I am, a foot away from an attractive woman in a bikini who is feeding me champagne and throwing me lines that carry naughty little promises of promiscuity and the whole thing is playing out next to a group of people who have stopped their conversation and are clearly eavesdropping on ours. I looked past Desi and saw Ikemael, the Captain and the other girl staring at us.

"Do you guys need to be alone? I can take the Captain and Cindy back to our boat if you'd like."

I couldn't do anything but blush. The happy threesome was over there laughing and Desi was amused as well and I felt like an awkward asshole unsure of what to say, which doesn't happen all that often. Desi broke up the stilted moment on my behalf by bending over and picking up a bowl that was sitting off to the side.

"Would you like some pomegranate seeds to go with your champagne? They're the perfect complement."

I am not a huge fan of pomegranate seeds but I was just fucking thankful that we might direct the attention to something else besides my choking on Desi's flirtations. As I was reaching for the bowl, a hand reached past me from behind, grabbing the bowl. I turned around to see Biondetta throwing the bowl overboard. What is it with these people just throwing things into the water?

Biondetta icily glared at me again, "Those things are nasty."

"Biondetta! What on earth are you doing?"

The Captain's voice sounded shrill this time and tinged with an unexpected anger. Biondetta wasn't looking at anyone other than me.

"Believe me, you didn't want any."

"I guess I will take your word on that."

She then turned and walked back to where she had been sunning herself. I pivoted back towards the group and gave them the universal 'what the fuck' look. Our three new friends looked very agitated but Ikemael was his usual self, bordering on cackling.

"What the hell was that?"

The Captain looked at Ikemael and smiled a close-lipped smile, excused himself and walked back to Biondetta, leaving me and Ikemael alone with the girls. Cindy, the one person I had not yet met, then extended her hand.

"Hi, I'm Cindy."

Whereas Desi was clearly from another country and Biondetta and the Captain also seemed foreign, Cindy was without a doubt an American girl. She was tanned, blonde and lacking the subtle beauty of the other two - less mystery but more breasts. I shook her hand and introduced myself.

"So where you girls from?"

Ikemael then slapped me on the back and laughed.

"Good luck with that one brother. I've been trying to get that out of them for ten minutes!"

I felt Desi's arm slink its way around my waist. Quite frankly I didn't care where they were from at this point, though in hindsight I probably should have. Regardless, when you're standing on a gorgeous sailboat drinking Dom Perignon and an attractive woman in a bikini has her arm around you - you don't ask too many questions. That's a Jackson Panic law.

So how did I get from that point, a virtually perfect one, to hovering over a toilet, sweating bullets and hoping I didn't die?

the mysterious meeting at Catalina Island

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:03:35 -0400

I stood on the deck of our sailboat and took a long swig of the cold Tecate in my hand. The short trip from the Marina to Catalina had been an interesting mix of quiet introspection with a touch of lost-at-sea panic, but now we were anchored just off the island, next to the boat Ikemael had been chasing since we left port. The boat with the smiley face flag and the woman in white was blaring Jay-Z from its stereo and the two ladies were still dancing near the mast. Ikemael was now seated in the dinghy looking up at me, waiting for me to join him. He wasn't impatient though. He seemed cool with allowing me to take in the moment and the scenery around us. The sky was now a brilliant shade of blue contrasted against the deeper blue-greens of the water around the island. The sun cut through the clouds that had both led and chased us for a spell on the water and the day was shaping up to be perfection.

I looked down at my fellow sailor in the dinghy, "Shall we?"

Ikemael smiled back at me beatifically. He was thrilled I was enjoying the moment as much as he was. For all the bullshit chaos that kid caused, he was genuinely interested in the people around him being happy and it multiplied his own happiness in some symbiotic fashion. I made a quick run below deck to fetch another couple of Tecates with lime. I have a fondness for Tecate dating back to college but can't take them without a lime.

It's simply uncivilized.

The hamster smiled a stoned-out smile at me as I passed him and I acknowledged him with a quick nod. I wasn't entirely keen on spending much time with the rodent brothers and I didn't feel compelled to invite the Hamster along. Pinky was still face down on the table in the galley but I was fairly certain I heard him breathing when I took the beers out of the cooler and so I just let him be.

I couldn't help feeling like some sort of swashbuckling pirate as we cruised over to the girls' boat in our dinghy. It felt like we were a boarding party of buccaneers getting ready to raid the ship anchored ahead of us, but instead of swords and guns we had Tecate with lime. Suddenly I wished we had brought along a few extras; we might need them to pacify the crew of the ship we were about to board.

The water was still pretty glassy with just a hint of chop and the dinghy covered the 100 or so feet quickly, abruptly ending my lame pirate fantasies. As we approached the rear of the smiley-face ship, Ikemael stood up and waved. He then bellowed out a salty, "Ahoy!"

Jay-Z was still blasting loudly and the girls dancing on the mast, one of them being Ikemael's white whale, went on dancing, oblivious to us. Ikemael shouted 'Ahoy' again but was drowned out by '99 Problems.' Our only problem at this point was being heard.

We pulled up right behind the smiley-faced ship, bumping up slightly against the back. Ikemael looked at me, momentarily at a loss as to what to do. I offered nothing but a shrug and downed another swig of Tecate. As far as I could tell, there were a lot of other ships in the sea and one of those was bound to have attractive women so I wasn't nearly as invested in the present situation as was Ikemael.

We were on the verge of pulling around to the front of the boat when a head popped up over the side of the ship.

"Are you gentlemen looking to board us?"

Staring down at us from the deck of the ship was a man somewhere in the range of 60 years old. He was food-deprived skinny, with an almost skull-like face and thinning black hair that was for the moment covered by a white captain's hat. The most interesting feature on his chiseled face was the pencil thin mustache adorning his top lip, officially completing his look of John Waters the sailor.

Ikemael looked back at me, apparently as surprised as I was by the bony apparition above us. He raised his eyebrows at me as I finished my Tecate, then he collected himself and addressed the captain.

"Aye captain. We mean to board your vessel."

The old captain grinned and an equally bony hand raised a cigarette to his lips. Through his brilliantly white incisors, he welcomed us aboard, lowering a ladder from the rear deck. Ikemael leaped out of our dinghy and onto the platform, handing the captain a rope to tie us off. He was shaking hands with the captain as I awkwardly climbed aboard the ship with my freshly opened Tecate in my left hand and Ikemael's unopened one in my right.

As I stood up I found myself face to face with the captain and his cigarette carting smile.

"And he comes bearing gifts! You're not Greek are you? Where's your horse?"

I cocked my head and flashed an uncertain smile at the captain. I had no fucking idea what the old man was talking about but he didn't seem to care. I extended my hand for a shake, still holding Ikemael's beer, and the captain immediately grasped my hand with both of his skeletal claws, taking Ikemael's Tecate in the process.

"You must be Starbuck. My name is Captain Alvaro, but you can call me Captain for short and this is my ship, The Melmoth. Welcome!"

He shook my hand vigorously and smiled through clenched teeth from which dangled his long, slender cigarette bearing an alarmingly large load of ash. Ikemael had already made his way up to the front of the boat, effectively leaving me alone with the peculiar captain.

"Ishmael tells me that's your boat over there with the little round man on it."

I looked back toward our ship and saw the Hamster standing on the deck, smoking his glass pipe and staring at us.

"Yeah - at least, that's the boat we rented. You own this boat you say?"

"Yes, she is entirely mine. Whenever the sirens of the sea call to me, I sail out into the blue until there is water, water everywhere."

His smile flayed his face once again, curling up into his jutting cheeks bones and giving a squint to his eyes. His cigarette continued to threaten to loose its ash everywhere but he paid it no mind whatsoever. He also paid no heed to personal space, as he was standing less than a foot away from me with his precarious cancer stick in my face.

Something suddenly hit me.

"Did you say your boat is named The Melmoth?"

His smile became a little more intense,"Yes it is."

"As in Melmoth the Wanderer?"

His teeth clenched harder on the cigarette, nearly biting the damn thing in half. I had never seen such a large smile open up across someone's face before.

"Ahh, you've read it I take it."

I nodded slowly, fascinated now by the cigarette and its gravity defying ash.

"Yes, that's an interesting name, captain. A little dark maybe?"

"So it is." At this he paused and sized me up before continuing, "I'm delighted you and Ishmael came aboard. Are you hungry?"

I looked up to the front of the boat and saw that Ikemael was now talking to the woman in white, actually she was wearing a the polka-dotted bikini now, while the other girl was still dancing around the mast. The third woman was seated a few feet away from us in a large, white sun hat. She was wearing a black bikini and was rubbing oil on her long legs, the right which bore a tattoo of a pin-up girl angel. Her dark hair was pulled back but I couldn't see her face because of her hat.

"Or perhaps you would like to meet the rest of our party?"

I returned my attention to the captain who was still oddly smiling at me and nodded. We walked over to the woman in the black bikini, who took no notice of us at all. She continue rubbing oil on her legs.

"Biondetta my dear, where are your manners?"

The woman continued about her business, ignoring me and the captain's question.

"Biondetta! Please say hello to our guest, the young Starbuck from across the way."

This time she looked up at me and gave me the curtest of smiles. The captain extended his hand, indicating I was to walk up to the front of the boat where everyone else was. As we were walking away Biondetta spoke again.

"Did you think you could just come over here uninvited?"

I was sort of startled by the abrupt tone in her voice. The entire situation was off. The captain was a very odd man and Biondetta was just rude. I turned around to look at her and was taken back by how exotically beautiful she was. She had fine features and a long slender nose with cat-like, seductive dark brown eyes on either side. Her skin was flawless and her lips pouted ever so slightly into a tempting bow.

"I believe we did just that."

The captain put his hand on my shoulder. A plume of cigarette smoke wrapped around my head.

"Well said, young Starbuck. Ignore Biondetta - she is grouchy if woken before noon."

I knew at that moment that I was in more trouble than I ever would have anticipated. I looked back toward our boat and suddenly it seemed very far away.

Originally posted at www.igetpanic.com

why is the room shaking?

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:03:02 -0500

Some mornings are better than others. Some are glorious and sunny with birds singing and my surfboard calling, but some are less so, with a lingering taste of whiskey in my mouth and my sinuses feeling as if someone packed my head with glue. Add your very first earthquake to the mix and you've got yourself a hell of a way to welcome the day.

About a year after moving to LA, I needed to find a new apartment commensurate with my ever-dwindling income. I was taking more short-term writing gigs and going on more auditions, which mostly amounted to spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere. I met this guy named Derek, a struggling actor who was looking for a roommate. He'd landed a role shortly after arriving in LA from Indiana when he was just 21. It was a soap opera but I can't remember which one because they all seemed the same to me. He made some money and booked a few commercials but then began to flame out in brilliant Hollywood fashion under a gathering storm of cocaine, amphetamines and booze. He wasn't much better off than me when we met except for the fact he had a two bedroom apartment and needed a renter, a cheap one.

You can't be involved in entertainment in this town without doing a stint in the Valley. The place is a mecca for the self-proclaimed talented but ceaselessly unemployed artisan class. I did my time in Sherman Oaks, just off the 101 with easy access to Hollywood, Burbank and wherever else I needed to be. The apartment itself couldn't have been more generic, a meditation on dingy gray and depressingly off-white. The place had no AC and so the summer months our abode served as an oven. Luckily there was a pool right outside our balcony and so much of the time I should have spent writing was spent swimming, soaking really.

Everyone in our building was roughly the same age and in similar circumstances. They were all actors and writers and we all knew of the failures and successes of everyone else. If the guy down in 3C booked a commercial you knew about it and if the girl across the patio got stand in work for Jessica Alba, then you jumped the tiny fence of her balcony and gave her a bottle of wine. Our neighbor to the right was a very pretty born-again from Minnesota who would sit out on her balcony reading the bible. She was a dancer. Our neighbor to the left was also a dancer but her costumes consisted mostly of pasties and she did her dancing to Motley Crue and the rest of the strip club repertoire. She would phone me up from time to time and ask me to come over and reattach the pole she had installed in her bedroom. I must have put that thing back up for her at least four times but each time I made sure my work was just suspect enough so I would have to return and secure it again. She would usually do a little number for me as a way of saying thanks and I might end up staying the night. I was a writer not a carpenter so it didn't seem all that odd I did shoddy work.

This was my community, almost my family at the time. In most other cities, young people with our abject lack of work ethic and questionable moral fabric would be seen as the lost ne'er-do-wells of Generation X, but in a city in which one three-minute monologue can catapult you into fame, we were doing alright.

One night Derek, me and the dancers, he preferred the one with the bible, were out celebrating. Derek seemed to have a fetish for women who claimed they were pure. I knew our born-again friend liked to drink but I suspected his amorous gestures would be deflected off of her black bible belt of chastity. Lucy, the other dancer, was more my speed since she didn't wear a belt and didn't know the meaning of chastity. The four of us spent the entire night sipping cocktails at a joint off of Ventura Boulevard. It was a lounge with hip tunes played at soft volume and the kind of dim lighting that permitted Lucy's spindly white legs to either be draped over or wrapped around mine. We ended up in a drunk, mushy mess of flesh, nearly undressing one another in the club and then losing her panties in the cab ride home.

We woke up naked and hungover in my bed. I had a head filled with concrete and a high plains dehydration tearing down my throat. I stumbled to the bathroom to dunk my head into the water-filled sink and then cupped my hands to drink straight from the faucet. I had the decency to throw on some boxers before making my way to the kitchen, where I found Derek standing next to the sink. It was 7am and he was standing in the clothes he had worn the night before, sweating slightly with red eyes bulging out of his face. He had one of those tiny bottles of tequila they sell in the liquor store and you sometimes get on a flight when you order a drink. He was chasing the tequila with an herbal tea and appeared to have been up all night doing blow. Derek and I weren't really friends as much as roommates. It was a civil arrangement that allowed us to co-habitate without some of the baggage of actually becoming friends. Still, I was concerned about his general welfare.

"Derek...you going to be okay?"

His head darted in my direction and I could see his pupils were nearly as big as his corneas.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

I wasn't sure whether I would be fine though. I found an old plastic cup from 7-11 and filled it to the brim. I walked back into the living room and plopped down on our old beige sofa that sagged in the center. I drank as much as I could from the Super Big Gulp cup and set it down before placing my head in my hands. I needed just another thirty minutes to get past the headache and nausea and then I would be fine. I looked up and immediately began to feel dizzy. The TV was playing a remake of Godzilla and looked to be shaking back and forth with the terrible lizard. I stood up determined I should go back to bed as the hangover was much worse than I had imagined.

Then Derek began to scream.

"Earthquake! It's a fucking earthquake."

He was right. It wasn't just me. The entire room was moving. The lamp over our kitchen table was swinging to and fro from the chain that held it to the ceiling. I had no idea what to do because I had never been in an earthquake. It felt as if we were at sea, my equilibrium being thrown off, and the pictures on the wall were rattling off of their hooks.

Derek had run into the living room and was still screaming.

"Don't panic! Don't panic! Find somewhere safe!"

I had no idea what that meant but Derek was not really helping in the don't panic department. I looked out through our sliding glass door that led to the balcony and to the pool and I could see water sloshing out of it as it shook. Right about that time Lucy came running out of the bedroom, completely naked, and nearly falling on the floor. She came in an ivory flash from my periphery vision and I turned just in time as she collided into my arms and wrapped herself around me.

Derek was still screaming.

"We're going to be fine. We're going to make it."

I had never learned the protocol for dealing with an earthquake. I yelled over to Derek, "What should we do?"

He looked at me with his red eyes now threatening to eject from his skull and screamed, "Go to the hallway! No wait - stand in a door frame! Just get away from anything glass!"

Before I could do anything the rolling stopped. The overhead light in the kitchen was still swinging and the water in the pool was still sloshing but the earthquake was over. It had been a few seconds of shaking and panic and it was done.

I stood there holding naked Lucy and kissed the black spider tattoo she had on her shoulder. She wasn't saying anything and wasn't moving. Derek was in the middle of the living room with both of his arms extended and his face looking savagely wild.

The three of us stood in place for a few more seconds before it finally settled into our fuzzy little brains that the event had ended. Derek collapsed on the sofa and I picked up Lucy and carried her back to my bed. As I walked down the hallway she whispered, "That was scary." I placed her into bed, kissed her forehead, grabbed a pair of sweats off of the floor and walked back into the kitchen.

I decided to make some coffee but had to take a moment to gather myself. I took a few deep breaths and managed to shake off the shock and regain my composure.

That was my first earthquake. I had never felt the earth move like that before. On the Richter scale it was nothing. I have been in worse ones since - some that roll, some that jolt and some that shake but I have never been in anything like I saw today on the news. The Richter scale increases exponentially so that today's quake in Japan is 3000 times more powerful than the quake we had in 1994 in Northridge, CA. I saw on the TV that it lasted for thirty seconds but some areas reported five minutes! I could not imagine being in that situation for that long and then I cannot imagine the horror of everything that has followed.

My little sliver of perspective is a mere hiccup in light of all Japan has gone through but it was terrifying enough to me. My thoughts are with the people there whose lives have been altered and I wish them the best. Wherever she is, I'm certain Lucy feels the exact same way.

Originally posted at www.igetpanic.com

almost to catalina

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 17:03:15 -0500

After discovering that the two captains who were sailing our ship into the harbor at Avalon on Catalina Island were both incapacitated and face down on the table, I popped back up above deck with great alarm. Ike was still staring off at the other ship ahead of us, which was much closer now and in my tenderfoot opinion was threatening to be too close very soon. I called to him a few times, trying to control the mounting fear that was permeating through my vocal cords, but he either couldn't hear me or was more likely ignoring me.

I walked around the right side of the cabin, along the narrow walkway of the deck leading to the front of the boat where Ike was sitting. I could pretend at this point that I had deftly acquired all the starboard and port terminology in the first thirty minutes of this story but that would be a lie. Thus, I'll continue with front, right and whatever land loving layman term pops up in my non-sailor vocabulary.

"Ike!"

He was sitting motionless with his back to me but let loose another, "Call me Ishmael," which was completely tone deaf to the residual fear evident in my voice.

"For fuck's sake - Ismael, our beloved captains appear passed out below deck!"

I now have Ishmael, or Ikemael at this point, at full attention. He turned with a nonplussed look on his face, his brow scrunching slightly in pensive consideration.

"I guess you would be Starbuck."

This wasn't at all what I was expecting or really hoping he would say but it effectively threw me off my immediate course. Due to an obsession with the recently revamped Battlestar Galactica, I had completely forgotten that Starbuck was originally one of Melville's seamen, a mate on the ship that was hunting Moby Dick. Upon hearing the name, I immediately thought of the ridiculously hot Katee Sackhoff from the Battlestar show and wondered why Ikemael was now mixing his stories. It took a moment of consideration for me to connect the dots and stop thinking of Katee before I remembered the Moby Dick connection. Actually, I kept thinking of Katee but managed to think of other things as well.

Another side note, gender studies indicate that women are likely better at multi-tasking than are their testosterone fueled counterparts. My own anecdotal evidence seems to suggest this is true, except for one area - sex. Men can be thinking about sex while doing any number of things. We might be running a country, ala Berlusconi or Clinton, we could be an artist like Currin or we can be average Joes, dangerously close to being lost at sea and slightly worried about our survival yet still titillated by the thought of Katee Sackhoff. I'm not saying women don't also think about sex while going about their business of running countries, creating art or being average Janes. I'm merely saying that those of us with penises are doing it all the time. That might be the reason we struggle with multi-tasking - we're already doing it all the time.

But I digress...Ikemael had just called me Starbuck.

I can only answer him in the half-hearted voice of a confused and panicked man, "Uh, yeah - maybe I'm Starbuck but I'm pretty much at the end of what I remember from the book. However, we have larger problems."

"Yeah, I heard you. The rodent boys are sleeping?"

"Sleeping, passed out - maybe dead. I didn't stop to check since I figured it was more important to find someone to share my panic first."

Ikemael smiled at me, "Well, Starbuck, looks like you and me might be sailing this here ship to Catalina."

"We don't know how to sail."

"No, Starbuck, you don't know how to sail."

With that, he walked past me back toward the cabin and disappeared below. I followed a few seconds behind. When I went below I found that the hamster was awake, just stoned out of his goddamn mind. Pinky still appeared asleep but was breathing. I had no idea what the two had loaded themselves up with, but judging by the cornucopia of vials, bags and jars scattered about - it was a smorgasbord of narcotics.

Ikemael was propping Hamster up and gave him a solid slap across the face.

"All we have to do, young Starbuck, is get our cheese eating friend here lucid enough to give us the vaguest of directions. I used to sail some back home and so I think we'll have just enough to get us into port safely."

We were now effectively at sea. The marina had mostly disappeared behind us and Catalina, in my landlubber eyes, loomed in the distance like the island in King Kong. The smooth sailing now took on an ominous whisper of foreboding and the clouds that were being pushed by the same wind that had filled our sails were gathering around us in dark cumulonastiness.

While Ikemael was filling a glass of water to throw into the hamster's foggy face, I slipped on the black Patagonia fleece that had seen me through adventures from the Badlands of the Dakotas to across the world in Turkey. I'd stared down mountain lions and muggers in this jacket and felt it must bring a touch of luck.

After a couple of glasses of water to the face, the hamster was able to slur out instructions and confirm our questions. Turned out, Ishmael was more of a sailor than he originally let on. With an occasional fact check against the hamster he was able to keep us on course and avoid the large barges. I saw that the boat with the woman in white had put up some kind of yellow flag with a happy face on it. Ikemael continued to keep an eye on the other vessel and even revised our course once to stay near it. Ikemael was nothing if not singular in focus at any given moment. Yet another example of male multi-tasking while focused on sex.

As we approached Avalon, we radioed the harbor patrol and were told there were no moorings available and that

we would have to anchor off the island near the old casino. That sent a brief look of concern flashing across Ikemael's face and a prolonged stare to the other ship. Then he looked back to me.

"Anchoring is harder than it looks but we should manage. We will probably lose the ship with the She-devil though."

It struck me that he was more concerned for the girl than the anchoring part of that equation but that was Ikemael's way. Pinky was now sound asleep below and the hamster was staring vacantly into space and smiling at me from behind the mists within his mind.

We approached the casino and circled around some other boats already anchored. We found a suitable clearing and dropped our anchor. We repeated this unsuccessfully several times. Each time the anchor was not secure and we would begin to drift. Ikemael was growing frustrated and decided we needed to move to a better spot that might make anchoring a little easier. We motored slowly into a more crowded area with a flotilla of white boats. We were spaced about 30 yards from another ship near us when Ikemael noticed first their yellow happy face flag and then the woman in white.

Ikemael dropped the anchor without looking down, his eyes wrapped around his white whale. From their boat we could hear music starting to play. One of the other female passengers began to pole dance around the mast of their boat. She was dipping and grinding and slapping her ass while the woman in white watched and laughed. Then, Ikemael's white whale began to strip down, revealing a little polka dot bikini. She joined her friend and the two put on a show right there in the middle of the water.

With a brilliant stroke of luck, we found ourselves securely anchored and within shouting distance of the boat next to us that had females dancing like strippers at sea on the deck. The clouds had cleared and the sun was blazing down in full flesh welcoming glory. The girls next door obliged. The hamster gawked at the dancers for a while before looking back at me and saying the first thing of the day we didn't have to beat out of him.

"Sweet."

He was right. It was sweet. I went down below to crack open my first Tecate of the day. When I returned topside, I found Ikemael lowering our dinghy into the water. He looked up at me with a grin, "How do you feel about boarding their ship?"

I knew our adventure was just beginning.

Originally posted at www.igetpanic.com