Vending Machine Rant

One night in the Nautilus Marine break room, a tall, bearded, drunken hillbilly staggered into the break room to buy something from a vending machine. He was dressed in a camouflaged jacket and rubber boots. He claimed the change machine short-changed him 25 cents which triggered what can only be described as a complete reversion to savagery.

I recorded his comments in a journal I was keeping at the time:

"A tall bearded hillbilly...claims the dollar bill changer only gave him 75 cents back for his dollar. His initial comment was, 'Hey!...It only gave me 75 cents!! But, hey!...That's all I need!' After he finished his snack though, he started beating on the change machine and yelling for somebody to 'Call the fuckin' cops'. 

He tried to write on the wall that the machine owed him money, but his pen was dry; so he hurled it against a nearby table and sat down with his face in his hands. Soon, he started to demand that somebody, 'Call the fuckin' cops'!!"  

"He says, 'If I robbed a liquor store, they'd call the cops on me; but this machine can rip me off a quarter and the cops don't even care.'" 

"Now he's swaying a lot. He can barely hold his head up straight. He's saying, 'Fuck America' and 'God Damn America' over and over and over again. Now he just added, 'God Bless Alaska'!! He'll be asleep soon." 

"Oh! He got a second wind. He's raving (to nobody in particular, just in case anybody's listening) - 'I live like an animal!...I'm a savage!!...If you don't believe me, if you think I'm full of shit, just live with me for a year - I'll show you how an animal lives'!!! ... 'I've been sleeping by railroad tracks and under trucks for years, usually with no heat"! [Jonnie comments: "ha ha, "usually"?] 'We're living in the end times...and when the cities fall, I'll be thriving'!!"

Packing Crew, Nautilus Marine; Valdez AK, 1991.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Sep. 27, 2004]

1984 Diary: Selected Excerpts

Selected journal entries (circa March-April, 1984) -

* "Today was a good day because nobody told me what to do and we all got along fine".

* "In gym class, James was making fun of me for not having much hair on my legs. I, myself, don't feel that having hairy legs is important at all...maybe I shouldn't even be his friend anymore".

* "Tomorrow is class. I hope I look good, because I haven't looked good in class even one time all year".

* "We went to a fish fry. It was fun, even though nobody from my class was there".

* "I didn't go to church today and I'm glad.
It's not that I don't believe in God, it's just that churches give me a real bad feeling".

* "I don't like how I look.
I prayed about it, but nothing happened.
I don't know what else to do".

* "I had a good day today. We didn't do anything in gym class...if tomorrow goes like I plan, tomorrow will be just as good".

* "One of my dad's friends finally decided to go into alcoholism treatment. We went to Ohio to visit him. It was fun".

* "Dad got mad at me for reading too much and not talking to anybody. He got so mad he was almost screaming, then he threatened to take away my comic books".

* "Grandma Roth gave me a new shirt - it has the name of her church on it".

* "Nick and I stole 2 of Uncle Rick's rubbers when we were over there for Easter.
We put one in a guy's mailbox and saved the other until today when we sold it to a kid at church for a dollar".

* "I got a new pair of jeans at the mall. All is well and I have no problems".

* "Today I worked in the school cafeteria and almost got fired for throwing a milk in the air & letting it land in the meat balls".

* "I guess there's nothing else to say, except good-bye". 

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Dec. 9, 2004]

7 Stupid Dreams

What does a 14 year old dream about?

My time capsule might have some clues, it contains a short dream notebook from March, 1984:

1. "I went to a martial arts class, but when I walked into the building, everybody was just sitting on benches looking around.
Then the teacher came in and made us read from a computer book. It didn't have anything to do with martial arts at all".

2. "I dreampt I was watching a cable TV station that was all about video games".

3. "I was at Nick's house and he had a cup full of liquid vitamin C.
We were dipping chips in it".

4. "We were getting ready for church & a lady from the church was telling us about their Sunday School.
I kept imagining her naked while she was talking and I wanted to have sex with her".

5. "Aunt Denise gave me and Todd a bunch of old comic books, a bunch of new records, and a Hall & Oats tape".

6. "Deb gave Mark 2 plastic bags full of pink stuff".

7. "I was running down some stairs really fast, looking for the bathroom, but couldn't find it anywhere. Then I went outside and there was a man with a black beard. He gave me a skull".

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Dec. 8, 2004]

1984

In 1984, when I was only 14 years old, we had to make a time capsule for a class. I kept the envelope in my files over the years and recently realized it was past time to open it (the envelope was labelled, "Do Not Open Until May 19, 2004. If I die, burn this sucker.").

I vaguely remember making the time capsule and thinking I would be disappointed when I open this after waiting all those years. I didn't want to include anything that might be useful, so I just included some writings and stuff I would have thrown away otherwise:

There were some biographical things:

My best memory is:  the comic book convention
Recently I've learned: That I like heavy metal (Black Sabbath)

I also included two pretty piss poor short stories:

The first one is titled, "The Tragic Life of Walter Locatelli." It was written on a classic typewriter, which looks pretty rugged after having written everything in word processing programs for the last 10 years. It begins, "Walter Locatelli is an unhappy man. As a child, his parents tortured him in his crib".
It goes downhill fast after that, and soon degenerates into a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish.

The second story isn't as good (it was difficult to find a suitable line for posting). It's a war story - "They killed some of our guys, but we killed more of theirs. My partner, Alvin, was shot down. He owed me $12.00, but his wallet was in his pocket floating over the horizon with the rest of his bottom half; so I started swimming that way too, looking for it".

I also included this horrible photo of myself as a kid, sitting on Santa's lap and looking nauseated:

Ho Ho Ho.

And a drawing of my cat, Meemeek:

Meemeek..

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Dec. 7, 2004]