City Chase!!

Let me clear my throat...ahem. Yesterday, my friend Rosa and I went downtown for the first ever Seattle City Chase. If you haven't heard about City Chase, you must be living in a rock, or in one of the many thousands of places around the world that DON'T host City Chase. Check it out here. Basically, it's like the Amazing Race (from what I hear anyway), but it's based all in one particular city. You have to do a bunch of challenges, collect challenge points, and then race back to the finish line when you have completed all your challenges. There are only two forms of transportation: Public Transport, and your fricken Feet, baby!

Never having done one of these events before, I was pretty excited to get down there and start tearing shit up. We arrived downtown at a rain soaked Westlake Center early, got our swag, which included a couple t-shirts (which we had to wear for the competition), two energy-saving light bulbs, and various coupons for places such as REI, etc. The whole thing was put on by Palm (of Palm Pilot fame), so we of course got propaganda from them. After eyeballing the competition for awhile, we were warmed up by some quick calisthenic exercises performed by what looked like Mork and Mindy, in their 70s era track suits.

At precisely 10:00, we were issued a list of items to find for a scavenger hunt. We had to complete the scavenger hunt in order to get our clue sheet for the real race. Rosa and I made quick work of the scavenger hunt, collecting among other things, a wriggling worm, a 16 year old boy, a lipstick kiss on the cheek (ooh la la!) and the answers to many rediculous and inconsequential questions. We were then off like a shot to quickly sit down on the corner, and read over all the various places we needed to go. In essence, there were 14 challenge points offered, and in order to finish, each team had to collect 10 points. It didn't matter so much which points were collected.

first, we went down Pike to a coffee stand where we had to taste some coffee and tell the barrista which was which. It was like the Pepsi Challenge, but with three kinds of coffee. We were successful, because both of us drink coffee like there's no tomorrow. That one was kind of boring. "What kind of hokey, two-bit operation is this?" I said to myself. But next we ran to a restaurant to apparently be persuaded by the Palm company to use their crappy phones. Our challenge was to do a bunch of shit, while either filming or taking pictures with one of their "smart" phones. It was pretty dumb, but we made it.

As we were doing this challenge, we spotted one of the next challenges on our list: Challenge point 8 - City Fish Market. I rolled up on this challenge like a man possessed. "What's the deal here?" I asked. The people said that I had to cast one die, and it would decide my fate. I rolled the die, got a five, and noticed that I had to eat two fish. No problem, says I. I was hungry. I looked hungrily into the basket of whole, raw fish that they had. They actually had a choice of the raw fish, or pickled herring. The herring smelled horrible. I should tell you that I knew there would be some form of eating something you don't want to eat in this competition. I was expecting bugs. This was just raw fish. I enjoy raw fish about as much as anybody can. I've eaten plenty of whole raw fish while living in Japan and teaching elementary school - it was part of their lunch.

I asked the man to place the two fish in my hand, and I eagerly crunched into the first one, taking the whole head off in my first bite. The gasps from the crowd were priceless, and I made it my mission to gross everyone out. My second bite got through about the first half of that fish, and I made a gagging motion toward the workers. Just as they thought I would throw up on them, I pulled a string of backbone from my mouth and asked the guy if I had to eat that as well. He said no. Long story short, I killed with the fish. I watched somebody else blow chunks. heh.

After that, we were off to REI for a challenge - more crap with cell phones. Rosa had to text me questions from one phone, and I had to find the answers inside the store, and text them back. We were naturals at this, as I go to REI about every week. We kicked ass at this one. But on the way to REI was the real adventure. An old woman grabbed me as we were running down the street, and demanded to know where the fucking visitors' center was. I looked back, and immediately saw a sign for the visitors' center. I thought that was weird, but oh well. I pointed it out to her, and was about to run off, when she says, "Well, that way is all uphill, and I shrank two inches last year. I'm not sure if..." and as she started to tell me her life story, I got a small insight into just how competitive Rosa really is, when she grabbed me by the arm, taking a bit of flesh off, and giving me an indian burn I won't soon forget, and yells "THAT'S TOO BAD!" while nearly carrying me up the street to REI. About 50 feet up the road, I got the "Don't ever make eye contact with old ladies" speech. I concurred.

From REI it was off to the UW (by bus) for 1. a (very abbreviated) SAT, 2. a kayaking adventure on Lake Union, and 3. a jog to the soccer pitch at the IMA, where we found the people tearing down the obstacle course we were about to run, due to the whether. They punched our ticket anyway, as we still had to answer some questions when we got there, but we got out of that one pretty easily. Our SAT took about 25 minutes, and it made me want to kill them. Stupid fricken questions! The kayaking was the best part of the day, as we kicked the shit out of all the people around us. Rosa faced her deathly fear of water, and we both got pretty damn wet.

After that, we were onto what we thought was the home stretch. We had succesfully completed 8 tasks, and we just had to do two more. They were both going to be easy. The first: take somebody's old energy wasting lightbulb, and replace it with one of the bulbs in our swag bag. The second: go to Seattle Works (the charity we had partnered with) to turn in our pledge sheets. We figured we'd kill two birds with one stone. At this point, it was getting on towards 3:00 and we were racing against time to get everything done by the 4:00 deadline. We had googled the address of Seattle Works on Rosa's phone earlier in the day, so we knew it was just a short ride on the 48 bus from the UW to the east Capitol Hill/west Madison area. We sprinted to catch the 48 that was going by us. The driver saw us, wouldn't stop, but pointed about two blocks up and drove slowly beside us for most of the way until Rosa told me she was about to puke. We then walked very fast, and somehow caught the bus. We were thanking our lucky stars, and our lord and savior, Jemus. We quickly got off the bus at the corner of 5th and 23rd ave. We just had to walk four blocks to the office, and somewhere along the way, change a bulb.

We walked up to the first house with an open screen door. I knocked, and the twenty-something girl that was STANDING DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME IN THE DOORWAY, yelled "Momma! Somebody's at the door!" Momma apparently wasn't listening. So she yelled again. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself that I'm about to just open the door and start talking. Finally, Momma comes to the door. I'm not kidding when I say that I waited for about two whole minutes. So we tell Momma that we're in a race, we show her our mission sheet, and ask her if she wouldn't mind changing out one of her old shitty light bulbs for a shiny new one. She then looks around her, looks up, looks down, and says "We're in the middle of a dinner here. I don't have time for all this nonsense," at which time Rosa grabs me by the arm, and yells "Okay, thanks!"

We were off like a shot down the street. Now there were no more houses with anybody around, and we were getting closer and closer to the Seattle Works office. We round the corner, and we see the address where we need to be. We walk right up to that address, look at the door, and low and behold, we find that we are at the Seattle WIC office. The fucking Seattle WIC office!!! We quickly run next door to a floral shop, ask the lady at the front A: to give us an old shitty bulb and we'll switch her out with a new one, (which she does) and B: to google the Seattle Works place. She does, and doesn't find anything. Then we get her to go onto the City Chase website to find it. She does, and finds the address to be in fucking Queen Anne of all places! We thank her and begin running out the door, but she starts talking, and wants to discuss the whole concept of the City Chase with us. For fuck's sake! Rosa just grabs my arm, yells "Thank You!" and runs out with me streaming behind her like the tired balloon that was also in my arms (we had to pick up two balloons earlier in the competition, and they were to be filled with helium, and floating over our heads when we ran across the finish line).

We quickly hopped on the #12 bus to downtown, and then tried to catch one of the many, many buses that went to Queen Anne. None of them came. We watched the time tick slowly away, and along with it, our chances at becoming the Seattle City Chase champions. Eventually, it was 3:55, and realizing that the finish line closed at 4:00, we just hopped on the 70 bus, and rode it to Jillians Billiards, where the finish line was. We limped sadly across the finish line, and walked in with our balloons trailing behind us instead of proudly bouncing over our heads. The judges told us we didn't have all 10 of our challenges ticked off. We told the judges that we googled the address of Seattle Works, and showed them what came up on the phone. They were shocked (but didn't really seem to care all that much), and of course, it didn't matter anyway. The winning team had finished in 3 hours 29 minutes. Here we were coming in at just over 6 hours. Though our dreams of becoming this year's champions were dashed, we now know that next year we will be back to kick the shit out of everybody in Seattle!

It still kicked ass. Someday I'll tell you about all the stuff we didn't do, but should have, because we actually went way too far out of our way for some of the challenges, and could've gotten done much quicker had we gone to the art school and painted the nude model (dammit!!) Oh well. Next year!

Episode IV: A New Hope

Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to edit this story down a bit, as there is way too much info. In the end, you'll either read or you won't, right? Screw off. You're the only one reading, Sarah. Here comes Part Deux of "The Wedding."

Last year, upon receiving word of the impending birth of the world's newest Richter, I was invited by my little bro to be his best man. At that point, the whole family had tried - and failed - to tell him that he should just kick this chick to the curb, as she had lied to him about just about everything regarding "his" unborn child. I grudgingly accepted the challenge, and immediately started to worry over what kind of good things I could possibly say about this unholy union in my speech at the weddin'. I dutifully went and got myself felt up at a tux shop, tipped the mustachioed man a few bucks, and emailed the info off to Jon (who, by the way, never responded to let me know he got it, etc.).

I was stalling on buying my plane tickets back to Fargo, as I didn't have the cash to spend anyway, and more importantly, was just hoping that the whole thing would be canceled because of his fiance's terminal lupus, or some other invented disease. I guess Jebus was watching out for me after all, because about a week before the wedding, I received a phone call from the boy, asking me if I'd already bought my tickets. I answered in the affirmative (though I hadn't actually bought them at that point), just so I could hear him squirm on the phone. God, I'm so mean sometimes. After a short bunch of mumbling, which is more than I usually get from Jon, he tells me that the wedding has been postponed...for about a year. This is apparently due to the fact that his sweet baboo is STILL MARRIED TO HER OLD HUSBAND!!

Well sir, this was just too good to pass up. I immediately asked him if his wife hadn't presumably known this since the time they met, and certainly since they scheduled the fucking wedding. There was some mumbling, stumbling and grumbling, followed by a quick excision on Jon's part from the conversation. Before he got off the phone, I was able to find out from him that they were allowed by all of their wedding people to either cancel services or re-schedule venues without losing any money. The one hitch was that the place they rented for the party would have to be used within one year. They couldn't get their money back on that one. Seems more than fair to me. This would prove to be the impetus for part three in our story, coming up soon.

Oh, and at this point, I should mention that "their" love child had been pooped out for a couple weeks. The kid's name is Logan. If I am to include him with my other nephews, I now have three of the whitest sounding nephews in America. We have Austin, Cody and Logan. At least the last one is only named after an airport, and not some cowboy city. Then again, upon further investication (as Jesco White says), I see that Logan is indeed a city in both Utah and Iowa, so there you have it. Three hick towns for three hick boys.

That's about as much as I can remember from that time, as it was well over a year ago now. More coming up soon.

The long journey: A Three Part Story

Welcome back America. Here's what you've been missing. The Donkey has had a substantial amount of great times, which he hasn't blogged about. He's also had plenty of messed up shiznit happen, which has also not been blogged about. Until now.

Flashback, 1.5 years ago. A random phone call from my mother, Mrs. Burro. Normally, I would never pick up this phone call, because I have reservations about speaking with my mother, but for some reason I was compelled that day. Call it the will of our lord and savior, Jesus, if you will. Or don't. I wouldn't. Anyway, the phone was answered by me, Spooky D., on that fateful day. I was told I was going to be an uncle again. "Impossible!" I said. "My bro got his tubes tied years ago. Stop lying to me, mother!" She went on to tell me that it wasn't the usual culprit, but this time was my retarded half brother, born out of wedlock by an unholy union between my mother and the milk man. Okay, that's just not true. I really don't know whose baby he was. Anyway, he was due to be a father. I thought to myself (just before my mother said the exact same words aloud), "Wow, I didn't think he knew how to do that!!"

There was much rejoicing as the story unfolded. It seems that the harlot that forced my Down's Syndrome brother into sexual slavery was the mother of two other children, by two other fathers. Now I know you'll tell me, "Spooky D., that's not the end of the world, and it doesn't make that girl a whore." But you're wrong. She's a whore. And she's 23 as of this writing, which made her about 21 or a young 22 at the time of copulation with my bro.

Anyway, my brother, whom I'll call Jon, in order to hide his identity from you prying bastards, apparently didn't really hit it off with this girl on the one night that he met, and fornicated with her. He tells the (delusional) story with an interesting twist, but the gist of it goes as follows: Boy meets girl. Boy has horrible date with girl. Girl forces rubber onto boy's flaccid penis. Boy ejaculates as fast as possible (okay, this is my own embellishment, to be honest) into said rubber, and goes on his way. Four months later, girl shows up at boy's door to let him know of his new fatherly responsibilities. Boy excitedly yells, "Let's get married, you stinking pus bag!"

Now, at some point, The Donkey tells Jon that he should make sure that baby is his, since it would be really funny if the lovely couple got married, and out popped a baby that looked like Sammy Davis, Jr. It wouldn't be funny because the baby is Black, you racist pigs! It would be funny because it would be someone else's baby! God, get a clue. Anyway, he initially says no to DNA testing. He later folds under family pressure (this is the first time The Donkey and his family have agreed on anything since that time we all agreed that Britney Spears was the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama, even before the current one was dead. She is, by the way.

Anyhoo, it turns out that my sainted brother is indeed not the father of this love child between him and his blushing bride-to-be. But does the fact that he's been lied to about something as important as this sway him? Not for an instant! For he is the Quisatz Haderach, and he is the ultimate Catholic, in my humble opinion. Not even the Pope would have as much patience as that! Imagine, going from zero to three kids in the blink of an eye! You can't, can you!! Anyway, more to follow soon. This is just the back story for events that culminated in the most anticlimactic "wedding" ever! Stay tuned...

kumbaya...my freakin lord!!

I went CAMPING last weekend!! You don't believe me, do you? I did. Two of my friends and I packed up our stuff (mostly their stuff), loaded up the family truckster, and headed off to the Hoh Rainforest, and the Washington coast for a little R & R. It was the best time I've had in a long time. I really needed to get away from the city for awhile, and hiking/camping was just what I needed to do.

I had no idea that Washington's coast was so friggin' beautiful. The pictures you're about to see sometimes look like a tropical paradise!! The rocks in the ocean (aka Sea Stacks) are amazing to look at, and the sunsets were some of the best I've seen. There were deer all around us, and we had some magic mushrooms to make the mood a little better. It was cold as HELL, but we all had plenty of warm clothes, so there was no whining along the way...except for Jeremy. Well, not really, but there's a funny story about him.

Little did we know that at this time of year, and with the full moon, the tides are unusually high. Freakishly high. Much of our hike was along the beach, with jaunts up and into the rain forest when there was no beach to take. But the rain forest is up on cliffs above, so we had no way of getting up there, short of climbing a rock wall. The parts of the trail that are actually in the forest are facilitated with ropes and somtimes ladders to allow a person to climb the cliffs.

Anyway, with the tide so far in, we had to basically run from the waves nearly the whole time spent on the beach. We would run single file while the waves were going out, to the nearest rock, tree, or whatever was handy to step on. Then the waves would come in, recede, and we would run to the next rock, tree, etc.

One time, Jeremy thought he was running onto a pile of rocks, when he was actually to find out that his "pile of rocks" was actually just the remainder of a landslide, and was really a mucky gelatinous mass (resembling a pile of rocks). His leg sank in up to his calf, and he lost his shoe in the mud. I, being the hero of the day, took it upon myself to get his shoe. With the waves coming in, it took me nearly 10 minutes to fish the fucker out of there, but I finally got it.

When we reached our supposed destination, we found it to be already staked out by other campers, so we had to walk down the beach, nearly a mile to the next campsite. This time we were in luck.


After setting up camp and eating dinner, we found ourselves with not much to do, about 40 magic mushrooms, and a lot of time on our hands. We made a tea, put 20 mushrooms in it, and drank up. After about 40 minutes, we realized that nothing was happening, so we added another 20 mushrooms to the mix. Unfortunately, the spell seems to have worn off these particular magic mushrooms, and we ended our night without having a single hallucination between us.

The next day, our hike out was no less of a struggle. The tide was higher, and this time we had to crawl under trees, over rocks, and through places we never should have gone. I felt a little like Shackleton, or the Swiss Family Robinson. It was such a blast trying to get around the waves while keeping dry! We actually had to stop for about three hours because the waves were so freakin' high, there was no place to go!

By the time we ended our two-day trek, it was 6:00 pm, and pitch black. We had to use head lamps for the last hour to light our way back to the car.

Songs that make you pee your pants

You know how when you listen to certain songs, you get goosebumps all over, and when they're finished, you just have to smoke a cigarette even though you don't even smoke? I was just listening to Jimi Hendrix the other day, and on the Band of Gypsies album, there's a tune called "Machine Gun" that makes me fucking weep!! The guitar solo is so goddam hot, I find that I can't stop touching myself in the Danger Zones.

Frank Zappa can also get me in the mood, especially with some of his tunes off of Joe's garage, or Best Band you never heard in your life. Jesus, that guy could play! A personal favorite of mine is "Zombie Woof." The time changes in that song will blow you away...and to hear them do it live is something that has to be heard (and probably actually seen) to be believed.

Another couple of songs that do almost the same thing to me are Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" and "Josie." The songs are so good, and the chord progressions (in Josie in particular) are absolutely fantastic. Not to mention the solos in both of them. Actually, I could probably name a bunch more of their songs that do that to me..."Dr. Wu" also comes to mind.

When I was younger, entire albums could do it to me...such as the critical Metallica album, Master of Puppets. The first time I heard the album, my brother was playing it in his bedroom, and I just went fucking nuts. I think that album changed my destiny, because I knew at that moment that my future involved me being a rock god, and look at me now! For chrissakes, it's all come true for me, just because I listened to that one album!

So let's here from you. I want to know some interesting songs or albums that make you cream in your pants. And nothing by the Petshop Boys, or I'll crush you like a bug (Tsar, you know I'm talking to YOU)! I'll allow Culture Club though. Come on all you people who normally just lurk here. I want some genuine answerers to this, because I want to listen to some new music, goddammit! And honestly, I don't really care what genre of music it is, or whether I know you or not, I just want to hear your opinions, so let 'em rip!

Jesus!!

Wow! I can't believe it's been a friggin' month since I've added anything to this. Time flies when you ain't workin' I guess. Anyhoo, just to get something in the archives for November, I will relay to you, my ardent fans, what my friend Sarah sent me from the Sunshine (or Sonshine) state...She just happened to be on www.catholicshopper.com, and found these little beauties:

With this first picture, we find Jesus giving the hand off to little Timmy, just before getting the smack laid on him by Johnny.



Next we have Jesus taking the ball away from the two girls who just shouldn't be playing soccer anyway. Girls, never play against Jesus. He's just too damn competitive (not to mention, too damn sexy, and too damn HOLY)!

In this next frame, you can see that Jesus is just a damn bully, when it comes right down to it. These kids just want to play ball, but Jesus is all like, "You can have it back after you bow down and worship me!!!" Look at that shit-eating grin on his face. He's lovin' this!!


Moving on to exhibit D; Jesus rogering the poor girl he found playing golf with her brother. "Just do what Jesus would, honey. That's right. Hold the big stick juuust like this!" At least Jesus ain't no pederast! (What's a pederast Walter?)

And last, but certainly not least, we see Jesus about to whoop some ass in the karate ring!! I guess he don't need no gee, since the fighting toga he wears provides him with a fluidity that those kids will never be able to attain! Rock on Jesus! And may god (and Benny Hinn) have mercy on my soul!

And speaking of Benny Hinn, one of my former co-workers at the UW just came back from Israel on the Benny Hinn "Death to Palestine" crusade. I spoke with her about it, and when I asked if she had gotten a chance to go to Palestine, she looked at me like I had just spat in her face...which I should have done just because she went with Benny Hinn! For those of you who don't have a clue who I'm talking about, check out this link to find out more about this crazy "prophet!"

Trick or Treat!!

Hello Children!! Remember that line? Tell me which rocker was famous for saying it, and I'll give you one of these pumpkins! Anyway, guess what I did today? Aside from watching Young Frankenstein and recovering from a raging party last night, yes, I carved Pumpkins with my slightly out of it, and very hung-over landlord/employer/friend, Peter.


Yes, these fine specimens were the product of two very tired and sick individuals. This first one was carved with inspiration coming from Iron Maiden, circa 1985.

And the second is the concrete-ization of how I feel after 3 weeks of searching for a job with no luck, and no hope in sight. Hopefully Halloween brings me the luck of the Devil, as it always has in the past...

I want to be a loving, caring pastor!

Seattle has got to be the world's toughest place to find a job. Well, in the Universities anyway. I'm sure I could probably go out and get some job scraping shit off of statues, or washing windows, but I'm holding out for something a little better.
What I'd really like to do is to pastor at a church. I think I could do just as well as any of those fakers out there. I hate nearly as many people as Pat Robertson...they're just different people. But don't just take my word for it. Ask any of my friends over at Jesus' General if you have any questions. Speaking of HATRED, check out this picture I found on one of the religious blogs that I read, well...religiously:

Anyway, my fruitless job search is being exasperated by the fact that I can't move into my new apartment til November 1st. It's killing me!! But only one week to go. The apartment is mine on the first, and all my belongings will arrive from the magical storage place on the second. After three years away from it all, it's going to be like opening a treasure chest. I can't fucking wait!