Muldo

Tired and with a heavy heart while at the pump, the first picture taken of me on my cross-country trip to California.

This Memorial Day marks the five year anniversary of my relocation from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles.  To mark the occasion, I’ll be posting daily anecdotes of memories from my first few months as a wide eyed 22-year-old in Tinseltown.

For those who don’t know the story, I was plucked from a career in retail by my mentor and friend Mikey Glazer in 2006. Mikey and I initially began a correspondence after he discovered my college television show, “Gettin’ Later.”  Two years later, I became the first person he hired before a face to face meeting.

Mikey was staffing up his casting department for the Telemundo version of “Deal or No Deal,” titled “Vas o No Vas.”  I was working as a cashier at Best Buy and pondering my place in society.  He told me the job was mine, and after contemplating whether or not I actually wanted to leave Pittsburgh, I took the job and drove cross-country with my friend Jeremy.

Some people thought it was great that I was perusing my aspirations.  Others thought I was silly for leaving my home town.  One coworker, in a moment I will never forget, told me that within a year I would be broke and back living at home with my mother.  I had many doubts myself, but ultimately decided if I were ever to make the move I’d been talking about for years, the time was then.

And here I am five years later, still living in Los Angeles.  Though still far from financial security, I can pay my bills while doing what I enjoy, I have a great life and great friends, and I can go to the beach anytime I damn well please.

So thanks to everyone I’ve met along the way during these five years.  To the people I’ve bonded with over a beer, the women I’ve dated, my work colleagues, and everyone I’ve ever had a moment with.  You’ve made my time here wonderful.

Also, thank you to my friends and family back home who have supported my decision to live across the country.  Even though they’re always asking me when I’m moving back home, I know they’re happy for me.

Here’s to five more years!

I joined the Words With Friends craze a few weeks ago and, for the most part, have had a pleasant experience.  It’s a good way to waste time at work, extend time on the toilet, and for those up there in age, fight off Alzheimer’s disease.

Unfortunately, I hit a speed bump on the road of fun when I played a series of games with a sorry excuse for a human being who was obviously cheating.  Google “scrabble cheats” and at least 50 websites will come up with different ways to help you win.   It’s an easy method of earning hollow victories.

At first, assuming they were a friend of mine with a user name I did not recognize, I let it go.  But after several games, I realized that each time my opponent used 5-6 words that most people who spend all their time playing games on smart phones, and not earning their doctorate in English literature, do not know.

My vocabulary is above average, but I get my ass kicked sometimes and always lose with dignity.  However, unless I’m playing a game with the Poet Laureate, I don’t expect to see a half dozen words on the board of which I’ve never seen nor heard.

In a moment of frustration, I made a half-joking comment about the possibility of cheating.  Their reaction only solidified my stance that this person was of weak moral fiber.  Below is the transcript from our correspondence.

–

Muldo:  You should try playing without using a cheat program.  It’s more fun.
Asshole:  Ha.  My only cheat program is playing way too many games and memorizing weird words when people play them.  And dictionary word of the day, I suppose.  You should try reading.  It’s amazing the things you pick up.
Muldo:  Use “dharna” and “canard” in sentence.
Asshole:  Haha, those words are not difficult, though I apologize for using words beyond your vocabulary.  You should look them up in the dictionary to learn them yourself.
Muldo:  I didn’t think you could do it.
Asshole:  I didn’t think you owned a dictionary, either
Asshole:  Dictionary.com is free, you know
Asshole: It’s ok to lose, you know.  It’s just a game.  People beat me all the time and I don’t accuse them of cheating.  It’s just words with friends, man.
Asshole:  Maybe you’ll get better letters next time.
Muldo:  You are my new nemesis.

–

By mocking my intelligence and not actually answering my questions, they solidified my belief.  Why not make a self depreciating joke, or actually use the words in a sentence to put me in my place?  Because they’re a lying sack of shit.

I hope that using a computer program to beat a stranger at a word game gives them the gratification that they so lack in their real life, even if I think they’re a fucking asshole.

While driving in Los Feliz recently, my car was struck by a runaway avocado that bounced off a rickety fruit truck while my vehicle passed it.   I saw it coming, but didn’t have enough reaction time to swerve.  The result was a loud noise and a hole in the driver’s side headlight of my 2001 Pontiac Grand-Am.

There wasn’t enough time to turn around and get the license plate of the prick who doesn’t know how to secure the fruit with one of the biggest, hardest seeds known to man while he drives 10 miles above the speed limit.  I did, however, have time to be thankful that the avocado didn’t bounce up another foot and smash through my windshield, which could have potentially killed me.

Like all people, I’ve envisioned how I might leave this world.  Most of these visions involve me dying while engaged in a threesome with two women who didn’t make the cut to be one of Charlie Sheen’s goddesses.     In none of these scenarios has a fruit of any kind been involved, unless you count an alcohol induced nightmare in which I was killed by a coked out Andy Dick.

Thankfully, the damage was minimized to my headlight.  A mere flesh wound for a car that has survived a cross-country trip, two rear-endings, and countless sexual disappointments by its driver.

On this Groundhog Day, I’ll do my traditional watching of the classic Bill Murray comedy based on the holiday.   I’m also taking a look back to 2003, when I traveled with a group of friends to Punxatawney, PA to see Phil the Groundhog.

Originally written for my old website Ryan’s Rant in 2003, the story is a bit long, but I’ve cleaned it up and removed most lameness.  It’s a fun travel entry and a nice look back to my college days.

Jon Secada's reaction upon seeing his first groundhog

Sitting on a shuttle bus in the rural gateway to hell that is Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, we came up with four words to describe our journey as Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” echoed from the speakers:

Never again, and why?

A mere 24 hours prior, and several beers deep, it seemed like a good idea to bask in the revelry of simple country folk as they worshipped the world’s oldest weather prognosticating animal, but looking back, but a sober mind tends to be a changed one.  We had not even seen Phil yet, and we were ready to go home.

Myself, along with three friends, left the Slippery Rock University campus at 8:00 PM with our sights set on Punxsutawney Phil.  Ben, one of the other travelers, created four WSRU-TV press passes with naive hopes that we could land a front row seat for the Groundhog Day action.  The journey began with a trip to a local Staples to print out our passes.  That’s where the problems began.

The only office supply store on our route was the size of a large walk-in closet. Upon arrival, a slack-jawed employee informed us that they lacked the resources to make our press passes.  With no time to go to another store, our dreams to be full-fledged members of the media were crushed.  Disappointed, we carried on, unknowing that this was the beginning of the longest twenty-four hours of our lives.

Our travel group reacted to this by drowning our sorrows the only way a group of poorly nourished college students knew how; in a greasy cocktail of all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and liquor.  Although it was 10 p.m. and the restaurant was closing, the hostess allowed us entry, most likely because whatever we ate was one less thing for them to throw out.  Most of the staff gave us dirty looks, but there was one man who was kind enough to bring out fresh general tzo’s chicken and pork fried rice.

We feasted.  I dug into crab legs on my third trip while a disgruntled Asian woman watched us from a cadi-corner table, giving us the evil eye and twiddling her thumbs in dismay.  I continued, knowing I had an abnormally large stomach to feed.

Satisfied, the next stop was to Ben’s house.  With his hometown was 45 minutes from Punxsutawney, it was a natural place for a layover.  Instead of sleeping before our early morning trip, we watched Terminator 2, drank beer, and traded insults.  I slept for fifteen minutes before we Phil the Groundhog and the open road began calling to us.

By 3:00 a.m. we were back on the road and, even with a detour for coffee, in a good position to get a prime spot at Gobbler’s Knob.  Things were looking up.  Unfortunately, with the untimely dimming of the car headlights came the diminishing chances of us reaching our destination.

The car battery died outside of Home, PA, a town most remembered for its fictional depiction in season 4 of The X Files.  Repeated attempts to turn the engine failed.  We were stuck on the side of the road next to an aging farmhouse and silo that could have been mistaken as set pieces from Children of the Corn.  After several minutes, an impromptu group rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer,” and coming up with the zinger “If you lived in Home, you’d be home right now,” a squad car from the local police pulled up.  Good news, except that we had been drinking and some members of the party were using other substances.

They checked out Ben’s license and registration.  In the process, two other squad cars, which was likely the entire police force of Home, PA, came to our aid.  Luckily, the police department didn’t notice our minor impairment, or in the spirit of the groundhog, they didn’t seem to care.

After everything cleared, Ben’s dad called Triple-A, came to pick us up, and Home’s finest went their separate ways.  Thinking the journey was finished, we sluggishly walked to Ben’s dad’s car.  Before we got in, however, he gave us the option to continue on in his car.  After a brief discussion, it was decided that we had gone too far to give up now.  Drained of energy and patience, we carried on to Punxatawney.

The open roads turned into congested suburbian streets as we got closer to town and our patience grew thin.  We attempted in vain to find parking.  While we circled streets looking for a spot,  I noticed that everything in the town was named after the groundhog.  Phil’s Grocery.  Punxsutawney Phil’s Bar and Grille.  The Groundhog Gas Station. And not a single groundhog sized parking lot was to be had at any of them.

We searched for 40 minutes, and open spot finally became available.  We followed the nearest group of people, which lead us to a line for a shuttle bus.  Our remaining semblance of excitement was soon quashed.

You see, as dumb college kids, everything we knew about the holiday came from the Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day. Naively, we expected Gobbler’s Knob to be set in the middle of town.

Wrong.

You can’t walk to the real Gobbler’s Knob from all directions, lest you want to die of frostbite.  Getting to the real Gobblers Knob required a shuttle bus with a bunch of cold, tired, and irritable strangers.

To make matters worse, the shuttle had atrocious music.  The adult contemporary channel was dialed in and after a Hall and Oates ballad, Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” began playing.  It was hell on earth.  The lame people sitting in front of us had on groundhog attire consisting of a Phil hood and a shirt commerating the festivities.  Our day, at that moment, got a little bit longer.

It was a short ride to the Gobbler’s Knob and, at 6:15 a.m., we were soon at the top of an icy hill overlooking the stage.  At the bottom sat 25,000 people who were even more insane than I was, since they were actually embracing this nonsense. To one side, there were 50 port-a-johns.  Heavy forest surrounded us in all other directions.

We settled into our spot and came in time to see the super fireworks display.  I like fireworks.  I kind of like the Star Wars theme song.  Put the two of them together at 6:25 in the morning after getting no sleep, and it’s a disaster.  I stared in awe not at the fireworks, but at the people who seemed to be enjoying this and considered it a valid form of entertainment.  Following the fireworks, they played Gary Glitters “Hey” song.  Only instead of “hey,” the members of the Groundhog Society invited the crowd to shout “Phil.”  Again, we were not amused.

Speaking of The Groundhog Society; the fact that there is a society whose basis is a groundhog is a perfect example as to why other countries hate America.  Also, knowing that grown men sit around and plan town events and gatherings around said groundhog keeps me up at night with a cold sweat.

Festivities continued with an appearance by Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.  Of all the more important things a governor could be doing, he decides to come to Punxsutawney and promote this horrendous excuse for a holiday.  Though we traveled to Punxatawney for the same reason, we could at least claim ignorance.  The governor, on the other hand, had to know what he was getting himself into.

After the governor’s address, the groundhog society made one last appearance for the finale.  Yes, it was groundhog time.  Phil was about to come out of his tree knob and tell everyone whether or not there would be six more weeks of winter.  With much anticipation from the idiotic masses, Phil came out and was greeted with applause.

The four of us did not clap.  In fact we did not even wait to see what happened with Phil. With our poor view of the stage and lack of caring about the outcome, we got an early jump on the exit and ran up the icy hill faster than R. Kelly after a thirteen-year-old girl.  Many other smart people had the same idea.

By the time we got in line for the shuttle bus, three others were already filled with people exiting the grounds.  After a couple minutes, our shuttle arrived.  The ride back was much more pleasant.  Knowing that we would never have to set foot on Gobbler’s Knob again set our souls at ease.  I had never experienced a better feeling of relief than at that moment.

It was a long, silent drive home.  After a stop at Ben’s parent’s place to sleep, we got back to Slippery Rock University at 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon, 22 hours after our journey started.

The innocence that I lost that day will never be recovered.  People say Phil Connors had it bad in Groundhog Day, but at least he got to sleep with Andie Macdowell in the end.  The only thing I slept with was knowing that I had wasted precious hours in the prime of my life to see an animal who predicts weather.

Never again.

And.

Why?