MF Day

People in my own hometown are freaking out about a hidden camera in a coffeehouse bathroom on The Boulevard.  

"I've used that bathroom a million times!"

The accused is a student at a local law college.  

That sounds strange--"a local law college."  Most places don't have a law college, do they?  We have two.  Anyway. . . the bathroom was in the little Spanish garden where I went to look at stationary.  Of course people are freaking--"he probably got a picture of my butthole!"

I can almost understand a camera in a dressing room, but a bathroom?  I'd say that would be something to avoid.  However. . . I am posting a photo of a tattooed butt that came across the group text with the Billionaire Boys Club.  They are rockers.  They are at the World's Biggest Outdoor Rock Festival.  Four days, if you can believe that.  The Shock Jock is working.  Everybody is drinking and doing drugs and listening to the likes of this. 

For the past few years, they have been trying to get me to go.  "Bring your camera," they say.  "It's wild."

Uh-uh.  They shack up at Alain's beach condo like a bunch of college kids, drunk and fucked up.  It is the furthest thing away from what I like to do.  But they talk about it for months beforehand.  

Not for me.  I told C.C. at lunch the other day that I am starting to believe I have a phobia.  I don't want to go anywhere with a crowd to watch anything--concerts, plays, movies. . . .  I don't mind a laid back bar or cafe, but I can't do the other.  

All this for some used-to-be bands.  It fucks with credulity, really, such a thing.  

They will come back with boring tales of debauchery told in the spirit of adventure and daring.  

"Oh, man. . . when you tripped over that parking thing, you went down like a stone.  It's a good thing you were drunk."

"It didn't hurt until the next day. I think I broke something." 

"Remember that girl at Denny's?"

I'm mean, I guess.  An asshole, really.  So I told my mother just the other day.  People can bore the shit out of me with tales of what they take as the capstones of their existence.  I won't name who, but yesterday, sitting in the garage with mother just before dinner, a man insisted on telling me all about his step-grandkids.  Good students.  Straight four point ohs.  Got into such and such university.  Majoring in blah blah blah.  These are people I've never seen before, never will, and they went to third string universities. All I could do is grin and nod and bite my tongue.  Why was he telling me all this in such a long-assed, drawn out way, eyes a poppin', face screwed up to evoke amazement.  

When they were gone, I told my mother I was an asshole.  

"I listen to these tales of ordinary existence from people who have never gone anywhere or done anything of note and place against my life measure for measure and think, 'Jesus. . . shut the fuck up!'"

Just a bit of a confession there.  I don't mean to be, but I am.  Or can be.  Those were the things going on in my head, though, and not what I actually said or did.  

He delayed my dinner prep by an hour.  

And then, I stayed up to watch "the fights."  And there I was, as stupid as anybody else, in a virtual crowd in my mother's own home.  I watched like the moron I can be.  From nine until ten, there were a thousand commercials and two and a half minutes of fighting.  There was a lot of shouting and amped up crowd noise as they showed incomplete scenes from fighter's past fights.  Lots of talking and interviews.  

"He's a BEAST.  Two fights ago, he lost focus and was beaten by so-and-so, but he went on to train at a great facility in Vegas and he says he's locked and loaded now.  If he can live up to his potential, this could be a great fight."

Me thinking, "Shut the fuck up.  Who are you talking to?"

Just a bunch of morons I sit in a virtual room with.  

But I didn't give up.  I watched another fight, and then another, and then the two co-main events.  

I went to bed at one.  

I hate myself this morning.  

But I can't.  It is Mother's Day.  I want to be a good son.  I'll make breakfast for my mother.  Wait--I do that every day.  I bought her flowers, but again, I do that all the time.  I asked her if she wanted to go to church.

"Are you going to take me?"

"Sure.  It's Mother's Day.  Whatever you want."

We aren't going to church.  I don't know what more to do that I am not already doing, so. . . .

"You're a good son."

And of course, my very honest answer.

"Yea. . . but I have a very bad attitude."

Selavy.  

Here's my version of "rock on" early Sunday morning.  Now. . . off to sing and dance for ma.  

Here's to all you mothers!