Send my mail to the Rosarita Beach Cafe…
August 23, 2013
Wow… Mexico is just 8 years away now. Nice!
I can probably do that. I just have to make sure that I make it to 2021.
To that end, I’ve started a checklist:
– Fly U.S. Air as little as possible
Is a list with only one thing on it really a list?
OK, to make sure it’s a list, I’ll put two things on it:
Well, I’ve started a checklist:
– Fly U.S. Air as little as possible
– Avoid the Clarion Hotel at LaGuardia
So, I recently traveled to New York City for my annual gathering where we rent out the Modell’s Clubhouse at Citi Field and invite a number of our clients to join us for some bad stadium food, washed down by an unlimited number of tasty beverages…and no, I didn’t fly U.S. Air.
As usual, the travel itself was just about as entertaining as anything else…
When visiting Greater New York City, I usually stay either in Manhattan or, if I’ll primarily be out towards Long Island, I stay in Westbury, where there’s a fine Hilton Garden Inn and, believe it or not, even the Red Roof Inn is fairly nice. This time, however, we decided to stay closer to Citi Field and we booked rooms at the Clarion Hotel at LaGuardia.
Now, I have to say, the hotel lobby was quite nice for being a busy and relatively low-budget hotel and the rooms were not bad at all. From what I could tell, the whole place was clean and well maintained. The problem with this place is that it was built on a hill. I know, you’re probably thinking, “lots of places are built on hills, what could go wrong?”
Well, almost everything I’ve ever seen built on a hill is built so that when you’re inside, you don’t notice the hill. In other words, you dig out the hill and build a level building. Not the case here. The lobby is level and the floor in each of the rooms are level but the rooms on the same floor are not level with each other and the hallways curve downward in the shape of the hill. It’s about the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.
When you take the elevator up to the third floor and then look down the long corridor, it looks like you’re ending up all the way back down near the first floor. I’m not sure that this picture really captures what I am describing but check out the hallway slant at the bottom of each wall on the right side. It’s crazy.
Next we noticed that everyone who checked in was being given a room on the third floor. So, before studying the hotel from the outside, we were thinking that maybe there was no first floor and Barnsley was sure that the second floor was reserved for a race of pygmies that frequently visit Queens. As it turns out, the hotel does appear to have three floors. All three floors are just contoured to the shape of the hill that the building sits on. Again, it’s one of the nuttiest things I’ve ever seen.
Breakfast
Next, the hotel comes with one of those free continental breakfast bars and really, REALLY, it was probably one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen. Nevertheless, the WiFi in the breakfast area was good and so was the entertainment. First, there was a giant sign that said…
Then there was this crazy Asian lady who apparently likes her muffins toasted. You guessed it. Moments later there were flames shooting out of the toaster and the hotel lobby was filling up with smoke. At first, crazy Asian lady and her daughter tried sticking metal objects into the running toaster to remove the burning muffin. They were unsuccessful at removing the muffin and, somehow, also managed not to electrocute themselves. Disappointing, I know. I had front row seats for this show! So they decided to go sit down and pretend they had nothing to do with this as people from the hotel staff arrived, fanning the air, and hoping to not trigger the fire alarm.
Just after the smoke clears, a guy walks in the front door, and grabs himself some coffee and a plate and starts to eat. Someone from the hotel staff approaches the man and asks, “Sir, are you a guest of the hotel?”
Instantly the man responds, “Yes… Berkowitz Room #312.”
The gentleman from the hotel heads towards the front desk to check it out. The moment he turned his back, Berkowitz grabs another muffin and hauls-ass out the front door. I’m thinking, “Hmmm… Even Berkowitz, the homeless guy, knows that everyone stays on the third floor.”
Having had enough fun, I return to my room and get ready to check out. As I’m stepping out of my room, here comes a hotel maid running down the hallway (downhill) towards me chasing a rolling can of Lysol at high speed and yelling in Spanish. Luckily I hadn’t locked the door behind me. So I step back into my room, turn around and watch as the can goes by… Vrrrroom! …followed by Señora Reyez-Jimenez-Rodriguez… Vrrrroom!
“Estoy tan cansada de trabajar aqui en esta hotel loco!”
I checked for additional traffic. Seeing none – I was out of there.
Mental Note: Barnsley doesn’t get to pick our hotels anymore.
I’ll have to tell you about the flight back at another time. You’ll want to hear it. It involves an airplane full of supermodels and a guy who looked like Freddy Mercury. But right now, we must get on to the important work of our order, because you know…
There’s no off position on the stupid switch!
If there was, KTVU in San Francisco would not have broadcast fake names when reporting the names of the pilots who crashed while landing Asiana Flight #214 last month. First, if you haven’t already seen it, take a look at what they actually aired…
Dey So Dum!
Seriously… How did this get on the air?
I’ll tell you. The 24-hour news cycle has killed the integrity of news.
These days it’s all about the sensationalism and who has the story first.
If you give them information, they run with it. By the way, “Fuk” is not pronounced “Fook!”
Now enjoy this report by hot chick, Ana Kasparian…
Redhead / Non-Readhead of the Week
I can’t tell anymore. It’s all getting a little blurry out there.
But one thing is clear, you know who is the hot chick of the week?
It’s YOU.
No. Not you, Barnsley.
It’s YOU. YOU know who YOU are. Hey… I’m talking to YOU.
So YOU want to see your photo? Just find yourself a mirror…
Ah… Looking good, mamma!
OK, so… YOU are like the hot chick of the week, we covered that.
But we still need some sort of a hot chick photo… yes.no?
Well, thankfully, Susanna Hoffs just sent us this photo…
Susanna Hoffs
Susanna Hoffs… Love her. Everyone should have one.
Are we done?
Oh, no wait… We do have a musical guest today.
I’ve been re-appreciating Rosi Golan lately.
That’s pronounced Go-lahn, not Go-len (apparently).
Anyway, here’s a live performance of Can’t Go Back…
Hmmm… Good song but I think you can almost always go back. Can’t you?
Does anyone recall my Cheeseburger theory? Have we discussed The Sheep Standard?
Ugh… So much to discuss and only one of me…and I’m only getting busier. 😦
Well, I have to go for today but I’ll be back soon enough.
“Soon Enough”… That’s the only promise I can really make. Soon enough, my friends.
Be good. Be Safe. Arch on!
– Arch
You say Al-Kay-Dah, I say Al-Kai-Dah…
August 16, 2013
OK, so…
I’m getting bombarded with people asking me, “Where’s my Archie Kobain?”
Here’s the deal. Archie is near death. But not like the dying kind of death.
You wanna know why I’m not writing more often? It’s not because I have nothing to say. It’s because I can’t bring myself to sit in front of a computer and type. Listen here… The day I get out of the technology business, I will become an anti-technology evangelist.
I recently walked into a room full of kids. When I was their age, we would have been playing, beating each other up, plotting to burn the house down, etc., etc. Do you know what these kids were doing? They were each staring at an iThing – Pod, Pad, Thing.
I’m like, “hey kids…What the f@#K?”
And like the mindless lumps of poop that these kids have become, their like, “uh…what?”
So I took all of their iThingies and I threw them on the ground, stomped on them using my Merrell Moab Waterproof Hiking Boots, then doused them with lighter fluid and threw them onto the barbie… The kids were screaming, “Uncle Archie killed our iThingies!!!” It was awesome. Besides, I love the smell of burning, designed in California but made-in-China, plastic and electronics in the morning. Ha, ha!!!
Then last week, I went to a party in Me-Ahm-Me (Miami) with a bunch of old Cubanos. They were great. There were old, sweaty, shirtless guys missing their nightly game of dominoes for this gathering. There were guys in guayaveras, guys in hot pink fluorescent shirts, women wearing pants that were way too tight. It was awesome. Everyone was way friendly until the party host’s granddaughter arrived with her husband. They seemed to avoid making eye contact with anyone. They just walked through the party, sat at table, and got out their phones. They didn’t even seen to talk to each other much, other than when she showed him stuff on her iPhone. Then he’d go back to looking at his iPhone. WTF?
Later I found out they had a baby… I guess there must be a app for that?
Most recently, I popped in to my local doughnut shop for a slab of greasy fried dough and a shot of caffeine. As I sat there chomping on my calorie-rich, nutrition-minus breakfast, several other patrons entered the establishment. A white lady with two high-school age girls, followed by a black lady who was talking on her cell phone.
The whiteys placed their orders, then immediately sat down and got out their iThings. All three of them. Again, no one is talk to each other, they’re all just staring at iThings. The black lady was now placing her order, while still holding her phone up to her head and having a combo conversation with the guy working the counter and whoever was on the phone – simultaneously!
What is wrong with everyone? Stop stop it with the Cell Phones.
Start talking to the person next to you. Now!!! One on One communications. It’s a lost art.
And then there’s Obama Juan Kenobee…
Is everyone else as tired of this guy as I am?
Now, I know that I am easily confused but…
I’d swear that I saw President O on television, not too long ago, announcing that “we got Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is on the run”.
So now, we intercept an Al Qaedian message that says, “do something” and suddenly, we’re closing embassies all over the Eastern Hemisphere and putting American everywhere on travel alerts. Does that sound like THEY are on the run or does that sound more like we’re the ones “on the run”…? You decide.
But aside from all of this…
I’m boiling mad! Boiling, I say.
You wanna know why? Because I’m tired of living in a country of whiners.
Whine, whine, whine… About everything.
I was just recently reading about a bunch of whiners in Colorado. Colorado has basically legalized marijuana. This is only bad for drug dealers and DEA agents who may suddenly find themselves unemployed. But this particular group of whiners, in the newspaper, were concerned about zoning laws and where they should allow marijuana to be sold.
How about this – how about anywhere that there’s a liquor store?
Some of the whiners were saying, “we don’t want marijuana dispensers in public places (like on Main Street) where we will have to explain head-shops to our children”. Why not? What do you tell your kids when they see a liquor store?
“Well you see kids… over here they sell liquid drugs (alcohol), which we approve of, in spite of all the alcohol related deaths, addictions, health issues… but, over there, they sell a smoke-able herb that’s also a drug but we don’t approve of it, so let’s not discuss it.”
It’s just stupid, stoopid!
(Note: Stoopid is when something is so stupid, you lose the ability to spell.)
But that’s not why I’m boiling mad. I’m boiling over something Stoopid, Stoopid!!!
(That’s right – now we’re getting into the Double-Stoopid arena.)
I’m boiling mad over the T-Shirts that got pulled of the shelves at The Children’s Place.
By the way, they looked like this…
So apparently, parents were outraged by these shirts calling them sexist.
Seriously?
What about those princess outfits that you let your little girl wear when she was 3 or 4, how come you didn’t think those were sexist? Why didn’t you get her a CEO suit?
Here’s the worst thing, after countless parents decided to voice their outrage via FaceTwit and InstaPoop and whatever other thing there is out there these days, The Children’s Place apologized and pulled the shirts. Ridiculous!
To start with, my little girl would absolutely be “born to wear diamonds” and I can only hope to God that her best subjects are Shopping, Music and Dancing. WhoTF wants a little girl who says, “oh no…shopping, dancing, music… I’ll take math please.” Really??? Geek alert!
Here’s what the Children’s Place should have said…
We’re sorry that you don’t like our fine quality shirts… If you don’t like them, then don’t buy them, but given the huge amount of inappropriate crap that most companies sell, that make 10 year old girls look like hookers, we feel that our shirts are pretty low on the list of things you should be concerned about. We are free to market what we choose and you are free to not buy what you find offensive.
But hey, this leads to my next business plan…
It’s a T-shirt company called, No Apologies. Our whole plan is, whenever someone stops selling something because it offended people, we start selling it. Pretty good, huh?
Seriously, give my an Effen break…
Hey, is that Midtown Girl?
Anyway, people really need to get over this kind of whiney crap.
If you don’t like something, don’t buy it. How about that Lone Ranger movie? Apparently it was crap – so no one went to see it. And that’s after they made huge efforts to shift the character of Tonto from being “racist” to merely “racially insensitive”. I didn’t think it was either. I always thought that the Lone Ranger and Tonto were fictional characters that didn’t try to represent any particular group of people, living or otherwise.
Was Star Trek racist to space aliens? They often made aliens look weird. Maybe all space aliens actually look like hot chicks? …or maybe they just make us think they look like hot chicks? And am I stereotyping space aliens by suggesting that they have mind-control abilities.
Stoopid!
I was recently in this store…
It is, of course, owned by some Native Americans. There were no cowboy items inside.
OK, maybe there were a few non-authentic cowboy items. So, as a descendant of early non-native American, European settlers in The West (aka Cowboys), should I have been offended!
Maybe my people should be offended by the term, cowboy. Doesn’t that sound derogatory? “hey…cowboy, get me some milk.” i think from now on, we should only be referred to as, American Horsemen (and Horsewomen)…, or collectively, Horse-people.
I’m really tired of the whole insensitivity thing. Really!
I checked the first amendment. You know, the part where we will make no laws abridging freedom of speech. This means that we will never forbid people from saying whatever they want. It doesn’t say – you can say whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t offend anyone.
Boiling mad…!!!
T’was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair…
And speaking of stupidity…
So many people regularly say to me, “Archie… You are an idiot!”
I’m good with that. Most recently, however, this has been accompanied by…
“You can’t feature the prettiest girl who has ever been on television (Morgan Smith Goodwin, the new Wendy’s girl) in your blog”, they continued. “After that, it’s all downhill from there.”
True, my readers and I did sort of have a “personal moment” with Morgan a few weeks back.
So, is that it? We can’t top Morgan so, why even try? Hmmm… I had not considered that.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what to do… I put Barnsley on it.
“Splendid, Master Kobain”, he said to me. “I’ll be happy to rub one out and assist you in finding the next hottie for your blog.”
I’m not exactly sure what that meant, I think it’s a British thing, but at the end of the day, Barnsley came through with ((drumroll)): Alona Tal
Alona Tal
Holy porcupine dung, Barnsley… Where did you find her?
Seriously, she’s like a non-Redhead version of Morgan…and look at those brown eyes.
Alona Tal
OK, so, for everyone out there who has ever watched one of those military movies where the hot chick shows up and we all go, “oh yeah…right…like that hot chick is really in the military”, Alona is living proof that it could happen. At least in the Israel Defense Forces, you see, this Israeli born hot chick served her country before launching her acting/singing career.
Ah… The Shana Maidela.
OK, Barns… That’s enough. Seriously.
C’mon… The smile, the legs, the boots, the grip on that microphone. I can’t take it.
Let’s change the subject. Besides, I don’t want to get Marcos Ferraez on my ass.
[Barnsley is overheard bumbling off stage.]
That’s her husband, Barnsley. Yes – she is married to a guy who is 20 years older than she is.
I know… It’s like proof that there is hope for guys like you and me.
And don’t worry, Barns… I’m your wing-man.
The moment she calls me, I’ll find out if she has a sister.
Uh… Anything else to discuss today?
Should we discuss the price of bacon in China?
Do they eat bacon in China?
Musical guest… Do we have time for a musical guest?
It’s running a bit long today wouldn’t you say?
I could have sworn I just heard Barnsley say, “that’s what she said”.
OK, well…
Whether or not we actually have time, now that we’re only here about once a month, we have to pack it all in. So, as we prepare to sign off, you should enjoy Preacher’s Daughter by Maggie Rose…
Hello… Is this thing on?
Oh, good. You’re still here.
Well, that’s all we have for today, my brothas and sistas…
Be good. Be well. Be safe. Arch on!
– Arch
Archie Kobain 