To My Cell Phone

You are a stupid piece of crap.  You’ve let me down so many times, on so many levels.  You are the most annoying, unreliable, cowardly jerk ass little bitch I’ve ever known.  Pick up your shit and get out.

I doubt the people of Ericsson would be very proud of what you’ve become, how you’ve chosen to live your life.  If they could see you now.  One fucking bar.  Oh wait, now there’s two, but just for a moment.  Now there’s one again.  How the hell do you do that, go in and out of reception while you’re just sitting there?  It makes me so pissed to think about it, I give up. 

I am the only person who has ever believed in you, ever.  Who else do you have, huh?  Who else hasn’t given up on you like I should have a long time ago?  How many second chances have I given you?  And you’ve squandered them away.  You and your little tart battery.

I stick up for you, man.  I put my ass on the line in front of everybody, time and again.  I tell them, “No, my cell phone’s just fine for me.  Works alright most the time.  Yep, just something to get the job done.”  All lies.

Look, I don’t need any fancy flip thing with a camera and three pivoting blades. I just need something to tell me who’s calling and a mute button to reject them.  But good-God if you don’t make that difficult.  My voicemail gets everything because you roam more than the Goddam’ buffalo.

I knew you were a cheap phone when I got you free with the service plan, so I wasn’t expecting miracles.  But they failed to mention that you were a two-bit dirty old harlot with free nights and weekends.  Actually, you’re free anytime.  If I can’t call or receive calls, then I’m saving a ton of minutes that I already goddamned paid for!  You’re a badly painted whore.

You do have character, though. I’ll give you that.  You have what they call personality- little quirks that make you unique.  Like when you continue to notify me that I have a new message in my voicemail long after I have listened to it and erased it.  Or how, sometimes, when I have a message waiting you will unlock yourself and I will accidentally call my voicemail and leave a 2 minute long recording of whatever is going on in my pants pocket.  Yeah, you’re a real fucking character.

One more thing.  Being black and white does not make you nostalgic, or artsy.  It makes you look like an ass, and it makes me look cheap.  Not like my car isn’t doing a good job at that already.  I’ll get to that in a second; right now I’m talking about you.

I guess you might be wondering why I haven’t just gotten a new phone.  Well I’m not going to stop loving you, not that easy.  I still think we can make it last, girl.

I remember the first day we met, at the AT&T Wireless store.  You remember that?  Before Cingular took over?  It was AT&T back then, and it was you&me forever after that.

What happened to us?  We thought we could take on the world. But I guess time has a way of changing network reliability.  

I've really been a busy Little B these days, so I don't have an article to post,  but I do have a webshots community page of pictures I took on my new digital camera.  

Enjoy responsibly.

http://community.webshots.com/user/rosemontbrent

Which Brent Are You Talking To?

Here is a song I made up called "Which Brent Are You Taking To?"  My dream is for Big Brent and I to make beautiful music of this- just the two of us with acustic guitars, like Tenacious D or something.  We will play it at Open Mic Nights or at parties upon female request. I have no musical accompaniment as of yet, but here is how it will go:

(Some sweet, catchy guitar lick…)

(Spoken)  The other night I was making love to a woman.  She’s a freshman. I’ll point her out if I see her. Anyways, um, everything was going pretty good, naturally. I’m Lil B, you know. But then all of a sudden she screamed out my name.  Right in the middle of it.  I had to stop.  It totally killed the mood.  I was like, “Who did you mean, right then?”  She didn’t understand.  I was like, “Well, were you referring to me, or him?” and I looked over her shoulder at Big B.  “Oh,” she said. “I totally forgot he was even back there! But keep going, anyways, both of you.” 

Chorus:

 I’ve got a joke that will never get old

A never-ending fountain of comedy gold.

I live with a guy with the same name as me

My name is Brent, and this is Brent, my roomie.

Which Brent are you talking to?

Which Brent, is it me or you?

Which Brent re you talking too-oo-woo?.

(Guitar kicks in harder, then slows down for spoken part.)

(Spoken) Hello?  Yes, this is he.  …Wait, who is this?  My grandma? … That’s funny, because both of my grandmas are dead.  …Oh, don’t get upset. …I know! You must mean Brent Hanson, we are both named Brent. Gosh, sorry.  Hold on a sec, I’ll go get him.  

Chorus:

I’ve got a joke that will never get old

A never-ending fountain of comedy gold.

I live with a guy with the same name as me

My name is Brent, and this is Brent, my roomie.

Which Brent are you talking to?

Which Brent, is it me or you?

Which Brent re you talking too-oo-woo?.

(Spoken)  Humm.  Well, I’ve never been to Spain, Rachel, but I’ll give it a shot.  I think if I had been there I would have gotten around the city on the Metro.  It’s a public transportation system in Madrid that everybody uses, I’m guessing.  You know, Big B was actually there all last semester- OH! You must have been directing your question at him.  Sorry.  You just said Brent.  I should have known by the context of the question…

Which Brent are you talking to?

Which Brent, is it me or you?

Which Brent are you talking to-oo-woo! 

I play a super tight solo.

(Spoken)

Lil B: Did you hear what he said right before he went under?

Big B: Yeah. “Help. Help me, Brent. My God, Help.” Then he kinda made some gurgling sounds.

Lil B: Yeah, that’s what I heard too.

Big B:  So… was he looking at you… or, me.

Lil B: I dunno. He was splashing a lot.  Couldn’t really tell.

Big B: Yeah.

Lil B:  Well.  He probably was referring to you, because you’ve been friends longer.

Big B: Yeah, but you’re a way better swimmer.

Lil B: True.

Big B: Ummm. We can flip for it.

Lil B: Sure.  I have a nickel.

Big B: No, hold up.  I think I have a quarter…. Nope. It’s a nickel too.

Lil B: Heh. Nice.

Big B: Okay, so call it in the air.

Lil B: Heads.

Big B: No. It’s tails.

Lil B: So, does that mean you go save him, or me?

Big B: Haha. I don’t know.  Okay, heads you save him, tails I do.

Lil B: Sounds good.

Big B: …. Okay… tails.

Lil B: Yes!

Big B: So… we aren’t doing two out of three?

Lil B: Fine. Whatever.

Big B: Let’s use my nickel. 

(Repeat 3 X)

 Which Brent are you talking to?

Which Brent, is it me or you?

Which Brent are you talking to-oo-woo?

Vegas Episode III:

“Tell us again, Pa. 

Tell us about the time you won your fortune in Vegas.”

 So there I was… Just cashed out from a long night of roulette, a wad of hundreds in my pocket, ready to call it a morning, just take my loot and walk away a big winner.  When all of a sudden, Bryan gets a hankering for the craps tables. Now I’m not one to argue with intuition.  When the craps tables call, there’s no use avoiding ‘em, you’d better answer the call.  It’s the same sort of feeling you get when you realize you’re about the throw up and you’ve been given a short window of opportunity to make it someplace more bleachable, so you’d better get there quick, and put it “all in!”

 So we head over to shoot some craps.  Neither of us have any idea how to play, and I’m just aware of things enough to realize I’m too drunk to be smart and walk away while I’m ahead. 

Bryan and I started watching the pretty chips dance about the pit.  The dice shimmered and flashed like red fireflies embracing and chasing each other on their way to the gala masquerade.  It was all so magical in the craps pit.  We knew we had to be a part of the wonder, no matter our innocence of this fanciful place.  The craps shooters guarded their secrets from us because we were outsiders, mischievous boys who had stumbled upon a thicket-spring hidden somewhere deep in the casino forest.  We did not belong, so we hid behind the wall of the field of play and watched the daydream unfold in front of us. 

When it was my turn to throw the dice I gave myself away to the regulars.  I threw overhand and leaned into it so that the dice ricochet off the table and flew out of the pit and everyone was embarrassed for me or annoyed by me except Bryan, who could appreciate such a thing.

About that time Bryan thought he had discovered a pattern to the movement of chips and dice.  He advised me to put a hundred dollar bill on the Do Not Pass Bar section of the table and I did as I was told because I was drunk, and that means I do whatever I'm told by my peers regardless of the consequences.  A few moments later the money was taken away. Craps?  More like… Shits. We were out of our league, and a long way from home. 

Things were different back at the roulette table, that’s for sure.  Roulette is such a great name- so much better than craps, just by the sound of it, I guess.  I think when I grow up I’ll name one of my many daughters Roulette, or maybe nickname her Black Two, or Double Zero.  If I have a really ugly daughter I’ll name her Paigow, because hey, that’s paigow.*

Looking back, those few hours of playing roulette in Vegas were probably the best I’m ever going to have in my life, especially considering the fact that in a matter of months I won’t ever be able to say, “At least I don’t have an English degree.”

Ahh, but life at the roulette table was sweet.  Drinks were free and served from a tray just inches away from the bosom of a hot waitress.  There was a beautiful girl at the table named Aphrodite who looked like she really could have been in the Adventures of Hurcules starring Kevin Sorbo, and although Ash and Lins** were from Texas, they were actually attractive and unarmed.

I was a rich man then.  Rich with money, rich with booze, rich with friends and also booze.  God, that free booze was great.  If I could only go back there, just think!  It breaks my heart every time I realize that I’m sitting in class, not in Vegas, and the drink girl wont be around for a long, long time, if ever at all.

But we were at the craps table now, and something had to be done to win my money back.  I watched the action on the table a little while longer, and once I got the feeling I put another hundred on Do Not Pass. This was the type of feeling you get after you’ve thrown up and you think, what an awful taste in my mouth, I better wash this down with some more booze! And what do you know, the dice came up snake eyes, which pays out double, so I grabbed the money and fled before the game could seduce me again. 

Before I knew it I was back in the hotel room performing the first ever Lil B Money Dance, which I will try to recreate some time at an XC dance party, or maybe if I win the lottery or make it with “Lins” Lohan.

* Paigow is the term used when you have no face cards in your hand and you will likely lose.

** We called them Ash and Lins instead of the more formal Ashley and Lindsay because that’s just how things were at the roulette table, intimate, yet casual and …sensuous.

Vegas Part II:  The House Strikes Back

Or

“To the Luxor, Please.”

After David and Bryan left for the hotel room, the rest of us went back to the paigow poker table with Buzz, the dealer, whose wife was of ill repute, and could often be aptly compared to some of our poker hands; “Put the gentlemen on top, sir, that’s what she’d do-- Exact-a-mundo!”

David called my cell not too long after another round of drinks and said he required assistance with Bryan, who had been wheelchaired at the Excalibur and was making a mess of himself again.  I cashed out and went outside for a cab.  I got in the back of the car and said, and I quote, “To the Luxor, please!” Our room was at the Excalibur, of course, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.  I was up.

I’m not sure how I got to the third floor of the Luxor, because usually there’s a security guard that checks to see if you have a room key to keep people like myself out, but possibly my drunken flighty eyes were so convincing that he let me up for the pure love of misadventure.  I remember at one point I walked into the back of a kitchen and went down some hallways that looked like a hospital and ended up in a large banquet room with a bunch of very surprised maids.  These must be the ones cleaning up after Bryan, I thought.

I wandered about the halls and thought it was odd that there were no hotel rooms to be found.  Then David called again, and I asked him if our room was on the third floor.  It was, so I knew I was on the right track.  I walked in and out of rooms, closets, and stairwells, and went by those maids half a dozen times but found nothing but suspicious faces, incredulous looks, and a good discrete pee corner.

Then some synapse in my brain sobered up enough to put it all together: the absence of hotel rooms, the Egyptian art, the directions I had given to the cab driver… I realized that I was at the Luxor and David was at the Excalibur, and that I had had a good night.

I think you have to take a tram to get from the Luxor to the Excalibur, so I must have gone on that.  One thing I do remember is the moving sidewalks.  It was somewhere near 5 in the morning and nobody was running around from hotel to hotel like I was, so the moving sidewalks were completely devoid of traffic to slow me down. Running across those moving sidewalks all liquored up and on a mission, the world flying by me as I effortlessly ran the fastest sixty yards of my life must have been the closest I will ever come to PCP or time travel.  It is one of the hidden treasures of Las Vegas.

Once I got to the Excalibur, the struggle wasn’t over.  Our room was in Tower II, the tower you can’t find if you’re distracted by flashing or spinning things, or running at full speed concentrating on not spilling your “brownsies” ($1 chips).  The only way I ever found David and Tower II was by asking some hotel workers and maids if they had seen “a guy, looks kinda like me, really drunk, in a wheelchair…”

“Si, Si.  Ive seen your fren,’” they would say, and in broken Spanish try to explain which direction the wheelchair had gone and the sympathy (“lastima”) they felt for the poor “joven.” 

Finally I found David outside the elevators.  He told me the room number, but the hell if I’m going to remember that, not this close to solving this puzzle.  Once on the third floor I walked around looking for the right room.  I decided I would just pick the room that felt right and try it.  I picked the one where the door was slightly ajar, pushed it open and went in.  The room was completely dark but there was water running in the bathroom.  I knocked on the bathroom door and asked if Bryan was in there.  There was a muffled response that I took as an affirmative.  Great, he must be perfectly fine.  He’s with the water now, at least.

It was time for our little detective to get some shut eye, the case of the runaway wheelchair wrapped up nicely.  The four girls occupied all the beds, so I went over to the corner near the air conditioner, curled up and went to sleep on the floor.  The next thing I remember is waking up face to face with Big Brent. 

…

The girls were up and at ‘em at 10:00 that morning, turning on what must have been ever single light in that whole hotel room, and oh, did they ever talk!  I really don’t like being awake during the phase when my drunk turns into my hangover.  I get ornery.

I went back to sleep eventually, and then when we all woke up I made vodka and Red Bulls for everyone, which we called “stiffies.”  Then I would say something like, “Hey, David, did I give you a stiffy?”  Or, “I woke up with a huge stiffy in my hand!”  It was hilarious, trust me.

Next we got ready to go out, spilt booze all over some girls luggage, threw BBQ cheddar cheese-its all over the room, and listened to the Vonage commercial, which became our battle cry that night: “Whoo woo! Woo woo Woo!”

We got lunch at the food court and went on Dennis’ long, sobering march to the Venetian.  The low point of the whole trip came when Bryan and I were walking behind some mom pulling a suitcase up the strip with her teenage daughter.  Bryan commented that it was a large bag she was pulling, and the lady turned around, gave him a dirty look and pulled her daughter close. 

Things looked grim, but the night was far from over.  Stay tuned for the final installment in the series…