Behind the Orange Curtain, Part I

It's easy to pick on the suburbs. Novelists and filmmakers have been doing it for years with storylines that basically argue that the 'burbs are soulless places where men and women lead desperate lives and ignore their children who then spend their teenage years drinking and screwing and planning a school shooting or two.

Never one to follow the trends, I refuse to join the chorus of boos. In fact, I kind of like the suburbs. I grew up in one (Hurst, Texas, Represent!) and who can really argue against tree-lined streets, purring lawnmowers on a Saturday morning, and horny housewives who deflower delivery boys?

I spent half my holiday weekend in Orange County, that land of silicone and concrete. My friends Lincoln and Sarah were housesitting for their professor in a suburban wonderland. The house itself was standard fare. Walls full of family pictures. Three or four generations. Very lived-in, with a landscaped front yard. What you'd expect for a family of five. A house full of love and life. This is where I spent my 4th, boozing it up in a family home, a kind of cathedral of decency. I felt like a demon invading a church.

I'd done a workout earlier in the day (AMRAP in 20 minutes: 5 handstand push-ups, 10 cleans with 35 lb kettlebells, and 15 double-unders --- I completed 9 rounds and then collapsed in 90 degree heat) and eaten 2 zone meals, so I was ready to stop being healthy and start being bad. When I got to the house, I cracked open my bottle of Hennessey cognac, poured a glass, took a few sips and then made a funny face. I switched to vodka, ordering Lincoln to make me a drink. Lincoln fulfilled my request with a vodka cranberry. "Do I look like a senorita?" I asked.

Despite my macho posturing, I was buzzed after drinking just half a cocktail. I got re-acquainted with Lincoln and Sarah's school chums. Then we went and played drunken whiffle-ball down the street at the community park. Whiffle ball, a game I didn't even play as a child. I was too manly at age 6 to play the game, and here I was at 33 holding the slim plastic bat for the first time ("that's what she said" jokes abounded). For those with dim memories of childhood, whiffle ball is like baseball or softball except you use a thin plastic bat and a light plastic ball and you don't run for the bases or anything, so if there was a professional league the players would be even fatter than they are in baseball. I basically have one eye now (mixed martial arts-related injury. I'll blog about it later), so my depth perception is off. I saw myself striking out every time, swinging so hard that I injured my shoulder, falling on my ass, but i didn't do too badly. At the end of an inning, I would attempt to walk on my hands, which is stupid, like running before you can walk, as I'd never tried a handstand before (without the support of a wall), much less walking on my hands. But I was drunk and when you are drunk you believe you have superpowers (I AM SUPER HAPA! I CAN EAT KIMCHEE AND DOSEY-DO AT THE SAME TIME! YEE-HAW!). I would handstand-walk a few steps and then I would tumble over onto the grass. "I need more vodka to accomplish this!" I shouted.

But I aborted the effort. We went to the community swimming pool after my team's triumphant whiffle ball victory. The pool was thinly populated this late in the day. I hadn't swum (swam, swimmed?) in ages. The water tasted like salt. i mentioned this to Lincoln: "That's what she said!" came the reply. I wanted to soak my aching muscles so I grabbed my cocktail and went over to the jacuzzi where a Korean family, all of whom were wearing matching rash-guards, were peacefully hanging out. I heard them speaking in Korean. I wanted to say, "Hey I'm Korean too!" but I am embarrassed of my language skills. I can say "How are you?" and "Thank you very much, honorable sir and madam." But that's where my polite Korean vocabulary ends. Thanks to my wholesome mother, I know a lot of profanity, though, such as, "Suck my dick motherfucking cocksucker!"

I think my drunken eyes and hapa glow frightened the family. Soon, I had the jacuzzi to myself where I mused on another suburban 4th of July in my distant past. It was the late '90s, in Texas, where my Mexican amigo Juan was hosting a party in his backyard. Latino-style whooping and hollering were the order of the day. Mescal was on the menu. I'd never tasted this vile brew before and after my first drink i wanted to never again. It felt like I'd swallowed fire. I went back to my girly drink. Undeterred, the others carried on with the mescal until Juan went too far. He got to the worm at the bottom of the mescal bottle, but when he swallowed it he proceeded to vomit. Cue laughter from dozens of drunk people. My friend Scott was the lone person not laughing. He looked like a man on a mission. He walked over, picked up the regurgitated worm, cleaned off the dirt with some Foster's lager, and then swallowed the morsel himself. Cue gagging from all corners of the backyard. Scott spent the rest of the night hallucinating from the worm.

Happy holiday memories! Is this what the founders intended?

After the pool, I felt like doing some pull-ups. That's normal, right? Luckily there was a park and jungle gym adjacent to the house. I grabbed Lincoln and a fresh vodka-tonic and went next door to prove how manly i was. Lincoln muscled his way to 8 pull-ups. Sober, I know that working out and alcohol don't mix. Drunk, I think it's the best combination since PB & J. Not satisfied with pull-ups, I showed Lincoln that I could transition from the pull-up to the muscle-up. How I did several of these without injuring myself...the gods must be watching over me.

Famished and glistening with alcoholic-sweat, we went back to the house and fired up the grill. Lincoln fixed up lots of good-eatins. I got drunk to the extent that I said a great big fuck-you to the Zone diet (which has been working for me, incidentally). Over the next couple of hours, as peaceful Irvine slipped into the shadows, I proceeded to eat like there was no tomorrow, like I was that Asian eating champion that shovels everything biodegradable down his throat. Tortilla chips with five-layer dip (cheese, beans, guacomole, etc.). Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Steak. Chicken. Veggies. And I kept drinking. By the end of the night I was very loud and having a film student-like debate on the Greatest Holocaust Movie of All Time with my new Kenyan friend. My vote was for The Pianist. His vote went to Schindler's List. I argued that Spielberg's film, while great, has none of the existential complexity of Polanski's underrated masterpiece. I can't remember a shred of his counter-argument. At the best of times, I only process about 60% of what people say to me. When I'm downright drunk, that number plummets to around 10%.

As I descended deeper and deeper into a drunken haze, I said less and less until I sat hunched and shirtless and still soggy from the pool in a lawn chair. A pitiful sight. "I need bed," I mumbled. Sarah was kind enough to escort me to the guest bedroom. I rewarded her kindness by accidentally head-butting her.

I dreamt of sex and awoke to the family dog, a labra-doodle, staring at me with bedroom eyes.

Part II tomorrow...

Mean-Spirited Conversation of the Holiday Weekend
or
The Kim and Jimmy Show, Part Deux

I was eating Korean BBQ on Sunday night with my family when a Korean woman with short, peroxide-blonde hair walked in to the restaurant with her beau. She looked like an Asian Brigitte Nielsen. My mother stared at her as she walked past our table.

Me: Stop staring!

My mother: There's no such thing as blonde gooks.

Me: Jesus!

My mother: It's true. Oh ok. Now I know why she does that to her hair. I would too. She got ugly face.

I shook my head.

My mother: It covers up her ugly face. Did you see her eyes?

My stepfather: Babe! You teach-a the kids bad things.

I shook my head for a long time. Doesn't he realize that we are grown up now? The bad habits and prejudices were absorbed a long time ago.

My mother: You know I'm funny.

My stepfather: It's not funny!

My mother: Then why are you laughing?