Memphis’ Year in Review 2008

In the truest style of my blogging, I want to do a 2008 year in review. Yep. I’m aware that everyone does this, its not original. I get it. But I never told everyone the story of how I came to be known as Memphis, some of you may not even have known that, or about a lot of my stories in the first year of life in Long Beach. So, bear with me, this is going to be rambling for shit sure… And smile, I hate looking at you with that dumb stare you usually get while reading.

I was working late one of the first few days of my new employment in Long Beach, when a coworker invited me to a local bar called – forget what its called, that parts not important. What is important is that I bailed on work and went with him to this bar. At the bar we had a good time, talked to some hot waitresses, got a phone number or two, and suddenly I realized I had two dogs at home that were probably at this very minute shitting all over my apartment. I make excuses and head home, fully expecting to return to the bar in about 45 minutes and continue my pursuit of the local tail de jour.

Home is only 3 miles from work, so in my car (a ridiculously and totally unnecessarily fast mustang, think vanilla ice’s car with john force’s engine) it takes about 42 seconds. Promptly, if vigorously, back at the house I take the dogs ( a then 10 year old doberman named Oakley, and his hetero life-mate, Guinness. Guinness is a pure bred cocker spaniel, but youd never know it. I think he thinks hes a Doberman too. He has all of the characteristics, just slammed into a little gay dog body. Poor guy, I’m sure he has self image issues.) for their nightly shit in anyone’s yard but my own. On my way around the corner I see a group of 7 or 8 neighbors hanging out on their porch. I say my hellos on the way by and keep walking. On the way back, I go buy them again and I hear “Fuck, this sucks bein’ all outta weed…”. So instantly my giving nature kicks in (actually I think its my nature to know that I will one day want something these guys will very likely be able to provide) and I volunteer the words that will go down in infamy, “I think I have some at the house, I’ll check.”

They look a little taken aback at first, but then one by stony one they all realized what I meant. So, on my return with the bag of what was later dubbed “Memphis Madness” (and not because it was so good, but rather because it was SO horrible, that one joint went COMPLETELY untouched for more than 5 months) we all start talking about who the fuck I am and where I was from. “Memphis” I said. And with that Ridley (a goob that you will surely hear more about later) says “Perfect, there are too many Mikes, we’ll just call you Memphis.

Here it is a little more than a year later, and I find that I have had a relationship with a woman that knew me primarily as Memphis, I have friends (like really good friends) that very likely don’t know my real name, and I can always tell if I’m talking to someone about work or not based on whether or not they call me Michael. I don’t know if its good or bad, but I feel like its pretty indifferent. As they say out here ‘It is what it is’, and that’s either the most introspective comment about the human condition that I have ever heard, or its complete lama spittle.

Next stop, the holidays. I think the main thing that drove me to this, what is turning out to be a very long, blog is that it’s the holidays. I sort of associate them with my ‘real’ start here. You know, that point where you actually have enough friends to have to worry about which place you want to hang out at for Christmas, NYE, etc. Well, my group of friends introduced me to the owner of the local Irish pub called, lovingly I assure you, the “G-Hole” by its visitors. This place rocks people. And it helps things a lot when the owner is friends with your friends, with whom you tend to go to the office and smoke weed out of a potato. The little Irish fuck actually keeps one in his filing cabinet under ‘P’… I couldn’t make this stuff up…

So, when the holidays rolled around last year, we decided to go to the G-Hole for just about all of them, starting with the week of thanksgiving. Monkey and I used to… what? What are you looking at me like that for? Huh? Yeah, I said “Monkey” and I. Its his nickname, sorta like the whole Memphis thing, but presumably his came from a penchant for throating bananas and throwing his own poop. So, Monkey and I used to hit G’s and bar camp. Most of the time it would get busy so that people had to come get their own drinks, and we just used that as an excuse to talk to all the girls that walked up. On this one occasion we were too busy trying not to piss ourselves laughing from a story I had gotten to drunk or high or both to remember I was supposed to take to my grave. So, as I was saying, I was wasted and in a chatty mood, and we had gotten to talking about embarrassing sex faux pas, a la the Chasing Amy scene where Banky and the lez/notlez had a gut ripping conversation regarding scars gained while performing, or attempting to, oral sex. And I guess now, since everyone else I know has heard it I may as well divulge it here. Next time.