Everything Must Go!

Well, ok, not EVERYTHING, but I thought I'd give you fair warning that I'm going to be archiving a lot of posts sometime this weekend. So if you'd like to read some of the crap that I posted way back when I started this thing, you've got a few days left to do so.

Why am I archiving? Mostly because the tone and purpose of this thing has changed, and honestly, I feel like I've grown as a person and as a writer over the last year and a half. Also, some of the older stuff kind of embarrasses me. That said, I'm going to nuke everything PRIOR to June 2005. So git while the gittin's good!

Just don't say I didn't warn you.

And, because I can't get enough of YouTube these days, here's William Shatner UTTERLY DESTROYING "Rocket Man":



(Highlights are at 3:20 and 4:00)

Dance Dance Revulsion

I need to learn how to dance like this:


Anyone know where I can get one of those thongy little wifebeaters?

The Mystery of Mustaches

Gasoline Hobo: i was flipping between "enter the ninja" and "being john malkovich" earlier. THOROUGHLY enjoyable contrast. have you seen enter the ninja? that's quality cinema, there. it's about a white ninja, who wears a white ninja costume, and has a killer mustache. well, not ACTUALLY a killer mustache, per se. ;)

The Girl: does the mustache kill without caring too?

GH: it totally would if it could. tiny hairy mustache shurikens. OF DOOM.

TG: i think it could kill with a fierce look.

GH: mustaches don't have eyes!

TG: no, but it has the most evil intentions and that goes a LONG way.

GH: true. i hadn't considered it from that aspect. we are having a discussion about killer ninja mustaches. i think that is awesome.

TG: yeah, i think it is pretty awesome too. i am glad we can talk about these types of things. seriously. i don't really have anyone else who i can open up to about my fear of mustaches, except you.

GH: and really, who knows more about mustaches than me? NO ONE. you're not scared of MINE, though, right?

TG: yours isn't really a mustache. mustaches stand ALONE. that's part of their mystery.

Sidebar Orgy

I am making a new addition to my sidebar.

I know, I know, it's only been a few weeks since I added the illustrious Kattbanjo (the cat who plays a banjo), but there's this other blog that I think deserves (and possibly craves) your attention. Like Mrs. Banjo, they also are animals who play instruments.

They are Birdmonster, a band from San Francisco, and their tunes are fantastic. In addition to being excellent tunesmiths, their boy Justin is quite the writer. He also has "big hair", which I envy. I can't even grow proper mutton chops.



Anyway, check out some of their tunes here, and buy their album here:

How do you say goodbye?

You can't. You can only be grateful for the time you had. I'm going to scatter her ashes in a lake that she loved to swim in. I think she'd like that.

Goodbye, Maisie. You made such a difference in my life.

BIRTHDAY COOKIE OMGWTFBBQZZTOP!

Everyone who knows me knows that I like cake. They also know that I have an unholy love for cookies. Specifically chocolate chip cookies. So it was with EXTREME PLEASURE that I opened up a package from my pal Space Nakji the other day. Hidden within the cardboardy confines of the box was a GINORMOUS TWO FOOT WIDE COOKIE. WITH FROSTING. AND SPRINKLES. And it had "HAPPY BATDAY, SCREE SCREE" written on it with frosting. Exactly two of you will get this joke, but that's ok. Suffice to say that I think it's the best birthday cookie I've ever received, and certainly the best cake.

With friends like these, I'll be dead of diabetes by 35.

And I couldn't be more pleased.

Thanks again, Space Nakji. May your tentacles grow every longer and more suctioney, and may your ink never dry.

The Gift of Presence

I know that a lot of you have been worried about my pooch, so here's an update. She's stable at the moment, but she's not eating or drinking. She's had pretty bad poop problems over the last few days, and some of it involved blood. I've managed to stop the pooping, and she's on a new medication for her stomach and gastrointestinal tract.

She's also severely dehydrated, so I'm giving her subcutaneous fluids twice a day via IV (yes, i administer myself - the needles are quite large and scary looking, but they don't bother her at all). Most of the time she can't get up on her own, so I have to pick her up. Once up, she can wobble around until it's time to lay down again.

She is still wagging her tail. She is still alert and interested in life. She has not yet given up, so I can't, either.

On the positive side, the concept of one day changing diapers is no longer something that instills fear in me. On the contrary, after cleaning up countless gobs of stuff that seemed to come from HELL via my dog's butt, I laugh at simple, ordinary baby poop. Actually, it's sort of a quiet, smug chuckle, but still. You get the point.

Birthday update. I was actually pretty sad last night. I went over to my ex-wife's place to pick up some medical supplies for the dog, and I witnessed a happy little domestic scene with her and her boyfriend. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for her, and I'm glad that she's happy. I just miss the little daily aspects of love, the word play, the inside jokes, the glances, all of it. I had that with her at one point. I don't want it with her again, I'm done and I've moved past that. I DO miss that feeling, though. There's a quiet joy and strength that comes from that sort of intimate connection, and I want it again. Seeing it, and thinking about my current situation just made me sad.

But I'm feeling better today. I woke to a phone call from The Girl, and we had a good talk. My co-workers gave me a cake, a starbucks card, and a napkin that said PARTY on it. They forgot the party hats, so I put the napkin on my head so they wouldn't feel bad. So far, it's been a pretty good day.

I'm glad for what I have.

I'm a lucky boy, and I know it.

Just Keeps Getting Better...

Maisie is doing poorly again, for a completely different reason than last time. I'm having to think about Quality of Life again. I don't want to have to deal with this right now. I'd like for her to be happy and healthy so I could draw comfort from her. That's what I need right now. I need for her to help take care of me. But again, I have to be strong. I have to Do The Right Thing, continue piling things on my already overfull plate because there's just no other choice. I have to pull the ability to deal with all of this stuff from somewhere inside me. I don't have a lot of reserves left these days.

Happy Birthday to Me

On Monday, I will be 31. I was really looking forward to this one, for two reasons. First of all, The Girl was going to be out here for a week, and second, it was going to coincide with our 1 year anniversary.

We met for the first time in New Orleans. Her flight got in before mine, and she was waiting for me at the security exit. She was so nervous that she stepped behind someone, but I saw her first. I'll never forget those first few seconds. All I could see was her, and it seemed like time slowed down until I got to her. Three days of the best first date in the history of first dates. You can read more about it here if you like.

I had something elaborately romantic planned for the anniversary, and I obviously can't do that by myself, so I'll be taking it easy this year. Nice and slow. I don't mind getting older. I actually kinda like it, although I could do without the grey eyebrow hair I found this morning.

I did order myself a little present, though:





So I'm looking forward to that.

And the Winner of the 5,000th Post Award Is...

Kattbanjo! I had a few thousand hits on the old blog site, but 5,000 hits on gasolinehobo.com is really kind of a milestone that I'm proud of. SO. Awards. I've never really given an actual award before, but I feel rather strongly that I should do it right. That said, I'm going to give you a choice of awards, Miz Banjo:

1) A sock (used)

2) A Hello Kitty Toothbrush (used)

3) A CD of random tunes that I like (stealing the idea from Fluid Pudding)

Choose wisely, and thanks!

p.s.: i feel that i should point out that my pal Space Nakji was number 4999, and some dude from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa was number 5001. that pleases me to no end. :)

Dead Air, Empty Space

I'm a bit sad right now. I just realized that the last of The Girl's voicemails from "before" just rolled off of my phone. It was nice to hear her voice on a message or two whenever I got a new one. Now it's just empty. Dead air. Sometimes it's the little things that hit you the hardest.

Here are some more pictures for you.


Hi-Res!


Hi-Res!


SUPER Hi-Res!


Hi-Res!


SUPER Hi-Res!

A Day In the Life of Gasoline Hobo (As Told by Space Nakji, Whose Writing Skills Far Eclipse His Own)

5:00 am: Awaken briefly from a dream. Flex right arm to ensure that it is in fact normal human arm and not robot monkey arm. Go back to sleep.

5:45 am: Wake up. Pee. Go back to sleep.

8:00 am: Wake up. Check clock. Realize it is Sunday. Go back to sleep.

11:52 am: Wake up. Spend several long moments staring at thin crack in ceiling. Sit up carefully in bed only to have right shoulder pop in socket, issuing loud cracking sound that startles dog and several small pigeons outside bedroom window. Left shoulder follows suit momentarily. Curse audibly.

11:58 am: Attach IV frapp tube to needle in wrist for first of day's feedings. Lie back in bed and think several long thoughts involving Bronson Pinchot, steam engines, and marmots. Fall asleep briefly.

12:31 pm: Wake up again and rise from bed. Wheel frapp IV into bathroom. Pee. Shower. Groom. Dress. Wheel IV out to kitchen. Feed and medicate dog. Scratch dog behind ears. Say various things to dog, including the words "scoot", "scree", and "belly", in high-pitched voice.

1:26 pm: Detach frapp feed. Take several long strides, heel-first, in boots, through living room. Sit on couch with laptop. Watch several hours of online video footage of pteropodidae mating habits. Research echolocation.

5:15 pm: Reattach frapp feed. Chat online with Space Nakji. Tolerate chiding regarding poor eating habits. Promise to eat a bagel.

6:23 pm: Feed and medicate dog. Detach frapp feed. Drive to Starbucks. Eat bagel. Drive east.

7:45 pm: Hurtle through the growing desert dusk, hallucinating pancakes on the horizon. Radio blaring. Foot planted on gas pedal.

8:14 pm: Stop car outside small, abandoned shack in middle of desert. Get out of car and walk around. Snap photos with large, expensive-looking camera. Walk to back of abandoned shack.

8:19 pm: Right shoulder pops, echoing like a rifle shot across the desert floor.

8:20 pm: Realize door to abandoned shack is unlocked. Go inside darkened shack.

8:21 pm: Stumble blindly over large, soft object on floor of abandoned shack. Drop expensive camera. Curse audibly.

8:22 pm: Grope around on floor in dark to try to find dropped camera. Find large, soft object on floor instead.

8:24 pm: Try to pull hands away from large, soft object on floor and realize they are stuck.

8:25 pm: Continue trying to pull hands away.

8:26 pm: Realize large, soft object on floor is moving. Realize it is wrapping itself around your body and inching up your arms. Realize you cannot move your legs. Realize you are in complete darkness. Realize you left your frapp feed at home.

8:30 pm: Lay on floor of dark, abandoned shack, engulfed up to chin in unidentified, large, soft object. Curse audibly.

8:31 pm: Compose brief blog entry in head titled, "On Entering A Dark, Abandoned Shack In The Desert On A Sunday Evening."

8:33 pm: Feel object applying pressure to jugular. Slip into unconsciousness. Have no dreams.

8:35 pm: Regain consciousness. Realize body is still engulfed in object, which is now crawling across the floor of the abandoned shack and carrying you out into the desert night. Feel the sensation of many small legs moving beneath you.

8:48 pm: Marvel at how swiftly the desert scenery is whipping past you.

8:52 pm: Try to wiggle arms and toes to no avail. Look up at the stars. Marvel at their silvery brightness.

8:53 pm: Wish you hadn't left the car keys in the ignition.

8:54 pm: Night sky disappears suddenly. Darkness surrounds. Suddenly realize you are being carried underground through a tunnel of some kind.

8:56 pm: Eyes adjust to darkness. Realize you have left tunnel and entered underground cave. Sharp scent of ammonia fills nostrils. Look up to see bright shaft of moonlight entering through small hole far overhead.

8:59 pm: Shoulder pops. Rifle crack echoes through cave. Above you, the sound of leathery wings. Below you, the sound of many small feet scrambling.

9:00 pm: Feel object unwrapping itself from your body. Wiggle toes.

9:01 pm: Wing sounds diminish into distance. Pitter-patter of small feet disappearing in direction of tunnel. Ground is cold against your back.

9:02 pm: Stand up slowly. Unidentified large, soft object nowhere to be seen. Along with your clothes. Curse audibly.

9:03 pm: Explore cave. Realize there is nothing interesting about it, despite pervasive and oddly pleasing scent of guano. Try to find exit.

9:11 pm: Locate exit. Crawl slowly through dark tunnel.

9:30 pm: Emerge aboveground. Stare up at the stars in gratitude for several long moments. Begin strolling back in direction of car by following trail of very, very small footprints in the sand.

9:55 pm: Still walking. Car nowhere in sight. Curse audibly.

10:23 pm: Car and cabin in sight. Say "yay" quietly to self. Begin jogging toward car.

10:40 pm: Arrive at car. Keys still in ignition. Resist urge to go back into cabin to retrieve expensive camera. Drive west like a bat out of hell. A naked bat out of hell.

11:38 pm: Pull off freeway and park in front of IHOP. Park car. Wrap naked body in seat covers and floor mats. Go inside.

11:44 pm: Order Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity meal. Ignore stares from trucker seated at bar who looks like a bearded Bronson Pinchot.

11:51 pm: Wolf down meal.

11:59 pm: Pay check. Leave restaurant. Drive home in silence.

How They Got Here

It's sort of amazing to me that I've been doing this blogging thing for about a year and a half now. In that time, I've had quite a few people find my site via search terms, and some of them are pretty damn amusing. Here's a short list for your reading pleasure:

• shark vs. helicopter


• hobo stupid


• gnomes licking ice cream (?!?)


• kebab


• shurikin paper (talk about your paper cuts! ha ha!)


• orange disgusting


• french sheep


• hobo dog


• sprained eyelid


• hasselhoff tattoo


• greek folk music


• ass on fire


• walrus dick


• is abe vigoda still alive


• eggs and gasoline


• insane fruit


• surface to air hello kitty


• tuba city


• mariachi yugoslavia


• hobos on fire


• turkey brake pads catalogue


• cookie monster freebasing


• cheese muffin


• hobo gnomes (wtf is it with gnomes?)


• phallic victory


• hobo porn (thank you, germany)


• how to keep a banana


• and finally, the strangely confessional "ninjas killed my parents, hobo"

Yup. My readers are weird. Shocking!

BEST. COMMERCIAL. EVAR.

Pipe Smoking: Not Just For Grandpa

You know what's not cool enough? Smoking. Not just any smoking. PIPE smoking. No, not that kind of pipe. The pipe of Sherlock Holmes, of Graham Chapman, of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Crafted from finest burled mahogany, the pipe must be smoked a certain way, cleaned and cared for a certain way.

My goal is to reintroduce pipe smoking to the youth of America. Specifically, hipster youth. In my opinion, nothing goes better with a Che cap than a pipe (see Sub-Commandante Marcos above).

To this end, I intend to present a series of articles detailing the steps necessary for proper pipe smokage. Coming later today: Recommended Clothing. Stay tuned!

Amaising

I was in pretty bad shape when I dropped Maisie off at the emergency vet office. She'd never had a seizure that big before, and it had never taken her that long to pull out of it. Unfortunately, it got worse. That night, she had a total of 8 grand mal seizures. She couldn't get up, couldn't stop twitching, was severely anemic to the extent that words like "transfusion" were bandied about, and it was not looking good at all.

At about 11am on Monday, they gave her an enema of potassium bromide, which is an anti-seizure compound. This was in addition to the valium drip and the phenobarbitol shots. If this didn't work, the next step was to anesthetize her with pentobarbitol and hope that the seizures and tremors stopped when she came out of it.

I sat on the floor next to Maisie in the middle of the busy back office and talked to the vet. We discussed MRIs and spinal taps. We're pretty sure it's a brain tumor, or in VetSpeak, an intercranial mass. The options are treatment via brain surgery or treatment via medication. It was all a moot point if the seizures didn't stop. If the seizures did stop, we still had the problem of the red blood cell count. She's supposed to be between 43 and 59. She was at 28. So essentially, if she was going to survive, she'd have to dodge two bullets.

I drove home on Monday afternoon thinking that I'd lost her, that I'd have to go back that night and make the hard decision to put her to sleep. When there are so many things wrong, the question becomes one of quality of life. If she wasn't going to be able to stop the seizures without brain surgery, or if she couldn't start regenerating red blood cells, I was going to have to let her go.

I've always thought of myself as being very lucky. Sometimes I don't know how I manage to weasel my way through life, dodging bullets and falling pianos and broken mirrors. First of all, The Girl was incredibly helpful through this ordeal. I honestly think I might have broken if I hadn't had her to talk to, to prop me up.

Most importantly, though, Maisie managed to pull herself together. The anti-seizure medication worked. The seizures stopped, the tremors stopped, and a blood test showed that her blood cells were regenerating.

I brought her home yesterday. She's stumbling around drunkenly from the drugs, and she can't see out of her right eye, but she's here, she's wagging her tail, she's eating her dinner, and she's learning the limits of her new depth perception.

She's an inspiration to me. She could have given up. She could have died. She didn't. I've got her and she's got me. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?

Desolation

UPDATE: I've added Hi-Res versions to a few of these. If anyone ever wants a larger version of any particular photo, just leave me a comment to that effect, eh? I'd be happy to oblige.




Now in SUPER Hi-Res!




Now in SUPER Hi-Res!

The Infinite and the Immediate

A lot has been going on. It has not been a good weekend by any stretch of the imagination. It started out ok, in that I figured out how to use my camera for night photography. The neat thing about taking long exposure shots is that the camera tends to pick up stuff that the eye does not. A whole extra skyful of stars, for example:



That's after leaving the shutter open for just 10 seconds. Here's what you get if you leave it open for about 5 minutes:



And who would have thought that you could get lens flare from the moon? It was especially bright:



But the most amazing thing was this:



I thought of someone special when I saw it, and yes, I did make a wish.

That was Saturday. Sunday was terrible. Several bad things happened, but the worst was what happened to this little girl:



She's been sick for a few years now - she has something called Addison's Disease, which requires medication, and she started having seizures maybe a year ago. This afternoon, she had a massive seizure. I held her and patted her for a few hours afterward, but she still had tremors all down her right side, and she couldn't stand up. I took her to the emergency vet this evening, and she had another seizure in the car, and then another one in the examination room.

She's there now, lying in a cage, hooked up to a valium IV and feeling no pain. They took x-rays and found a growth on her sternum. It could be an arthritic growth, or it could be cancerous. They won't know until tomorrow, and they're talking about MRIs and bone marrow problems, and blood transfusions. I just want to know if she'll be able to walk. If she'll be able to greet me at the door with a smile on her face, wiggling her butt at me.

Taking care of her is expensive and time consuming, but I can't imagine not doing it. I've been doing it for so long now that having that gap in my day would just about kill me.

So if you have a moment, spare a thought for little Maisie the Dog. She can use all the help she can get.

GHN News: Failed Bank Robbery and Righteous Smiting!

We begin today's HoboCast with news from Japan. Saitama Resona Bank in Kumagaya was not attacked by a 58 year old would-be robber. According to GHN sources, the victim (more on that in a bit) approached a teller and asked "Any idea how you rob a bank?".

The teller conferred with an associate, who advised the gentleman to vacate the premises. The victim politely complied, and then accidentally stabbed himself on the leg on the way out.

In other news, a woman in Daphne, Alabama apparently does not recognize a sign from God, even when it comes in the form of 20,000 volts from heaven. It was a dark and stormy night when 65 year-old Clara Jean Brown decided to pray for the safety of her family.

Upon uttering the word "Amen", the room was promptly engulfed in a BALL OF FIRE. The blast knocked her unconscious, and she had to be revived by her 14 year-old granddaughter. Speaking to a GHN correspondent shortly after the blast, Mrs. Brown said that she was "blessed to be alive".

New Edition to the Sidebar

Ok, you all have to go and check out KattBanjo's blog. She is a cat who plays a banjo, and sometimes yells "MOOOOOOOD NIIIIIIPLES" for no apparent reason. I think you'll agree that she's a perfect edition to my link collection.