Requiem for a Crackhouse

As I still haven't figure out how to convert myself into pure energy, I am required to do things like pay bills and eat, so I work. Sometimes my job requires me to do very unpleasant things. Case in point: I've had the pleasure of spending the last few days cleaning out a condemned apartment building in a fun little section of West Phoenix known as Sunnyslope. The odor inside of some of the units inspired the following story:

Once upon a time there lived a fat dirty hippie who hated soap so much, that he outlawed it from ever crossing his doorstep again. Years went by, and the smell finally got so bad that the 14 feral cats who lived with the hippie decided that they'd had enough, and split. This made the hippie very sad. So, in remembrance of his beloved ferals, he dumped all the water out of his 4 foot bong and filled it with cat-piss instead. Then he loaded the bong and smoked it. Naturally, this killed the hippie, and he began to rot on his couch.
Some time later, the bong grew self aware. It celebrated its new-found sentience by eating the hippie's dead body. Then the bong took a dump on the couch, shut off all the air-conditioning and left.

The End.

Welcome to Maryvale...

14 years ago I moved to Phoenix without knowing a whole lot about the different areas. My mode of transportation was a Royal Blue 1970 Dodge Adventurer which had about 250 million miles on it. The engine had this quirky habit of bursting into flames without so much as a warning light, so for the first few days I stayed at a Motel 6 just of 51st Ave and the I-10, otherwise known as Maryvale. On the 3rd or 4th night I was awakened by what cursory experience as a Marine allowed me to identify as an Uzi going off for a full 2 minutes, just outside my motel room. 2 minutes doesn't sound like very long, but in Uzi-time, it's a while. I moved the next day.

Over the years I've found that most people who've spent a day or two in Maryvale have similar stories.

Today through the course of my day-job I found myself in Maryvale again and noticed that in an effort to improve the place they've taken to putting up signs that read: Welcome To Maryvale... A Vibrant Village!

I liked the signs. They were and colorful and kind of gutsy. Only a few of them were gang-tagged. However, I felt that perhaps they didn't capture the true spirit of Maryvale, so I've come up with some suggestions for an alternative slogan. City Council members please feel free to help yourselves.

1 - Welcome to Maryvale... On the other hand some of the prostitutes are women.

2 - Welcome to Maryvale... For your safety, please roll up your windows and lock your car doors.

3 - Welcome to Maryvale... Now (mostly) West Nile Virus free!

4 - Welcome to Maryvale... We don't know what that smell is, either.

5 - Welcome to Maryvale... Would you like to buy some crack?


6 - Welcome to Maryvale... DUCK!!!

What does it all mean?

I started this page as a means of randomly capturing thoughts that I might want to refer back to at some point. Then I used it as a way to communicate with personal training clients. Now that I am no longer in the business of training people, I find that I still might have a need - strike that, perhaps compulsion may be a better word for it - to express thoughts and feelings in this format. I guess a lot of people do, otherwise the word blogging might have come into existence as some horrendous sexual euphemism.

So if anybody accidentally comes across this page at some point, or especially if some of my former clients check up on this page to see if I'm updating (Dave, Cheri, Kari, Paula, etc.) I have a word of warning:

Please do not take anything you see written here even a little bit seriously. Any advice I may post, it would probably be a safe bet to do the exact opposite from here on out. Also please don't judge any bad grammmar or misspelled words too harshly. Thank you, and enjoy your lunch.

Bugs and Fishes, Will