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Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

When We Become Food

Posted in Deep Thoughts, Life, Surfing, tagged , , , , , on October 24, 2010| 11 Comments »

By now I think the word has gotten out in surf communities up and down California and around the US as well.  This past Friday 10/22/10 a surfer (well body boarder to be exact, not that it makes a difference) was attacked here in Santa Barbara County up at Surf Beach, a meager surfing out post up in the northern portion of the County, 30 miles or so north of point conception.  Im not going to talk of the particulars of the incident because I was not there and only know what I read similar to you.  If your interested in the particulars click here: http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/shark-attack-at-vandenberg–ucsb-surfer-loses-leg-and-dies-from-blood-loss_49145/.

 

For me and many of my surfing brethren up here in Santa Barbara this attack came as quite a shock and rude awakening.  Sure I have heard plenty of shark attack stories on the news, heard the second and third party exaggerated horror stories even gave my sympathies to Bethany Hamilton.  But overall it was all second hand smoke.  This one was very different.  Some one was taken in my own backyard at a surf spot that I on occasion surf.

 

Shit I almost went up north to surf that very day but at the last minute found out I had to go do ding work at J7 so I decided not to bother.  Never before in my life has an attack happened in the near vicinity to my personal surfing scope.  All I can say is it’s a heavy realization.  The men in gray suits are out there and you never know when they are going to strike.  I could become food just as much as the next schmoo.

 

Then I started thinking man Im never going to surf up at Surf Beach again.  Yet it is a key summer spot exposed to swell from all angles.  On further introspection I decided that yeah I probably will go back.  I have never lived my life in fear and I don’t intend to as of late.  As this crazy body boarder I met in Oz once said “I reckon mate if you get taken and live to tell about it you wont ever have to buy a beer again, and if you don’t well no worries then”.

Ahh good old surf beach, apparently there are angry locals both outside and inside the water.

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What It All Amounted To.

Posted in Life, Odd Jobs on September 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

A little over a week ago I wrote a rather discouraging blog to get out my agony and frustration from my new job entitled, Im F$%king Angry.  Im not going to give a synopsis here click the preceding link if you missed out one of my tantrum like rants.  It had been a long time coming.  I used to write blogs like that every week; as a matter of fact it had its own weekly segment and was called “Rants”.

Since then I did not bother to write a follow up to the whole situation sort of leaving everyone hanging on what became of my current employment station and the goings of my life in general.  Last I left things they were going less then desired.  Well as I predicted I was bounced from cook to the pizza position except instead of just pizzas it turns out Im responsible for roasts, rotisseries, sandwiches and sides at least three times a week.

Turns out the job is basically the same thing as a cook with the difference being you are responsible for your personal section meaning whatever happens its on my back.  On further thought of the job Im happier with it because now I wont be taking orders from like six other bosses leaving me in a “too many chiefs not enough Indians” scenario.   Truth be told I cant tell you how that position is going cause although it was bestowed upon me two weeks ago I have still yet to work it more then twice.

So far I have still been working as cook and getting a ton more proficient at it.  Even my boss who I thought hated me has come around and been encouraging my growth.  My skills with a knife have improved immensely allowing me to cut through 100 pounds of onions in just over 15 minutes.  I still need to shave like 5 minutes or so off that time but Im getting there.

At first I was bummed on the hours being 7am-3: 30pm but on further reckoning I will probably surf more being more apt to go surf sub par conditions in the afternoon to wash the stress of work away.  The experience I am getting here is invaluable.  I am basically getting paid to hone my skills in the kitchen.

Everything done here is in gigantic proportions so the amount of practice I get on one task per sitting is unprecedented.  For example this week On Sunday I cut around 50lbs of squash and zucchini julienne, then on Monday the same vegetables but diced.  I cut around 100lbs of onions every other day both julienne and chunked.  I blanched thirty pounds of carrots, grilled 150lbs of steaks, followed by another 150lbs of chicken, followed by 100lbs of carne asada all within an eight hour shift.

Its exhausting work but this is a field where one must go at painstaking lengths to pay their dues.  In short I decided to stick it out Westmont for better or worse although I think it is for the better.  I still plan on going to school for the spring semester here at City College to study to be a chef so I can expedite the original process addressed in The Apprenticeship blog.   Right now life is mostly hard work with very little play but as my dad once said to me “short term pain for long term pleasure”.

This what an onion cut julienne looks like. Now imagine doing 100 lbs worth!

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Im F$%King Angry!!!!

Posted in Anger, Life, tagged on September 12, 2010| 14 Comments »

I don’t really know where to begin, truth be told I should really begin with the miserable day on which I was born at 12:03 am in the middle of one of the worst ice storms in New York history.  Not to mention the fact that I was born a few weeks prematurely, came out yellow and spent around 2 weeks in an incubator with doctors giving me 50/50 odds of survival.

My birth pretty much set the tone for the course of my entire life.  No matter what was going to be on offer to me it was going to come at a struggle and then be more of a kick in the ass rather then a desired and many of time expected reward.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know the many moments of purely stupid adversity that seem to plague every up cycle in my life.

My birth is a perfect example.  Here is life kid welcome to the world, now you have to fight for your vestige.  We can go back to the age old shell incident of which I have reminisced on here since the very beginning.  I was 5 and at the beach with both my Mother and Grandmother.  We had the best day ever.  The weather was nice, I played in the shore break and built sandcastles.  The kicker of the whole day was that I collected these two pails full of wonderful shells (they were probably just clam shells, but at the time they could have been the most rare shell in existence to me).

I was so proud of those shells.  The day came to an end, as the three of us made our way back to the car these two guys maybe in their late teens, early twenties came charging our way.  They ran right into me close lining me face down onto the pavement.  I fell, scrapped both my knees and my two pails of shells were spilled out all over the sidewalk broken into a million pieces.  It was right then and there at the tender age of five I learned the world was going to be full of heart ache and despair and no matter how hard I tried I was going to get fucked in the denouement.

Despite this cruel hard lesson I constantly forget how fucked the world can be to its people.  Enough living in the past and back to my being Angry!!!! But Im worse then angry, no, I feel…….Beaten.  Ralph Ellison wrote a masterpiece of a novel called The Invisible Man.  Basically its about this black guy who every time he is given an opportunity to shine it always turns out to be for a false pretense and instead of it being his moment of glory becomes utter humiliation and ruin.  I wont go into any more detail of the novel, but will say that it is definitely worth a read.

I read it in high school and to this day I think it is one of the more powerful works I have ever read.  What am I blabbering about?  Don’t worry I got a few good old fashioned Lisanti rants for you except at the moment instead of feeding me with anger power persevere they are practically bringing me to my knees.

It all started with scoring this new cook job at the Westmont College (if your lost you can check it out here: https://surfingruinedmylife.net/2010/09/02/the-apprenticeship/).  Basic gist of it is I was offered a position that was suppose to allow me to better my situation in life and was amped on it.  Sure it cut into my surf time and is a ton of really hard work.  I have never been averse to working hard and as a matter of fact get some satisfaction out of it.

Pretty much as soon as I quit the gas station and started this new job of course my car decides to take a shit on me leaving me in a bit of a desperate situation.  I figured it would be all right.  I would just bring it back to the station I worked at for the last two years, where I never missed a day of work and keep the place in tip top shape.  When I called my old boss to see if they could help me out, now mind you I was not looking to get a bro deal or any thing just get my car fixed by someone I knew to be honest, he told me to basically go fuck myself and he would not work on my car because I quit.

That in my opinion was the biggest bullshit ever.  Here I am trying to make my way in the world like everyone else and had an opportunity to make more money and set myself up a little better in life.  Its not like I left them with out an option.  I asked for a $1 raise an hour.  If they would have met that or even made some type of counter offer I would have probably stayed, but I was turned down flat out.  It cant get much more insulting then that.  I was there for two years and never got a raise or anything.

Whatever my old boss wants to be a fucking cunt about the whole thing that’s his problem. The funny thing was I thought we were friends him and I, but I guess not.  As usual his good nature toward me turned out to be like many others who have passed through my life, as soon as being my friend was no longer advantageous then I had no more use and thus passed out of his realm of posterity.  Its all good because I know 20 years from know that toothless moron will still be working at that gas station living in a trailer, smoking pot and drinking a 12 pack every single night after work, while some one else gets rich off his efforts, meanwhile I will look down upon him with pity.

Long story short (yeah like that is not a crock of shit) I ended up bringing my car to some place I picked out of the phone book because in the words of Nick the Kook upon picking a dentist after losing his teeth in a freak piggy back ride accident, “they looked like they knew their shit from their ad”.  My car got fixed but I am definitely sure they charged me for some unnecessary work, but my lack of automobile mechanic knowledge was too limited to know the difference.  700 bucks later I have a car that runs and no more money.

My car is finally running fine and with my new job I should have no problem recouping the cash right?  Wrong! Work has been rather tough and stressful.  I have kitchen experience but I have never worked in a kitchen as vast and dynamic as the one I am in now.  Although I am starting to feel my “sea legs” so to speak I feel that my boss is not pleased with me.  Its not just a feeling, he pretty much lets me know that everything I do is sub par all the time and that if I don’t shape up Im on my ass.  At the same time no one shows me how to do anything and Im just told do this and left to figure it out on my own.

Then if it turns out wrong Im yelled at for not asking, if I ask Im yelled at for not knowing.  It’s a catch 22.  Nothing I do is fast enough.  Im getting there, shit I even come home and practice cutting vegetables.  I will be good at this but I don’t know if I will be allowed the sufficient time.  Meanwhile Im a basket case every single day worried about what I will do if I lose this job since I quit my other job, which was one of the easiest jobs I had ever worked.  I don’t really want to look for new work, nor am I in the financial situation too.

To make matters worse rumor around the kitchen has it that my boss wants me to take over the pizza station.  First off I don’t want to work in pizza I did that for 5 years and know it inside out.  I took this job to gain cook experience.  Second the hours are horrid garnishing me to work 8am-4: 30pm Monday-Friday.  Im barely surfing as it is working 11am-8pm but with this new schedule I might as well just sell all my surfboards and spend my evenings drinking beer, getting fat and watching the boob tube.

I mean weekends off suck all that means is crowds everywhere I chose to go and at 4:30 its all blown out, crowded and in the winter time dark.   Fuck my life.  Nothing is official yet but I heard it from a few people now this weekend and Im sure tomorrow my boss is going to throw me under the gauntlet with the bad news.  Looks like Im going to have to find me a new job….AGAIN!!!!!

I should have never left my old job.  I should have known it was too good to be true that someone would give me a shot a something great.  It was all a lie.  Lets make Chris jump through a few more hopes and then when he thinks he is headed for a big finish we will take out his knees thus allowing him to fall flat on his face.  TWO STEPS FORWARD AND 15 STEPS BACK MY FRIENDS. Maybe I should have been born with no legs or arms like that dude from that video I posed in my “Keep Keeping On” Blog?  Things seem to have worked out well for him.  Oh, wait; I forgot, HE HAS NO FUCKING LEGS AND NO FUCKING ARMS.

I Think the picture says it all folks.

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Keep Keeping On! (UCB)

Posted in Life, User Choice BLog on September 10, 2010| 6 Comments »

Monday marked the close of the summer quarter of the UCB and I had promised a triple points blog to one astute participating reader.  Well the race got very close there toward the end, but I once again have to unofficially give the crown to Kooky Kyle winning I believe his third straight quarter this year.   Any who there will be a winner’s blog next week to crown our champion.  This weeks UCB will go down on Sunday and being the first of the quarter it is worth 1.5 points.

Kooky asked I write on how to Keep Keeping On.  Now this may seem an almost illiterate suggestion but actually it is a somewhat common phrase in Lisantbonics. I have heard if used by others as well, thus Im not claiming I invented the phrase but I am a strong believer in its message.

What the fuck is Lisanti talking about?  I know that is what you’re thinking; yet I feel it should be a common theme to HowSurfingRuinedMyLife.net.  The essence of “Keep Keeping On” is one’s day-to-day struggle in the undertaking of life.  It refers to the bad times in life, the adversities one must overcome in order to strive for greatness.  Basically when you scrape the bottom of the barrel it is the initiative taken to climb the fuck out of there.

Keep Keeping On is not easy; at times it seems damn near impossible.  Some people I have observed find it easier then others, I think it is your less passionate type who rarely find rock bottom.  The drones sleep walking their way through life not contributing nor depleting, just another cog in the machine.  I don’t know if it is a better existence to be a cog, but certainly by going that route one will find him with less hurtles to jump over.

Those types of people bring a tear to my eyes and I pity them so.  Sure they are necessary to our survival as a human conglomerate, if everyone was trotting the path less taken then it would not be the path less taken in which I probably would have become an accountant or something really lame like that since it would be the path less taken, but that is a whole other can of worms not be opened up here or this blog might go on for pages.

People who don’t settle, cant even comprehend what the word settle means.  Its not even in my vocabulary and every time I make the slightest attempt on it I end up losing my mind.  These types of people are the ones who Keep Keeping On applies to.  When one goes and chases his hopes and dreams more times then not there will be many obstacles along the way.  Or on the other hand if our dreamer finds he has settled may wake up one day be completely disillusioned.

When such events happen this type of person hits a low point of heavy despair, even depression.  I have been here many times.  There were times I felt so alienated I just wanted to walk into a crowded intersection with an automatic weapon and just start taking people out.  I have also felt that the continuation of the act of living too much to bear as well. No matter how low I sink somehow, some way I climb out of my pit and when I do I find myself much stronger from it all and a better person all around.

How do I do it?  That was the initial question in the first place.  First off suicide is not an option to me though I may regularly joke about it.  I have never really had much of an understanding of why anyone would take his or her own life.  No matter how low things look and how one’s current situation may be there is always a way out.  At that moment of absolute despondency things may seem hopeless, but in actuality they are not.  We have the power to change our situation all the time.

In most cases its just a matter of giving up.  I always here people say things like “its too hard” or “I cant do this”.  I have never believed I could not do anything.  It’s just a matter of time, patience, education and practice.  With these four idioms I believe that anything is possible.   Say for example I wanted to become an astronaut.  Now you probably thinking that is impossible Chris you’re too old.

I could go back to school study my ass off, get into the right programs and maybe in ten years or so be qualified to embark on a space mission.  Personally I don’t care to put in all that effort, but if it was something I really wanted I would go for it. If I failed at least I know I gave it my best efforts.

It’s like my professional surfing career.  Truth be told it never really happened for me, but I tried my hardest to make it happen Nothing really popped off and after many years of trials and tribulations I decided to cash in my chips and put my efforts into a new plan (read my ten year plan blog for that one https://surfingruinedmylife.net/2010/09/05/the-ten-year-plan-ucb/).

Its been a long blog for a really short answer.  I Keep Keeping On by Keep Keeping On.  I don’t ever give up.  If one plan fails I come up with a new one.  That is the key right there.  “If you fall down you must get back up again” otherwise you’re just laying there in the dirt like a fool.  I may go through periods of depression and self loathing, but I always come out of it and if you do too you will find more strength within then you ever knew was there before.  I Keep Keeping On because I know that no matter what happens thinks are going to work out in my favor in the end.

Here is a guy who is a true testament to Keep Keeping On.

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Rincon Broke Today

Posted in Life, Surfing, User Choice BLog on September 6, 2010| 3 Comments »

No Triple points UCB today, not that anyone besides kooky bothered to play anyhow.  Rincon broke this morning for the first time of the season and although it was only a meager chest highish little wind swell pulse I managed to snag a few five or six hit waves before work. Then I cooked ridiculous quantities of food and now Im just too plain tired to bother to write anything of substance, not that I ever really scribe anything of substance anyhow.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the triples points UCB the final of the quarter.  Im going to chill-lax now. Bye Bye.

Here is a fun video to entertain yourself with till tomorrow.

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The Ten Year Plan (UCB)

Posted in Life, User Choice BLog on September 5, 2010| 4 Comments »

The last official UCB of the quarter is taking by Nick Kiefer.  The bonus triple point blog will be written tomorrow 9/6 and entries for that blog are still up for submission all the way until 9pm Pacific Standard Time on the 6th.  Kiefer proposed I write where I see myself in ten years.  Truth be told it is a topic that I have been giving plenty of thought to lately considering I am turning thirty in less then a year.

The reality

Part of the plan has already went into action with me taking this new position at Westmont (if you don’t know what Im talking about read “The Apprenticeship” blog: https://surfingruinedmylife.net/2010/09/02/the-apprenticeship/).  What it all comes down to for me is that I don’t want to be penniless working for minimum wage with out a pot to piss in when I am forty, which I regrettably will be in ten years.  I have a few friends out here I surf with on a regular basis who are on the verge of forty.

Out of this group I look to my friend Ryan to be the guy I most want to be when I reach his age.  The dude has a job that allows him to surf a bunch, a good chunk of change in the bank, owns his own home and has a nice family.  Now I don’t care much for the family or home ownership thing, but I want to be stable and not sweating how Im going to pay the rent every month, as I do now and have for as long as I can remember.

So that brings us back to my current state in life.  Right now Im paying my dues in the kitchen, working like a dog.  Im not going to lie its hard work and long days, usually around 9 or 10 hours.  The work is very tiring leaving me completely spent and as a result not too vigorous on surfing.  Hopefully this is temporary.

I plan on working this job for a few years to get my skill and experience up.  I also want to take culinary classes in the summers when I am off and gain my certification and maybe in five years either run a kitchen of my own or at least have a sous chef job someplace.  I really want to be in a restaurant geared more towards dinner so that I can work from 2pm-10pm giving me plenty of hours to surf.

Who knows if I save my money and play my cards right I can open up a little Italian Bistro somewhere by the time Im forty.  I think I could live with that.  As far as where I will live I guess I would stay here in Santa Barbara.  Its really the only place I could truly live here in America and with the bustling tourism industry it would be a choice location to work as a chef and open my own place.

The Dream

The dream ten year plan comes in the form I like to call Emma Wood Ranch.  Emma Wood Ranch is my sheep farm in New Zealand I like to go to in my head whenever life gets me to point where I want to jump the center divider of the free way on the way home from work and drive full speed into the oncoming traffic.  If I could save enough cash, maybe around 100k or so I could take that money and purchase a grand amount of acreage, forty or so of grazing land on the North Island of New Zealand.  I was thinking either on the Wairarapa Coast or Taranaki Coast.  Both are riddled with tons of great waves and plenty of ranches that are always up for sale by farmers looking to move to the city.

I would get fifty head of sheep; maybe thirty head of cattle over time, a dozen or so alpacas and Ill even throw in a few emus and ostrich just for shits and giggles.  I would also grow my own garden for my personal food consumption and build some bare bones surf accommodations for the budget surf traveler.  People can even live for free if they are willing to help keep up the place.

Any of my friends who want to drop out and join in the festivities would be more then welcome as well.  Together we can live in the beauty of a simpler life where you get out of it what you put into it.  I’d get a few good work dogs to help with herding and wear nothing but soft warm comfortable alpaca clothing.   Sound good?  Who’s on board for a little bit of surfing and a little bit of hard work under the clean pristine skies and vistas only New Zealand can offer.

This could be your backyard with the dream plan

Here is a fail safe ten year plan if you ask me.

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The Apprenticeship

Posted in Life, Odd Jobs on September 2, 2010| 7 Comments »

Things never get dull in my life.  Just when I feel like I have finally got into a comfortable little groove I decide to go off into left field and change everything.  As human beings we are creatures of habit and I especially find myself constantly getting into a routine.  Once Im in this common set of parameters I begin to go mad, yet the idea of changing it is a horrific thought.

The summer 2010 will go down as one of the flattest in California history leaving periods of time where it was borderline east coast flat.  Im talking 3-5 day flat spells (that’s a bit of a lie cause all I really had to do was drive an hour or so north and could have easily been furnished with chest high waves, but who really wants to go through that much effort for less then average surf?  Not me).  These flat spells got me to thinking about my life and its current direction.  This is never a good thing to do when your already feeling a bit depressed.

As most of you know my sham of a professional surfing career came to a screeching halt when Globe finally dropped the axe upon me this past June.  Don’t cry for me Argentina, I saw the writing on the wall back in February.  I was surprised they kept me that long after I did absolutely nothing the last year or so except hang around Santa Barbara.  With no prospects on the table and nothing really happening for me with the exception of trying to make a promo video, which Im still sort of working on, I was forced to reside in the fact that all I had amounted to in life was a night time gas station employee.

Although it paid the bills (barely) I found myself in front of one of life’s cross roads.  Do I continue cleaning up piss, shit and other bodily excrement off the bathroom floor every night with out gloves because my cheap ass boss stopped buying them pretending that something was “going to happen for me” in surfing or whatever (deep down inside I still really believe someone is going to show up at some point in my life and hand me a brief case full of money).   I knew I needed to do something better with my life.

My friend Ryan would constantly joke about how I was the most intelligent over qualified gas station employee ever.  I had been considering going to culinary school since I was 15 when I used work at the pizzeria, yet was always dissuaded by my mother or school guidance counselors telling me I “had to go to college”.   Fuck high school guidance counselors.  I don’t think those guys ever pointed anyone in the right direction.  They told my buddy Chad Griffin he should go to college and the guy could barely read or write.  The world needs garbage men too.  Enough on how I feel about guidance

counselors cause I could write an entire rant blog on them alone.

I love cooking and have always felt at home working in a kitchen.  Its hard work, but its honest noble work and I happen to be good at it.  I had planned to go to culinary school with in the coming year, but I had been saying that for the past two years as well.  After this summer I was determined to set my life on the right course, tired of starving for an industry that used me up and then threw me away when I was of no more use to them.  I surf for me now and actually have way more fun and get way less hassled in the lineup.  I truly am the definition of hard core, soul surfer, but that is another blog for another day also.

One day in early August I was surfing with the guy who is actually Will Smith’s personal chef.  When I asked him how he got into it and if he went to school, he replied he had just applied for jobs and worked his way up to his current position.  Dude reckoned that was probably better then any education a school could give and you get paid for it instead of paying them.  Heeding his advice I began applying for every kitchen position I could find to no avail, everyone wanting at least three years line cook experienced.

Discouraged after nearly a month of rejections I resolved to wait out the winter and then try and go to culinary school in the spring.  Then about a week ago I got a phone call from this position I applied for, a cooking position at Westmont College.  Excited I went to the job interview and the head chef Jose was super pumped on me even though I was a bit inexperienced and offered me the job. He probably figured he could get me at half the price of a trained chef and train me how he wanted to with no ego problems.

I was offered a full time chef position, $11 hour, and benefits after three months.  The only buzz kill was the hours were 11am-8pm seriously cutting into my surf time forcing me now to have to get up at 6am to go surfing as oppose to my cushy 8am surf check.  I could not make up mind so I did what I always do leave it up to other people.  I told my boss at the gas station if he would give me a dollar an hour raise thus matching the pay of the chef job I would stay.

The owner of the gas station flat out rejected it.  I guess I was not worth the sale of one pack of cigarettes and a candy bar (comes out just under $8).  I was still considering staying, when that night Jose called and convinced me otherwise.  I took the chef job and told the gas station to kiss my white ass.  So now I work 5 days a week nine hours a day killing myself in the kitchen so exhausted when I get home I can barely hold my head up, but I am learning a craft I hope to become very skilled in.

I am currently on a thirty day trial period and at the end if I don’t cut it Im out the door.  Im not going to lie I am definitely a lot more deficient then I had expected to take on a position as such, but Im learning fast and putting in all my efforts.  I will make the cut and in a few years come out of this a skilled chef.  To put things into Star Wars terms I am like padawan learner novice to the ways of the force, but hoping to make full on Jedi.  Only time will tell my friends.  Wish me luck on the new endeavor.

Here is the trailer from 1999 motion picture Simply Irresistable, a movie in which Sara Michelle Gellar gets a cooking position in a fancy restaurant, yet has never cooked before in her life.  Luckily for her a benevolent crab helps her out after she spares his life by not cooking him.  I know its a pretty bizarre movie, I saw it on a plane on the way back from Cali or something.

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Flying Off The Handle (UCB)

Posted in Anger, Life, User Choice BLog on August 19, 2010| 3 Comments »

Before I start this week’s UCB let me first address that fact that I missed last weeks UCB, but given that no one bothered to suggest any topics except for Kooky Kyle who sent me an illegible text message at like 11pm Pacific Standard time, god knows how late it was on the east coast I cant remember if the time difference is three, four or five hours nor do I care all that much either.  I decided that the UCB would not be all that missed by anyone besides myself, maybe I should post more porno links in my blogs I seemed to get a lot hits on that particular blog.  Two run-ons equal a fragment!  Aint my grammar grand?  Fuck the English Language I much rather prefer the scheme I am affectionately calling Lisantbonics.

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Anyhow to make up for my blatant disregard for any semblances of a structure to this blog I will offer a make up Triple points blog to be written on Saturday, so get those UCB requests in and remember you can also facebook me your UCB suggestions.  For more explanation of the UCB click here.

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Mauriello takes this week’s UCB with a topic he proposed a few weeks ago.  On his last week here in Santa Barbara John witness a classic moment of a crazy Lisanti fit of anger.  It is true I have been able to cut down on the feats of psychotic episodes, but with the lack of surf this summer and increasingly pressing other stressors on my head I must admit my fuse is a bit short these days.  John asked I write on that incident wondering why I did not mention it in any blogs after the whole thing went down.  My initial response was that incidents as such happen on a regular basis for me and most of the time I just don’t even take note of them.

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The Caesar Chavez incident….

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It all went down on a small little intersection in the industrial district of Santa Barbara at corner of Caesar Chavez St and Gutierrez St.  We were sitting in my car at a stop sign at this faithful intersection when this stupid ass Mexican truck driver attempts to make a left hand turn but failed to compensate for the length of his trailer.  His utter stupidity now had him blocking the intersection and subsequently blocking me in as well considering his truck now blocked all four directions of traffic.

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What he needed to do was back up about five feet or so, over turn the intersection thus swinging his trailer behind him instead of perpendicular where it sat at the present.  Instead this buffoon who most likely does not even possess a high school diploma expected me to back up my car about ten feet or so thus allowing him to complete his poorly laid out turn.  Sure I could have easily allowed for this to happen, but my trying patience for stupidity denied my benevolence. He was going to have to backup and atone for his ignorance learning how do his job all the better in the process.

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So I sat there and the obstinate fool did too, both of us intently staring at the other thus blocking the intersection for a solid three minutes and a handful of traffic light circulations.  Apparently everyone around who were getting rather uneasy about the newly formed gridlock seemed to think I should yield to this idiot and let everyone get on with their lives.  To me though it was a David and Goliath situation.  I was more then willing to fight the giant and his sympathetic entourage with just my little Saturn.  Shit I did not care if he took the entire front off my car in the process.

….

John on the other hand was being a little bitch in the passenger seat pleading with me to given in, even trying to forcefully put the car in reverse.  Understanding it was a losing battle on my point and driving an unregistered vehicle I knew at some point the cops were going to show up and I would be opening an entirely different can of worms.  I was not going to succumb with out a few elegantly placed four letter words toward the trucker.

….

I rolled down my window and yelled, “ How long have you been driving a truck you fucking moron”.  To this my new friend retorted, “How long have you been in a coma”, which did not make all that much sense to me.  This went back and forth for another thirty seconds before I rolled up my window, flipped him the double bird backed up, while flipping him off and then remained there cursing and flipping him off while he drove by.  If I was over being a reserved human being I would have dragged his ass out off the truck and slit his neck open right there on the pavement.  Alas for the days where to men could legally have a duel to the death.  Of course in today’s “civilized” society that is illegal.

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For John this was quite the event, for me a usual occurrence.  I believe most of my close friends have had the horrific shock of witnessing similar tantrums.  Im not perfect if I was this blog would not be nearly as colorful and would have even less readers then it already does.  If that is even possible.  I get angry and unfortunately I have years of pent up rage and frustration and when I have one of these anger attacks all of those incidents of myself being wronged by others rush to my brain and kick off such episodes of vehemence.

….

Personally Im not proud of these moments and feel rather bad about them afterwards, sure they make for a great laugh and story but not for Chris Lisanti at his greatest.  You know what Im tired of being a mediocre person.  I want to be someone people look up to with reverie.  Its about time I live up the persona I have created for myself and that is why I don’t usual write on such incidents cause I know I could have handled them better and don’t wont others to emulate such behavior, but if these acts teach self control as a parable in a very hypocritical way it was more then worth the humility of writing.

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