Ten emos Raul.: February 2009

hey readers. today i wanted to take you back to:

land of swimming horses.

i'm going to show you some of my hometown of alexandria.

i think this is king st. in old town. it goes from the potomac river to the metro and beyond. metro is a dc term for new york subway.

this is the masonic temple. its weird and kinda cult-like inside with lots of wax biblical scenes. its built on a hill that used to have colonial structures until they burned down in the war, much like everything else i love. i did a dig at this site there once, shuter's hill. i found a ceramic fragment sifting the dirt. so much history in virginia. i think that's why they say virginia is for lovers.

this is a parking lot down on union street. it's by the water. when the river floods, this most likely looks like atlantis.

this is an artist's rendering of what atlantis most likely looks like these days.

this is misha's. i spend alot of time here talking with the locals like cole the poet, the moral relativist, larry (who used to work on an oil rig) and others. they sit in the smoking room almost all day long. yes, there is a smoking room because virginia is a tobacco state and try as they will, smoking will never be banned like they banned guns in churches.

this is a public skate park that i think about going to all the time. i did go once senior year of high school. and i had epic entrance music. i turned up the intro to when the levee breaks by led zeppelin real loud and swung open the car door. big ass john bonham drums. all the twelve year olds stop and look. i say yo, let's slam. and i walk my board into the park. i get on my board and get super self-conscious. i roll over to a ramp. i get off my board, pick it up and leave the park.

this is where i went to high school. west potomac. so many fond memories. if i could go back and meet my 16 year old self, he'd probably kick the shit out of me, even though i'd want to kick the shit out of him.

this was my ap government teacher mr. henderson. he was awesome. we brought skillets into class and would cook breakfast in class. grits, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, pancakes. until the asst. principal shut it down. she came in during our winter solstice druid celebration when we were playing ac/dc's let there be rock and talking about the judicial system.

having seen my hometown, you can imagine that this picture illustrates a lot of the identity conflict i feel as a southerner living in the yankee territory. for me, the war of northern aggression is an event that i daily live through. i think this will help you, gentle readers, understand where i'm coming from when i blog compulsively about stupid things. you have to understand, where i'm from horses can swim and our civil war memorials have their backs to the north and there's evil bbq that tastes yummy; there are people who dress up in colonial garb and use chamber pots to poop in; and when you tell 14 year olds where you're from they say, "virgina," and giggle. it makes you attach yourself to odds and ends that others discard, like joaquin phoenix, civil war generals with outrageous facial hair, girls who are famous because they are on reality tv shows and free jazz. but really, i'm just like everyone else. at the end of the day, i just want a tall glass of chocolate milk and a girl to read to me from the tibetan book of the dead while i fall asleep.