Hot Tub Hobo!

Paging John Cusack: I sense a sequel. Calling all angels…

Sadly, this call could not be completed as dialed.

Mark Eskelsen, the Hot Tub Hobo

Mark Eskelsen, the Hot Tub Hobo

It seems Mark Eskelsen, a true aficionado of convivial outdoor bathing, free spirit, alfresco-dweller, and (at least mentally) time-traveller from reformed hippieville Beaverton, Oregon, is not a rock. Nor yet is he an island.

He is a loser.

From the New York Daily News (really, we’re getting our Cascadia news from NYC now? really, interwebs?):

The 45-year-old called 911 from his cell phone on Sunday morning and identified himself as the “sheriff of Washington County,” Beaverton police said. He then asked for medical attention, later admitting that he wasn’t the sheriff.

Eskelsen also said he had been in the hot tub for 10 hours and that his towels had gotten soaked.

“I just need a hug and a warm cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it,” he told the 911 operator.

In fact, the police lied: the poor man actually called 411, as any right-thinking, cocoa-seeking hot tub hobo would do in a time of need. Can you imagine the conversation he and the friendly operator must have had? If not for the fact my readers are still recovering from my recent OD on YouTubes, I’d post the scene from 28 Days where Sandra Bullock’s character is driving around wasted in the stolen limo wearing her underwear and drunk-dialing 411 to find a wedding cake, right here. But I won’t.

The operator knew a true human emergency when s/he heard one, and handed off the unsuspecting hug-seeker to 911 emergency response, who promptly responded to our warm-hearted if pruney-toed protagonist’s cri de coeur by calling in the SWAT team to roust him from his roasty roost and put him on ice in the cooler.

And to think: all he wanted was a hug, a cup of cocoa with marshmallows, and some fresh towels. Really, when it comes right down to it, we are all Juan Mann, alone.

“…how hard it must be to live only with what one knows and what one remembers, cut off from what one hopes for!… There can be no peace without hope.”

~ Albert Camus, 1948, The Plague (Trans. Stuart Gilbert), p. 262-263

Emo Luv

Emo Luv

The Hipster Dilemma

the Hipster Dilemma

at least she was pleased the trike was a fixie

Did you ever see that brilliant Steve Martin movie The Jerk? Yeah, it needs a sequel.

and yes, I know I’m all about the YouTubes lately. Maybe on days I don’t get cc’d on 300 emails demanding replies I will have some words left for the blog.

Dry Spell

Those of you who have been following the ol’ raincoaster blog for some time will know that I’ve been on a largely raw vegan die(t) for three months now, with the result that I’ve gone from an XL to an L and no, it was NOT worth it.

It was most particularly not worth it because I had to give up my beloved cocktails; in fact, I believe I only consumed alcohol one day in the month of July and that was my birthday. In August I gave myself a few more “days off” and enjoyed some wine, but it must be said that in this, as in most things in life, Dean Martin had it right.

Dino is my hero

Listen to Dino; he KNOWS!

“I’d hate to be a teetotaler. Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that’s as good as you’re going to feel all day.”

Well, exactly.

So, how does it feel to be a neo-teetotaler in Lotus Land, when one knows all the best bartenders and they all know it’s a Negroni, up, when you walk in the door unless it’s cold outside and then it’s probably Jack Daniels or if it’s been a very bad day, Champagne? Well, it doesn’t feel good. Have you ever been the only sober person at a blowout? That’s right: it feels like a bad dream. It feels, in fact, just as depicted in this incredible documentary, 28 Drinks Later.

And, lest we forget, here are some words of wisdom from Diogenes:

“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”

Crazy Little Thing Called Rehab

We’ve been on an Amy Winehouse kick lately (and yes, are consequently in desperate need of a de-lousing, even though only one apartment in my building is reported to have insect-y kind of vermin), so here’s a wicked-good mashup: Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Rehab. It’s bad when looking at pictures of a healthy woman makes people think of death, but I defy you to watch this and not think about what she looks like now. The saline implants are probably the healthiest part of her; anyone else wondering if she went off to her Caribbean retreat specifically so she could get healthy enough a doctor would operate on her? Going through rehab to get a pair of new tits: yes, welcome to the 21st Century. Here’s your six-inch miniskirt, here’s your coke, here’s your fake tan, and here are your tattoos. You now look like a homeless hooker from 1968; in fact, if you’re anything like Amy here, you probably look like the same age, too.

The Money Shot

It's not the size, it's how you use it

It's not the size, it's how you use it

From the Guardian:

Greenland: A ship melts an iceberg by spraying it with seawater near the Stena Forth oil drilling ship

Don’t worry, it happens to everyone.