21stcenturygonzo.com

whenever anyone finds out that i am a professional poker player their very first question is always “ooooooh have i seen you on tv before?”

well gee how the fuck should i know what you have or have not seen on tv….believe it or not i don’t have one of those neilson boxes mounted on your television set monitoring what shows you watch 24/7.

HOW THE FUCK WOULD I KNOW WHAT OR WHOM YOU’VE SEEN ON TV???

generally when this situation arises i try and remain calm and keep the aforementioned out-bursts pent up inside me and i simply reply in as polite of a tone i can muster:

“hmmm have i seen YOU undressing at night through your bedroom window?”

think about that the next time you’re about to defecate some inane question from your mouth hole.

never get a hound dog, or even a dog that is part hound, even a dog that happens to be good friends with a hound.
i love my dog to death but there are times i just want to rip the hound right out of him.
for instance any time he has to take a poop.
he’ll go to the front door and start crying:

“oooooooh please take me out daddy, i have to poop SOOOO BADLY!!! im literally going to burst right this second if you don’t take me out immediately”

then we get outside to the grass and all of a sudden he has all the time in the world and feels compelled to sniff every square inch of grass, apparently looking for the perfect spot on which to shit.

the best is when he does a pump fake, gets down in the pooping position only to realize at the very last minute that this in fact was not the optimal spot and its quite necessary to keep looking.

no don’t mind me i’ll just sit here and freeze my balls off while you keep searching for that perfect pooping pasture.

i know that all dogs like to sniff before they poop, but hounds seem to take it to the next level, he’ll walk with his nose glued to the ground back and forth back and forth FORRRRRRREVER before gracing that prime piece of real estate  with his royal defecations.

another weird quirk of his is when he eats.
i feed him wet food twice a day, and in between he gets some dry kibble snacks.
whenever he gets his dry food he will take a mouthful and bring it over to his doggy bed and drop it there and then eat it.
he does this only for the first two bites and then he proceeds to eat the rest of the kibble out of his bowl…
i’d love to know what thats about.

and let me just preempt the inevitable comments from pete and priya by saying any derogatory comments about tucker will be deleted.
i am the only one allowed to ever besmirch his name as he knows how much i adore him, and if he reads any negative comments about him it might hurt is self-esteem.
he’s a very sensitive dog.

i dunno if there is anything more tilting to me then heros in horror movies.
in general you will never find anyone as stupid as the protagonist in a scream flick.

the worst offender of all time is without a doubt jamie lee curtis in the remake of halloween.
so jason has been running around killing everyone, and poor old jamie lee curtis is the prime target.
so like 3/4 of the way thru the movie she knocks jason out. he is unconcious in a closet and she is standing over him with an axe in her hand, so what does she do?
the obvious choice, scream for a second, drop the axe, and run away…..FUCKING OBVIOUSLY.
why would you bother to CUT HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF? noooooooo just run away to temporary safety, cuz just leaving him unconcious is clearly the superior choice to killing him.

another great example is in 28 weeks later, the sequel to 28 days later.
near the end of the movie one of the lead characters has an automatic assault rifle that has saved her  life numerous times in the movie, as she tries to escape from zombie killers.
well this chic decides at one point that, meh don’t need this gun anymore i’ll just drop it and try my luck totally unarmed and defenseless…..she isn’t out of ammunition, and there is no plausible explanation other then the director told her the movie was almost over and within the next 4 minutes of screen time she was going to get miracously rescued, even though at the time there was zero indication that she would ever escape the roaming packs of zombies.

i just don’t understand how on earth the ppl making these films can let this shit happen, and still be expected to be taken seriously.

and i’m not one of those killjoys that has to dissect every movie they see, and expose every minor plot hole or logical inconsistency.
i am a firm believer in suspended disbelief, however that only gets you so far, and there is just no logical explanation for allowing something so ridiculously stupid into your movie.

i wrote this about a year ago, but figured some of you might enjoy it:

so its 2:30am i’m tired and bored so i figured i’d share with ya’ll my experience breaking my neck.

i shattered my 7th vertebre completely and was in surgery for 12hrs
while they picked pieces of my vertebre out of my spinal column and
shaved a piece of my hip bone and fused my C6 to my T1 with a plate and
2 screws which will remain inside of me forever.

i grew up pretty athletic, playing baseball from the time i was 6,
hockey from the time i was 12, and basketball and football in
highschool.

i also snowboarded starting at around 11 and spent every winter at my buddies cabin in mammoth.

i was a pretty wild and reckless kid always breaking something annually
for the first 18 years of my life with no serious consequences and i
was pretty convinced i was indestructible.

so as per usual christmas break me and my two best friends head up to
mammoth for a whole lotta snowboarding and numerous attempts at
convincing young women in the area that it would be in their best
interest to engage in an assortment of sexual activites.

its a the first day of boarding and it is absolutely perfect.

skies are clear, sun is out, and it snowed recently so the conditions are ideal.

we start the day off on the west side of the mountain, and after
hitting up most of the black diamonds i decide i want to head to the
snowboard park.

my two buddies arent really into the jumps and so they take off for the
east side of the mountain and we decide to meet up later.

now let me say that at this point i’m a damn good boarder…i can
pretty much go down any black diamond and i’m decent in the park,
however i’m by no means a badass.

i have just recently started doing jumps and stuff, but i cant do any rails or the half pipe very well at all.

HOWEVER i do like to just haul ass off the jumps, especally when there
are ladies in the area to witness my daring feats of bravery and
machismo.

it also helps that up to this point i am unaware that it is actually
possible to injure oneself seriously just by flying thru the air at
high speeds and landing on a hard surface.

the snowboard park has a sign when entering that says something to the
effect of: “caution you may fucking kill yourself, but you cant sue
us so we’re going to create all kinds of life threatening obstacles for
you to hurl yourself off of”.

however since there were no pictures on the sign it obviously means nothing to me.

the park at mammoth at the time has jumps for all levels of riders, but
the real bad boys are called step-up table-tops, and basically there is
a big ramp with a long flat table top and then a downward vertical ramp
for landing.

its called a step up because the take-off ramp has a ledge and there is
a drop-off to the table top below it and subsequent landing ramp.

there are table tops of varing length and based on how long the table
top is you need to adjust your speed so that you insure you land on the
downward ramp.

landing in “the flats” is a really bad plan.

there are a bunch of small like 5-10 foot table tops near teh top of
the park, but landing one of those has never made even the sluttiest of
[censored] panties moist so in order to be a real balla you have to go
down to the middle of the park where the big 30ft table top is.

there is a large staging section where tons of ppl sit around adjusting
their bindings and pretending they are about to attempt an inverted 720
backside tail grab when in reality they are prolly going to snowplow
their way to the bottom.

but point is there are a ton of ppl watching the big jump, not to
mention the ski lift goes right over the jump, so there is a big
audience to witness the semi-pro’s and manic-depressive delusionals
hurl themselves over this beast.

so i go.

obviously.

you have to carry a ton of speed to clear the jump so i just bomb it,
i’m not 100% sure what i was trying to pull, however i somehow managed
to do a complete backflip plus a 1/2 rotation and while i have some
vague recollection of flying thru the air the first real clear memory i
have is landing.

hard.

really hard.

i’m in the flat right past the bottom of the landing ramp and i’m flat
on my back, i can see people in the ski lift above me looking down with
a mixture of amusement and horror as they ride by.

i dont lose conciousness but i feel really really light and after a few
moments i realize that maybe i should get up and outta the way so other
people can go off the jump without landing on me.

at this point i still do not realize that i am hurt, just having a
slightly hard time breathing and working up the energy to move a single
muscle in my body.

but i’m going to be just fine.

i try to get up a few times with no sucess and after some unknown amount of time lying on my back the snow patrol arrives.

i wonder who they’re here for?

they strap me into that little [censored] horrible contraption and ski
me down the hill into the medic staging area where they tell me they
can either call me an ambulance or i can leave on my own.

well it’d prolly be best if i got a move on cuz its been real nice chatting with ya’ll but i have to meet my friends for lunch.

so i try and roll over to the right and get up, that doesnt work, so i
try and roll over to the left and that doesnt work, and its at about
this time that some brilliant medical savant makes the bold and
controversial statement:

“maybe he shouldn’t be moving around”.

so the strap me back down and call the ambulance.

ambulance comes and moves me from the [censored] stretcher to another
[censored] stretcher that has a bump right where the back of your head
goes which to this day no one can explain to me the puporse of besides
making an already unpleasant experience even more miserable.

i get to share the ambulance with a girl who has the most obnoxious
voice ever and doesnt stop whining about her excruiatingly painful
broken finger for the entire ride.

once i get to the hospital they take x-rays and after a while a doctor
walks up to my bed where i am lying completely immobilized and informs
me (direct quote):

“well you broke your neck”

then immediately walks away.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

after giving me sufficent time to ponder the life choices i had made to
arrive at the wonderfully friendly and informative mammoth general
hospital a nurse comes to tell me that they do not have a neurosurgeon
on duty so they are going to be airlifting me to washoe medical center
in reno where they will do the surgery.

somewhere during all of this i decide i’d like to vomit and i had
somehow been conditioned during my upbringing to make sure at all costs
to vomit somewhere other then all over myself, so i roll over on my
side and begin the ritual.

at which point pretty much every one in scrubs bum rushes me pushes me
onto my back and starts screaming about how i’m not to move under any
circumstances and dont i realize i have a broken neck and what am i
thinking?

i guess i missed the part where after saying “well you broke your neck”
the doctor muttered under his breath while walking away “oh ya and dont
move around”.

so the airlift arrives and unlike the staff at mammoth the nurse who
takes me to the plane is an angel sent straight from heaven fully
equipped with drugs.

“oooooh you poor baby are you in any pain?”

<3

once airborne florence nightengale asks me if i suffer from motion
sickness, which i most certainly do and since we were on a tiny little
plane it was kicking in high gear.

thankfully she didnt want me to puke all over myself anymore then i
did, and i dont know what she put in my IV but good lord it was sweet
bliss and i’m talking INSTANT no more sickness.

they get me to washoe and the doctors there are much nicer and
apparently not restricted by the same levels of secrecy that the
doctors at mammoth hospital are.

i find out that i have completely shattered my 7th vertebre.

totally.

100%.

disentegrated.

they are going to put me in traction and commence surgery in the morning when the full team arrives.

there are going to be 2 neurosurgeons and an orthepedic performing the
surgery and the plan is to take a slice of my hip bone and fuse it from
my C-6 to my T-1 with a plate and two screws.

and no it wont set off metal detectors (which was my first question too) since its made of titanium.

so traction is a means by which they insure that you are 100%
immobilized and the way they do this is by attaching a heavy weight to
your head via screws in the side of your head.

“you may feel a bit of pressure” was what they said before effectively
putting my head into a vice and tightening it until my eyeballs bulged.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………..some more morphine please.

somehow or another they had managed to elicit pieces of information
from me (i was really drugged up) which included my home phone number
and so at some point in the night i am awakened by my mother who must
also have injured herself and what a coincidence she ended up in the
same hospital…..very strange indeed…..oh well more opiates please.

surgery time comes and let me tell you when they put the mask on you,
tell you to count backwards from 100 and that you’ll be asleep by the
time you get to 97 they aren’t joking.

next thing i know i wake up wondering when the hell were going to get to this surgery business…what its 28hrs later?

i was in surgery for 12 hours?

you want to put that tube where?????????????

i dont wish to relive the pain and anguish of the cathater suffice to
say that it hurt a hell of alot more coming out then going in, which
was a suprise to me.

ahhh the morphine drip.

its hooked up to the IV and you control it with a little remote that
had a little red button on it which i could push every 8 mins to
release a morphine shot.

i clearly remember pushing that button non-stop for like 18hrs straight
with no breaks cuz i had no concept of when 8 mins had passed.

i was also insanely thirsty after surgery but i wasn’t allowed to eat
or drink anything and i could only have one ice chip on my tongue every
10 mins.

my mother god bless her heart sat by me the entire time putting ice
chips on my tongue and each one tasted like a little piece of heaven.

seriously you have no idea how good those [censored] things felt, i would have given an arm for a glass of water.

after the first day of recovery i could eat and drink again but no
solid foods so i had a lifetime supply of orange sherbet, apparently
the hospital had an exclusive sponsorship deal with the flavor orange
so that was the only option, and i like orange dont get me wrong but
after a while i started to really crave some rainbow.

also the nurse that gave me sponge baths was really old.

the first few times i tried to walk were really hard however i regained
my strength quickly and i was up and moving around much faster then
anyone anticipated.

after about two weeks they decided i was strong enough to be moved so
they flew me down to los angeles where i was to be under the care of a
highly respected doctor.

i was in a full neck brace however i was lucky enough to not have to
wear the halo (which they have to screw into your head) because my body
was in such good condition prior to the accident so they fusion took
easily. (often times ppl who are overweight have to wear the halo cuz
their bodies initially reject the hip bone fusion).

i was also able to walk without crutches or a wheel chair so when i met my new doctor i was walking on my own.

well apparently he was not expecting this, as for some reason all they
did was send him my x-rays and forgot to mention that i wasn’t a
quadraplegic.

ahhhh the look on his face was priceless.

apparently there is absolutely no way that someone who suffers the
injury i had isn’t paralyized from the neck down, and this doctor
politely informed me that his medical insurance limits werent high
enough to take me on as he was under the impression that at any moment
my spinal column was going to give out and i was going to be in some
serious bad shape.

sweet, thanks doc, no thank you have a great day too.

so new plan, they take me at the UCLA neuro ward and my doctor is one of the coolest guys i’ve ever met.

wild crazy red hair, used to be on the national ski team, and seems
like at any moment he’s going to have a pizza delvered to the room
spicoli style then head to the beach.

my mom really grew to love him as well, especally when he told me that
he didnt see any reason why i wouldnt be able to snowboard again
someday “just prolly not a good idea to fall down too much”.

i was ordered to stay in bed and not do [censored] for at least
9months, however my mom has a real distrust of western medicine and so
she has all kinds of crazy [censored] rubbed on me (arnica, goldenseal
etc…) and in 5 months i’m declared 100% recovered and cleared to be
up on my feet.

i wasnt able to play competitive sports anymore, and i was told that
while i was not at any greater risk to break my neck again if i did
there would be no more room for manuevering so i should keep that in
mind when planning vacations and after school activities.

i have a plate and 2 screws in my neck, 2 pretty bad-ass scars (one on
the front of my neck which is where they do the entry, and one on my
hip).

i also lost about 30% of my lateral range of motion, so its harder for me to snap my head to one side and exclaim “SAY WHAT???”

i later found out that another of my buddies who was on my hockey team
and was up in mammoth (not with me) went off the same jump as i did
around 30 mins later and totally [censored] up his knee and needed 3
surgeries.

that was the last season at mammoth that they built that jump.

i snowboarded a year later on the anniversary of my accident (12/18/99).

i have some really kick ass x-rays both pre-surgery and post-surgery.

chicks dig scars.

pretty much everything i do that involves moving increases the arthritis in my neck.

it makes me sad to have to write this post, however i have had quite a few people ask me why i named my blog after porn, or how come there are no naked chicks on my site, etc…

apparently people associate the term “gonzo” more easily with porn then with journalism.

for those that are not aware of the true meaning of gonzo i suggest you visit this site which will explain it in great detail:

www.google.com

hunter s thompson is one of my all time favorite people, and the title of my blog was an homage to the style of writing that he popularized.

i was not even aware that gonzo was a porno term, however i now feel it is my journalistic duty to further investigate this “gonzo pornography” in order to educate myself……its important to be informed…..totally just for research…………..

why is that airports feel the need to continue to remind us that we should not accept any items from strangers?
is there anyone out there that still thinks its a good idea to take a package from some rando onto the plane with them?

“well i’m allowed two carry on items and all i have is this one of my own, so what the heck i’ll take that to your grandmother for ya…whats that? its an alarm clock? ahh yes i can hear it ticking through the wrapping. how nice. what a lovely grandson you are”.

i mean who didn’t learn not to accept candy from strangers when they were a kid?
and if i can’t take candy from a stranger, i’m sure as shit not going to take freaking additonal carry-on items from a stranger.

how stupid does the FAA think we are?
hmmm, considering they still think its necessary to instruct us how to use a seat-belt maybe that should remain a rhetorical question.

i think what they should do is set up a sting operation at the airport.
stop playing that retarded warning message, and have undercover federal agents start asking people to please take items on the plane with them.

anyone that accepts is immediately executed.
its about time we started cleansing the gene pool.

i have a 50′ pioneer kuro televison. which is amazing. however a few pixels went dead, causing two red vertical lines to appear on the right side of the screen.

so i call the geek squad and someone comes out to repair it and lets me know they are going to have to order a replacement panel (he’s only seen this problem in one other pioneer kuro, gee i run good with electronics…maybe some day i’ll write a blog about the horror that is my relationship with cell phones).

they will call me when the part comes in to schedule installation.

10days later i get the call. part is in we’ll be coming out on april 2nd between 11am-1pm, someone will call you the morning of to confirm.

great.

in the 5 days between when i get the first call and april 2nd i receive no less then four different calls from the geek squad reminding me of my appointment, that someone will be calling me the day of, and please remember to be home on that day.

every call begins with “hi, we’re just calling to confirm your scheduled appointment…”

at this point in time i’d like to pause briefly and give the definition of confirmation:

hmmm i think i see a cat over there….is that a cat? yup thats def a cat!
IMA GET YOU CAT…godamn that cat is fast… HERE I COME… I’M COMING FOR YOU… ESCAPE IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!

no comments