To the People of Los Angeles: GET OFF THE ROAD!

I’m sure the lovely three million, plus legal (and countless more illegal) citizens of Los Angeles would like to know why I’m suggesting they stop driving altogether so suddenly.  Well, it’s because Andrew, someone who has said on countless occasions that driving is for other people to do for him while he sits in the back, is driving between the University of Spoiled Children and the land of the purse dog, expressionless faces and people made famous from sex scandals multiple times each week from now until May.  This is also scary for another reason: Andrew has only driven a few times (if y’all recall, I have let him drive my car on more than one occasion, but there were barely any other cars on the road and he didn’t drive on heavily trafficked roads).  To comply with that stupid hands-free law in Califronia (I’m sorry, but it makes us all look like we’re mentally unstable if we appear to all be talking aimlessly to no one), I’ve sent him my BlueTooth headset since I never use the thing and clearly won’t need it in Italy.  While in LA for the semester, Andrew is interning for ICM, a talent agency that represents such stars as Frank Langella, Beyoncé and Woody Allen.  The only problem I have with Andrew spending the semester in LA is that instead of being six hours ahead of him, which is what I would be if he were back in Durham, I’m now going to be nine hours ahead of the only person I know who actually gets eight hours of sleep at night.  Therefore, the only time we can talk is at the end of the day, which has already been an adjustment since he’s been in LA for two weeks.

Since our last “chat,” (I feel like that’s the write word to call these posts, since I do know most of the people reading them) I have left Florida, but not after some final moments of fun!  I made it down to Miami (yes Will Smith, in the city where the heat is on, all night on the beach till the break of dawn) to see my friend, Monique, after only three and a half years since last seeing each other, in Coconut Grove, where we had a great French lunch.  From there, it was off to the Bal Harbour Shops to pick up a little something “special” for Grace and a birthday present for Dr. No (of all the evil villain/Soviet Premier/Dictator names I have given him, that one is the most fitting I think).  Y’all, that place is just scary because while Palm Beach is just the land of the WASPS where Worth Avenue has all the glitz and glam of yesteryear with old money, Bal Harbour Shops screams “I just sold a kilo of coke and have to get the money out somehow so what better way than through Dolce & Gabbanna underwear and Prada suits.”  The people there don’t buy one thing at a time; instead, they take my grandmother’s rule of buying in bulk, which is done exclusively at Costco, to a level that is simply obscene.  Though the absolute highlight of the trip to Bal Harbour was when a five-year-old kid looked at my watch and went, “oh, that’s so cheap.”  It was a low point in my life knowing that a child sixteen years younger than I had a watch that was probably three times as expensive as mine, which was not cheap I might add.

Following that little arrogant child’s remark, I drove down to South Beach to spend the evening my Rachel, who was in town for the weekend with her dad and brothers.  While I already knew that one never has a dull moment when going out with Rachel, little did I know what would be in store for me.  First, we headed to the South Beach outpost of Danny Myer’s hugely successful Shake Shack.  We sat outside in the cool evening eating burgers and fries while I introduced Rachel to my love, Loni Love, on my iPod.  From there, we strolled up and down the always-exciting Lincoln Road and wandered into a rather eclectic vintage shop.  While there, Rachel tried on a very revealing (not sure if that’s the word that properly describes it, but that’s the word I’m sticking with) corset, while I tried on an old Burberry’s rain hat.  Then things got kinky when Rachel tried to get me to try on this:

In case you’re not sure as to what it is, let me fill you in: it’s a pair of leather shorts with zippers on either side of the crotch for “easy access.”  While the thought of wearing leather shorts was an immediate turn off, what really grossed me out was the fact that someone’s gentiles had touched that entire thing and that’s not exactly something I would want to put on, while still wearing my pants, and maybe a hazmat suit.

As the day in Miami came to a close, I was then faced with the realization that my stay in Florida was also coming to an end and the arduous task of returning to Virginia was fast approaching.  The question was how to get home because Dr. No was saying hell no to driving, mother was not prepared mentally to do the trip again and neither would allow me to do it alone, which is perfectly understandable.  So, my options were as follows: leave the Audi and everything that couldn’t fit into my suitcases and do the drive back to Virginia in May, convince mother that the Audi had to come home immediately and force her to take the drive with me or the hail marry pass: let me take the Auto Train (LINK) home.  Amazingly, she gave in and let me do the Auto Train, but only after going through a list of about two-hundred reasons as to why it’s not safe/why I’ll get shot onboard.  The list was so long that my initial departure date of Tuesday, the 10^th of January, was pushed back to Wednesday because a certain someone was going absolutely insane over the fact that I would even consider this option.  Yet, on Wednesday, the trip was approved and after a brief stop in Winter Park to see Justin and my friend, Jackie, it was a twenty-minute drive up to Sanford to board the train to Virginia.

Unlike traditional Amtrak trains, which could use a huge revamp in order to better compete with the great railways of Europe, the Auto Train is essentially its own separate railroad within the mighty Amtrak.  The people who work on the train only work on the Auto Train, the stations are exclusively for the Auto Train and the entire experience is one that can only be found on the Auto Train.  Despite being located in a rather grimy, somewhat dilapidated area, the Sanford departure point is actually very convenient because of its close proximity to Orlando.  Once you arrive, you’re car is issued a number which is used to identify it upon arrival in Lorton.  From there, it’s straight to the valet who takes your car from that point on while you and the two bags per person that you’re allowed to take with you head inside the recently renovated terminal for check-in.  They’re very strict about time and anyone not checked-in for the train by 15h0 is not allowed to board because they have to position the auto cars onto the track and connect them to the passenger cars for an on time departure.  I booked a roomette, which seats two people without a bathroom, but offers the privacy that an ordinary seat doesn’t offer.  Plus, with the roomette and cabins, you get a real bed at night to sleep in, which I was told means you actually get to sleep by my fellow passengers at the pre-departure wine and cheese tasting in the lounge car.  My sleeping car attendant, David, welcomed me aboard and showed me to my upper roomette and told me when dinner would be served.  Then, about ten minutes ahead of schedule, we pulled out of a nippy Florida and began our sixteen-hour, thirty-minute journey to Lorton, which is located in Northern Virginia.

About two hours into the ride, dinner was served in the dining car on china and white linen tablecloths.  I was seated with two other passengers in my car who were also traveling alone in roomettes and were much more experienced in traveling aboard the Auto Train than I was.  For dinner, I had the Beef Tenderloin with a baked potato and steamed vegetables followed by a massive chocolate cake with the biggest scoop of vanilla ice cream I have ever seen in my life.  While the food well exceeded all my expectations, the wine wasn’t exactly the greatest on earth.  In fact, I opted out of having any at dinner because I was so disappointed from the wine in the pre-departure wine and cheese tasting.  By the time I returned to my cabin, the sun had set and so I changed into my pajamas (yes, I wear pajamas) as we zipped through Georgia.  Unaware of the movie being shown on the train, I rented Annie Hall on iTunes, which was good because the projector wasn’t working that night.  Around 21h30, David came to make up my bed for the evening.  Just before closing my eyes, I remember peeking out of my curtain to see a sign that said Charleston, South Carolina on it.

Despite being a very smooth ride, I ironically woke up three times during the night because we had stopped moving; once because by law, the engineers can only work twelve hour shifts and had to be changed out in Florence, South Carolina of all places (so ironic because that’s where we usually stay when making the drive down), and the other two times because we had to let a CSX train pass (CSX owns the rail lines on which Amtrak operates in the South and therefore they have seniority).  At 6h15 and somewhere just outside of Richmond, the conductor made his first announcement saying that breakfast was being served on a first-come, first-serve basis and that we were an hour ahead of schedule.  The mood in the dining car was a bit more subdued than at dinner as not everyone was fully awake.

When I returned from my continental breakfast that included juice, coffee, assorted muffins/bagels, and cereal, my roomette was already made up for seating again.  I opted out of taking a shower as I didn’t have any shower sandals to wear, but someone with whom I sat at breakfast said it was very relaxing and kind of neat, which I imagine it is.  Then, at 8h30 on the dot, our journey came to an end as we pulled into the Lorton station.  Within a matter of minutes, the journey ended and I was faced with the fact that it was no longer 57 and sunny outside.  Instead, it was more like 29 and cloudy; I immediately considered just taking the train back to Florida and not leaving for another week.  But just as I thought of doing that, my car’s number was called and two minutes later, I was on I-95 South headed for home.

Despite costing around $400 with the emergency insurance, which mother insisted I have in case the people at the station seemed “sketchy,” the trip wasn’t that much more expensive than driving once you factor in the stops for food, gas and the hotel.  Plus, there’s much less wear-and-tear on your car and your body.  Looking back on the experience, there were a few things I will be doing differently this coming December when I take the train south this time.  For starters, I’ll pack much less food because Grace saw the wrong menu online and feared for the worst.  Next, I’ll have my bed made up earlier so I can get to sleep sooner because the train does lull you to sleep quite easily.  Next time, I’ll definitely bring my own travel pillow because the one provided by Amtrak was a bit too hard for my liking, and finally, I will definitely bring shower sandals so I can bathe while onboard a train

On the whole, the trip exceeded all my wildest expectations and was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in my life.  Everyone from David, my cabin attendant, to the server in the dining car who told a man at breakfast to eat more than a muffin because she was going to have to drive on I-95 as well and didn’t want him on that road without a real meal made the trip so memorable, as did the people I met along the way.  The conversations with these fellow passengers, despite their vagueness in order to not give too much of one’s personal life away to complete strangers, was genuinely interesting.  One of the two people with whom I had dinner told us about the log cabin he had built for his now late-wife and of the experience he had building it.  The other person at the table started us on a twenty-minute chat about our dogs and how we love them so.  Sure it was fluff, but it was interesting nonetheless.  I highly recommend the Auto Train to anyone who doesn’t feel like driving to Florida, being raped by the TSA or to anyone who wants to experience a way of travel that to many has long since been forgotten.

My time home was spent visiting my grandmother, seeing Grace and Annie before they left to return back to UVa, resting, and preparing myself for the upcoming semester in Italy.  I did finally get to see The Social Network, and I must say that I was not impressed at all with the movie.  Yes, the writing is exceptional and Aaron Sorkin is a fantastic writer, but the movie just didn’t do anything for me.  I don’t know if it was the built-up hype or what, but I was not impressed at all, which I’ll admit was a bit disappointing.  Grace, meanwhile, has been faced with a bit of a dilemma as her Hitler for a landlord is not thrilled with Henry Flagler’s ever-increasing size and is now on the hunt for a new residence in Charlottesville.  Justin has returned to the daily grind of homework, paper and parties at Rollins, even misleading campus security into thinking he was on acid because he was running outside nearly naked looking for his phone at 4 in the morning last week.  Ah, to be young and carefree…

Last night, I landed in New York and had an absolutely amazing dinner at Pastis, which even made Andrew jealous because he can’t get that delicious burger in LA!  The mousse au chocolat was so rich that even I, someone who has never before not finished a desert in my life, couldn’t finish the whole thing.  Plus, for wine lovers, I recommend a carafe of the pinot noir that they have by the glass because it was beyond words.  This morning, I braved the below 0 with the wind chill weather for a four-mile run in the park, which was BEYOND exhilarating, despite wearing seven layers!  Then I spent some time getting last minute items before heading of to MoMa for an hour where I saw this really great exhibit on kitchens from the 1940s and 1950s.  It was so neat seeing the “kitchens of tomorrow” and all the very interesting innovations they had.  There was also a Warhol film exhibit, but seeing a guy’s facial expressions while receiving a blow job didn’t really do a lot to get me to stay for very long.

So now, as I come to the end of this conversation while seated at Newark waiting for my flight for Rome,  it has just dawned on me that the next time I sit down for one of our conversations, I’ll be in the land of wine women and song, with an emphasis on the first two, regaling y’all with tales of my journey to Italy and the start of my semester in Siena.  Fino alla prossima volta…

Ciao,

-JD

PS: Congratulations to Annie and Sarah on being made members of the Tri Delta sorority at UVa!

If Someone Ever Asks Why, Simply Respond Saying, “Why? Because the Rent is too Damn High!”

If y’all haven’t seen the footage from the New York Gubernatorial Debate that took place last week, watch the video below and amazingly, this is not a joke:

Jimmy McMillan, who really reminds me of a black Colonel Sanders, is the Vietnam War Vet-turned-lunatic representing all three registered voters of The Rent is too Damn High party.  However, he does raise a serious issue and that is that the rent is in fact too damn high, even though he himself doesn’t pay rent for his own apartment.  Better yet, the Observer reports that McMillan isn’t even a member of his own party, but rather a Democrat!  I’m sorry, but first of all, you can’t run on the basis that the rent is too damn high if you do maintenance work in your building in exchange for NO RENT and if you aren’t even a member of your own party!  Unfortunately, you’re quasi legitimate argument, combined with the AMAZING song on your website (which so needs to be on iTunes ASAP), basically makes you my favorite candidate for Governor.

Here’s why Andrew Cuomo doesn’t do it for me: he kind of looks like he’s had some botched plastic surgery on his face and then his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, is a complete wackjob and hypocrite.  Case in point, the goal of Miss Lee’s show is that everything is done in order to save the viewer money, yet at the same time, the viewer then has to go out and buy dishes, cutlery, table-scape items, new drapes to go above the kitchen window, and every color KitchenAid mixer, which isn’t cheap at all!  Also, instead of trying to theme the entire home every time the viewer cooks, perhaps Miss Lee could encourage her viewers to get jobs and do something with their lives other than go to the infamous «craft store» every day of the week!

As for the Republican candidate for Governor, Carl Paladino is um… crazy, but not really in a Jimmy McMillan kind of fun way.  Instead, M. Paladino reminds me of the playground bully you see in the movies; he’s very mafia looking and it’s not like Albany really needs the mob up there.  I’m able to back this up by the simple fact that he was in the construction business and we all know what that means.  I mean, if y’all want to see a bunch of gun-crazed buffoons, they can just take a drive down I-95 to visit the Manzo Family in Franklin Heights, New Jersey!  Plus, in all seriousness, the man is kind of a homophobe and while I’m not gay, let’s be honest here y’all: the man is running for Governor of New York State, which is one of the most gay-friendly states in the country.  I mean do straight people even go to Fire Island?  Plus, the gays do quite a bit of damage each month on clothes, grooming, food, drinks, hotel rooms, etc… and that all means one thing: tax revenue!  So at the end of the day, you can be opposed to same-sex marriage, but you can’t be afraid of the gays.  They don’t bite… just don’t put any handkerchiefs in your pockets, Carl!

So in my first political endorsement, I would like to officially throw my support behind the man who will make sure that rent goes down, Jimmy McMillan.  While my reasons for supporting Mr. McMillan may seem to go against my capitalist opinions, I’m supporting him for the most important reason of them all and that is that when Governor Patterson leaves office in just a few months, we’re going to need to continue the recent wave of mental patients posing as Governor of New York.  Plus, he seems like the one who will be satirized the most on SNL.  Oh how Justin and I will miss them!

Moving on to more serious news, I have an announcement to make.  So next semester, we  (y’all and I) will be seeing Europe because I’m packing my twenty or so suitcases and flying to Siena, Italy for the Spring.  They told me on Monday that I should only pack one suitcase to have checked which will never work because everyone who knows me knows that when I go to Palm Beach for Winter Break, I take four suitcases, and that’s only for a month at most!  This is about five months.  I’ve always wanted to wear pants with an elastic waistband and figured now is about as good a time as ever to start.  I say this because I plan to eat nothing but gelato, pasta, pizza, Prosciutto di Parma, Mozzarella di Buffalo, and washing it all down with lots of Italian wine!  My Italian partner in crime, Sydney, and I will also be visiting some of Europe’s finest cities and Countries, so long as we manage to not wind up in jail because of having problems with our Visas.  I’m not even kidding y’all, these people legitimately got drunk and then wrote this thing because the regulations for traveling within the Schengen countries is obscene.  Also, WHO THE HELL PICKED THE CITY OF SCHENGEN FOR THE SITE OF THE SIGNING OF THE SCHENGEN AGREEMENT?  Couldn’t y’all have done this in a city that doesn’t remind me of China?  I’m just sayin’.  I’m looking forward to going to Siena, especially since I’m the only guy from UVa going (more for me!).

Speaking of situations with lots of pretty ladies, on Saturday night, Grace and I accompanied Rachel to her sorority house to help her make a Skippy, which is basically vodka, ice, a ton of beer, concentrate, and Sprite; I didn’t drink it.  First of all, having been inside some of the fraternity houses here at UVa and seeing how «well-maintained» they are, my bar for the cleanliness/stable condition for the foundation of Rachel’s sorority house wasn’t exactly all that high.  Then we went inside and that changed quickly.  Instead of another horrific sight of booze puddles, booze-covered pool tables, crumbling foundations, and shear chaos, the Rachel’s sorority house was absolutely lovely.  They had nice furniture, only one case of «Natty Lights» in the living room, no puddles of booze, and I’m told they have a chef.  Plus, I’ll be perfectly honest and just admit that as a guy, the site of so many gorgeous girls in one room wasn’t too bad either.  As I later told Grace, there is a heaven on earth after all.  Then we saw Rachel’s room, which has a closet half the size of mine with four times as much clothing in it, must be in violation of so many codes that it’s not even funny and has no central air conditioning, something few buildings at UVa seem to have.  Regardless, it was probably the highlight of the weekend.

Before this happened, I attempted to see The Social Network with the one person who for years scared me, my friend Jacquie (if your family owned funeral homes, you’d be scared too).  She was visiting Annie for the night from JMU, where she’s thankfully leaving after this semester for Sweet Briar.  However, when we got to the theatre, we learned that it was sold out on week three at the box office!  I’m still pissed.  So to drink away the sadness of not being able to see the movie, we joined that gang at Coupes and had a rather fun evening that ended somewhere around 4 after we saw Sarah finish off a massive plate of macaroni and cheese as well as some six-layer salsa at some random guy’s apartment while Annie and Grace… actually, I don’t know where they were or what they were doing because Jacquie and I were just mesmerized at the amount of food that Sarah is capable of inhaling despite maintaing her perfect figure.

While at Coupes, Sarah decided to get her dance on as well as attempt to perform a strip tease, but without actually taking any clothes off while Annie had to listen to some random drunk guy continue to mumble and slur his words while attempting to have a conversation with her.  She still doesn’t know who this young gentleman was.  Grace on the other hand, is one of the loudest drunks I’ve ever met.  Her already loud presence seems louder, plus she was really trying to get with the bartender.  Poor guy.  Then some idiot who is married pulled the «my wife is nine months pregnant» line when asking Grace if she had seen the girl who had his blazer that had his phone in it.  Of course, Grace went off looking for it.  He was there for three more hours because I saw him while walking home later that evening.

On Wednesday, Annie admitted that the only reason she came to the class we have together was because I got her a doughnut at the newly opened Dunkin’ Donuts.  Her iPhone wasn’t working for some reason so I assumed she was still asleep and about to eat that doughnut when she slid into her seat about ten minutes late.  Better late than never though!  She did, however, miss our professor proclaim his love to Beatrice, his Schwinn bicycle.  I don’t think anyone will disagree with me when I say that there is something wrong when you name your bicycle.

On Wednesday of last week, Sydney and I went to this amazing tapas restaurant, MAS, to celebrate our acceptance into the Siena program.  Our reasoning for not getting Italian was that we’ll have five months to eat Italian food in Italy.  While it was beyond amazing food and sangria, the location is a little bizarre, but completely worth the visit if in Charlottesville.

Andrew has been accepted to the Duke in LA program for next semester and while I’m so happy for him and I encourage him to go, it will be interesting to see how much communicating we have because there will be a nine-hour time difference between Siena and LA.  Oh well, maybe Andrew can stay up past 22h30 to chat!  Justin has been preoccupied all week with some extremely dense book that would put me to sleep in about ten minutes.  I’m loving my book, How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior by Laura Kipnis and hope to be finished with it by some time next week so that I might be able to move on to True Prep.

Finally tonight, we need to talk about Risky Business.  I briefly mentioned it on Thursday, but I’m not finished discussing this softcore porno.  That’s what it is, plain and simple.  After that amazing scene that Tom Cruise does in the living room, the movie just goes straight down hill and gets borderline X-rated in my opinion.  Furthermore, I NEVER WANTED TO SEE TOM CRUISE STHUPPING SOMEONE, LET ALONE ON A FLIGHT OF STAIRS (that sounds painful too) OR ON GYM EQUIPMENT!  I’m shocked Cruise agreed to do anything like that, especially since this is what Dana Carvey says his religion believes:

Plus now, I can never look at Tom Cruise the same away ever again.  I’m going to end here tonight because if I have to have nightmares about this nut, then I think it’s only fair that y’all have to as well.  Until then…

-JD

PS:  The basil is actually beginning to grow and by the time I leave for Siena, I bet I’ll be able to actually eat some of it, which is great because by the time I get back, they will have been tossed out by my mother, who will inevitably forget they exist and let them die.  This happens more often that y’all might think.