After buying "Casino Royale" and "Blood Diamond" during my lunch hour yesterday, I returned to the office and decided to detour into the bathroom before resuming my work.
This was a mistake.
The restroom in question was on a different floor than my office as I had parked on a lower level in the parking garage. Upon entering the foreign toilet area, I noticed someone's feet in a stall with a pile of khaki pants around them. Nothing strange about that as the man was obviously taking care of some dirty business that happens to us all.
Shit happens. 
What doesn't usually happen is this: As I stood at the urinal I started to hear a faint weeping coming from the stall. This stopped my urine trail in its tracks as I needed to be sure. So I stood quietly waiting . . . And then there it was again. A little louder and a little longer this time.
There was definitely a man crying in the stall for unknown reasons. Regardless of the circumstances, it gave me the Fear as questions flooded my brain like:
Is there a worse place to cry than a public restroom?
Do you wipe the tears away with the same hand that you wipe your ass? 
And what was the cause of the tears?
Perhaps a martial spat?
A dress-down by his boss?
Or was he just feeling the pain of the 3 Shiners and Green Chili Enchiladas he consumed last night at Trudy's? 
I didn't stick around to find out, however, as I simply zipped up and used the bathroom on my own floor where I have never found another man weeping for any reason at all. And I think that is a very good quality in a public restroom.
-BDS
I'm having a difficult time shifting my mind back to work mode as it keeps drifting towards the islands. This doesn't help me with the massive pile of emails that need attention, the meetings that keep popping up on my calendar and the money I need to make to pay my vacation credit card bills next month.
But let's go with it a little as I started thinking about the Top 10 beach movies of all time. This is not a scientific list nor a very complete one, however, these are the ones that sprang to mind and I will gladly accept suggestions.
Top 10 Beach Movies (or simply movies where a beach is involved in the story):
10)Summer Rental - This was a John Candy movie that should have been funnier that it turned out to be. 
9)Splash - I saw this one as a kid, and I'm not sure how it holds up now, but this is where Tom Hanks finds a mermaid in Darryl Hannah, which begs the question about just how good is a mermaid because I don't care how nice her face or her boobs look, the bottom part of her is a fish.
8) After The Sunset - This was a semi-decent heist flick, but the reason it really shines is Salma Hayek who dons a lot of form-fitting beach attire that is very distracting to the overall plot yet worth it.
7)Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise - Couldn't hold a candle to the first film, but there were a few laughs along the way and at the beach.
6)Blue Crush - Watch this movie for some good surfing scenes, some awful dialogue and to witness Kate Bosworth looking the best she will ever look as she actually weighed more than 100 lbs in this flick. 
5)Endless Summer - This was released in the 60s and helped propel surfing into more of the mainstream as the movie follows a couple of surfers from California around the world in search of waves. 
4)The Beach - This book was much better than the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the beach itself was stunning.
3)One Crazy Summer - An early 80s John Cusack classic that also features Demi Moore pre-plastic surgery AND playing the guitar.
2)Riding Giants - This was an excellent surfing documentary that came out a few years ago and one that I would highly recommend whether you like surfing or not. 
1) Fast Times at Ridgemont High - More of a high school movie, but Sean Penn's Jeff Spicolli does catch some killer waves in his pot-addled mind. Aloha Mr. Hand. 
-BDS
I've never had more than a passing interest in boats and virtually all things nautical, but after staying in Virgin Gorda for the past week, I suddenly feel the need to own a vessel.
A big one. Why not?
I'll work out the details later. For now, I am merely wondering why I voluntarily left the British Virgin Islands because our vacation could not have been any better.
To reach Virgin Gorda, you fly from the Dallas-Forth Worth airport to San Juan, then take a puddle-jumper to Tortola and finally a 30 minute ferry ride brings you to the island.
Our villa representative met us at the dock with our rental car, a Mitsubishi Montero, and soon I was driving us along on the wrong side of the road, across steep hills and heading towards our living quarters.
The house was perfect. It was set-up nicely for multiple couples as the bedrooms all boasted ocean views and were set high atop the property at opposite ends to ensure privacy.
There was a pool, a large deck with chairs for lounging, a kitchen/main room area, a grill, washer/dryer and outdoor showers for each room, a nice touch that I thoroughly enjoyed all week long. 
The villa looked like this:
Virgin Gorda is less than 12 miles wide and has roughly 3,500 full-time island residents. It felt small and relaxed, which was exactly what we expected as the only times I felt like seeing people was when I needed to order a Red Stripe and dinner at a local restaraunt (and it was also pretty damn nice not to see ANY food chain on the island).
Who needs people when you have crystal blue water, white sand and beaches like these:
People could only screw up scenery like this (with the notable exception of our band of travlers). Luckily, the only beach we shared with more than a handful of other humans was The Baths, a beach formed amongst huge boulders that is a popular docking bay for cruise ships and overweight Europeans who still feel the need to wear tiny red Speedos.
The Baths is the most famous beach attraction in Virgin Gorda, and it was fun to hike through the caves and underwater rock formations that jut into the water. 
But hiking around places was low on the priority list as this was easily the laziest vacation I've ever taken and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sloth may be a sin, but I indulged in it all week long as a typical day looked like this:
8 am - Wake up - No alarm clock was ever set and it was phenomenal to wake up to a large window looking out to the ocean every day
8 - 9 am - Eat breakfast and then sit in the deck chairs and drink a pot of coffee while watching the waves break.
9 - 11 am - Read a book and swim in the pool.
11 - 2 pm - Go to the beach and snorkel
2 - 3 pm - Lunch
3 - 4:30 - Nap
4:30 - 6:30 pm - Drink Red Stripes and watch the sunsets like these:
6:30 - 9 pm - Pick a local place to eat dinner or grill something at the Villa
9 - 11 pm - Watch a movie and go to sleep
Rinse and repeat for 7 days straight.
Even the weather cooperated beautifully as it was sunny everyday (1 morning of light rain) and the weather hovered around 87 degrees during the day and dipped into the low 70s at night.
The only negative was the price of food, which was high because nearly everything has to be shipped over to the island, and consequently, food at the grocery store and at the restaurants was costly.
Examples:
24 pack bottled water - $17
1 Honeydew Melon - $5
1 Box Cereal - $6
There was no such thing as a cheap meal, although the quality varied widely across the island. By far the best place we found was Georgios, an outdoor restaraunt on the water that boasted fresh lobsters from Anegada and I have never had a better crustacean in all my life as I feasted on a mutant 3 1/2 lb. creature.
It was amazing and I even had enough leftover to make a lobster omlette for breakfast the next morning.
For everything that Virgin Gorda featured, it was also what I didn't do on the island that made it so great. It's increasingly difficult to drop out of the technology universe, however, during my trip I never:
1) Checked my work Blackberry for emails (nor did it work on the island)
2) Make a cell phone call nor took one
3) Got on the Internet
4) Read a newspaper
It was an excellent shift to undergoe as these old habits were replaced with a daily concern about which beach to visit and where we were going to eat that night.
I was reflecting on all of this as our chartered boat skimmed thorugh the darkness at 6 am yesterday morning en route to the Tortola airport, the start of our long journey back to Austin.
Why were we leaving at all?
Why did I leave 2 beers in the Villa refridgerator?
And how much would a boat like this one cost me because I think I could also make airport runs in the early morning hours?
I had no answers and wanted to speak up and tell the captain to turn the boat back towards Virgin Gorda, a return trip trip to a place I had just left yet already missed.
But I didn't. I'm still not sure why.
-BDS
"Listen up you little freshmen bitches," - Parker Posey, "Dazed and Confused"
It's only a few short hours before my brother and I and our lady friends board a flight that will eventually land us in Virgin Gorda, a British Virgin Island where a villa awaits for a week of sunshine and snorkeling and beach-combing and margaritas and Negro Modelos and general laziness that I feel has been earned.
But before that happens, there is work to do and stories to cover as:
Britney Spears supposedly attempted suicide in rehab this week, and a paper claimed that Britney also wrote the devil's number, 666, on her shaved head and began screaming "I am the Antichrist!" at frightened clinic staff.
The Spears saga has rapidly reached the point where it is no longer that funny, and the only reasonable thing would be for her to get better quickly so legitimate fun can be made at her choice in men. Let's hope that happens quickly.
30 Seconds to Mars singer Jared Leto sustained a broken nose and other injuries at a show in El Paso last week, as he was hit multiple times when he ran into the crowd during the song "The Kill." 
Along with his nose, which was unintentionally broken, Leto suffered a foot injury and superficial injuries to his face and body.
On the plus side, Leto should be pleased as a peach because those were likely the only "hits" the band will ever have in this lifetime.
A Vietnamese official announced Wednesday that Angelina Jolie is in the process of adopting a three- or four-year-old boy whom she chose to add to her burgeoning family during a recent trip to the Tam Binh orphanage.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jolie is hot, a humanitarian, and I'm sure these kids are going to a good home, yet I have the sneaking suspicion that she is secretly completing a mission to have a child who matches every outfit before she's done.
Bad Boy boss P. Diddy is being sued over the alleged assault of a fellow reveler at an Oscars aftershow party, where he supposedly hit on the man's date before punching him in the face. 
No court date has been set and no witnesses reported if the punches were thrown by Diddy or merely sampled from another rapper standing nearby and then attributed to Diddy.
British beauty Naomi Campbell will swap her catwalk outfits for a broom, gloves and safety vest when she begins mopping floors at New York's Sanitation Department on March 19, a court official confirmed on Tuesday.
My hope is that on March 18th, dozens of New Yorkers suddenly decided to drop their pants and start shitting on the floors at the sanitation department - it seems only fitting.
Jason Wahler was sentenced to two months in jail for punching a city worker and tow truck driver during an altercation last year. Wahler, 20, star of MTV's "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County," was also ordered to attend a one-day program at the Museum of Tolerance for uttering racial slurs during the September incident, authorities said.
Maybe there is such a thing as reality TV after all because Wahler looked like a flaming asshole on the show, and apparently he's an even bigger one in real life. This restores my faith in the entire genre.
As always, let's end with a soothing image:
Everybody have a great weekend, keep your tail out of the sand and know that $2 Dollar Productions will return on March 19th with beach stories and rum-soaked adventures in paradise.
Let's hope so . . . And Happy Early Friday!
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Part Deaux:
When I opened my mail yesterday, hidden among the new issue of Newsweek and Maxim and several credit card offers, a small package from New Jersey had arrived containing the pictures from my modeling shoot a few weeks ago.
This was the evidence I needed. My mind had been cloudy and untrustworthy and as the days slipped by, I started to wonder if I had dreamed the "Model House" after watching "Zoolander" and eating an entire pizza one dark night.
Surely there weren't puppies and male models and oil and photographers and me trying to run around the mean streets of New York. Yet I couldn’t deny the proof that was staring me right in the face.
So, I placed the disc in my computer and it all came flooding back to me. It was real. It did happen.
And although it was probably the last shoot I'll do for quite awhile, I'll take it and keep it for when I'm a sarcastic old man with a potbelly and need a reminder that I once had some pride.
And on a final note - Fuck Wonder Bread. I don't eat white bread these days & I don't need it for a prop. Ha.
Here's the proof:
- BDS
I am not a gear-head or a car enthusiast by nature, however, when I received an email from my Audi dealer this morning at work, I couldn't stand up for nearly 30 minutes or else I would have earned a one-way trip to Human Resources.
The erection-inducing vehicle in question is the forthcoming Audi R8, which will be delivered in Europe during the spring of 2007 and the first U.S. cars will arrive later in 2007.
And let's not pretend that this kind of vehicle is incapable of causing lustful stares in both sexes every time it drove down the street. It's like movable Viagra and Spanish Fly rolled into one streamlined package of chrome and steel. 
Pricing for the U.S. has not been finalized but is expected to start at about $130,000, which means I will start cutting back on Lattes and Chapstick and Pornography immediately to start my R8 fund.
I also really need to sell a script because that would definitely put me closer to the mark and give me something classy to drive to the premiere.
Actually, I think Audi should use my slogan in men's magazines and boast that the R8 is "like movable Viagra and Spanish Fly rolled into one streamlined package of chrome and steel" and in lieu of payment, they could simply send me a car.
Fair is fair.
-BDS
My brother and I share a climate-controlled storage shed in South Austin as it's amazing how much crap you can accumulate, and yet it's even harder to get rid of the clutter as "you never know when you might need something in the future."
It had been awhile since I had been to the shed, but I needed some snorkeling gear for our upcoming trip to the British Virgin Islands, so I ventured to the facility yesterday evening, rode the freight elevator to the third floor and was then confronted by a horrific and unnatural sight - an older man with a hairy pelt across his chest and cut-off jean shorts around his waist. 
The horror.
Luckily, I only caught a fleeting glance of the man as I quickly rounded the corner to my own unit, however, I saw enough of his disturbing set-up to provoke a sense of wonder and awe. His shed appeared to be a personal gym circa 1970 as I saw the oldest stationary bike still in existence, some dumbbells and a few other pieces that were a complete mystery to me.
Music poured out from an unseen source, and a sweatband sat dark and ominous on the cement floor.
Questions filled my head as I frantically searched for my mask and breathing tube. I didn't want to linger as several disturbing things occurred to me:
1) A man who would put himself through his fitness paces in a cramped space with bad lighting was not someone I wanted to run into inside a place where nobody could hear me scream
2) Tight blue jeans shorts on a man are NEVER acceptable, and only a lunatic would wear them, which tied into my first thought that this man was obviously unhinged
3) How long could I survive if I had to lock myself inside my own unit until this denim monster finished his workout and left?
There were too many terrible things to ponder, and I wasn't prepared for any of them when I stopped by after work with thoughts of the beach and tropical fish on my mind. But I kept my wits about me, snuck around the corner like a thief in the night and escaped without looking back. 
Take this as a warning to anyone with a storage shed or anyone even thinking about renting one - these units can be invaluable for storing your excess belongings but be aware of your surroundings and if you hear the clinking of weights accompanied by a glimpse of faded blue fabric, run and don't look back.
You'll thank me later.
-BDS
I love movies, but I am having a difficult time believing that a majority of people share my same feelings when extremely questionable offerings keep opening at the top slot each week.
Was the recent Nic Cage superhero movie, "Ghost Rider" really so good that it deserved to pull in $50 million its opening weekend? 
I don't think so.
And now, the John Travolta middle-aged buddy comedy, "Wild Hogs," debuted at number 1 with nearly $40 million in ticket sales. 
I would rather have sex with a gang of wild hogs with sharpened tusks and amphetimine addictions than pay money to watch a film which looked so painstakingly mediocre that Travolta was forced to ratchet his cool quiotent down another notch or ten with a dancing appearance on the Ellen Degeneres show last week.
The problem I have with movies like 'Hogs' and 'Rider' raking in money is that it provides no incentive for studios to come up with new ideas.
They can simply point to the box office receipts and make another sequel or a re-make of a bad 70s sitcom or another comic book movie that causes more interesting and challenging films to get lost in the mix.
And I'm by no means an art-house only snob as I also get tired of "Indie" films when they mistakenly believe their artistic choices to be "deep" and "ambigious" when they're simply boring as shit.
There should be room for all kinds at the theater, my only hope is that there will be a shift that occasionally finds movies that don't attempt to span all demographics sitting atop the heap - a utopia where smart movies correlate to box office receipts.
But there's no sense in dreaming as the reality is that Travolta running into a bird while driving his motorcycle cross-country is the height of hilarity, an occurrence that would have made Vincent Vega roll his eyes and laugh with Jules Whitfield before they shot both the bird and the man in "Pulp Fiction." 
It's been awhile since Travolta regained his cool and his swagger with the help of Quentin Tarantino, and now, he's back to living high on the Hog in the kind of movies that increasingly leave me out in the cold.
-BDS
