Okay, so a man I call Bryan—but everyone else calls Best Western—set this blog up so that I could impart my fractional wisdom. I’m sorry that I must operate under a psuedonym. Suffice it to say, I’m relatively famous yet mostly unknown. When I go to the movies people stare, but they don’t wave. It is an uncomfortable existence.

So this is how I’m going to do this. On Sunday mornings, I’m just going to put up a bunch of randomness. Sometimes there might be whole articles, sometimes thoughts like this. However, as is the case with this week, if I do not have an article up I will probably take one of these thoughts and enlarge it by mid-week.

A little bit more about me; I lose at Scrabble, but that’s only because "qzxtrea" isn’t in the Scrabbictionary. Who’s Scrabble to take away my triple word score because "qzxtrea" “isn’t a word.” I don’t trust their agenda. Anyways, onto the thoughts.

• Where are all the gay racists? They have to exist, right? It seems like it would just be so comical to see some guy at a bar yell some profane thing about black people and then go home to his Puerto Rican cabana boy. If they exist, I must find them.

• I can believe it’s not butter

• I know you can get a drunk driving ticket (or something like it) if you’re drunkenly sleeping it off in your car, but there’s a demographic here that everyone is forgetting about, probably because no one cares. But I care. I’ll be the voice for this downtrodden minority. Obviously, I’m talking about van people. Think about this. Van people are people too so I can only assume that like everyone else I know they must get drunk. (Actually, in all likelihood, they’re intoxicated more regularly than people I know. I mean, they do live in a van for a reason.) So what’s to stop policemen from giving these inebriated transients drunk driving tickets when they’re really just sleeping in their pseudo-home. I think about these things.

• Books Suggestions for the week: The Age of Fallibility by George Soros, The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

• Here’s an amusing thing an agent wrote to me about my query letter. The query letter is the letter you write to “WOW” the agent into deciding to read a piece of your manuscript. Then if that also “WOW’s” them you send them the whole thing. Then hell is frozen and they say they want to represent you by shopping you to a publisher. Then they take 15% of whatever you make. And people wonder why book writing isn’t as lucrative as article writing. Anyways, here’s my query letter, and after that is what the guy wrote.

Dear %&^&&%^&,

My name is Austin Marshburn and I’m an enigma (I’ve also written a 53,000 word manuscript or else this query would really be a waste of your, mine and our time). I believe in capitalism but don’t want to work for the man. I believe in freedom but don’t want to fight for it. I’m against war but stay silent, mostly, on America’s practices of exploitation. I grew up in an anti-Communist America, but think the government should help me out while staying out of my personal life. In short, I am conflicted. You might think that this story illustrates apathy. You’d only be half-right.

Recently, I took a trip—with three buddies and a dog in a too small car—across America. We had highs—chemically and biologically—and we endured lows—the gist is the same as before—along our chosen path. We saw the beauty of New Mexico at night while dangerously inebriated and the splendor of a Pennsylvania blizzard through the looking glass of a car window and my chronicle of our adventure makes up half of the manuscript. (The other half will become significant later)

Suffice it to say, my narrative non-fiction with an emphasis in pop culture entitled An American Odyssey is stupid in its brilliance and brilliant in its stupidity…tragic in its verisimilitude and verisimilitudey in its tragicness…It is both an indictment of the vapidity of pop culture and a sentimental journey through a mind obsessed with it. (How long is this journey you ask, exactly the other half of the book I answer) In short my new friend, my book saves lives.

The tome I’m asking you to represent is comprised dually of a ten day journey across the states (the transcription of which is the memoir-y part of the book) and my thoughts while sequestered and sedentary in a moving vehicle throughout a 100 hour drive—or as I’ve come to call it “The Second Half of the book.” Along our chosen path I managed to comment about the cocaine trade to a Colombian riot grrl—this was a bad decision—and convince a coterie of people that my friends and I were part of a marauding funk band playing gigs throughout the states (for charity no less). The second part of the book is the journey to find myself as I graduate from college and prepare to embark on a life in a world (the real world) totally dissimilar to the one I had previously inhabited (college life). This part of the book is my testament to the confusion engendered by a society that educates me for a quarter of my life before unleashing me like a whirlwind into the world. The only problem is that, like a whirlwind, I have no idea where I’m going. To my mind, this confusion simultaneously sets my book apart from others while also helping it appeal to the masses. In short, it will appeal to old and young alike for a similar yet diametrically opposed reason; the confusion I face when attempting to weave my own web in the world. It will remind adults of a time in their life when nothing was set in stone and life was exciting and relatively pure, and it will appeal to recent college graduates who wonder if they’re alone in not knowing where their life is headed.

What makes this On the Road inspired book different is the way in which I choose to find meaning in life. Unlike many writers I don’t look into the deeper meaning of Kafka or Tolstoy, I like to find my deeper meaning in sports and the Golden Girls because, in my mind, you can find yourself anywhere. I just choose to—much like Chuck Klosterman—find myself in popular culture because I think it is a more populist lens with which to view oneself against the rest of the world. If you were to put pop art in a time capsule it wouldn’t be a very good reflection of the beauty that humans can create outside of societal norms, it would be a reflection of the experience of living within societal norms. Pop art teaches us how we actually expect ourselves to live. It is a reflection of us. I think this is somehow more beautiful. This is the basis of this book and it is perfect.


Right now—at this very moment—I am entering the stretch run of my college career. I am twenty-one years old and am about to graduate from the University of California at Santa Barbara. {The aforementioned dog is graduating from the University of Chicago, with a degree in aeronautics or barking or something…it’s probably barking, which is where we dropped her off}

I noticed your excellent credentials in ___________, and I would be thrilled to have you represent me. If you would like to see An American Odyssey please contact me as soon as possible. I will only be showing Odyssey… to one agent at a time. You can reach me by phone at (949)310-2740 or by electronic mail at austinmarshburn@gmail.com

He then wrote, “using words like ‘coterie’ and ‘tome’ just kind of make you look like a 21-year-old who's trying too hard. try (sic) not to let fantasy and hubris delude you too much.”

And he might be right. Except I can’t help but notice that he used the words “fantasy”, “delude” and “hubris.” I guess it’s only okay to have a marginal vocabulary if you’ve spent 30 years in the book industry. I mean, I just didn’t want to write the word “book” again, you know.

• When does it cease to be “recreational” drug use….Like when do I stop being a college kid and become an alcoholic…Can this happen while I’m still in college? (I wrote that a while ago)

• Steely Dan is a stupid name for a band. I realize this is subjective, but honestly Steely Dan? It makes less sense than Jefferson Starship.

• Thank You For Smoking is the best movie I will see this year and it will get not one iota of consideration for the Oscar. How does this always happen? It was funny and satirical and it had a message and Katie Holmes was in it and at this point in time that always makes me laugh. I respect crazy people like Tom and Katie Cruise so much as actors because, unlike the rest of us, they have to rein in their craziness for the camera. They are truly acting. (Is she taking his name?) I always (sort of) think that actors aren’t really acting and that’s why they do the same sort of role over and over. Like Al Pacino in Scarface is just a re-packaged, more deranged, Michael Corleone with a bad accent. Maybe Al Pacino’s a bad choice. BUT a guy like Jack Nicholson. I mean doesn’t the Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest seem pretty much like Jack Nicholson in real life. Like just some cool slacker…I don’t know, but this thought is getting too long.

• Fredo Corleone (sometimes referred to as John Cazale) was in five movies in his career before his body succumbed to cancer. Every one of those movies was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. That has to be some sort of record, right? What would be the equivalent of this in some other field? And is this more imressive than Al Pacino?

And Now a Story about a cat named Connor Tillman (I now owe a friend—Nick—50 dollars because of this guy)

Between my sophomore and junior year of college five friends (Ryan was one) and I went to Europe to eat, drink and generally raise the standing of the American name worldwide. I posit that I drank thirty-eight out of the forty days I was there, and I further posit that upon return from Europe I could have drunk a heavy alcoholic under a table (though I guess one could be argue that at the time I was a heavy alcoholic). With that said, we all did our heaviest drinking while being transported whether by plane, train, or automobile. One such day stands out among the rest. Four of us—Ryan included— were in Madrid, Espana and we had to travel to Barcelona to meet the other two trip compadres. However, we missed the first train so we booked the next train to Barcelona, which happened to be a nine-hour night train that evening. This gave us at least another five hours in Madrid. When we found this to be the case, we immediately left the train station to find a bar.

As we left the train station, we saw what looked to be a swanky establishment across the street. We figured we’d buy a few over-priced drinks, talk and be generally merry. Fate intervened. On our way to “swanky” bar, we spotted a run down speak-easy to our right. This establishment existed down a dirt road and was only distinguishable as a bar/ Texas saloon by the dilapidated sign on the front that read Bebidas y Comidas. Needless to say, we eschewed the first establishment for the run-down dive bar.

As we entered the bar, we could see this was our kind of place. The lady bartender served us Mahou, a delicious Spanish beer, and was a great conversationalist (At least to my friend Bryan and I who can speak Spanish). Near the end of our dilapidated bar experience we asked her what her favorite shots were. She replied with a surprisingly normal taste. She liked Beefeater, Jack Daniels and such. However, Bryan and I dug deeper and she told us we could try her favorite Spanish drinks. We were most jubilant about this until she pulled three unmarked bottles out from under the bar. At this point, we became legitimately ecstatic.

The three bottles were full of some substance we took to be alcohol. They were colored brown, purple and clear and we all took shots of each with no hesitation. We trusted this unnamed lady. After our time with her, we were all sufficiently sauced. In short, she could have charged us anything for the drinks, but here’s why I liked Spain so much. For seven beers and three shots, this lady charged us seven euros apiece. Life was drunkenly beautiful.

We left the bar because it was time to go to the train. However, being the ridiculous European alcoholics we were, it was imperative that we purchase two liters of vodka before embarking to Barcelona. So, we sauntered into some Madrid-ian mini mart and purchased said bottles. Armed with our alcoholic ammunition, we boarded the train. After downing the bottles Bryan, Ryan and I quickly became bored so we did the only logical thing three sots could possibly imagine doing; we found our way to the train’s bar.

So now, we were in the bar and with nothing better to do, Bryan and I started speaking Spanish to a lovely Guatemalan woman. The conversation proceeded to get funnier and funnier—or drunker and drunker; I’m not sure—to the point that people coming into the bar ceased to leave (Also, Ryan couldn’t understand a word we were saying so every time we all laughed, Bryan or I had to explain to him why; this was high comedy). The night ended with some dude buying us a round of wine—those airplane single serve bottles—me looking at him incredulously thinking he was gay and him assuring me he wasn’t, and an eventual wine race. On the count of tres Bryan, Ryan, the lady and myself chugged the wine as fast as we could, and the lady won handily. That’s the end of my night.

I awoke at eight the next morning with my pants around my ankles and a bunch of angry passengers staring at me, and all I could think was, “I can’t believe I lost to that lady.”
This story should be over, but it’s not. As we got off the train in the early mornin’, one of the compatriots—Nick—who we were in Barcelona to meet ran up to us and screamed, “Hey guys it’s great to see you. We’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news. Which do you wanna hear first?”
We all say, “The good news.”
“All right,” he answers, “Well, the hostel is all lined up so we have a place to stay and everything’s pretty much in order.”
“So,” we ask, “What’s the bad news?” to which he replies,
“Well do any of you see Connor?”
All of us were still drunk, but somehow we did grasp the gravity of the situation.
Apparently, a German friend of ours whom we have nicknamed Bier because he is, in fact, allergic to beer, flew into Barcelona to meet us (Sidenote: Being German and allergic to beer is sort of like being Jamaican and allergic to weed, or being alive and allergic to air). The night prior Connor, Bier and Nick had drunk a few liters of vodka together. Nick and Bier were fine, but upon entering a drinking establishment, Connor decided the drinks were too expensive and he left—after buying a drink. Bier and Nick finished their drinks—and Connor’s—then began to wonder where Connor could be, (presumably) inquiring, “I wonder where Connor is.” So, they left the bar and proceeded to search for him; he was nowhere to be found.

Now, this is a drunken twenty-year old search, and in Barcelona there are street vendors who sell beer constantly, so (obviously) along the way Nick stopped at a street vendor to purchase some alcohol. While the transaction was being completed, Nick felt an object, most likely a fist, hit him in the face. He turned around to see whom the perpetrator was just as a woman ran up to him screaming, “LO SIENTO, LO SIENTO….” Apparently, this woman is a prostitute and she has just thrown her shoe at a patron who didn’t pay. She has hit Nick on the side of his face with a damn stiletto heel. Nick will remain scarred for the rest of the trip. In any case, this is all Connor’s fault.

Readers Note: Nick was actually happy about the prostitute bludgeoning. He relished telling people, especially his mother, that the scar on his face was the manifestation of a prostitute’s heel striking him.

So, as we get off the train to Nick yelling, “We lost Connor,” we are all thinking he’s drunk and lost. We are all correct. We get on a subway and get off near a hostel where we can put our backpacks down and start searching for our lost amigo. This is a perfect idea except for what happens on the way to the hostel as we pass the statue of Cristobol Columbus.

Connor is passed out on the statue of Christopher Columbus. This stone likeness of the great explorer is built in the center of Barcelona right near where we got off the subway to search for our hostel. So, there we are, in front of a statue, all wondering what to do. In front of us lays our misplaced friend. He is pasty white, has blood oozing out of his chin and cheek and is sleeping in between two poles meant to keep kids from skateboarding on Columbus’ statue. One friend—Bryan—wants to take suggestive pictures of our drunken friend, while another friend—Tom—thinks it would be in bad taste because as he said, “Look at him. He really might be dead.” Ultimately, we all tire of looking at him and we don’t take a picture and we wake him up and the moment we find out he’s not dead we realize we should have taken a picture of him and now Nick wants to punch him in the face.

Anyways, as Connor arises his first words are, “Where were you guys, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Upon hearing this, Nick starts to gouge out his eyeballs with metaphorical sandpaper—i.e. He’s not happy.

As Connor is slowly regaining consciousness, he realizes his pockets are empty. At this point he decries whoever it was that picked his pocket until we point out that he has just awoken outside on a statue with blood dripping down his face. I guess the moral is that there are never any ill effects to alcohol consumption. In any case, I love Europe and I love transportation.