The Life and Times of a Modern Day Vampire

I was returning from my daily morning trip to the lobby of my apartment building where they are compassionate enough to serve complimentary coffee each day until 11 am. (that's 8 am for my friends on the west coast, shout out to T-$ and Maddog) when a random woman had the following exchange with me on the elevator. (As a rule, I do not make small talk with fellow elevator riders. It seems to me to be an absolute waste of perfectly good quiet and ultimately meaningless. Try this, the next time someone gets on an elevator with you and says something benign like "Some weather we're having huh?" Please feel free to respond with this, "Yeah, kinda wants to make you go out slaughter elephants and roll around in your own feces doesn't it?" They will take your point.)

Anyway.....She said to me, "Is it still cold outside?" (always wheather on the elevator, I don't get it)

To which I responded, "I don't know yet, but it was cold when I got home, because I'm a vampire."

She preceded to turn ghostly white and fix her stare on the elevator floor. I, not totally without sensitivity, I attempted to put her at ease buy saying, "Not to worry Hun, big night last night. I'm still full." I will never have to talk to her again.

Now, please don't get me wrong, we people of the night don't just randomly express detest for the day people. We are simply operating on a different schedule from them and hoping to co-exist without alienating ourselves or upsetting the delicate balance of our two worlds. We need day people because they are our primary source of food, and they need us because we become the catalyst for providing them with an escape from the mundane day world by leading them into the adventures of the night. We must co-exist, so this should serve as a guide to understanding and appreciating vampires.

What is a vampire? The definition of vampire has varied over the years but it is simply this; someone who is in the service industry and works late nights. The first vampires were reported in Eastern Europe where pub owners and their wenches would stay up all night doing body shots and keg stands until the first rays of light would hit the cracks in the boarded windows. Screams from the partiers could be heard across the village when the sun hit their red and swollen eyes, but quiet would soon ensue as they scampered cockroach like to the darkness to sleep off the booze. They would then rise as the sun settled behind the horizon, pale and hollowed from hibernation, starvation pounding at their stomach walls keeping sychronized rhythm with the hammering inside of their heads. A quest would begin for food and wine. As the first shadows of moonlight hidden, danced across the village streets, our night people could be seen escaping the haze of wine withdrawal as they gulped and feasted, returning their beaten and beleaguered bodies to the strength and vigor which manifests in the night air. The cycle complete, to be repeated daily and for eternity.

Some misnomers and explanations:

Vampires suck peoples blood. Untrue. The myth of the vampire reached London and they quicky realized they they too had a very serious vampire problem hidden within the Tavern and Inn community. Vampires would be seen stumbling home (to their lair) after imbibing for countless late night hours with the reminence of wine stained on their clothing. This was the time of the high collar, which was most often white, and the stains from wine spillage would look like blood. So obviously the vampire was out sucking blood from unsuspecting lasses all night long.

Dracula was a vampire. No. Bram Stoker made him one. In 1897 Stoker published his horror novel which loosely, and I mean very loosely, was based on Vlad Dracula First Prince of Walachia. Vlad Dracul was the ruler of Walachia and placed in to exile before his son Vlad Dracula was born in 1431. Dracul means dragon in Romanian and Dracula is appropriately translated to son of dragon. In 1447 Vlad Dracul was murdered thus leaving the throne to his son Vlad Dracula. Dracula ruled with an iron fist motivated by rage and revenge. He killed tens of thousands of his own people, impaling them and leaving their limp impaled bodies in public view as a reminder to all that he was absolute. He was Vlad the Impailer. To the best of my knowledge, he never owned or even worked in a tavern or pub. He was just a viscous dude, and Bram Stoker was grossly uninformed.

Vampires don't like garlic. Come on! We work in bars and restaurants.

Crosses and wooden stakes are the best defenses against vampires. First of all, crosses themselves have no effect on us so stop wasting everyone's time and put them away. Granted we are not a big "church going" crowd and our lifestyle perhaps makes us vulnerable to sin and subsequently ex-communication, but to assume that we will be harmed by an iconic artifact is senseless. A wooden stake through the heart will kill us, but so will just about any other form of execution. We are not impervious to bullets, knifes, or boring conversation. If you want to kill us, the best way is to remove all of the 24 hour diners and carry outs across the nation. We will eventually die of insanity or malnourishment.

Vampires sleep in coffins. Where does one buy a coffin to sleep in? A vampire walks into Mattress Discounters and asks the salesperson, "I'm looking for a king size coffin to complete my new bedroom suite, can you show me something from you Colonial Collection?" A sure fire way to end up in the pokey or looney bin.

So if you happen to be a day person, please know that we do not crave your blood. We do not want to make you one of us, you either are or you are not. All we we covet is your money and your impaired judgment. If you should find yourself in our lair, do not be alarmed. You aren't there to be sacrificed, rather some naked wrestling in the Bedroom Olympics. (try doing that in a coffin)

So when you see us at 3 pm with our bloodshot eyes and pale skin, please know that we are simply starting our day and may be a little testy. Be kind by being quiet, after all, it has been 9 hours without libation and our heads are killing us.

When It's Time To Leave, Go!

There are few things in life worse than witnessing an over stayed welcome. When the presence of someone or something has obviously exceeded its comfort level or usefulness, someone must speak up and take action so that the delicate balance of nature can progress uninterrupted and without blemish. I select all members of the human race and call upon them to unite with me in a crusade to eliminate uselessness. I will, of course, begin this endeavor here and now while encouraging your feedback and your promise to keep the faith.

There are plenty of historical examples of once great inventions completely exercising their course of usefulness and gracefully bowing out allowing for progress and cultural advancement. These are some examples:

Chainmail- during feudalism this was quite the invention. Covering ones self from head to toe with metal, restricted the frequency of bodily puncture due to the lance of a foe. Today, chainmail would make commercial air travel nearly impossible and would drive fasion designers and make over show producers crazy.

Long Bow/Catapult- attacking the enemy became possible from several hundred yards away. A platoon could hide behind a hill and launch an attack exercising a stealth facade while the opposing army scrambled in fear and bewilderment. Now the tables are flipped if the opposing army has tomahawk missiles loaded on a stealth sub in the Mediterranean Sea and is preparing to launch at the platoon by pinpointing their position using GPS data and satellite imaging. Plus, try to attack a nuclear class submarine with a bow and arrow without laughing.

Stage Coach- once upon a time the stage coach was the way to get around. It ran on a schedule, on time I might add, and took people to and from the railroad. Close your eyes and picture a stage coach at the taxi stand at your nearest airport. I bet very few stage coach operators speak Arabic, Hindi, or any of the seven hundred and fifty-nine thousand African dialects. But really all you need to know to drive a taxi (or stage coach) is "snow emergency, double fare!"

Doctors who make house calls- In the days of yester year, if you or a family member took ill, the doctor would visit the patient in his or her very own bed. Its true! If there was not enough money to pay the doctor he would accept something in barter (eggs, a hog, a Mercedes S class sedan, it totally depended on how sick the patient was). Then, with the invention of insurance companies and their mother f#*%&ng HMO's and PPO's, doctors are no longer willing to leave the country club for a pittance of hand me down farm byproducts.

Do you remember; going to the arcade, using pay phones with the local phone book attached to it by a cord, or watching a movie on Betamax? How about, playing Pong or Asteroids on your Atari 2600? Or perhaps you remember, Pet Rocks, the Rubicks Cube, Dean Smiths' Four Corner Offense, or creating surround sound by plugging 6 speakers into the 2 speaker jacks into the back of your RCA home stereo system. All of these things heve been replaced with newer and better products. We traded Arnold Horshak for Skreech, Sidney Poiteir for Denzel Washington, George Bush for George Bush, and the cold war for the desert war.

There are, saddly, some has-beens that will not go away.

I hate it when I am sitting in a Chinese Restaurant and my server, hostess, tea steward or what ever the frick they're called asks me if I want chopsticks. I do not! Do you not have forks? If I want to eat, are my choices restricted to chop sticks or my hands. Just because it took your people thousands of years to learn that stabbing and scooping are the "common sense" approaches to dining, don't go dragging me back into some retrospective Crouching Eating Hidden Flatware bullshit. And cook my English terrier all the way.

Antiques are useless. The actual definition of antique is, something that belongs in a museum not in you home. I hate people who say things like "Don't sit there, its an antique." Hey if it looks like a chair, feels like a chair, and is in any way has proximity to a table or lamp, it's a chair. If you don't want me to sit in it, put it in the closet. "You might break it". Again, put it in the closet. "But, someone famous once sat in that chair" Great! But there are plenty of seats which hold famous people every day, take the airport restroom for an example. You don't see me dragging a commode into my living room just because Oprah used it once.

Please stop making me hear the terms; hand made and made by hand. Nothing is hand made anymore. We have been developing tools and machinery since the Cro-Magnon period just so that we don't have to make anything by hand. Furthermore, things made by hand are in no way better than machine made things, they just take a lot longer to make. The only time I can tolerate the phrase, made by hand, is if the item was made by someone actually named Hand. Like Hand made Gloves, For you hands by the Hands. That's it!

Do not sell me a program so that I can keep score at the ballgame. Yes, it was once part of the lore to sit with you Dad or Uncle and fill in each and every box for every inning and discuss what the manager should do or what pitch should be thrown. The thinking man's game, it was called. Baseball is a little different now. Programs are not 50 cents anymore, (I just spent about 30 sec. Looking for the symbol for cents on my keyboard, that should tell you something) they no longer sell Cracker Jack, and parking is more expensive now than my first car. So stop selling me the program. If you think I am going to pay $12.95 for a program and a pencil when....., hey did you happen to notice the big video scoreboard with stats, scores, and howbout' this one; instant replay. Not to mention the fact that only really rich people can afford to go to games so everyone has a PDA and is hooked up to the web. You can instantly access box scores from all over the country from any game any time. The score book and program are useless.

And while your at it get rid of the pencil. I already took the S.A.T.

Gold's Gym Marketing Stategy

I felt compelled to share a letter that I received in response to downloading a free one week guest pass at Gold's Gym. On Tuesday March 1, 2005 I started researching fitness centers in the Washington, DC area and following is the actual response from a Fitness Consultant at the Van Ness Gold's Gym.

Hey Future Member,

My name is Dalontee, and I have been assigned as your Gold's Gym Rep. As your main source of contact feel free to ask me any question or comments. I am always available to show your around and or set you for trainning. I here for you and I plan to make you visit and workout the best.


Dalontee Edgerton, Fitness Consultant
Gold's Gym Vanness

I am certainaly inclined to ask him a comment while he shows me I'm around only if he makes me visit and workout best, just like he promised.

I count 6 total errors in a 1 paragraph letter containing 3 sentences. Is this the future of marketing? I can assure you that no matter how beneficial the facility might be to my health, I will never set foot in there. I might, however, see Dalontee on the street somewhere, attempting to get to work by wondering around looking for Vanness (it's actually Van Ness).

I encourage you all to stop by and ask for Dalontee, and please, give him a copy of The Little Brown Handbook when you see him. He needs all the help he can get.