I drink because I'm in my twenties. You can drink all that you want while you're in your twenties. You can pass out in your car, on someone's front lawn, or in detox, and no one cares--they chalk it up to youthful indiscretion. Pass out on someone's lawn when you're 30 or older, and your so-called "friends" will all show up at your house for an intervention. - John "Gooch" Gallucci 08.11.2000 From The Drinking Column.

My thermostat controlled fan just kicked on. It's at that stage where it turns on and off every two seconds because the actual temperature is hovering around the one set on the fan. It's absofuckinglutely driving me nuts. Almost as nuts as the fact that the fan's remote control needs new batteries, so I have to get up now.

I'm downloading some SNL "TV Funhouse" cartoons, because they're fucking funny. I'm looking for the Mr. T one in particular - I've never seen it.

I worked for five hours on a computer Tuesday for a computer repair place downtown. I couldn't fix it, and neither could the seasoned techs. The only thing more satisfying than a job done well is failing a job and having other people fail at it as well.

I'm going to try making a grilled cheese sandwich on the barbecue.

GOOCH:out

Email from Adam Hubka, formerly of Dualesc:dude it's me the notorious h.u.b! what up man? dude i think you have it all wrong, the greatest rocky opponent was fuckin dolph lundren - ivan drago man!!! mr t didn't kill apollo, drago did! plus drago was like a million times more bad ass, he had that fight won against rocky, plus he took steroids and everyone knows that makes you a better athlete (ask bonds, giambi and those track people). hahaha

hey keep in touch g money, i got myself a little 'blog' too over at http://www.livejournal.com/users/saltbaste

later mang

Response from Gooch:Good take on Drago. Did you really think a fat WOP like me wouldn’t have taken that into consideration? I mean, I thought about that shit, as well as Tommy Gunn who assaulted my senses more than he did Balboa in that awful conclusion to V (Tommy Morrison, who played Tommy Gunn, has AIDS, by the way, so don’t fuck him). I just got a little creeped out by the cold war propaganda that IV pushed on the viewers. Quite frankly, I don’t think steroids were bad in 1985. I think steroids were an ingredient in fucking Wheaties in 1985. No one gave a shit then. Drago didn’t have any really good lines… put Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago side by side, line for line, and tell me which one was more fun to watch? Put Ivan Drago’s monotone “If he dies… he dies” to Clubber Lang inviting Rocky’s wife back to his apartment in front of the city of Philadelphia and “My prediction… Pain.” Drago did kill Apollo, but Lang did shove Mick, which ultimately set in motion his death. That and the lack of response by medical support (Rodney King would have gotten quicker medical attention).

Good to hear from you, HUB. I noticed you quoted the “Wear Sunscreen” song in your blog. It’s sweet and touching, but I did one in 2000 for my final column at Portland State. Check it out, yo:

The Xanax Speech

Lightning, or more specifically, thunder woke and kept me up this morning at 3am. At 4am I had a smoked salmon salad and a diet Coke. I flipped the channels and came across Rocky III. Coming across a Rocky film on TV and turning the channel is akin to sitting down in the middle of the National Anthem. You pay your respects. Mickey, Rocky's trainer, dies in III. It's always been amazing to me that an old man showing signs of heart problems 10 minutes before a national heavyweight championship can lay on a table for two rounds of boxing without an ambulance whisking him away. All he gets is some doctor with a blood pressure cuff? He's got chest pains for chrissakes. Like there's no paramedics or ambulances at a packed coliseum for a heavyweight fight.

Mr T. played Clubber Lang, the greatest opponent Rocky ever faced. Mr T. found his acting niche in the 80s as an angry black man ready to kick ass. Don't dismiss his acting abilities. Mr T. delivers his lines in R3 like no one else can... on paper the lines don't look great. When he says them in the film, they kick ass.

Interviewer: Do you hate Rocky?
Clubber Lang: No, I don't hate Balboa. I pity the fool.

Interviewer: What's your prediction for the fight?
Clubber Lang: My prediction? Pain.

Clubber Lang: : I reject the challenge, 'cause Balboa is no challenge, but I'll be happy to beat up on him some more.

Not so great in print, but gold on the screen!

The Rocky and Godfather box sets belong in every film buff's library. Both have two things in common: Talia Shire is in all the films, and the last film in both series sucks ass. Rocky V? Godfather III? If the Roman's saw those movies, they'd take their numerals back.

Shit, now I'm tired. I only got IV hours sleep last night. I've got work to do today. I was going to segue into a diatribinal apology about how much of an asshole I've been lately and how I promise to clean up my act and how I used to use this website to exxagerate my real life partying antics and now I use it to play them down (no, really) but at this moment I'm as apologetic about that as I am about this run-on sentence. It'll take more than a seven minute Rocky styled training montage to get me in line, but I have been without a drink for over 30 hours now. Gotta start somewhere, right? I love my friends.

Fuck, I'm out of Mr. T. cereal again!

GOOCH: Pitying the fool since 1991!

I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God. Alec Baldwin as Dr. Jed Hill in Malice, 1993

Return of Tanman.

I spent a couple of hours laying out by the condo pool. My face is now soaked in aloe vera like some sort of green, soothing money-shot has coated my face. I look up the UV index on Weather.com, as though I know what the fuck a UV index is and how it may pertain to my tanning experience. By the way, it's 80 degrees right now in Troutdale with a UV index of 2.

Scoping Star Wars Episode III on imdb.com and while Jar-Jar Binks is back in the film (hopefully to meet a tortured, painful death), James Earl Jones appears to have been tapped to voice Darth Vader again. Fucking sweet... fresh Vader in 2005. One more reason to go on living.

Alcohol is like aspirin for the heart.