John Bear Photo Portfolio

A Danzante near Tularosa in 2013.

An Eagle Dancer at NMSU-Alamogordo in 2012.

An unidentified jockey at the Ruidoso Downs in 2012.

An art gallery in Tularosa in 2012.

A woman holds baby goats rescued from a wrecked car north of Alamogordo in 2012.

A young girl watches the races at the Ruidoso Downs in 2012.

A portrait of an Alamogordo High School soccer player in 2012.

Cats at a rescue in Otero County in 2013.

A volunteer firefighter in Otero County in 2013.

An Alamogordo High School softball player dodges an inside pitch in 2013.

Alamogordo firefighters train on rescuing a fellow firefighter in 2012.

United States Forest Service firefighters in the Sacramento Mountains in 2012.

Alamogordo Police conduct active shooter training in 2012.

An unidentified girl walks in the Martin Luther King Day Parade in 2013.

Bear with me: Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on January 15, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

My girlfriend and I went out to see live music in Denver on Saturday.

This is important primarily for two reasons.

One, date night, an indispensable part of any serious relationship.

Two, since I’m rebranding myself as a music writer, I should probably go see what live music sounds like. I’ve been to four concerts in the past five years. That number seems kind of low for a music journalist. What can I say? I’m horrifically agoraphobic, and hip Saturday nights fill me with dread all day Saturday.

I felt the need to move beyond obsessively watching music videos on YouTube, mostly “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground, and lurking in indie record shops while scouring the earth for obscure post-punk albums.

I digress. The old lady and I (She’s 27; I’m 40) left Arvada under cover of darkness to check out three bands at the Hi-Dive — Television Generation, Pout House and legendary Denver indie rock band Dressy Bessy. The show was wonderful. The atmosphere at the bar was subdued and mellow. My girlfriend had a Pabst Blue Ribbon, the Budweiser of hipster beers.

At one point we ducked out for an espresso at the Mutiny Cafe across the street just in time to catch a punk band dressed up as cops play a song by 90s rap metal band Body Count. I’ll let you guess which song.

Back at the Hi-Dive, I finally came to peace with the fact that since I have turned 40, I no longer have any compunction about dancing in public. This used to be problematic for me as I dance like a cross between Ian Curtis from Joy Division and the gopher from “Caddy Shack.” If you’re not familiar with Ian Curtis, he struggled with epilepsy and did a sort of dance interpretation of a seizure on stage. If you haven’t seen “Caddy Shack,” please stop reading this and go watch it.

I danced to every song for about two-and-a-half hours, and the funniest thing happened — my legs quit working. For the past seven months, I’ve worked at a French-style bakery making croissants, which is a long way of saying I stand up for eight hours a day. It’s a radical departure from sitting on my ass in a newsroom.

And about halfway through Dressy Bessy’s set, my feet and my legs said “We’ve had enough. We’ve been working for 11 hours. We quit.” I spent the rest of the set leaning against a table and hand dancing.

But it was therapeutic. All week long, my brain fought off a full frontal assault by the forces of anxiety, and a flanking maneuver by my seasonal affective disorder. Dancing, no matter how bad, seemed to send those rotten bastards back to their evil home base.

At one point during the set, Dressy Bessy vocalist Tammy Ealom said something to the effect of “I hope everyone else is sweaty and less anxious.”

Yes, I am. Thank you for asking.

Bear with me: Idea for animated feature-length movie

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on January 22, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

So it turns out house cats are an ancient race of evil aliens who descended to earth en masse centuries ago to conquer and destroy.

But they quickly learned they didn’t have to do anything.

Human beings will willingly serve as slaves to the cats. As a race, they found “owners,” a nice sunny window and promptly went to sleep and got fat. They have taken a particular liking to oddball single women who live alone in one bedroom apartments which they will gleefully fill with four, five or six cats.

This film follows a particular cat, Scoop, a black and grey tiger tabby. (Any resemblance to my cat is purely coincidental. My lawyer made me say this. Scoop is a litigious cat. She actually sued the Rolling Stones over “Stray Cat Blues,” if you can believe that.)

Anyway, a cat not at all based on my cat decides she wants a shot at world domination and builds an indestructible cat-sized Panzer Tank based entirely on a show about Nazis she saw on the History Channel. The tank also has legs like an Imperial Walker and, of course, lasers. The cat does all of this behind her owner’s back while using his credit cards to purchase most of the raw materials off of Amazon. Thank you, Jeff Bezos.

So the cat, now inside an impenetrable death machine, sets about destroying large cities in “War of the Worlds” fashion. Democrats openly ponder whether or not it is the place of humans to tell an out-of-control kitty on a murderous rampage how to live her life. Republicans blame the entire mess on immigrants, teachers and poor people and give themselves a tax cut.

The military proves useless against the marauding kitty. This is partly because their weapons are obsolete compared to the cat’s alien technology, but also because they can’t be dragged away from their fascistic displays of patriotism at major league sporting events long enough to bring those weapons to bear. Ironically, the Space Force’s widely ridiculed camouflage uniforms prove useful when the wearer hides in the woods to escape Scoop’s magnificent death rays.

At one point, Scoop’s owner, based on me and voiced by Sylvester Stallone, tries to appeal to his former pet.

“You’re being a really bad kitty,” I say.

“What’s that noise coming from it’s craft,” a five-star general asks.

“Why I think she’s purring,” I reply.

For a moment, it seems like it’s all over, but then Scoop sees a tweet from the president calling her a pussy and continues her rampage with renewed fervor, or purrvor, if you will.

Scoop is eventually captured during a nap. The military tells the despondent owner his bad kitty is being handled by “top men.” They will say nothing else.

We cut to a one bedroom apartment, where Scoop, now in a bonnet, is being cradled by one of those peculiar women who already own five cats. She is baby talking Scoop, who growls through a series of increasingly tight close ups. The End?

Get with me, Pixar.

Bear with me: Idea for a Movie

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on January 29, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

This is a loose remake of “Encino Man,” but without the lame Sean Astin character, Dave, who acts like a jerk the entire movie and somehow gets the hot blonde at the denouement. Since it’s related in spirit to the original, however, you can bank on it that the Pauly Shore character, Stoney, appears in this movie, buddy. If we can find him.

I wanted to call the movie “Encino Hitman,” but I was shot down in committee, which consists of whoever is forced to listen to me ramble on at any given moment in my apartment.

The movie begins with two lonely nerds living in a southern California suburb and pining for the day they get the girl. At least the Sean Astin character does. Stoney, in my movie, is a fully realized queer character.

Dave lives next door to a fearsome Estonian gangster named Kaspar, a call back to the original film. Kaspar waves to the two boys whenever he is on his riding lawnmower. They wave back, but they are deathly afraid of Kaspar.

Our two high school nerds are digging a hole in which they wish to build a swimming pool, so that Astin can score with a hot blonde way out of his league on prom night. They strike a block of ice which, as we all know from our bad 80s cinema, contains the frozen corpse of a neanderthal.

They drag the frozen cave man into the house, and through the miracle of pouring hot water on him, reanimate him. They name him Link and decided to make him the cool kid at their high school and …

“Not so fast,” says Kaspar, who has been watching the entire incident unfold. “He is coming with me.”

“You can’t have him,” says Dave. “He’s ours. He’s going to make us cool.”

Kaspar slaps Dave, and three of his velour track suit-wearing henchmen come and take away Link. Stoney waves goodbye to Link, who is in a dissociative rage.

“I have a much better use for our frozen friend here,” Kaspar says before he lets loose a truly terrifying laugh.

Cut to a montage of Link being trained as an assassin in a warehouse somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area, shopping for velour track suits with Kaspar and coming to grips with who he is. A long take inside Link’s cage shows he is a talented cave painter.

Link is an adept assassin and scores dozens of kills. But what he really wants to be is an artist. He is taken to an art gallery to kill the owner, a hot blonde, Jane, who owes Kaspar money and has rebuffed his creepy advances. Link flies into a rage at the sight of a copy of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch hanging in the gallery. He kills his captors and runs off with the Jane who admired his art earlier in the movie, and becomes his manager.

Dave, back at his house, doesn’t get his own hot blonde in this movie either. He needs to learn that women have their own agency and aren’t just there for you to paw, jerk.

Bear with me: Sally goes to Heaven

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on February 5, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

My name is Sally.

I died surrounded by my loved ones. My husband George held my right hand, and my sons Chad and Todd, held my left hand in our beautiful two-story 4,000-square-foot home that bordered a golf course. My twin labradoodles, Chuck and Buck, licked my face. The light faded, and I passed peacefully.

It was so beautiful.

I had a good life, and I’m looking forward to heaven.

I’ve not made it in there yet. But I’m a shoe-in. I’ve lived a good life. I recycled and ate cage-free eggs. No stray friend of Chad or Todd ever suffered for a Hot Pocket when they came over after school. I always voted my conscience. Dogs loved me. I always rounded up for whatever charity they were collecting for at the cash register.

The pearly gates are truly awe-inspiring. They are just like what you see in the movies — clouds, angels flying to and fro. Adult contemporary music being played at a reasonable volume. A soft wind caresses my face. I smell lavender and honeysuckle. I’m wearing a white robe that must be 900 thread count Egyptian cotton. I remember because I had some sheets made out of —

“Sally,” inquired a cherubic angel holding a golden clipboard.

“Why yes,” I said enthusiastically.

“Come with me,” the genderless angel said, his or her face breaking into a friendly smile. “You are meeting St. Peter for final judgement.”

“Sounds wonderful,” I chirped. “Let me tell you, I’m not worried at all. I’ve lived a good life. My husband and I provided for my family. I’m ready to enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”

“Great,” the angel said, his or her smile unwavering. “Follow me.”

I stood in line for what felt like an eternity, but I didn’t grow impatient, not even for a moment. Eternal glory was just on the other side of that tall, beautiful golden gate. I wondered what would it be like? Would I see all my dead relatives? Would I get any food I wanted?

“Sally,” said a bearded, but still genderless, angel. “I’m St. Peter. How are you today?”

“I’m wonderful, St. Peter.”

“That’s great to hear,” he or she said. “Did you get yourself some nachos?”

“There are nachos?”

“They are wonderful. Look, we will get you some on your way down.”

“Down?”

“Yes, hell is down.”

My heart fluttered.

“But why am I going to hell? I thought I was a shoe-in for heaven.”

“Well you lived a fairly decent life, but you took your dogs, Chuck and Buck, to shit on the yard of the apartment complex down the street, several times it a week, in fact.”

“But that doesn’t count! They weren’t really a part of the neighborhood, and I didn’t want to ruin my grass. Surely, you can’t be serious.”

“Surely, you don’t think we let just anyone in here, Sally,” St. Peter said and pulled a lever.

A trap door opened and I fell into a fiery pit. Truly, I never thought letting my dogs shit on someone else’s yard was a big deal.

Now I have eternity to think about how wrong I was.

Bear with me: My brief, wondrous life as a hip hop producer

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on February 12, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

I quit drinking alcohol on Feb. 22, 2004. Basically, I switched to coffee which also causes me to shake when I can’t have any.

Sometimes I want to bemoan the quality of the last beer I drank — 40 ounces of Miller Genuine Draft — like I should have drank something fancy as a proper send-off. But the misery I caused myself and others absolutely called for something gross and pedestrian like MGD.

An odd thing happened when I quit drinking. A doctor would likely say it was a hypomanic episode. For about a year, I could go 60 or 70 hours with no sleep. I would write and listen to music and chain-smoke cigarettes. My college roommates suffered endlessly. Chicks loved me. I have no idea why.

My high school friend Micah, who fancied himself a rapper, begged his dad to buy him about $2,000 of music-making software and a keyboard. When I gazed upon the setup, I nearly cried. Since I was about 8 years old, I longed to be in a rock-and-roll band. But all the kids in bands hated me. So did the skater kids, the jocks and for some reason the the nerds, too. For much of my freshman year in high school, I hung out with kids who thought the earth was 5,000 years old and gays were sent by the devil.

I was lonely.

But Micah and I became fast friends in 10th grade because we wore the same hat and sneakers to school one day. Our friendship continued into college, although Micah pursed a career as a bartender and developed an ever-worsening addiction to cocaine and alcohol.

Anyway, Micah’s dad bought him a music-making program, and now I didn’t need a band. I had one in a box. Pianos, orchestral swells, horn stabs, a drum machine, a synthesizer, a sequencer. I hadn’t even known such wonders existed. And now they were mine. It was like being god.

Micah introduced me at parties as his producer and, thanks to what was likely unmedicated bipolar disorder, I spent 12 and sometimes 16 hours a day hunched over a computer station composing the beats that were to constitute his debut hip-hop album. They were terrible, but I was intensely committed to them. We would soon have an album.

If Micah would only come out of the bathroom. He and our friend Mike spent all night in there snorting cocaine of questionable quality off the back of the toilet. They would emerge periodically to heap praise upon me and offer me cocaine. I’d usually decline. Hypomania makes your thoughts race at a 1,000 miles per hour. Cocaine makes them so fast, you no longer know what you are thinking. It’s just a high-pitched squealing inside your head.

Micah and I eventually had a falling out over a girl and a video tape he swore he’d returned, but the massive late fee on my account said otherwise. I eventually graduated college and became a journalist and later a baker and then a journalist and baker. Micah is currently in prison for manslaughter. That’s a column for another time.

The album never came out.

Bear With Me: The Lonely Death of Influenza A

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on February 19, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

Well we’re almost through February and I’ve managed to not catch the flu.

This is good not only for me but also my wife as I am the whiniest sick person in the history of the world. Even in terms of men being whiny when they are sick, I take the largest participation trophy of all time.

Usually when I’m sick, I beg for death and emit a low whine that can be heard not only by people, but dogs up to eight miles away from my apartment. If your dog seems nervous for a week in December, that’s me.

About three years ago, my friend came to my house with the flu, got me sick, and I missed a week and a half of work. I couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two before I had to drain the ectoplasm-like fluids that built up in my eyes, nose, throat and, for some reason, the bottoms of my feet.

The good news is I finally quit smoking. The moment I was not dead enough to go outside and smoke, there I was, sucking down Pall Mall lights in the cold Colorado rain. I finally decided that was enough. Smoking when you are sick seems like a prime way to usher in a bad case of emphysema, and I’d literally rather be set on fire. It’s a much faster, less painful way to die.

The bad news is that particular plague-like illness made me even more paranoid. I still won’t let my friend touch the ice cube trays. Yes, I’m talking about you, Karen.

I was reading Centers for Disease Control statistics on this year’s flu season, not because I’m particularly interested in statistics, but out of a sense of future nostalgia. I’m sure the president will defund the CDC in the coming months to pay for a private golf course for Nazi youth in need of putting lessons. You know I’m right.

So I’m getting in my CDC time while I still can. I’ll probably watch PBS later today, as well. I recommend you do the same, unless, that is, you like putting lessons for Nazis.

Anyway, I got my first flu shot in quite some time a few months ago. It cost $40 because I’m one of the 27 million or so Americans with no health insurance. Oddly enough, the chain pharmacy advertised them as being free. Silly me for believing a television commercial.

I’d like think that the flu shot is what kept me from getting sick this year, but we all know that’s horse shit. The flu shot is just how they get the microchip inside you. Damn, there goes that paranoia again.

It’s more likely that the deep slush of nervousness and anxiety that permeate my being cause flu viruses to get depressed and kill themselves once they enter my body.

Something like this:

“Hello, I am Influenza Virus A. I’m the destroyer of worlds, conqueror of nasal passages, gunker of eyes! Tremble before me! Know my power! And now I enter into John Bear, freelance writer, smart ass and about to miss two weeks of work! I — Oh my god. This guy is so nervous. How does he even get anything done?! I’m not feeling so well! I can’t go on! Goodbye cruel world! Ahhhhh! ….”

Influenza Virus A leaps to its death from the back of my tonsils.

Bear with me: Camping sucks

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on February 24, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

I was about 12, and my father forced me to go camping in the mountains of New Mexico with my brother and stepmother.

I don’t care for camping, and Colorado is probably wasted on me.

Although I wouldn’t say I’m a room-service type of person, I’ve always felt that mountains should be admired from a safe distance, say 20 miles. Bears live in the mountains. So do mountain lions. It is as it should be. Leave ‘em alone is my motto.

It’s worth noting that my dad began speaking in a southern drawl after he married my stepmom, a west-Texas shit kicker who loved bedazzled sweatshirts, Yanni and menthol 100s. It didn’t seem to matter that he grew up in Kansas and Nebraska. It was like he was suddenly Jeff Bridges in every movie from 2009 and on.

So upon our arrival, my brother and I began to scurry off the gravel road and into the woods as children do, prompting my dad to say this in his best Midland/Odessa affectation:

“You boys don’t go out of my sight now, you hear?”

Sure thing, dad.

We wandered into the woods. For about 30 seconds. Then came the gunfire. Loud, high-caliber gunfire.

We ran back the way we came.

“Oh god,” we screamed in unison. “Please stop shooting! Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot!”

The gunfire continued.

“Please! Stop shooting! Stop shooting!”

We cleared the tree line and arrived at the gravel road. My father was standing there in his green army field jacket. He held his a chrome .38 revolver with the barrel pointed to the sky. Smoke was still billowing out of its snub-nosed barrel. His icy blue eyes dripped fury.

“What did I say about staying in my line of sight,” he asked.

“We’re sorry,” my brother and I sang in a guilty chorus.

Later that night, I was building a campfire in a clearing. I had purchased a WWII-era mess kit and was eager to cook a steak in it over an open fire. I had gathered up small pieces of fallen branches, arranged them in a neat pile and stuffed dry pine needles underneath to provide kindling.

My dad lumbered up with a gallon can of alcohol stove fuel and poured half of it over my as-of-yet unlit camp fire. The odor stung my eyes.

“Light it, but make sure you get down low, boy,” my dad instructed as he dropped a book of matches on the ground in front of me.

I held a match under the camp fuel precipitating from the pine needles. The flames singed my eyebrows, the hair in my nostrils and the nascent mustache on my upper lip.

“Shit, I guess I used too much fuel,” my dad said.

I spent the rest of the weekend rage-chopping a dead cedar tree. Once I cleared the scorched hairs from my nose, the freshly cut wood smelled lovely.

Bear with me: Why I hate advertising

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on March 4, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

It was November 1991. I was 12 years old and a model of the innocent child.

Well, there were a few visits to the principal’s office and that time I pulled out a dummy pineapple-shaped hand grenade in class in fifth grade.

“Allah says it is time for me to enter paradise!” (I had recently watched “To Live and Die in L.A.” late night on my dad’s pirated HBO.)

“Mr. Bear,” my disinterested teach announced. “Put the hand grenade away until recess.”

Can you imagine a time when a kid could flash a dummy hand grenade to class, and the only repercussion was a mild admonition to save it until recess? Nowadays, such childish monkeyshines would bring out a police SWAT team, a school lockdown, robots, a media frenzy, the whole shebang.

What can I say, I loved explosives. In fifth grade, I built a rocket for the science fair. In sixth grade, I made gunpowder out of charcoal briquettes and dog shit. It was a simpler time.

So aside from the occasional bomb threat, I was a poster boy for childhood innocence. That is until the biggest pack of lies to ever curse the United States gurgled up from the bowels of the infernal pit from where all advertising oozes.

I’m talking, of course, of the advertising campaign for the 1991 motion picture “My Girl.”

The trailer promised a fun coming-of-age movie about a cute white girl and, yes, I’m talking about Macaulay Culkin, fresh off his mega star-making role in “Home Alone.” The familiar ascending guitar line from “My Girl” by The Temptations played in the background.

“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day,” David Ruffin sang. “When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.”

“I love The Temptations,” I said to the TV. “And this movie promises a cute coming-of-age story. There are girls on bicycles and it all looks so sunny and bright.”

“Who the hell are you talking to, boy,” inquired my dad, who had affected a west Texas accent when he’d married my stepmother the year before.

“Let’s go see this movie,” I said, pointing to the TV.

“Dear god.”

Fast forward a few days. We stuffed our pockets with sodas and candy, because my cheap ass dad wouldn’t spring for popcorn, and headed to the movie theater at the mall to catch the cute coming-of-age comedy that was “My Girl.”

Except it wasn’t. The entire movie is about death. Death, death and more death. It’s also weird. A weird girl whose weird dad owns a funeral parlor and hires a weird make-up artist. Her friend, played by Culkin, is also weird. He gets murdered by bees at the beginning of the third act. The entire theater was sobbing. Then I started crying. I’m pretty sure my dad was, too.

We left the theater in silence. I’m pretty sure my dad said something along the lines of “Fuck that movie.” At least, for once, he didn’t announce it to the theater, I thought.

My innocence died alongside Macaulay Culkin that day.  Since then, I’ve developed a healthy mistrust of advertising. I’m not sure what happened to the dummy hand grenade. It’s probably for the best.

Bear with me: Mad Max, Foodie Road

Writer’s Note: This first appeared in the no longer extant Colorado Daily on March 11, 2020, but the Corporate Trash that own that paper shut it down with no fanfare. I’m reposting here, so all this work doesn’t suddenly disappear when they take the website down to avoid paying the $12.95 monthly hosting fee.

My name is Max. My world is fire.

And Grubhub.

Once, I was a Lyft driver, a road warrior searching for a righteous way to make ends meet. Now I drive on the Foodie Road now, hoping I make 20 percent.

After the coronavirus killed half of all men, women and children, the cannibal outbreak came. Surprisingly, it was the vegans who developed the strongest taste for human flesh. Though the were terribly weak from anemia, they soon gained strength, and their bloodlust knew no limits.

When the Republican Party nominated a fire-breathing dragon as its candidate for president in 2024, the beast burned and scorched millions more. It was later elected president, because Republicans were still mad about Hilary’s emails, and a significant portion of Democrats stayed home because they couldn’t in good conscience vote for…

Moving right along, the coronavirus wiped most of Congress, except for Mitch McConnell because he has no internal organs. The cannibals ate most of the police. President fire-breathing dragon rolled back environmental protections to the point that breathing without a respirator made a persons believe he or she was impervious to dragon fire.

He or she was not.

Humanity seemed doomed. But saviors arose from the ashes — millennials who worked from home in their jammies. The internet — we call it the Sky Talkie because this is a “Mad Max” riff — still functioned, and they ruled from their futons.

But because they were millennials, they needed to eat and didn’t want to bother leaving the house. That’s when I became a Grubhub driver. My car, the last of the V8s, conveys me through the wasteland of metro Denver. My precious cargo, usually some type of sandwich, chips and a soft drink — or pho — sits beside me. And don’t forget the condiments and plastic silverware. That’s a big part of getting a good tip.

OK, fine, I don’t have a V8. It’s a 2007 Isuzu i290 pick-up truck which is really just a Chevy Colorado. It’s got hail damage and the parking brake doesn’t work very well. But I rolled some concertina wire around the front and chained some vegan cannibals to the hood. I also bought some football pads at Play it Again Sports and picked up a faux leather motorcycle jacket at Hot Topic. Yes, those stores survived the “Pockyclypse.”

Anyway, the truck is very butch, even if I can’t get the “I love my Puggle” bumper sticker off the back window. I drive this white line nightmare like the Humungous. I dodge the flesh-eaters and the rogue cops and gangs ready to wage war over a tank of “gazoline.” (You have to say it the Australian way.)

If the jammy-clad millennials don’t eat, the world doesn’t function. I navigate the insanely long-winded parking signs of Denver and hit the buzzer. She’s wearing a Wu-Tang Clan shirt, although I doubt she has heard the of group. Damn, millennials and their pop-culture references.

“Um, excuse me,” she says. “But there’s no potato salad with my club sandwich.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I’ll have to go back to the restaurant.”

“Yeah, I guess you will,” she says. “The world depends on it.”

She slams the door in my face.

This is no job for a road warrior.