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We were checking out of the hotel at 4 am so I had seven hours to kill, but instead of getting some sleep I watched five consecutive episodes of C.S.I. (the original series). I find C.S.I very comforting: they’ll take the most gruesome crimes and examine the grisliest evidence, but everything makes sense in the end.

Round midnight they started showing this commercial at every break.

The first two times my sleep-deprived brain thought it really was some kind of cleaning product for sports equipment ha ha. Could it clean the fuzz on tennis balls?

They also ran a commercial for the Scream Awards, featuring a tribute to Back to the Future on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.

Michael J. Fox appears in the ad as Marty McFly and I love Michael J. Fox and seeing him upsets me. Yes he’s been so brave about his condition but it feels like someone I grew up with got a raw deal. It’s not right.

Back to the Future has to be one of my all-time favorite movies. It is a nerd classic: the Theory of Relativity as a comedy. I must’ve watched it five or six times at the cinema with my classmates, and every time we saw it we noticed something else to discuss. There are lots of great lines in that movie but my favorite was uttered by Crispin Glover as George McFly when he introduces himself to Marty’s future mother: “I am. . .your density.” Crispin Glover went on to become one of the great Hollywood weirdos.

Then there’s the bit where Marty uses his Walkman to make George believe he’s from outer space. And Marty asking the waiter for a Tab and the clerk saying he has to buy something first. And people laughing at him when he tells them Ronald Reagan is president. And Marty’s future mom thinking his name is Calvin because it’s written on his underwear. And that DeLorean.

I miss our long discussions about how Marty could see himself leaving 1985 as he was returning to 1985.

Overthinkingit has a piece on the physics of Back to the Future.

I wonder if we’re getting the 25th anniversary re-release in local theatres.

* * * * *

As expected, our stats have returned to normal. Theory of Relativity 0, Mostly Naked Jock 1.

On our last afternoon in Guam Nikko (this is the correct spelling, not ‘Nico’), Eugene and I rode the Slingshot.

It is called a slingshot because it works on a similar principle. A spring propulsion device is “pulled” back and then it shoots the capsule into the air at about 160kph.

(That’s Eugene up there with the Slingshot operator because they need two passengers to maintain balance.)

The capsule flies up into the air, it spins,

and then you plummet back down head-first. It’s insane and wonderful! I wanted to ride again but the second ride is ten dollars are they crazy? (The first ride is $20.)

We bought the dvd of our ride for another 20 bucks. I was going to post the audio in which Nikko is having a nervous breakdown and I am laughing nonstop for two minutes like The Joker, but I sound insane and/or like I’m molesting Nikko. How could I molest someone who sings Leona Lewis. (Hi, Eugene and Nikko! Hindi tayo magsa-shopping ngayon.)

I always carry a lightweight folding umbrella in my bag because I have no intention of drowning in a sudden downpour. This particular umbrella I’d had since 2006, when I unintentionally snitched it from my friend’s husband who is now her ex-husband and probably considers it part of their divorce settlement. I had it in my totebag, and when I went through the second X-ray security check at NAIA Terminal 2 the guards confiscated it.

Why, I asked, when it doesn’t have a sharp end that I could stab someone with?

We just got a memo: No umbrellas, they replied.

I thought, Because I might bludgeon someone with a five-inch folded umbrella? Because I might strip the fabric off and skewer people with the prongs? But I know the futility of argument in these cases so I handed it to them and said, Fine, throw it away.

Of course I got caught in the rain coming out of Molly’s Irish pub in Guam.

We wandered into a shoe store and Manila Hilton immediately zeroed in on a pair of black knee-high leather boots. “Don’t you have enough boots?” I asked her.

“They’re not for me,” she said, “you should try them.”

“But. . .but. . .” Okay, I’ve always wanted black knee-high leather boots. I tried them on. They fit perfectly.

“You should buy them,” Manila Hilton said.

“Just what I need for my scary bitch reputation,” I pointed out. “Fascist jackboots.” Oddly this only made them more attractive.

“Go on,” Manila Hilton insisted, drowning out the practical voice in my head that was whining, “They’re expensive, impractical, and when will you ever use them?”

“You travel a lot,” Manila Hilton pointed out, “so you can wear them.”

Suddenly the completely unnecessary purchase seemed like an absolute necessity. “All right,” I said, “but just to be clear, we’re not going to be Thelma and Louise. I have no intention of driving off a cliff, especially with someone with three DUIs. Where does one drive off a cliff in Guam anyway?”

“There are a couple of places,” Manila Hilton replied. “Like Two Lovers Point.”

“Well I’m not doing the kamikaze drive off Two Lovers Point. Also, you’re the one with the future ex-husband, so if we run into the Brad Pitt hitchhiker he’s mine.”

“Deal. Look, killer stiletto boots!”

“No.” Manila Hilton is a bad influence.

The following night I continued my anthropological research into the dives and bars of Guam. My crazy friend brought me to Mac and Marti’s, where a band was playing.

During the very long sound check, I had a pretty good blue cheese burger and the execrable house red (Aged grape juice, but then I am the idiot who ordered wine in this place). I was feeling badass because I was hanging out with an ex-convict. Seriously. Not too long ago my crazy friend had to spend 48 hours in jail for drunk driving, so she would start sentences with, “When I was in jail.” Like, “When I was in jail I had an epiphany.”

She was told to bring appropriate work clothes for community service; naturally she brought beaded dresses and thigh-high boots. Of course these were confiscated and for two days she had to wear the orange prison uniform. From hereon I shall call her Manila Hilton.

She remembered to bring something to read, but her book was in hardcover so that was confiscated, too. I guess a file could be hidden in the spine of the book and smuggled into prison, only by the time she cut through the prison bars her sentence would long be over. Knowing Manila Hilton she would probably smuggle mascara or an eyelash curler.

So her book was confiscated and Manila Hilton needed something to read, right, she’s not my friend for nothing. She went to the prison library and they lent her a book called Royal Baby On The Way. It was about a princess who visits Texas or something, falls in love and gets knocked up by a cowboy. It was atrocious, but Manila Hilton said, “When I was in jail I learned to focus.” You know, she’s going to dine out on her 48-hour incarceration for the rest of her life.

Manila Hilton not only read Royal Baby On The Way, she actually got into it, and when her 48 hours were up she was distressed because she hadn’t finished it.

“Don’t tell me. You stole a romance novel from the prison library.”

“No! When I was in prison I had time to think.” So when she got out she found a copy of Royal Baby On The Way and finished reading it.

“How was it?” I asked.

“It was the real punishment for my DUI (driving under the influence).”

TO BE CONTINUED

Mar-Vic, Gemma and My Giant Head. Look at that forehead, it’s like an airstrip. With lights! I had slept four hours in two days and was running on fumes.

My friend Mar-Vic has been a journalist in the Marianas (Saipan then Guam) for seven years. We used to work together at our late lamented newspaper Today. (Incidentally my Yoda Teddyboy is in New York for a couple of months. If you run into him at a bookstore or restaurant, two places where you are likely to run into him, please tell him to get back to writing. It must be fun yelling at the stupid/obtuse in the House, but we need him to start writing again.)

That’s Mar-Vic in the photo in a raspberry beret, the kind you buy in a second-hand store. Yesterday was her birthday. I went to her birthday dinner at a hotel buffet restaurant. Present was another Today alumnus, Gemma, who also works at a Guam newspaper.

After dinner Mar-Vic gave me a tour of the dive bars of Guam, presumably places frequented by military personnel and derelicts.

First we went to Wild Bill’s, which instantly disappointed me because it is not grotty enough. It is set in a low building, like a trailer, in an open field. The bartender was Pinay. There was a raffle for the benefit of a group that is raising money to go to New Zealand for some ultimate fighting tournament or something. Oddly enough the raffle prizes included cutlery (I suppose knives are always useful, and in a pinch a fork is a weapon) and baking instruments. I kept thinking, “How badass can a dive bar be if the TVs are all tuned to the Food Network?” Do brawls break out over Alton Brown?

Then we went to The Horse and Cow. It is sleazier, but not by much. The music playing was Word Up by Cameo. That’s all one needs to know.

The last stop was the Tower of London, an English pub, where I heard Smashing Pumpkins’s 1979 for the first time since 1997. Suddenly I missed Smashing Pumpkins. I was thinking, “How badass can a pub be if they still display framed wedding portraits of Prince Charles and the Lady Diana?”

Granted, I’d had four hours of sleep in two days and all I wanted to do was fall asleep. The most exciting part of the tour was stopping at a grocery for over-the-counter headache tablets. I love American groceries, even the small ones seem vast and they have so much stuff. Then I went back to my hotel and slept like the dead. It was wonderful.