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It’s 2:24 in the morning—PST…Pacific Spanning Time. I’m wide awake in the Larkspur Landing hotel. Sacramento, California.

Buffalo 66 is on HBO, which I count as the sole blessing amidst this cursed confluence of time zone discrepancy and too much scotch.

Scotch? Who drinks scotch, you freakin’ loo’? What are you, 50?

More on that in a bit.

But if I have to be up at this ungodly hour on the wrong side of the continent, at least I have Christina Ricci to keep me company. It’s just to that point in the movie where she does that little tap-dance thing at the bowling alley. Man I freakin’ love that. It’s the perfect scene to coat and soothe this low-end hum that’s clouding my focus. It’s just the right mix of saucy and surreal and sublime, all at once.

Who drinks scotch in the parking lot of a $200 a night hotel in Sacramento? What are you even doing in Sacramento, you freakin’ loo’?

I’m blessed-slash-cursed that my little consulting business allows-slash-requires me to travel all over the crappin’ place on a reasonably regular basis. It’s a blessing, in that I get to see the world (more often than not on the next man’s nickel, which explains the hooty-tooty hotel). It’s often a curse, ’specially when combined with my uncanny knack for sniffing out strange and surreal ways to pass the time, like drinking scotch in the parking lot of swanky hotels with total strangers.

In the calendar year into which we’re about to stick fork, I’ve racked up over 80,000 frequent flyer miles. Spent 71 nights away from home. That’s 10 weeks…14 work-weeks. It’s quite literally an entire Dog Year (a ray-dog year?).

Not to get all Johnny Cash on that ass, but…

Spokane, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego…Salt Lake, Palm Beach, Halifax, Hotlanta…New York, New Orleans, New Brunswick, New Jersey…Carolina, Manhattan, Minnesota, California…

I’ve been freakin’ everywhere, man. That’s barely half the list…and the year’s not even over.

It’s interesting to be in the capitol of California on election’s eve. I’ll miss all the media coverage about Kinky’s noble effort (he ain’t winning…not even placing or showing…sorry…you’ll see tomorrow).

Sac-town is home to Ahh-nuld and an intensely political town, very similar to Austin. “Sucramento” doesn’t suck at all (I just couldn’t pass up the turn of phrase). Tomorrow night, maybe I’ll throw on a tie and crash some stray politico’s victory confab. Why not? Might make for a helluva cocktail party conversation piece. Perhaps not on-par with tearing one’s rotator cuff at Lambeau Field, but you never know. That’s half the adventure of this thing Prince calls life, right? Sometimes you gotta just follow that rabbit into the forest, only to see where he might lead you.

You think we’ve had a crazy political season. There’s crazy-ness afoot in Cali, and Nancy Pelosi ain’t even the half of it, although the more I learn about her, the more I find that Nance is my kind of crazy.

I discovered this and much more over a bottle of red with Lee and Mike, my new best friends. Lee and Mike are a couple of real working men, who travel town to town doing something for the state government that involves highway construction. They were holding court near the ashtray, pounding Marlboros and Johnnie Walker Red…shooting the bull, which ran from politics to Pop Warner and all points in between. And as I stumbled upon them en route to the Safeway, with the specific purposes of procuring smokes and prolonging my dinner wine-buzz…well…everything I needed was right there in the parking lot of the Larkspur. I’d never drank scotch whiskey before, but I do like the song Miss Misery, where Elliott Smith sang about Johnnie Walker Red. So I figured what the heck. This brings us to the present…

In Buffalo 66, Vincent Gallo and Christina are now shoehorned into a photo booth, as he implores her to pretend like they are in love…to pretend like they are spanning time together.

I’ve got a theory about jet lag. It doesn’t so much involve a jet. It’s about time. Spanning time. It’s about how we perceive time vis a vis the clock. Your body is conditioned to get up at a certain time, which for me is usually between 5:00 and 6:00 am. Texas Standard Time, of course. Suck swill in Sacramento with real working men, and then sleep off your buzz, and there ain’t no sleeping in when it’s 3:00 am, because your body thinks it’s right on time. Weird.

In Buffalo, onscreen, Eastern Surreal Time, Vince and Christina are spanning time for real now, no longer pretending. He awkwardly nuzzles her ample bosom, in another of the film’s classic scenes, on the bed of some flea-bag hotel. I have only my keyboard to nuzzle. For what it’s worth, mine is a much nicer room. Wi-fi and mini-bar and down comforter. I surf and browse and drink $4.00 Cokes, pausing only for the requisite, periodic enthralling courtesy of Ms. Ricci.

Oh yes, I have seen this movie before…quite literally and figuratively… the fractured fairy tale playing out on the tube…and the Groundhog Day sense of déjà vu in this very hotel room…wideafreakinwake while the whole building sleeps. Low end hum in my brain.

Vince Gallo is my kind of crazy, too (in this film anyway…some of his later stuff was bunk).  Christina Ricci…well, I think I’ve covered that. Oh man! It’s crazy that I had to fly to Sucramento and stumble into a happenstance Johnnie Walker bender to be reminded. Haven’t seen that film in five years. What a treat.

So what’s the lesson? I dunno. Shiraz + Scotch = low end hum in brain after sleeping off your swerve? Once you pick your poison, don’t mix “bottles of red?” Maybe. Maybe I need to travel less next year. Maybe I shouldn’t drink scotch at all. Maybe I should go buy Buffalo 66 on DVD. Maybe there’s no lesson at all.

66 is now over, and HBO has morphed into Kinsey, a total buzzkill to my Christina Ricci high. Where Buffalo 66 is senual and sexy without being sexual, in all the right ways…Kinsey is clinical and not at all sexy, and over-sexual, in all the wrong ways (ad nauseum…and we’re only at the five minute mark).

At this point in time(spanning), it is an unwelcome jolt. The last thing I need to hear at this hour is Liam Neeson lecturing Timothy Hutton, offering tips on masturbation and mustache grooming.

Ugh!

A good sign it’s time to cut off the TV, step away from the laptop, and go back to sleep.

Or pretend like I’m sleeping…pretend like I am spanning time.

Jason Montemayor is the newest member of the Chillville team. Okay, he’s the only member of the team ‘sides me, but don’t ruin it for him. So here’s the deal…we already have a Jason on staff, the hilarious and fabulously talented Jason Dick of the Morning X. So that gives us one too many Jasons.  Alright, some would say that gives us, ahem, two too many Jasons, but I digress (and I kid).

So in the spirit of cooperation, and in the interest of clarity, we’re renaming Chillville’s Jason to avoid any confusion. As such, I need your help, and I may make it worth your while.

Come up with the new name for the Chillville producer and you could win a big ole stack of Chillville CDs, including discs from .

Already in the cue are:: Jay-Bird, Spike, Spunky, Punky, Webster and others…

Email me your thoughts along with your contact info, which doubles as your contest entry (name, first and last, phone number, date of birth is good)

Originally uploaded by ericuhlir.

Hope over to flickr to see some great pictures of Britt Daniels solo show at the Parish by ericuhler

I’m pretty sure that everyone had written the Horns off this year. Remember back with all the hoopla leading up to the Ohio State game?  Granted, we lost that game. But what about our untested quarterback, with whom we were destined for a 7-4 season, they all said.  With his 3 TDs last night, freshman Colt McCoy set a UT record for touchdown passes in a year, passing Vince Young and Chris Simms (and there are still 2, no 3, no 4 games left in the season). So if we can take care of business against K-State next week, and then the Ags on 11/24, it’ll be off to Arrowhead for a likely rematch with Nebraska. Handing the Huskers two losses in a year (no easy feat) would send us to Tempe, likely the Fiesta or possibly a showdown with the winner of Ohio State/Michigan.

Saw Little Miss Sunshine, which is the drop-dead funniest, laugh-out-loud, piss-your-pants film I’ve seen in ages. That is a really refreshing change of pace from most of the comedies that come down the pike in the realm of independent cinema. For example, I love me some Wes Anderson. I even liked Steve Zissou and the Life Aquatic. Really liked it. But that movie–like so much of today’s indie flick fare–is not really drop-dead hilarious, laugh-out-loud, piss-your-pants funny. Little Miss Sunshine is.