Category: 09: Mischief & Mayhem
By admin
And now, a special public service announcement from Mis Amigos Locos:
Please note that some content on this site is now considered ‘private’… That is, certain posts are only visible to the official Amigos (when logged in). As we start getting more traffic on the site, it’s become obvious that certain posts and categories need to be censored from public viewing. If you have any questions on this, just ask Eduardo or Jaime. If you are a contributor to this site, make sure you log in before doing anything here – even reading old posts – because certain things won’t even show up if you don’t. A lot of older entries will be invisible if you aren’t logged in.
To the rest of you, this is why it may occasionally appear that certain posts are missing here. We’ve got them in the system, it’s just that they’re not 100% suitable for public consumption for various reasons. We hope you understand. Pretty much all content from here on out will be public, so this mainly applies to older posts.
Thanks!
By Eduardo
A year after first seing the world through the eyes of a gorilla suit, Jaimenacho and I decided to do it again. Only this time, we wanted to take it up a notch.
Jaime knew of a costume rental place near his apartment that had much better rates than the Humor Shop, so we went over to investigate. They not only had better rates, but a pretty fantastic selection as well.
Building on what we had learned from the first outing, we ended up renting two costumes this time: a scary-looking ape suit, and an unbelievebly stupid-looking duck outfit.
We decided that we’d simply “suit up” and head downtown that evening with a video camera, figuring that we’d probably wind up with some funny footage one way or another. We got Pepe to accompany us, and he manned the camera while Jaime and I cavorted around like idiots.
Later in the evening as things started to wind down, we created a freakish monkey-duck hybrid by putting the ape head on top of Jaime’s duck suit. All in all it was incredibly retarded, but pretty funny as well.
In the right environment, the magic that a monkey and a duck can create together is truly a beautiful beautiful thing.
Click here to watch the video.
(Requires Realplayer and secret password)
By Jaimenacho
The annual summer trip, now going into its sixth year, has always had its share of mischief, and mayhem. Year 2, in Bend, Oregon was not different.
We had read stories about people “borrowing” lawn gnomes, and lawn jockeys from lawns in their cities, and taking them on journeys. The gnomes would go to Europe, on tours of the U.S.A, anywhere really. On these travels the gnome would send back postcards and souvenirs from his adventures. We thought this idea was very funny, and decided to do it as well.
There were problems though.
Redding for some reason doesn’t have a large lawn gnome contingent. For that matter Redding lacks any lawn jockeys as well. We spent weeks prior to our trip, driving the neighborhoods of Redding, looking for something suitable to ‘borrow” and take on vacation with us. No neighborhood was safe. We drove affluent neighborhoods, slums, apartment complexes, and trailer parks. We went everywhere. We’d make notes on items that had promise, in case we couldn’t find a real gnome, or a jockey.
There were things that had potential, like Fern boy. Fern boy was a plant holder shaped like a small child, only minus the head. A huge fern occupied where his head would be. We decided while he was very funny, he was also very large, and would require consistent watering to avoid killing him. There were statues of Buddha, giant frogs, and other assorted oddities. None however had that special something, to make us want to take it on vacation.
Finally, there was a break in the clouds.
The Knolls is a very rich neighborhood in west Redding. The streets are named after different wine varieties, and the houses probably go for about a million dollars apiece.
A large gate protects the community. You have to call someone in order to gain entrance, or just wait, and follow someone else in. Which is what we did. On one of the streets we saw something that would be a perfect addition to our summer trip…Gus.
Gus was not a lawn gnome, or a jockey, he was a, well, Uhm, I’m not sure exactly WHAT he was. He was funny looking though. Gus was a little fat Italian guy with a wine flask, and very laidback look on his face. The people whom he lived with obviously had a very special attachment to him because he had his own pedestal made into the side of the house, with a light. After very minor deliberations, we decided he was the one, and set up a time to liberate him.
One evening Pecos and I went out for a few cocktails, to discuss our plan. Once it was late enough, we left the bar and headed for The Knolls. We decided to go in through the back entrance, which was not gated but required driving through some dirt to get in. Once inside, we went to the house, and went to get our new friend. There was Gus, lit up by a small floodlight, supervising his domain.
Pecos was in the passenger seat, and the obvious choice to physically remove him. I would stay and man the getaway car. We had made a note to leave in his place. The note informed his owners he was going on vacation, and would keep in touch. It also let them know he wouldn’t be harmed.
Pecos jumped out of the car, and ran to go fetch Gus. Gus was a little heavier then Pecos anticipated. When he first removed him from his spot, Pecos almost fell over. It took both hands, and a lot of energy to lug him across the yard and into the car.
“SH*T he’s fu*king HEAVY!!” Pecos said.
“Really?” I said. I figured he’d have been hollow.
The trip was still a few days away, so Gus lived on my back porch and waited.
The day of the trip finally came. I loaded him in the back seat, belted him in. ( I didn’t need him flying through the air in case of an accident) Pecos rode with me until we got to Bend. Once in Bend he switched cars, and I loaded the keg of Beer in with me. It was me, a 100 pound keg of beer in the front, and a 75 pound lawn drunk in the back, going to our cabin at Elk Lake.
The trip was very fun, and we’re pretty sure Gus had a great time as well. We took pictures of him engaged in a variety of activities, just relaxing and enjoying his time off. We sent postcards back to his house, so his family would know he was having a good time, and was thinking of them.
When the time came to leave we loaded him back up, and went home. A week passed and we got the pictures developed (double prints) and made another journey to the Knolls, to take him back. When we returned him we put him back exactly where he had been before with a set of pictures from his trip by his feet.
We didn’t know the people at all, so unfortunately we’ll never know just how they reacted to it. Did they have a sense of humor? Were they pissed? I hope they realized it was all in fun, and we took better care of their stone statue than we did of ourselves. Gus was so much fun that we had planned to liberate him every year, and make it tradition. Sadly, his family never returned him to his perch. We don’t know whether the people moved, or just were so mad they moved him.
We tried the following year to obtain some lawn decorations for our trip, but they just didn’t have the same feel as Gus. So they never got any attention.
I still drive by the same house every year though, looking for Gus, to see if he’s ready for vacation again.
By Eduardo
Another funny, fairly ‘mischievous’ memory I have is of the time when Jaimenacho and I decided to pool our money and rent a gorilla suit.
I had come down from Seattle to Redding for my birthday, and had taken some time off from work – so I was free to relax and take it easy at home for the better part of a week. On one of those days, Jaime and I had been sitting around, talking about life in general and trying to think of what to do that evening.
I can’t remember exactly how or why, but we eventually decided that it would be pretty awesome to rent a gorilla suit. It was one of the few goofy things we’d never done before, and after all – how can you not have fun with a gorilla suit?
We went downtown to the Humor Shop (I thought it used to be called the Humor ‘Shoppe’ – what gives?) , and made the difficult and time-consuming decision of which gorilla suit we were going to rent. Should we pick the black one with the rubber chest and nipples, or the brown one that came with furry feet that covered your shoes? Did we want the screaming King Kong head, or the laughably retarded-looking “confused but angry” one? These were all factors we had not considered… so Jaime and I deliberated over our choice for nearly an hour. Finally, the store was about to close – so we wrapped things up. We ultimately decided on the brown one, because it was more complete and probably looked a little more realistic from a distance.
Several hours later, we all convened at Jaime’s house. He suited up first, and we took off toward downtown. We stopped at 7-11 along the way, and walked around downtown Redding for a while. Jaime is pretty tall to begin with, and in that suit he looked to be about seven feet tall. The people out walking around were pretty leery of him, and walked way around us.
We eventually wound up at the Casino Club, where things got a little more entertaining. We went up to the cheesy dance club they have upstairs there, and Jaime proceeded to get down to the boogie. It was funny, because at first most people just ignored the fact that some dork in a gorilla suit was dancing next to them. The place was full of overdressed jock dudes trying to pick up Redding hoochies, and they were too cool to be fazed by Jaime’s sasquatch freestyle. After a couple of them noticed, however, the girls in the place were drawn to its power. Within a minute, Jaime had several Casino Club hoochies dancing with him. Unfortunately, after about 5 minutes of shakin’ it, Jaime had gotten way too hot inside the suit – and needed a breather. He came back to our table and collapsed.
Oddly enough, local curiosity and occasional political candidate Kip Lee had joined us at our table only a minute or two prior to Jaime’s return from the dance floor. I didn’t know who he was; he was just some weird pudgy guy who wanted to shake all of our hands. He said he was running for president, and that he’d appreciate our support. Most of us just smiled and ignored him. He was mainly interested in speaking to “the man in the gorilla suit”, and kept trying to get Jaime to have a conversation with him. Jaime wouldn’t respond, but Mr. Lee was insistent upon talking with him. He kept bugging him for a while, until Jaime abruptly reached over and started drumming on his belly. I nearly peed.
After a few minutes, I changed into the suit and made my way to the dance floor. By now, most of the amusement had worn off with the people up there, so I just busted a backspin and top rocked a little bit, finishing off with a centipede. When I got up, I realized that I had somehow managed to clear the floor.
The suit was hot inside, and the place itself was pretty warm to begin with. It was like wearing a thick parka while jogging in place inside a sauna. We decided to leave and commit more hi-jinks elsewhere. On our way out, I took the head off so I could breathe easier. We were almost to the car when Kip Lee came running out after us.
“Greetings and salutations from Starfleet Command!” he said, as he stopped before us.
“Huh?”
He said he wanted to talk with us before we left, because he needed our solid support in his bid for the White House. We felt kinda sorry for him, so we politely assured him that he had our support. He then shook our hands and gave us another weird Star Trek salutation, which prompted us to finish getting into the car.
It was getting pretty late, which meant it was time for our other idea. We drove up 299 toward Whiskeytown, and parked in a gully near a particularly lonesome stretch of the highway. There was a decent curve up ahead, and plenty of dense foliage. It was extremely dark, and the setting provided a near-perfect backdrop for what we had planned.
Jaime had gotten back into the suit, and was now crouching in the brush near the side of the road. Pepe, Pecos and I were on the opposite side. As soon as I saw headlights approaching, I gave the alert.
“Get ready…
okay…
NOW!“
Jaime shuffled across the road, much like a real sasquatch would. We had it timed right so that the driver would see him in their hi-beams as he crossed the road. The curve wasn’t sharp enough for there to be any danger, but we were pretty confident that whoever saw Jaime’s furry 7-foot frame sauntering across the highway in the dead of night would be pretty freaked out.
We did this a few more times, and a couple of cars nearly stopped when Jaime reared up menacingly in the glow of their headlights. We were all laughing pretty hard, and he had to dive into the bushes each time to avoid the possibility of getting caught.
We had hoped to see a “Motorists Report Bigfoot Sightings on 299” story in the paper the next day, but it didn’t happen. I guess we’ll just have to try harder next time.
Before we returned the costume the next day, it took a while to clean all the dirt, stickers, and grass out of it. It was a pain, but the evening had been well worth it. Our investment had paid off, and we both felt that our money had been spent wisely.
Redding isn’t boring… you just have to create your own entertainment.
By Eduardo
One of the funniest acts of lighthearted mischief I can remember from recent years was the time Jaimenacho and I attended a Def Leppard concert dressed as mullet-headed Leppard fans. We made mullet wigs from stuff we found at a loal thrift store, and bought a bunch of stoner-like clothing that we changed into. We looked like total white trash.
The whole entire point of the evening had actually been to film footage for a “documentary” of sorts. The plan was that we, as undercover fans, would do what we could to capture the Leppard concert experience through the eyes of the average Trans-Am driving, Marlboro shirt-wearing Def Leppard enthusiast.
We had Jaime’s new video camera and plenty of extra gear, and were ready to go. We weren’t totally sure whether or not we’d be able to smuggle the camera inside, but we were sure going to give it a shot.
As we neared the entrance of the CAL EXPO outdoor stage, it became obvious that the camera thing was not going to happen. We filmed a little bit of stuff outside, but then put it back in the car before going in. We were disappointed, but still determined to have a good time.
Within a few minutes of entering the concert area, we found ourselves in a sea of several hundred sweaty state fair attendees. Everyone was stoked for Leppard on this warm summer evening, and the whole place went wild when the band took the stage. In no time at all, nearly everybody in the crowd was enthusiastically pumping their fists to timeless tunes like “Rock of Ages”, “Photograph”, “Armageddon It”, “Foolin’”, and other radio favorites. Everyone was totally into it, including us.
In fact, Jaime and I were so into it that we started popping and doing some freestyle top rocking. Jaime busted a pretty fresh King Tut, and I did the centipede. Jaime attempted his famous backspin right there on the grass, and at that point we noticed that a small crowd of perplexed Leppard fans had surrounded us. Nobody seemed mad; they were just wondering why two white trash mulletheads were breakdancing at a Def Leppard concert.
From above, it probably looked like that scene in Beat Street where all the people in the club formed a circle around the ensuing breakin’ battle… only with us, we weren’t battling – we were collaborating. Nevertheless, people were laughing and clapping. We were surrounded, and these Leppard fans desired a performance.
We didn’t exactly have all the breakin’ moves down that we would have liked to, so we had to improvise. We continued with some freestyle synchronized popping for a bit, with a little electric boogie mixed in. Then, Jaime started running around and picking up discarded beer cups. He quickly arranged a bunch of them in a triangular pattern, and nobody had any idea what he was doing. He walked about 20 feet away, turned around, and ran as fast as he could toward the cups. The crowd gasped as Jaime, mullet flapping in the wind, suddenly rolled himself into a ball – and knocked over the cups exactly as a bowling ball would. Everybody went crazy with laughter and applause, and I just about wet myself laughing. These words you are reading can’t do that moment justice; it was absolutely brilliant.
We walked away from the crowd, and the circle quickly dissipated. A couple of people gave us money, and some lady came up and gave us her business card. It was totally surreal.
Anyway, after the show was over we decided to grab the camera from the car and interview people as they left the show. We did just that, and it ended up being quite funny. For some reason, maybe because we we had a camera and were interviewing people, a lot of them thought we were the morning show guys from 98 Rock.
We ended up talking to some of the weirdest, most depressingly messed-up people in northern California that night, and we’ve got the video to prove it. We asked them all sorts of questions about the show, and messed with them a little bit. We even asked a couple of people questions in reference to Rick Allen, Def Leppard’s one-armed drummer.
“So you liked the show… But what did you think of those people near the stage calling the drummer ‘Stumpy’?”
“DUDE, I didn’t hear that… That’s hella messed up!”
“Yeah, I think they were escorted out.”
“Good, ‘cuz I woulda kicked some ass if I’da heard that.”
Someday we may edit the footage and put it online to watch, but for now you can check out some stills from it here.
That was definitely one of the funniest evenings I can remember.
By Jaimenacho
In our youth we used to doorbell ditch a lot.
Doorbell ditching was when you went to a house (usually) late at night, rang their doorbell, and ran away as fast as you could. Some people hid to watch the results, most just ran away. To us this was high comedy. I think actually we did it more for the adrenaline rush than anything else.
There was a girl who lived around the corner from me named, Michelle Lasley. She was a little sow. She was mean, and most people took offense to her in some fashion. Her mom was far worse. She would yell at kids, pets, and anything that rubbed her the wrong way. The mom always dressed up as a witch for Halloween. I always wondered if she did it on purpose. I was pretty convinced in my younger days she WAS a real witch. They had this little wire brush looking dog, named Colgate (like the toothpaste). The dog was mean, dirty, and shat itself. There was a point in its life where it lost a limb or two as well. These things combined made doorbell ditching her a high priority. We figured she deserved it.
When we’d go out on an evening of mischief in the manor we always made sure to cap our night off by “Getting a Lazler.” We’d be ready to walk it home, and someone would say.
“Ok, but let’s get a Lazler before we go back.” And we always did.
Some nights we’d “Get a Lazler” more than once, just to be nasty. We’d run off to the sounds of 2 legged Colgate screaming from inside the house.
Paco was there a couple times when we “Got a Lazler”. We weren’t picky. Anyone could enjoy the fun of “Getting a Lazler.” New friends or old.
You didn’t even need to know her to be able to enjoy in the act.
I live in the same neighborhood today. Often times I walk past that house while walking my dog and have to fight the urge to “Get a Lazler” one last time.
