Apparently, I'm a VIB

I have been tagged for the Very Inspiring Blogger award by Carrie Bailey. This has thrown me somewhat because if anything, I'm inspired by her. She's more committed to the craft of writing than anyone I know and goes out of her way to share her enthusiasm in an effort to inspire others to put words on paper. She's a better writer than I am, she's more prolific than I am and she's more than happy to not only support but enable my massive SPAM addiction. She's also a talented artist. Needless to say, I fantasize constantly about running away and marrying her.

This award comes with an obligation to list seven unknown facts about myself. This is also difficult because after over eight uninterrupted years of blogging (nearly 1800 posts), I'm not sure there are seven unknown facts about me. So some of these may be recycled. If you're willing to dig through everything posted here since 2006 for the sake of calling me out on repeating myself, feel free. That would be a well-earned victory. Otherwise, in no particular order...

• It takes a lot to earn my trust and very little to lose it - Yep. Consider it a shortcoming if you like but I rarely get burnt twice.
• I have no patience for self-declared wannabe creatives - "I wish I had the time and the supportive environment and the necessary resources to write". Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Write. Or play your guitar or paint or sculpt or whatever it is you do. Nobody I know has everything lined up perfectly to allow them to be creative whenever they want but they find a way to make it happen. You know who else is busy and/or has serious real-life obligations that they can't ignore? Literally everybody. Don't act like you're the only person who faces obstacles and that it's a crime that the universe is being denied the beauty of your gift because of it. That's lazy and frankly, insulting to those who are able to figure it out somehow. Shut up. You're wasting our time and the time you could be using to do something besides bitch. Writers write. Ultimately, it really is that simple. Shut your time-wasting mouth and start writing. Or just shut up. 

  

  This plant laughs at you and your pathetic excuses.

• I like to work alone - I don't mind collaborating but just about every time I do, there's a point where I get impatient or frustrated and wish I'd done everything myself. At least that way, I have nobody to blame but myself if the results are disappointing. I think I like the idea of working with others more than actually doing it.
• I have a deep-seated fear of running out of things to do - The day there isn't a 'next' pile is the day I don't have a reason to wake up. That's the primary reason I say yes to almost everything and take on more projects than I should.
• I observe holidays and birthdays by myself - I don't have a family or a lot of friends who want me around for special occasions. This used to bother me a lot, to the point of being depressed about it. Somewhere along the line, that stopped being the case. I don't know why but it did. Now it doesn't bother me in the least.
• I am extremely self-conscious - I struggle to the point of being almost incapacitated in situations where attention is focused on me, unless I have a fair amount of control over the situation.
• I don't enjoy SPAM nearly as much as Carrie Bailey thinks I do - I mean, it's not the worst thing I've ever eaten but it's not going to be the first thing I order off the menu, and I do frequent the kind of restaurant that would have SPAM on the menu. I'll go along with just about anything Carrie wants, though.

Well, wasn't that fun? Weeee!

Anyway, another part of this award is recognizing other writers, so here are some people doing strange, beautiful, weird, wonderful things:

• Ronny Elliott
• Molly Field
• Jeff Hickmott
• Erin Kane Spock
• Michael Noble
• and of course, Carrie Bailey

What the F?

The other night, I heard a Hillsborough County (Florida) educator talk about something that nearly blew my mind: they have a grade called a "Passing F". Basically, that means they use a scale of A, B, C, D Passing F and Failing F. He was adamant that this exists but I have been looking for it on Google and can find no official reference to it. I asked a friend of mine who also works for the school system (not as a teacher) who said he'd never heard of it but is aware of a certificate of completion that is sometimes issued in lieu of a letter grade, and maybe that's what it is. They do sound like the same thing: the teacher can't see fit to award a passing a grade and live with themselves afterward but recognize that this is as far as a particular knucklehead is ever going to go and let's move him on down the line already, fer chrissakes. Here ya go, Biff. A Certificate of Completion or Passing F!

"Hey, I see Biff finally passed your class!"
"Not exactly. I just got tired of looking at his dumb face as every chunk of knowledge I tried to impart ricocheted harmlessly off his impenetrably thick skull."
"Well, at least the system works!"

It sure does! Biff's dad then gets him into the University of Florida, he becomes a lawyer, then an elected official who works on education reform and shortly after that, we all starve and/or freeze to death because we're too stupid to deserve anything better.

I would like to have been able to drop the concept of Passing F on my father, though. Hoo boy, that would have been awesome! The resultant devastation to my non-existent social life would have been worth it just to see the expression on his face.

"No dad, it's okay! It's a Passing F! See?"

Dad was much smarter than me, though, and he would have recovered quickly.

"Oh, a Passing F! That's all right then. Consider this a celebratory grounding."
"So, um, we're not going to McDonald's?"

"Guess who got four out of a possible 78, is now eligible for football next semester and can't sit down for a week?"

Speaking of the lotto...

...which we were the other day. Remember?
Yes. Anyway.
I don't play the lotto. I don't have anything against playing. I'm not like those people who say things like, "the jackpot's only $7 million; I'll play when it's worthwhile". Got a clue for you: people who are wealthy enough as to be justified in saying things like "only $7 million" never play the lotto. Or, "why bother; the government takes half your winnings." So, I only get to keep $3.5 million more than I have now? I think I can let that slide. Go ahead, government. Do what you gotta do.
No, for me, I guess it's just one of many, many things I don't get around to.
Well, that, and when I do play, they do this to my tickets...

"Am I winner? I don't really know...KA-CHUNG! Oh wait, there it is. Nope."

Karma hates me, you, almost all of us

Have the good deeds you perform in life paid off in the form of unexpected good fortune lately?
No?
Well, this guy won the lotto recently...

Pictured: a real winner

Hey, it's just pure, dumb luck

Good for him, right?

Plot twist: Timothy Dale Poole is a convicted sex offender!

Gee, I wonder what he'll spend it on? Wait. No, I don't. I immediately rescind that wonder. Please do not visit upon my mind's eye any of the nice things rendered immediately horrifying by the circumstances of this individual case. 

Like a lifetime membership to Disney theme parks.

AUUUUGHHHHH!!!!

Thanks for nothin', Karma. 

Bitch.

What to do, what to do?

This happened on Tuesday...

Hillsborough deputies arrested a man who spotted someone with a gun, followed him into a Walmart, and tackled him. The problem? The man with the gun had a concealed weapons permit, and the man who rushed him didn't call 911 or alert store security.
According to the sheriff's office, Michael Foster, 43, saw Clarence Daniels, 62, in the Walmart parking lot with a gun holstered under his coat.
Foster followed Daniels into the store, put him in a choke-hold and brought him to the ground, the sheriff's office said. He then started yelling that Daniels had a gun.
A struggle ensued, with Daniels yelling that he had a permit. Security detained both men until deputies arrived.
They confirmed Daniels had a permit for the gun, and arrested Foster.
He is charged with one count of battery. - (FOX 13)

..and I'm a little confused.
Following the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre announced that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. Okay. I'm capable of grasping the extremely simplistic "logic" behind that philosophy: good guys = good, bad guys = bad. But it leaves behind what seem to me to be perfectly reasonable questions. Let's assume that Foster thought that Daniels and his gun were up to no good and that he wasn't making some kind of asinine anti-gun statement as suggested by severely paranoid comments like this:

"Now they are outright attacking gun owners. Between this and them calling the police, hoping to get the gun owners shot it seems they are waging war on us." - Eduardo Blanco

"Those idiots on lots of anti gun groups have talked like this for a long time. Never thought one of them would actually do it. Dude is entirely lucky he's alive right now, and only probably because he attacked an old man. What a coward" - David Gullickson

"Florida suffers from too many people from the northeast. They move there and expect everyone there to be programed like them. In Florida you can carry a gun concealed. It doesn't make you a bad guy to be armed and it sure as hell doesn't make you a hero when you stick your nose in someone else' business. Like pretty much everyone else has said, the idiot is luck he isn't dead." - Christopher Kafir

"Great story, I would hire an attorney too and look at increased charges as well. It would have been tough not to pull the trigger on this guy! Now his Dumb ASS would have been shot dead for attaching me..." - Anthony Bagozzi

"Don't attach me, bro!"

So are people with guns the only ones who are capable of sticking their noses in someone else's business determining who the bad guys are? What if you're a good guy and for whatever of thousands of possible reasons, you don't happen to be carrying a gun when you spot somebody who may or may not be planning to do something bad in a store or a school or a movie theater?

If tackles are outlawed, only football teams will have tackles.

If Foster had been legally licensed to carry a firearm and had one on him, would he have been within his rights to draw on Daniels and demand to see his license or otherwise attempt to determine his intentions? Would Daniels, with someone holding him at gunpoint, then have been within his rights to invoke a "stand your ground" defense and open fire on Foster?

"This discount department store ain't big enough for the both of us."

I guess the only question I really need answered is where is the best place to hide (I'd prefer a location that provides cover and concealment, please) while you assholes figure this stuff out?
Thanks.

Outed

I honestly don't know how much of a crossover there is between who reads this blog and who listens to The Spike On The Mic Show, either live or recorded. It might be a lot, it might not be any. At any rate, something came up on last night's (1/19/15) show that I hadn't planned on sharing publicly and for the benefit of those who heard it and are left wondering about it...

I've started doing stand-up comedy.

It's been something I've kept off the radar because I am still very much a novice and need A LOT of work. As with the book and everything else I do or have done, I prefer to have something in working order and with a certain level of polish before springing it on people and this is not quite there yet. It's going pretty well, though. I'm getting LOLZ and I see improvement with each subsequent performance. Established comics with years of experience, especially my pal Tony Gaud, have been very supportive and provided positive feedback. But there remains much more (I can't emphasize that more; Blogger only offers Bold, Italicize and Underline functions for that) to be done. To that end, I'm hitting open mics all over the area, including as far south as Bradenton and Sarasota, every night of the week that I'm not working or otherwise committed. I'm kind of exhausted and am frequently unable to tell which day of the week it is without looking at a calendar (the other day, I was told I look hung over; I took it as a compliment because I wasn't), but hard work is the only way to get good at something. 

So, that's what's happening and now you know.

Pull 'em over

This happened the other day. The truck part is real, the dialogue is made-up...

"Good afternoon, sir. Do you know why I pulled you over?"
"No sir, I honestly don't."
"There's a certain decorative object displayed at the rear of the vehicle, sir."
"Ohhh, my TruckNutz."
"Yes. Your... TruckNutz."
"Yep! Ha ha!"
"Funny! For a minute. Eight years ago."
"Oh. I'm sorry. Are they illegal? I wasn't sure."
"I have no idea. But they are tacky and stupid and for that, I'm issuing you a citation."
"Wait a minute. I think they're funny!"
"No. No, they aren't."
"Humor is subjective."
"Ehhhhh, kinda..."
"Well, what about my first amendment rights? Free speech, free expression or whatever?"
"Really, sir? What is it you're expressing here?"
"Umm, masculinity?"
"Go on."
"That's it. I'm a male and I'm driving a big, masculine truck and I'm proud of my masculinity. That's what I'm expressing."
"If that's the case, then proportionately speaking, shouldn't the faux scrotum, or faux-tum, be much larger?"
"Well..."
"I mean, if we're looking at the scale of things with the size of the vehicle, it's a very, very, very small sack of pretend testicles."
"I guess that's... say, what bureau of law enforcement do you represent anyway?"
"I'm not a police officer. I'm a comedian."

Whom To Hate This Week - pizza delivery guy vs used car dealers edition

The service industry is generally defined as "made up of companies that primarily earn revenue through providing intangible products and services." But as all-encompassing as that sounds, it's still pretty narrow. The fact of the matter is that everybody who deals with customers works in the service industry, which means just everybody. From time to time, those of us who work in the service industry (aka everybody) have unpleasant interactions with customers. Generally, we try to give them the benefit of a doubt. As ill-tempered or downright rude as they might be, on a primal human being level we still want to believe that they're basically good people who maybe aren't sure about what they actually want or need, or that maybe they're having a bad day. We don't want to believe that they're irredeemable assholes by nature, and we certainly don't want to believe that they're amusing themselves or otherwise being gratified by treating us badly. Because that would make them these people...

Yep, that would make them worthless scumbags sitting around a used car dealer's office, harassing a pizza delivery guy, up to and including threatening to get him fired and with physical assault....over $7.

Thankfully, most customers are not these people. These people work for F&R Auto Sales of Westport, Massachusetts (or "Effin Ahhh" if you live nearby). Their address is 1052 State Rd
Westport, MA 02790 and their phone number is (508) 678-3208. Do not call them every 15 minutes and try to order a pizza because after six or seven times, they will threaten to call the cops on you... at least that's what someone told me...someone else, not me...allegedly.

Also, here's what their Yelp page looks like after word of this incident hit the internet:

"Any place that treats another human like they did deserves to go out of business. Period. Secondly, a used car dealership that audio records itself without consent of parties involved is liable for prosecution at least in my state." 

"Treat people who work for a living like utter crap.  The lardass who says "Im gonna have his job" doesnt need the pizza anyway.  Feel bad for the jackle that lets his sweaty behind crawl on top.  Dude is heinous."

"The people that work here disgust me.  Sadly they appear too stupid to realize how ashamed of themselves they should be."

Don't feel bad; it didn't look so hot before:

"If I could rate it a -100 stars I would. LIES, UNPROFESSIONAL, RUDE, CONDESCENDING. Those are just the nicest of the words I can list for these individuals. Really liked the car but dealt with nothing but lies from Chris their dealer to condescending talk from their unprofessional manager who " Ok Kaitlyned" me constantly. I am now looking into the laws because how do they sell a car and now magically don't have a title for me after taking the CASH which I paid for the car with out of my bank account. They are big scammers from lies about fixing things on my car, to breaking things after i paid for them and not taking responsibility in fixing them, to no title. I would google their reviews because you wont see anything but negative comments and NEVER go there if you want a less stressful experience and honest experience."  - March 6, 2013

"Don't EVER come here. They're a bunch of crooks and will do anything to keep your money and not give it back! My bf put a deposit on a car that's he was going to finance (Chris was the "associate" ) ... A few days later my bf dad called and told him he'd buy him a car so we'd have to go get the deposit back. So I called the dealership since my bf was at work and I told them ( Joe, "manager" ) the situation and the he told me he would write us a check and mail it. One week went by and I never received the check so I called him back and he says it got sent to the wrong zip code ( like, HELLO everything should be on file ) so he told me to wait another week so i did, still no check. I called Joe and he said that'd he'd call me back and he NEVER did so I called him for another two days. I told him that I've been waiting for a check for two weeks and he keeps telling me he's going to get back to me and never does so I want the check today, I swore up and down at him and told him that they shouldn't consider themselves a dealership but a bunch of crooks and right then he told me to pick up the check , well that was easy !!!! And when I went there they asked for no ID, no receipt, no nothing !!!! I could've stole my bfs money and it would've been their fault. These jerks don't know what they're doing. They look like thugs and drug dealers dressed up in suits! BEWARE!!!!!" - May 11, 2013

Of course, a lot of people are calling for all these people to be fired, but I'm not sure that's the best solution. Shitty people working for what appears to be a historically shitty company. Seems like it might be a good idea to keep them all exactly where they are forever and ever, having to exist with each other while struggling to eke out meager commissions for the rest of their pitiful lives. That way they're not scattered to the four winds, eventually landing with other companies that they would undoubtedly ruin with their shittiness. I don't know. We can't kill 'em. The next best thing is containing the shittiness as much as possible.

Also, don't feel too bad for the delivery guy, whose name is Jarrid Tansey. He's going to be just fine.

But at least now you know Whom to Hate This Week.

Bit killers

There are people out there who think their mission in life is to make things that are already inherently funny funnier, often doing so by offering far more exposition than necessary.
Those people are wrong.
Those people are what are known as "Bit Killers".
Bit Killers are, maybe not terrible people, but they're at least... misguided. But they are terrible and they do ruin life.
Here's an example of how the terrible Bit Killers ruin life...

My friend Carlos is pretty good at finding funny stuff, like this photo he posted on Facebook recently. He put it out there with a simple caption, because the photo itself is the joke. 20+ people recognized that and expressed their approval by "Liking" it.
That's not enough for the Bit Killer. The Bit Killer can't  resist the siren's call of that blank box at the bottom and is compelled to fill it in with words, meeting the non-existent demand to explain/enhance this joke...

Yes, Bit Killer. Yes they are.
Bit. Killed.
lol indeed.

Why you shouldn't pay attention to what Rush Limbaugh says (hint: he's a stupid person)

Meanwhile, I hear his one-man
show portraying "Gilligan's Island"
Skipper Alan Hale is not
to be missed!

Just in case you were wondering what the smug and braying have to say about possible casting decisions in upcoming action movies, professional bloviator Rush Limbaugh has weighed in emphatically and decisively on who should be the next actor to portray James Bond: not Idris Elba.

“Do you watch Luther?  Luther on Netflix?  I have it, I just didn't watch it.  Here's the thing, though.  James Bond is a fictional character, obviously.  James Bond was invented, created by Ian Fleming, a former spy, MI6, and James Bond is a total concept put together by Ian Fleming.  He was white and Scottish, period.  That is who James Bond is.  But now Sony is suggesting that the next James Bond should be Idris Elba, a black Briton rather than a white from Scotland.  But that's not who James Bond is, and I know it's racist to probably even point this out. But the franchise needs to get with it, right?  The franchise needs to get hip. The franchise needs to get with the 21st century.  That's right. We had 50 years of white Bonds because Bond is white.  Bond was never black.  Ian Fleming never created a black Brit to play James Bond.  The character was always white. He was always Scottish.  He always drank vodka shaken not stirred and all that. Okay, so we're not supposed to have a problem with this.  I mean, it's the movies.  Come on, we've had 50 years of white James Bonds.  We need to spread it out.  We need to be equal.  We need to be fair about this.  Okay, fine, let's play a little game.  (interruption) Jay-Z's favorite drink?  How would I know what Jay-Z's favorite drink is?  Ah, what would that be, Cristal?  Yeah. How about in the movie about the Obamas, 'cause there's gonna be one, how about George Clooney play Obama and Kate Hudson play Michelle (My Belle) Obama?  How would that do?  I mean, if we're gonna do this, let's imagine it.  Nelson Mandela movie, Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela and Nelson Mandela was black.  The movies can do whatever.  Kelsey Grammer as Nelson Mandela.  How about that?  We're just playing here, ladies and gentlemen.”

Aside from being a little overly worked up over a fictional character for a grown man over 60 years old,

Okay, so I had an Indiana Jones fixation...but I was 20!!!

there are other fundamentally stupid things about what he said.

• Yes, Bond was Scottish... when he was portrayed by Scottish actor Sean Connery. He's also been played by actors who were English (Roger Moore), Irish (Pierce Brosnan), and even Australian (George Lazenby). Timothy Dalton was born in Wales, his mom was American and his dad English, so I don't know what that makes him. I guess since he's white, has an accent and played James Bond, he must be Scottish. 
• The difference in terms of what's appropriate in casting George Clooney and Kate Hudson as the Obamas or Kelsey Grammer as Nelson Mandela and Idris Elba as James Bond is that one of those casting decisions involves, again, a fictional character. So, you know, real apples and make-believe oranges.
• However, considering all the white actors portraying Egyptians in Ridley Scott's "Exodus", it wouldn't be the world's biggest shock to see George Clooney and Kate Hudson cast as the Obamas, would it?

"Egyptian, y'all. Right on."

How to win at Christmas Cards

Now that they're completely over, how were your holidays? Did you get lots of gifts? Spend time with loved ones? Get plenty of egg nog and stuffing?
I did exactly not one of those things, but mine were still just terrific, thanks.
One highlight for me was I won at Christmas Cards.
What's that? You didn't know Christmas Cards was a game?
Ha ha ha! How stupid of you.
Everything can be a game. Everything is a game. Scratch that: I meant, everything is a competition. Games are fun. Competition makes people neurotic. That, like most holiday activities, is what happens with Christmas Cards.

Here's how you play (I realize this is being posted too late to help you this year, but just take your handy scissors and clip this out of your internet and keep it on your 'fridge with a festive magnet for next year):

• The object is to Christmas Card as many people as you can before they Christmas Card you.
• You accomplish this by sending someone your Christmas Card close enough to Christmas so that they get it before the holiday but don't have enough time to send one back to you before Christmas is over, thus making them feel terrible inside.
• When the holiday is over, if you've Christmas Carded more than you've been Christmas Carded, (in other words, if more people feel terrible inside than you do) you win!

Here are some tips:

• Don't just send all your cards on Christmas Eve and declare yourself a winner; none of those cards will arrive before Christmas, which isn't fair and therefor don't count.
• Don't send them the week after Thanksgiving either. They'll arrive the first week of December which gives your opponent (aka friend or family member) more than enough time to say, "Ah shit, he sent a card this year. I guess I'll have to stop off at Walgreens again" and get one back to you.
• You'll have pretty good results (aka inflict as much passive aggressive psychological trauma as possible) if you mail on the 20th or 21st, but there are no guarantees. If you really want to win, you have to take a number of factors into account for every opponent (aka Someone you love. Or your mom). How far away do they live? What are the weather conditions between where you live and where they do? Do they live in a small town with once-a-week mail delivery or a big city that has several deliveries a day? Do they live in a European country where shipping holiday greetings via postal service is considered a hate crime? Find out, dumbass! You have to consider all of these things and more if you want to have any hope of salvaging some kind of joy for yourself during the holidays (aka inflicting as much passive aggressive psychological trauma as possible).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS CARDING!

Je suis pas un héros

"It perhaps sounds a bit pompous, but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees." - Stephane Charbonnier


"...it makes you think about how important free speech is and how it absolutely must be defended. [We] cannot back down on free speech in any way." - Tina Fey

"This story really hits home for anyone who, day in and day out, mocks political, social and religious figures. In this country, we just take if for granted that it’s our right to poke fun at the untouchable, or the sacred. But today’s tragedy in Paris reminds us, very viscerally, that it’s a right some people are inexplicably forced to die for." - Conan O'Brien

"I know very few people go into comedy, you know, as an act of courage. Mainly because it shouldn’t have to be that. It shouldn’t be an act of courage. It should be taken as established law." - Jon Stewart

Ask bad questions, expect bad answers

Most of you know that I'm a part-time sportswriters. What you might not know is that I have a generally low opinion of sportswriters as a class of people. There's a variety of reasons for that and maybe I'll write a book some day, but one of the big reasons is that I think many of them are lazy and this is often reflected in the "questions" they ask. The inquiries that begin with...

• "Can you talk about..."
• "Can you take us through..."
• "Can you describe..."
• "How about the..."

Keep in mind that they're inquiring about things they saw with their own eyes, which is probably also the case with most people who will have any interest in reading the story in which the resultant fascinating quotes will appear. So why do they do that? Because of the belief that it makes the story more "real", like by hearing one of the athletes involved tell you about it, you're seeing it from the player's point of view. The problem is that's not what happens, as everyone involved knows it's redundant and silly and the resultant answers end up being not fascinating, but canned, cliched, tedious and sometimes downright surly. I never, ever ask those kinds of "questions", preferring instead to write about what happened instead of relying on a player's quote to illustrate, again, something we all witnessed.
Recently (actually, a few weeks ago, but this happened just before my recent self-imposed hiatus), Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch got in some trouble because he was bombarded with a series of questions like this and was either too bored or irritated to play nice with the gathered sports media...


 Naturally, the gathered sports media got angry. But it's not like they're going to retaliate by asking better questions. So in my opinion, here's how Marshawn Lynch should have responded...

"Marshawn, can you describe the 79-yard touchdown run?"
"Yes. I was given the ball 79 yards away from the goal line and I started running. When I stopped, I was 79 yards away from where I had started running and had scored a touchdown. Our opponents, the Arizona Cardinals, did not want me to run 79 yards and score a touchdown and attempted to tackle me to prevent that from happening. But they were unable to do that."
"How about the stomach issue, early in the game."
"I had a stomach issue early in the game, during which my stomach did not feel well. Then I felt better. If someone had asked early on if I felt well enough to run 79 yards for a touchdown, my answer would have been no. Later in the game, my condition improved enough that I was able to run 79 yards for a touchdown. "
"Can you describe how it feels to score a 79-yard touchdown?"
"Yes. It feels good. It feels better than scoring a 75-yard touchdown, which is three times better than scoring a 25-yard touchdown. Probably not quite as good as scoring an 80-yard touchdown, though. But that's purely speculation as I've never done that. I guess the ultimate would be scoring a 100-yard touchdown because that's the length of an entire football field. I'm sure that feels very good. Some day, if it ever happens, I will tell you, because I know you'll ask about it."

Something tells me that those sportswriters would still be angry, though.

Let's get married!

Everybody, right now! As of tomorrow, January 6th, in the year Two Thousand Fifteen, the last of the silly, mean-spirited bureaucratic obstacles between us and love for one another will have finally been cast aside. Well, it's not entirely a clear path, there is a brand new eentsy speedbump, but we can easily work around that nonsense (read on). The main thing is that now that even Pam "dedicated to protecting the sanctity of as many traditional marriages as anybody could want" Bondi understands what's happening, it's time for each and every one of us to go ahead and get married!

"I no longer have ambiguously tenuous legal grounds to not support this message"

Gay dudes, lesbian chicks, straight folks of either gender. Let's do this!

I think that covers everybody.

Slow down.
I mean, let's you do this. Not me, you goofs. I'm not what you would call "marriage-eligible"*. Although, I do want to be involved, albeit in a very specifically defined role. And in case you haven't figured out where this is going, of course I'm talking about officiating your now-completely legal nuptial ceremony. As an ordained minister, I am ready, willing, able, legally qualified and budget-friendly to make your love official in the Great State of Florida. Not only that, I'm good at it. One wedding, no divorces. Undefeated!!
This might sound like a great, big jokey-joke but it's not. "We thought we were getting married and Clark enlisted us in the Marine Corps." Ha ha ha, right? No! This is totally on the up-and-up.
As stated on this blog previously:

THIS IS NOT A JOKE! As an officially ordained minister, I am qualified to legally marry the living daylights out of you and your spouse. Seriously, I will marry you so hard, you won't walk right for a week.
Wait a minute. We're getting off on a weird tangent here. Let's focus.
The point is if you're straight, gay, lesbian or any other combination I'm not immediately aware of, it doesn't matter. It's all good! I don't care! I can commit weddings of ALL kinds. You find somebody you love who loves you back? Beautiful! We're in business. I'll make sure the necessary paperwork is taken care of and I'll perform the service. I'll even write the vows or incorporate yours into the ceremony, if you're writing your own (which I think you should because that's a really sweet and thoughtful thing to do). And here's what may be the best part: I work cheap! Check it out: All I require is an invitation to your wedding reception, seated at a table with one of the more morally casual bridesmaids.
DISCLAIMER: I reserve the option to NOT do the Electric Slide or the Cupid Shuffle.

Again, THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

Marriage. You. Your man/woman. Me. Your girlfriend from college who's known to sleep around and may or may not have a drinking and/or self-esteem problem. Let's get it done!






* = capable of being loved by another human being

The holiday break is over and so am I

Thanks for indulging the absence of regularly published blog posts over the last couple of weeks. Now that the Holiday Season is over (capped off by what I refer to as "The Annual Meat Grinder", the period starting December 31 and ending a couple days into January where I book myself an insane amount of one-off gigs and bank a bunch of checks), things will return to normal around here, including a genuine, honest-to-goodness, worth-reading blog post that will appear here tomorrow.

Thanks again, and I hope your holidays yielded all the shaved meat and cookies you wanted and more.