A tale of the old wild west

The old man sighed as the stranger rode up. "Stay here, Lucy Sue", he said as he picked up the old weathered chest and went outside. The stranger climbed down from his mount, stretched and ambled toward the house.

The old man put the chest down at his feet and said, "what can I do for you, young fella?" The stranger replied, "I'm here for your daughter, old man."
"I've got a right mind to put you in the dirt, boy."
"And why is that, old man?"
"Because I figure you for a slippery black snake and you belong slithering on the ground with the rest of your kind."
"Well, old man, if you'll notice, I am already on the ground. Standing upright on my feet and all but still on the ground just the same, so to speak."
"You have bested me with your logic, stranger. Come and claim your prize." The old man opened the chest with the toe of his boot. The stranger approached slowly, keeping his eyes on the old man as he did, getting within inches before kneeling down. He reached deep into the chest, rummaging with his hand through the contents for several seconds before pulling his hand out and looking at what he had retrieved.
"A whistle! Seriously? I can keep it?"
"It's yours, boy."
The stranger yelled "Yee-haww!!" as he ran back to his horse, jumped on and rode off at a full gallop toward the horizon, happily blowing the whistle as his silhouette shrank and disappeared. The old man sighed as he hefted the old weathered chest and brought it back inside. Lucy Sue would remain a virgin for at least one more day.

I'm not sick anymore...maybe

As promised, here's new material...

I am no longer sick. No, at this point I actually think I died two weeks ago but the drugs I've been ingesting are just so powerful that they won't let me stop moving. Have you ever seen a car so dirty that you weren't sure that if it were washed, there'd be anything there afterward? Like, at some point, it stopped being a car and became dirt in the shape of a car? That's kind of what I am now, drugs roughly in the shape of a human-esque being, walking around and doing stuff.

In the event that theory is incorrect, I guess I'm still sick, but that just doesn't make sense. Because when people get sick, generally they get better or worse and I'm not. I'm the same level of sick I have been for four weeks now. What's your point, influenza?

I've eaten so little (and retained for any length of time, even less) that I should look like an Ethiopian fashion model. The other day, I ate 3/4 of a Lean Cuisine before feeling bloated and saying, "oog, that's enough of that noise". I told my friend about that and she said, "yuck, I'd rather eat the box." I said, "You're missing the point; it's not the quality of the Lean Cuisine, it's the quantity. Under normal circumstances, when I pick up a Lean Cuisine in the store, I can tell by the weight in my hand that it's not going to be enough to fill me up. Normally, I'd be inclined to slap two of them together around a paint stirrer and make a popsicle to eat between meals... and I couldn't finish one! Who does that?!?" Yesterday, I ate two eggs and a piece of ham for breakfast around 10am, had a grilled chicken sandwich and about half an order of fries before deciding that was too much of a chore for lunch around 4pm and a big bowl o' nothin' for din din. And I'm not even hungry.

This is almost as disturbing a development as the failure of my usual "go to" remedy for the flu. Typically, I can count on drinking gallons of orange juice, which is necessary to counteract the taste of Alka-Seltzer Plus, which tastes like ass soda but puts me into the coma I need to sleep the shit out of it. This time, it hasn't worked. Neither has NyQuil or Mucinex or Delsym or all the other stuff I've forgotten. I'm still at exactly the same level of congestion I have been for weeks.

Worst of all is this thing that has been happening where I cough so hard that my windpipe actually seals up and I can't breath for a few seconds. This usually, but not always, happens late at night. The first few times, it really scared me. I'd sit up in bed, gasping for air, flailing my arms, tears running down my face, life flashing before my eyes, all that stuff. Now, it's more of an annoyance. The other day it happened while I was driving and changing the radio station and I didn't stop doing either of those things. Sure, at that moment I was unable to draw oxygen into my body which is a life-threatening problem, but I'll be damned if I'm going out listening to REO Speedwagon.

All of this makes (some) people say to me, "I bet now you wish you'd gotten a flu shot." Oh yeah. Because if I had to do it all over again, I want someone to inject this directly into my body rather than take a chance of dodging it on my own. It's like telling someone who's been hit by a car while trying to cross the street, "I bet now you wish you'd just laid down in the street and let them run over your femurs."

Anyway, now you're all up to date. I'm either already dead or this level of illness is my life now. Actually, I feel pretty good today. I'm even seriously considering eating a meal.

I'm still (still) sick

Remember what I said Wednesday? Same thing today. I'm sincerely sorry. Believe me, I hate it more than you do. Come back on Monday and I promise, I swear, I'll have new fart jokes for you then.
In the mean time, feel free to catch up on the ongoing adventures of The Unbelievables, coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning at Raw Charge and advice on all things writerly at Peevish Penman, all places where I'm not a massive failure at meeting my deadlines...yet. 

I'm (still) sick

I wouldn't have thought this was even possible, but somehow I have been sick for about a month. The year is not even two months old, so I have been sick for more than half of it. All I do is work and then come home, pound various drugs and then go to bed. Ridiculous. Every time I start to feeling better, I relapse. Anyway, it's catching up to me and I'm starting to be unable to fulfill my normal obligations, including to this here blog. So no material from me today. Instead, enjoy this collection of various Harlem Shake videos.

Conveniently open to ridicule

Sometimes, not all the times, just sometimes, when I get done working a late night (such as after a Tampa Bay Lightning home game; did I mention that I cover the team for RawCharge.com?), I like to stop on the way home and get a little snack. I know it's not good to do that, but like I said I don't do it all the time and I just get a little something, like maybe a single donut and a milk, okay? That's it. Geez, get off me.
The place I like to, and by "like to" I mean it's "most convenient for me to", stop is a little convenience store in west Tampa. Not a 7-Eleven or Circle K or even a Racetrac. Nothing so fancy for me. I don't even know what the name of the place is. The only sign I've ever bothered to notice is the one that says "OPEN".
The guy that works the night shift has a nametag on his smock that says "SCOTTY", although I'm positive he's not Scottish or Irish or any other ethnicity that ends in "ish". Scotty hates me. I suspect he hates most people. I don't know why that is. I do know that in my case it's because this happens fairly often...

ME: Let's see what we have to eat tonight...
SCOTTY: (Sigh) Donuts, over here.
ME: I want to see what epicurean delights are available at this establishment.
SCOTTY: Why? You never order!
ME: I might be in the mood for something different; let me just inspect your little carnival of horrors here...
SCOTTY: (Sigh)
ME: What's that? That tub of orange-y brown meat? What's going on there? Do you smear that on bread or put it in a cone or what?
SCOTTY: It's barbecue. For sandwich.
ME: All right. I don't see any buns or bread so I'm assuming the treatment of that is even more horrible than what's in the display case, since you have it hidden. Pass. What's this next to the meat tub?
SCOTTY: Pizza.
ME: Pizza! Really! Well, I had a hunk of cardboard covered in flavorless red goo hidden under a mottled dome of rubber cement for lunch, so...
SCOTTY: Is cheese pizza! No cardboard, no cement! I make fresh! Delicious!
ME: Whoa! What the hell are these?
SCOTTY: Mini tacos. Four for dollar.
ME: They don't look like tacos.
SCOTTY: They are mini tacos.
ME: No, do you want to know what they look like?
SCOTTY: They look like mini tacos.
ME: Nope! They look like the Franklin Mint released a line of precious miniature replicas of celebrity vaginas and you have the whole set but they were damaged in a fire.
SCOTTY: They are mini tacos! Not war chinas!
ME: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What did you say?!?
SCOTTY: Listen to me...!
ME: Wait! That one winked at me!
SCOTTY: What?!?
ME: That one right there! Joy Behar's melted toy war china just winked at me!
SCOTTY: Stop! Stop now!
ME: What can you tell me about these hot dogs?
SCOTTY: They are hot dogs. One niney nine.
ME: They look like they've been twirling around on that contraption since the Bush administration.
SCOTTY: Ha! Which one? [He started saying this with a tone of "GOTCHA!", as if he had defeated me by noting that there was more than one, a tone which very quickly faded as he realized that the most recent was still over four years ago, thus failing to deflect my insinuation that the hot doges were less-than-fresh]
ME: Overruled. Rhetorical.
SCOTTY: ...what?
ME: One donut, please. And a milk.
SCOTTY: (Sigh)

An update (sort of) on the book

Carrie Bailey, the head honcho over at Peevish Penman, tagged me in a Q and A game regarding soon-to-be-published books. Hey, I have one of those! So I answered the questions and here they are...

 Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:



What is the working title of your book? "A Ridiculously Inconsistent Treasury"

Where did the idea come from for the book? One day, a wizened gypsy crone came up to me on the street and said, "You've been producing content free of charge for audiences to enjoy for a number of years now. You should gather what you consider to be the very best of what you've done, put it in a book and make money from it." She walked past me but turned around and said, "Also, your zipper is down and has been all day long." She was right about the zipper thing so I thought she might be on to something with the book idea.

What genre does your book fall under? It's a collection of fiction and non-fiction short essays, so I guess it's an anthology, which is a way more impressive word than it deserves.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I'm afraid I'm the only actor who could play me so we'll stick with that. Other characters could be portrayed by a stable of various age-inappropriate actresses. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Here is a collection of stuff I've written over the last seven years that you could have read for free a week ago.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Self-published, baby. That feeds the punk rock aesthetic I'm striving for so desperately.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Everything has already been published starting back in 2006, but compiling it all, re-reading and re-editing it for the purpose of putting it in a book has taken almost a year.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? While in no way whatsoever comparing myself to these authors, this book... ideally... will resemble "Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations" and "Free Range Chickens" by Simon Rich or anything by David Sedaris. 

Who or what inspired you to write this book? I looked around my apartment one day and decided what I needed was several cartons of unsold merchandise with my name printed on it.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? It will have a "Choose Your Adventure!" feature that allows you to skip around the contents in no particular order, an index that tells you what pages all the dirty words are on and will be useful in the event of an emergency in that it will be extremely flammable.

Here are links to my fellow Peevish Penmates...

Carrie Bailey
Lyssa Proctor
Molly Field
Rob Hines

My winter jacket

It doesn't get that cold in Florida and even when it does it doesn't last very long. Still, you need to own a jacket. I needed one before this winter hit and I've always liked the style of the classic letterman's jacket so I decided to get one. I didn't want one in certain school colors with medals and elaborate embroidery, just a plain black or dark blue one. I don't want to look like the captain of the cross country team, I just wanted to stay warm in a nice looking jacket.
Thing is, even if that's all you want and you want to pick it up and wear it right away, you still have to go to the stores that sell the ones that kids in high school wear. If you've ever thought about doing this, I have one word of advice: DON'T.

First, they're expensive. The ones at the store I went to in south Tampa (the location could be at least part of the reason for the high prices, actually) started at $185 and went up into the $300s. And that's without any stuff on them. That's a lot, isn't it? I don't really know how much good things are supposed to cost but that seems like a lot. I paid less than $100 for the jacket I eventually did get. I don't know how parents are expected to afford stuff like that for their kids.

Secondly, if you're anything like me, you're not going to be comfortable in a store with a bunch of minivan-driving moms escorting packs of JV cheerleaders around.
"Hi. Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm looking for a jacket."
"For a boy or a girl?"
"For me, actually."
"Oh. Hmm. Okay. Well, did you go to one of the schools we have on display here?"
"No, I'm not looking to represent a school. Maybe just plain black, like the socks I prefer to leave on when I'm having sex?"

Anyway, as is so often the case, there are some sweet deals (and actually, considerably less weirdness) to be found by shopping on line.

White People Problems: Extreme Edition

One day last week, I found myself not-that-hungry at lunch so I walked to the nearby Starbucks, figuring they had muffins and such. When I got there, I saw that they offered bagels. Perfect! "Can I assume you have cream cheese?", I asked the barista. "Yes sir", she replied. I ordered one, toasted, with cream cheese, to go and took it back to my work. When I got back to my desk, I opened the bag and found my bagel and a plastic tub with cream cheese in it. I immediately became furious. Well, not immediately; it started as mere disappointment but it heated up real quick.  "Are you kidding me? Oh yeah, Starbucks. I really want to put the cream cheese on it myself. You charge people $9 for a cup of coffee but you can't afford to pay someone to put cream cheese on a bagel? No, instead you stick this individual serving size tub in the bag and wait for me to be two blocks away when I find out I have to do it myself? Bullshit!" In quick succession, all kinds of awful ideas went through my head; I'd tweet about it, put it on my blog, call her manager, send feedback to their web site, dozens of of other things I could do to just utterly ruin this lazy, incompetent, good-for-nothing, piece of... WHOA!
I don't know how or why but I caught myself. I looked down at what had me so upset. There was a nice, fresh bagel, perfectly toasted, already cut in half, with a portion of cream cheese and a plastic knife to apply it. Basically, it was exactly what I had asked for, minus the assumption that the barista would put the cream cheese on it for me, an inconvenience that required slightly more effort on my part than spelling the word "inconvenience" correctly. And because of that, I was not only willing to spoil my lunch break but also waste a good part of my afternoon in the hopes of making somebody miserable, making that person suffer, somebody just doing their job. Jesus! What the hell is wrong with me? I'm out of my mind! I'm a monster! I calmed down and ate my bagel and looked at videos on YouTube (a common lunch activity), including this one...

A squirrel tale

The other day I was walking down the street on Davis Island, a suburban neighborhood just southwest of downtown Tampa. I passed a house where a man was working with his two young sons in a flowerbed beneath the house's front window. On the other side of the sidewalk, at the base of a tree, there was a squirrel writhing on the sidewalk. At first glance it looked like it was trying to scratch it's own back by squirming around on the concrete but the spastic movement indicated that something else was going on. It was kind of doing the "Ook! Agg! Ick!" thing Bugs Bunny does sometimes. I kept going because, well, I don't know what good I could do by stopping. I love animals and there are very few things I hate more than seeing one of them suffer, but... I don't mean to play situational ethics here... it was a squirrel. I don't mean "just a squirrel", minimizing it's existence because there are billions of them. I mean, it was a squirrel, in that squirrels are kind of crazy all the time; for all I knew, maybe he was, or would be, fine. And they are rodents that carry disease; it's not like I'd be doing anybody any good if some addled-out-of-it's-mind-by-rabies-or-some-other-plague-inducing-disease-but-otherwise-perfectly-fine squirrel bit my hand and then ran off as I was attempting to render aid. I thought about saying something to the dad.

"Hey, your squirrel here is messed up."
"What are you telling me for? It's not my squirrel."
"It's in your yard. I'd say that makes it your problem."

It made me sad but I kept on going, figuring an argument over a dying squirrel wouldn't make me feel better, hoping it would be okay, knowing it probably wouldn't be and looking for something to distract me from thinking about it too much. I heard the dad behind me telling his boys to hurry up and gather their tools and go inside. The next thing I heard was a loud metallic SCHUNK! I turned around and saw the dad holding a small shovel with a sickened look on his face standing over a now-beheaded crazy squirrel. He had apparently seen the squirrel the same time I did, assessed the situation and hustled his kids out of there.

"What did you do?", I asked as I headed back toward him. "What did you do?!?"
"I--I killed it", he said. "I had to. What was I supposed to do? I have kids!" He was obviously traumatized. "It was--there was something wrong with it."
"I know. I saw it. I almost said something to you."
"Why? Why would you expect me to do something about it? It's not my squirrel!"
"That's why I didn't say anything."
"Yeah, well, I did something about it."
"You sure did. Probably for the best, I guess."
"You gotta help me!"
"Me? No!"
"Come on, man. My kids are going to look out the window or come back out here any minute. You have kids, don't you?"
"No, no I don't. It's not the only reason, but a big part of that decision was not wanting to explain to kids how God needs animals to die and how sometimes He needs mom and dad to chop their heads off with a shovel because He can't be bothered with dirty work."
"Please? Help me!"
"Damn it! Fine. Give me the shovel."

He handed it over, "Here!" and ran into his house.
I carried the shovel with the beheaded squirrel gently back to my truck, laid it down in the cargo bed and drove slowly off. I had no idea what to do. Could I just dump it in one of the guy's neighbor's garbage cans? No. It would be just my luck that I'd get caught doing that and the people who live there would belong to an obscure minority group that worships squirrels and I'd be guilty of a hate crime. Could I leave it in a field and let turkey buzzards or some other carrion eaters find it and take care of it? No; although that would be nature at work, it still seemed cruel. Not that I'll have a reason to care or a say in the matter, but I'd like to hope that when I die, people don't just leave me in a field, although having actually written it out now, it really doesn't sound that bad.
Anyway, after driving around Davis Island for 15 or 20 minutes, I was getting more and more depressed by the situation when I saw a small wooded area just off the street. I pulled over and parked, figuring this was an easy and obvious solution; bury it in the woods. It seemed poetically appropriate, in fact. 
I got out and went to the back of the truck... and the squirrel was gone. The shovel was there, still with some squirrel blood on it, but neither part of the bifurcated rodent was anywhere to be seen. The bed was otherwise empty but I looked around in case the body parts had fallen off the shovel and slid around when I'd hit a bump or taken a curve. Nothing. No squirrel anywhere. I guess this is the end of the story because I have no idea what happened. There are really only two possible answers:

1. The squirrel was still alive somehow and he picked up his head and hauled ass.
2. A turkey buzzard or some other carrion eater swooped down and snatched the squirrel out of my truck when I was at a stop sign.

Either way, I guess the moral is don't screw around with the wildlife on Davis Island.

My (last) year of living relevantly

Today is my birthday and I am turning 49 years old.
Oh thanks, but this is kind of frightening. Not because of any fear of mortality, of hurtling off into the all-encompassing void of the unknown. Yawn. No, the significance of beginning my 49th year  means today I am entering the last year of my life when what I do and think matters. I'm not talking about in life out in the world, like interacting with friends and family or being a productive part of society, operating under the philosophy that my actions directly affect others and that I should always try to remain conscious of that fact, and if I can't do good, I should at least do no harm. Who cares about that shit? I'm talking about something important. Specifically, as a white man, this is my last year as part of the most powerful group on earth...

"A18-49" or Adults 18-49 Ratings - this is the advertising demographic advertisers are usually most interested in. It's the important number in terms of how well a prime-time television show is doing. Total viewers (P2+ above) don't really make a difference.

Next year, year 50, I'll just be a part of "Total viewers". I won't make a difference. Meaningless. Pointless. Irrelevant. I'll be invisible in the eyes of those who matter. Cripes, for all intents and purposes, to those in positions of power I might as well be a black woman.

Wishful thinking, white boy.

From that point on, if I buy an iPad or a laser toaster or some kind of phone with 13 sharp, whirling blades (Why would a phone need any sharp, whirling blades? Because The Future!) or whatever gimmick is popular then, I won't be a trendsetter, I'll be an old person with something that's basically wasted on the likes of me. At best I'll be one of those senior citizens who seems a tad more tolerable adorable because I'll be participating in a trend. "Oh look, grandpa is on the internet! Isn't that cute? It's like watching an old bald monkey play with a keyboard as though it knows what it's doing. Hurry up and get off, pops; I need to download a PBR." In other words, if I'm lucky, I'll be held in the same regard as rappin' grannies.

Me, in a year, God willing.

Needless to say, this is a sobering thought. Nobody wants to be relegated to fringe status, but I have no say in the matter. If there's one thing you can say about the inevitable, it's that it's unavoidable. With that in mind, all I can do is look back at my own personal history as a person of influence when it came to setting trends and try to make this year really count...

• Video games - Yes!
• Video arcades - YES!!
• Home video game systems better than any arcade - OH HELL YES!!
• The British Invasion (U2, Duran Duran, Culture Club, A-Ha, etc) - Eh. Not really. Some good songs, sure. But as a movement? Overrated.
• Rap music/Hip-Hop culture - I've bought albums by Run DMC, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy over the years, but that's about it. I also bought the Tone Loc album.
• The Minneapolis Sound (Prince, The Time, Sheila E., Jimmy Jam & Tery Lewis, etc) - Yep, now we're talkin'!
• Swatch Watches - Nope.
• Apple Computers - My first computer!
• Rubik's Cube - Had one, couldn't do it, lost interest.
• Guys with one earring - Nope.
• Neon (clothings, bracelets, signs, etc.) - Nope.
• Spandex - Definitely not.
• Mullets and Rat tails (long strip of hair in back of neck) - Double definitely not.
• Ripped jeans - As a mishap, yes; as a fashion statement, no.
• Big Hair with lots of hairspray - Big fan (when it comes to girls) but not a participant.
• Lace fingerless gloves (like Madonna wore) - See above.
• Miami Vice Fashion - Nope.
• Trivial Pursuit - Yep.
• Ray-Ban sunglasses - Not a slave to brand loyalty but I do like the Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
• Sony Walkman - The greatest invention until the iPod.
• "Members Only" jackets - Nope.
• New Wave music - A little bit. Some of it. Ok, a lot of it. All right, most of it.
• Pee Wee Herman - Yep.
• Grunge music and fashion - I like some Nirvana and Pearl Jam but have never owned a flannel shirt.
• iPods - The greatest invention since the Sony Walkman.
• American Idol - Never.
• Blogging - Duh.
• Reality TV Shows - Nope.
• Energy Drinks (Red Bull, Full Throttle, Monster Energy, etc.) - Nope.
• Cigars - Nope.
• Ed Hardy fashion - Nope.
• Tattoos - Nope.
• Texas hold 'em Poker - Yep.
• Old dudes with greasy, yellow ponytails - Nope.
• Text messaging - Yep. Reluctantly.
• Hipsters with their stupid little fedora hats and shit - Nope.

You're welcome or I'm sorry

Huh. Looks like I've never really had that much of an influence. So all along, even at the height of my decision-deciding power, I had already relegated myself to the margins for the most part. I guess there's nothing to worry about after all. As usual.

It's better to be angry than ill

For the second time in about six weeks, I'm sick. Under normal circumstances, I'm a get-really-sick-once-a-year person, but I don't work under normal circumstances. I work in a sports arena where a couple of times a week, I might be sharing space with up to 20,000 people. That means it's one of those places, along with movie theatres, airports and shopping malls, where the air is circulated and recycled among a lot of people in a relatively small, confined space. That means it takes a long time for whatever bug is fouling up people's systems to wear itself out and actually leave the building. I'm sure that whatever I have now is some not-so-distant cousin to whatever I had a couple of weeks ago.
I ache to the extent that the act of putting on shoes and socks leaves me feeling like I've spent all day horseback riding. My nose explodes several times a day, spackling my surroundings in toxic effluviam. I've ingested so much cough medicine that Robitussin could qualify as a food group. I'm aware how annoying that is and I'm sincerely sorry. If it's any comfort, please know that I'm enjoying none of it.
I'm also aware that one of the most annoying aspects is how whiny it sounds when people talk about being sick, which is kind of ironic. There's considerably more gravitas when somebody says they're sick and tired of something that pisses them off than when somebody actually is sick and tired.

WHEN YOU SAY: "I'm sick and tired, meaning microbes and viruses and stuff are wreaking havoc inside of my body and trying to make me die."

PEOPLE AROUND YOU RESPOND: "Oh, shut up you big baby."

but...

WHEN YOU SAY: "I'm sick and tired of something the government is or is not doing right now, meaning the extent to which I'm willing to take action is announce that it makes me angry!"

PEOPLE AROUND YOU RESPOND: "Ain't that the truth, brother!"

See? People may not like you when you're angry. But they could care less about you when you're sick.

Table conversation

One of the many benefits of the "Me, me, me, I'm the center of my own personal universe and the star of a whole network worth of reality shows" culture we live in is that sometimes the things that people overshare are kind of funny. Okay, that's one of a very few benefits. All right, it's the only thing even remotely resembling the slightest semblance of anything beneficial. But still, this conversation, regarding a family's elderly relative holding rehearsals for his impending funeral to see (I guess) how they would conduct themselves, happened in a booth right behind me the other night when I was eating dinner at Sweet Tomatoes...

LOUD WOMAN: "You could have at least tried to take it seriously."
LOUD MAN: "How? He was sitting right there, looking at me. I swear to God, if they have him propped up in a chair staring at me during the real thing, I'm going to react exactly the same way."
LOUD WOMAN: "Was he supposed to lay down right there in the middle of the lobby?"
LOUD MAN: "Yeah, why was it in the lobby anyway? Even if the funeral is held at a La Quinta, shouldn't somebody book a banquet room or something? I don't think some family from Ohio needs to listen to a eulogy while perusing brochures from Dinosaur World."
LOUD WOMAN: "He stayed in that hotel last night and had already checked out."
LOUD MAN: "If he'd already checked out..."
LOUD WOMAN: "Stop right there!"
LOUD MAN: "All I know is I have never heard of anybody having a funeral rehearsal, and certainly not traveling around the country for a whole bunch of 'em. How many of these is he doing anyway?"
LOUD WOMAN: "We have family all over."
LOUD MAN: "The Rolling Stones aren't visiting as many cities as he is."
LOUD WOMAN: "All right, that's enough. Your behavior is unbelievable."
LOUD MAN: "I just think it's weird. You don't? Tell me it isn't weird."
LOUD WOMAN: "You're disrespectful. You owe him an apology."
LOUD MAN: "I'm not apologizing. He can haunt me."
LOUD WOMAN: "You know, he said we were by far the worst. And he saw Paula and Todd yesterday!"
LOUD MAN: "So?"
LOUD WOMAN: "Oh Mike, they live in Bradenton for God's sake! We probably won't even be invited to the funeral now."
LOUD MAN: "Ha! Try and stop me from going!"
LOUD WOMAN: "Oh, so having to do this today was weird for you but you're looking forward to the actual funeral? That's sick."
LOUD MAN: "What's sick is wanting to see how sad someone can be when you're pretending to be dead. Maybe not as sick as having to pretend that you're happy they're still alive, but what's really sick is pulling the kids out of school for the day to participate in this madness."
LOUD WOMAN: "The kids are fine. They've handled it a lot more maturely than you."
LOUD MAN: "You say that now but I guarantee at least one of them gets a fucked-up haircut and develops an unhealthy obsession with Tim Burton movies."

The (possibly short-lived) return of fancy cable!

About a year ago, I ditched my fancy cable in favor of sub-basic cable. No more AMC, no more Comedy Central, no more ESPN. As it turned out, no big deal; I didn't turn the tv on as often as I'd used to but I also found, somewhat to my suprise, that I didn't miss it that much.
Last week, a salesperson from the cable company called and offered to set me up with the full assortment of cable channels again, free for a month on a trial basis and if I decided to keep it, it would be cheaper than what I was paying before. With absolutely nothing to lose, I said sure.
After a week of having fancy cable again, here are my observations:

• I was kind of over ESPN a year ago, with what seems to me a greater focus on their part to establish themselves as a brand, rather than a provider of worthwhile content. Their on-air talent was going out of their way to establish themselves as personalities with quirky traits and catchphrases and they flat-out neglected sports and leagues that they didn't have contracts to broadcast, specifically NHL hockey. Would things be different now? Well, my first glance upon getting ESPN back showed Stuart Scott presenting an NBA update in spoken-word poetry. I didn't stick around for a second glance. 
• There are an awful lot of "Family Guy"-style animated series. Emphasis on awful.
• The other night, I was on the couch watching something and eating dinner. A commercial came on with someone I know in it. Not a celebrity I recognized but a regular joe that I actually work with and see every day, suddenly appearing with his face and voice in my home, under less-than-ideal circumstances for me to welcome company. I mean, he wasn't actually there, but slumped on your couch, pantsless, snarfing down a Lean Cuisine with your fingers (I couldn't find a fork or spoon, okay? All right, I knew where the forks and spoons were but they were all the way out in the kitchen and I had already taken off my pants and sat down and everything.) waiting for "30Rock" to start isn't when you want to hear Matt from work just start talking to you out of nowhere, you know?

Fun with mising letters

I'll visit the donut section but otherwise, I'm really not that hungry. 

Your horse might not be as high as you think it is

I was just wondering how many people saw this story that ran in USA Today and on NBC news about the restaurant server who stood up on behalf of a kid with Down syndrome. It's a great story, the kind that lets us feel a little bit better about the world we live in by illustrating the fact that there are still people willing to take a stand that may be uncomfortable or unpleasant. In this case, the guy put his job at risk by confronting a patron. Then we draw even more satisfaction when we find out that not only didn't he get fired but that his employer fully supported him and what he did. It's the kind of story we enjoy inserting ourselves into, indulging in a little self-congratulatory roleplay;

"If that was me, I'd have done the same thing, except I would have scissor-kicked that intolerant son of a bitch and his whole family into the salad bar and dared them to say something. 'What? You didn't want to sit by the adorable kid with Down syndrome, right? Well, consider yourselves relocated, bitch!' Then the manager would have given me a high five while all my co-workers and the other diners responded with a standing ovation. God damn it, I sure am a good person!"

What I wonder specifically is how many of the people who have a reaction like that to this story are finding great joy in making fun of Manti Te'o and that whole situation. You know, the Notre Dame linebacker who was apparently duped into thinking he was involved in a long distance relationship over a number of years with a woman he was led to believe suffered a severe traffic accident and then later died of leukemia, a woman who, as it turns out, never existed. If you're one of them, how do you rationalize that? Is it because he's a big strong football player, playing for a high profile NCAA program, which makes him a celebrity, who is still going to be among the first 10 players selected in this spring's NFL draft? Do you figure that certain people, because of their status, simply can't qualify as a victim of bullying? I guess I can see that. Heck, even pro sports teams are jumping in with both feet. What fun, getting an entire arena full of people (well, in the case of the Cleveland Cavaliers, "full" is a relative term) to participate in the ongoing humiliation of an individual! A whole bunch of people ganging up on one? How would that ever qualify as bullying? Never mind that in spite of whatever else he is, he might also be a naive college kid who was scammed, humiliated and who lied to lessen his embarrassment over the whole thing. Even if he was more complicit than that in the whole thing, he still didn't commit a crime or harm anybody else in any way. If you're willing to ignore all of that plus the fact that at the very least, it's a human being going through something that any one of us would consider an absolute nightmare even if nobody knew about it, well, what a chump, right?
Before you get the impression that this is some whiny, Chris Crocker-esque appeal to "leave the poor celebrities alone!", it really isn't. Hey, he is a public figure who is involved in some strange behavior. It's the kind of situation that organically invites scrutiny and ridicule. And if that's what amuses you, hey, have at it. I'm just here to point out that you may not be the enlightened, champion-of the-underdog that you hope other people see you as, just because the waiter story gave you a lump in your throat. While you may be able to speak out of both sides of your mouth, you only have one head, which means you can only wear one hat and the white one might not be the best fit. You should own it, whatever "it" is, that's all.
This is why, with all due respect to Dan Savage, it doesn't necessarily get better. It CAN get better. It MIGHT get better. It SHOULD get better. But there are no guarantees. Kids who are bullies frequently grow up to be adults who are bullies. They may narrow their focus, rationalize their behavior and be slightly more subtle in their actions, but these assholes don't simply cease to exist because they suddenly develop empathy on some certain birthday (and if you're a young person currently on the receiving end of bullying behavior, you need to be aware of this or else, trust me, it probably will not get better). The same thing applies to the people who allow bullies to get away with their behavior. They don't necessarily get better either.
See, here's the thing; posting quotes from the Dalai Lama on your Facebook page while you treat people like shit doesn't impress anybody but you. Same with all the sudden civil rights awareness people displayed for all of 24 hours on Martin Luther King Day earlier this week; quoting Medgar Evers was the equivalent of the "Kiss me, I'm Irish" shirt you wear on St. Patrick's Day or the sombrero you put on for Cinco de Mayo. 
The fact of the matter is that with very few notable exceptions, most of us spend our days floating around in the gray area that exists between Saint and Scumbag; trying not to harm others as long as that doesn't get in the way of doing what we really want. Which is fine! Most of the time, that's good enough. My problem isn't with those people; it's with you high-minded frontrunners. And it's you people who just need to know that if you're a bottom feeder rummaging around down there in the muck most of the time, the occasional flamboyant outburst designed to present yourself as something else isn't fooling anyone, except maybe you.

Rest In Peace, Earl Weaver

In one of those Forrest Gump-ian twists that pop up in my life from time to time, I once got to spend a day with legendary former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who passed away Saturday at the age of 82. Earl was the standard by which all other managers are measured when it comes to getting thrown out of games. Even if you don't follow baseball, you've probably seen him lose it with an umpire... and he hasn't been active with Major League Baseball since 1989. More than just some guy who was angry all the time (in baseball, we call that "having the red ass"), he was wildly successful, winning the World Series in 1970 and the American League pennant in 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1979. In 17 years, he had one losing season.
Back in 2000, the (then Devil) Rays had a promotion where they brought some old-timers to Tropicana Field for a day. Dom DiMaggio (brother of Joe), Rich "Goose" Gossage, Frank Howard, Frank Robinson, Bobby Thigpen and Earl Weaver. Each of them was assigned a team staff member to escort them around the ballpark and to attend to their needs. Meet them at the gate, get them to the executive dining room for lunch, down to the field for pre-game festivities, to a table to sign autographs during the game, etc. I was chosen to help out with this and was assigned to Earl. The man I met was very friendly and extremely humble. He had stopped following baseball after his retirement and didn't even know that Tampa Bay played in the American League. Since he wasn't up to speed on baseball current events, he was really afraid of some fan putting him on the spot and asking him a question he couldn't answer and asked me to look out for that for him. Happily, everybody he encountered wanted to talk about his time with the Orioles, and dealing with Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Al Bumbry, Ken Singleton, Brooks Robinson and Bobby Grich, and facing down the Miracle Mets, the Big Red Machine and the "We Are Family" Pittsburgh Pirates, subjects on which he more than held his own.


Frank Robinson, Bobby Thigpen, Dom DiMaggio,
Earl Weaver and Rich Gossage at Tropicana Field.

 During a private lunch prior to the game, he, DiMaggio, Gossage, and Thigpen bantered back and forth, telling great stories from their days in baseball. It was a fantastic experience and I spent the whole time being entertained and wondering how I'd been so lucky to be a present for it.
Once all the festivities were over, I drove him from the ballpark to the airport in Tampa. The team had supplied him with a vintage Baltimore Orioles jersey with his name and number to wear during the day. On the drive across the bay, he said, "I have all the souvenirs I need at home. Do you want this jersey?". What do you think my answer was?

Thanks Earl, for one of the greatest days I ever had.

This could have happened

The other day I was at the grocery store, picking up some assorted items. I had finished shopping and had unloaded all the groceries into my truck and was pushing my now-empty cart towards a nearby cart corral. An elderly black woman on her way into the store smiled and said, "I'll take that." I smiled back, passed the cart off to her and she went inside. As she walked away, I had one thought; she's lucky I didn't shoot her.
Seriously, I could have invoked Florida Statute  776.013, known commonly as the "Stand Your Ground" rule and blasted her into oblivion.
First of all, she was black. I mean, I haven't actually read the statute, but that's more than half of it, right? It's just another way for white people to shoot black people, isn't it?
Also, she threatened me. "I'll take that." She declared an intention to take something away from me, never mind that it was something that didn't belong to me and that I was finished with anyway. What matters is I had every right to pull out a gun and open fire on that nice old lady right there in the Sweetbay parking lot, blasting away at someone's mom and grandmother until the gun was empty, reloading and firing a few more shots into her lifeless body just to make sure I was absolutely safe from this woman who was probably on her way inside to get stuff to make cookies, but I didn't.
Oh well.
Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Day, everyone! 

Present-day retro crush

Recently, through the wonderful world of Netflix (and I say that with zero sarcasm whatsoever), I have been catching up on old tv shows and movies I missed when they were in standard circulation. Apparently, this activity is trending. One of those shows is "Freaks and Geeks", a comedy with some dramatic undertones that ran for all of 18 episodes between 1999 and 2000. Created by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, it's one of those shows (right up there with "Arrested Development") that received all kinds of critical acclaim but never really got the commercial success it needed to survive and was cancelled before its time. 

It takes place in Michigan during the early '80s and centers on the struggles of two disparate groups of high school students. I also took place in Michigan during the early '80s where I was a struggling, disparate high school student, so I feel like there's an organic connection between me and this show. I was talking about it recently with a friend of mine (the same one who wouldn't eat the pickles at Jimbo's)...

ME: The lead character is played by an actor named Linda Cardellini and I think I have a crush on her.
FRIEND: This is a high school girl?
ME: The character is. Or rather, was. The show has been off the air for over ten years now.
FRIEND: Yeah, but you have a crush on her from this show?
ME: Yeah.
FRIEND: Okay, first things first, this is the kind of thing you should only talk about with me or some other close friend or maybe a therapist. It's absolutely not the kind of thing you should be putting out for public consumption via the blog. That's a bad idea. Do you understand?
ME: Yep. Absolutely.
FRIEND: Secondly, I don't think you should watch that show any more.
ME: Why not?
FRIEND: Because it's creepy and inappropriate for you to have a crush on some girl in high school!
ME: I feel like you're missing the part about her being an actor, not a high school student.
FRIEND: An actor you developed a crush on as she was playing the role of a girl in high school.
ME: Yeah, but she's not in high school now! She wasn't even in high school back then. She was, like, 24 then and is 37 now. And she was playing a character that would have been my age at the time of the show. It would have been perfectly normal for me to have a crush on her then. Because Lindsay Weir, the name of the character, is exactly the kind of girl I would have had a crush on then. See?
FRIEND: I thought the show aired in 1999, not 1982.
ME: Yes, but it took place around 1982.
FRIEND: But it didn't exist in 1982.
ME: Which works in my favor!
FRIEND: How do you figure that?
ME: If I had watched the show in 1999 and developed this crush then, I would have been 35 and infatuated with an actor playing a high school girl while the show was still on the air. Now, that's creepy and inappropriate. But this way, with the show being cancelled long ago, it's completely harmless and actually, kind of charming!
FRIEND: No, it really isn't. However, I'm not concerned for Linda Cardellini's safety for one reason only; that being that you have so many of these "crushes" that you can't possibly act on any of them.
ME: Which is also charming.
FRIEND: Let me have one of those pickles.

Said without being said



Seriously, has there ever been a
guy named Larry who wasn't a tool?

 "And Friday morning on CNN, the chair of “Gun Appreciation Day” suggested that slavery would not have occurred had guns been available to everyone in America at the time. “I think Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history,” said Larry Ward on Friday’s CNN Newsroom." -- Emma Margolin, MSNBC

That happened. I think it's important for us to expand upon what Mr. Ward expressed here, to fully illustrate the "logic" involved...

"I think Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today, a condition which is impossible due to his being assassinated by James Earl Ray with a rifle in June of 1968, that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, a time when they were known simply as 'Africans' because they had yet to forcibly be assigned dual citizenship, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history. Because presumably those guys would have come over here, somehow gotten some guns, which shoulda/woulda/coulda been their constitutional right, even though we weren't really bringing them over here for the purpose of bestowing constitutional rights (let alone weapons!) on them, and said, 'hey, back off; we don't want to be slaves.' Then there would have been some shooting back and forth and I predict the white guys would have given up first because, in spite of being vastly outnumbered and not knowing what guns were before coming here, black people have proven to be good at adapting to their environment. Then the black guys would be all, 'well great, we won, but don't you think it could have saved a lot of trouble and heartache for everyone if you guys just hadn't dragged us from our homes against our wills to come over here in the first place?' and the surviving white guys would be all, 'yeah, but now you have guns. Lucky!'. Then one of the black guys would have said, 'can we play baseball and vote and court your women, not necessarily in that order?' and somebody would have said, 'whoa, let's take it easy! Give us one or two hundred years to think about that, okay?'. To this, the black people would have said, 'well, okay, since you were so kind in letting us have these guns and all. We'll wait patiently for you to grant us the privilege of being treated as equals and not take what we want by force, since, you know, we're capable of taking up arms against what could most certainly be accurately described as an oppressive government and that would be totally okay under certain interpretations of the second amendment', to which we'd say, 'hey, thanks!'.
And so, yeah, obviously no slavery, thanks to guns!"

Pickled

This is a picture of the fresh pickles they put out at Jimbo's Pit Bar B-Q here in Tampa. Jimbo's is my favorite BBQ in town and these pickles are a big reason why. There's always a huge stainless steel bowl just full of these huge chunks of pickled cucumbers (most take at least two bites to finish).
I was there recently for dinner with a friend and she was less than enthusiastic about partaking.
"I guess they're good, but no thanks."
"You guess they're good?"
"Yeah. But I'm not that excited about them."
"What is wrong with you?"
"Well, mainly, it doesn't seem that sanitary. They're just sitting there, out in the open."
"Let me tell you something; if I walked in here and saw somebody performing a baptism in that bowl, I'd be standing there with a plate in my hand, right behind the kid's grandparents, waiting for them to finish so I could scoop up a plateful of those pickles.
"... "
"If they pulled the baby out of there and there was one of the nice, thick juicy ones I like the best stuck to his right buttock, I'd reach over and say, 'excuse me a sec, if I can just.. get that... ah, perfect, thank you'. Then I'd bite right into it while the family and minister were staring at me and I'd give them a big ol' smile. And if my hands were occupied, I'd just lean right in and eat it right off the ass like a giraffe eating an apple off a tree branch. Yes, you heard me right; I would eat Jimbo's pickles off a stranger's baby's ass."
"Wow."
"I'm just trying to say that I like those pickles. That's all."