Wednesday, we partied

Wow. What a night. Wednesday night, we celebrated the release of my first book, "A Ridiculously Inconsistent Treasury". I didn't drink, but I'm still drunk. You know how people fantasize about being able to attend their own funeral so they can see all the people they love saying nice things about them? This was a lot like that. I hope everybody had as much fun as I did because I honestly did the whole thing as a THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me as a writer over the years in one way or another. At any rate, I now want to write more books... so I can throw more parties.
If you were unable to attend, or if you want to relive it again, here are some photos...

Me and my sister, Renee Warmack. She's one of the people to whom the book is dedicated.

with the lovable Rob Pastore and a plate of food

with Debbie Brooks

Kirk and Marian Moss, Wendy Ernest and Francine Bauer

.My cool musician friends: Ronny Elliott, Rob Pastore and Rebekah Pulley. I'm so hip! Rebekah and Rob played. I can't afford Ronny.

Liz Mulhearn, Laura "The 23-Year-Old" Cheek and Jeff Hartzog

My Raw Charge.com colleagues: Patty "P=Mac" MacDonald and  John "Johnny Fonts" Fontana

with Jeff Hartzog, the Wizard of Ruth Eckerd Hall and a fellow Sun Dome alum

Spike and Mike: Slater and Pepper. Spike is the host of the "Spike On the Mic Show", Mondays at 8pm at http:www.spikeonthemic.com. Tune in!

Spike molesting Lynne Austin. This happens a lot.

Me and John Fontana. John and I have worked together for years but had never met face-to-face before  now. I used to liken it to the relationship between Prince and Clare Fischer, the man who did all the string arrangements (Purple Rain, etc.) for Prince's music. They never once met in person, interacting by going back and forth through the mail. So now the relationship between John and me is more like David Byrne and Brian Eno.

Look ma, I'm a sandwich! With Anna Decaria and Dené Williamson. I like to write books!

with Vivienne Brown and Tracy Yarbrough, aka the Ridiculously Inconsistent Players, aka  The RIPs

The RIPs attempt to deal with the problem of a human head stuck in a toilet (read the book).

with Michael "Jordi Scrubbings" Lortz

with Carlos Rosaly. We're both a little freaked out by the idea of people paying actual money for something I made.

Jeff with up-and-coming author Charlene Beverly, who is also a refugee from the ol' Sun Dome.

Oh, look. Somebody is entertaining the crowd with her celebrity impressions. Harumph.

Renee with Donna "If You're On Twitter You Know Her As" Lovebees

Spike, Renee and Lynne. This is Spike's preferred ratio of Spike-to-white women.

Aw, look at all the love. Or something.

Tonight, we party!

Tonight is the big shindig to celebrate the release of the book. I invited more people than could come. In some cases, I knew there was no way they'd be able to make it, either because they're very far away or busy or both. But I couldn't let something minor like a logistical fact keep me from inviting them. That would seem rude to me. Anyway, if you're coming, it's from 7:30pm to 9:30pm at the Firestick Grill, which is the restaurant at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

PARKING - Your best bet is the Forum West lot, which is accessed off of Florida Avenue. You might see other lots and think, "oh, I probably won't get towed". Do not make that mistake. Because you will get towed and getting your car back will be nightmare. Seriously. Don't do it.

DRESS IS CASUAL - Seriously, don't dress up. I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Ladies, feel free to throw on whatever you would for a Hollywood awards show or if George Clooney called you up after 10pm. No big whoop. Everybody just needs to relax, be comfortable and have a nice time.
Oh, if you're bring a guest who doesn't know better, tell them it's a costume party. I think we'd all get a good laugh out of that.

As I mentioned, everybody who was invited can't come. Here are some of the best RSVPs I've received...

"I wish I could be there in person, but instead will be there in spirit!!! Congrats, my cousin, so happy for you!" - my cousin Diane

"I'd walk up the stairs (or take the elevator) for you any day! Congrats!!!" - friend, co-worker and author in her own rite, Charlene Beverly

"I am so excited! I hope it's ok but I'm bringing a date....or two!" - my friend Kathi, who is apparently a swinger now. Lovely.

"Can't wait! I am sooooo proud of you." - my friend Renee with multiple O's

"Can't do any weekday vacations for the next year thanks to the new job, but I'll be there in spirit. Congratulations, Clark! It's a great feeling!" - Peevish Penman colleague Jody Aberdeen, in Toronto.

"I wish I could be there. I got a better idea, when you make your butt load of money off the sale of this book within mere hours of publication, like I know you will, I bought mine already, come back up here to the midwest & throw another party!" - my sister Connie, with the best idea she's had since... well, it's a very good idea!

"I'm buying a bottle of cheap champagne to toast in your honor since I can't physically be there. Just know that I'll be toasting several times." - Marissa Rapier, the pride of Kankakee

"I'll be there in spirit. In real life I will likely be in bed." - one of my writing partners with The Unbelievables, Jeff Hickmott in the United Kingdom

Isn't that nice? I hope the party is fun.

It's not Superman's fault if the new Superman movie sucks

On one hand, I feel bad for critiquing a movie that I have no intention of watching. On the other hand, it's the movie itself that makes me not want to watch it.

I'm pretty sure the new Superman movie, "Man of Steel", is going to suck. Big time.

Why? Simply because in spite of the prevailing trend in Hollywood, you simply can't run everything through the Dark-Gritty-Reboot filter and expect to come out with something worth seeing. You wouldn't be able to do it with Mickey Mouse and you can't do it with Superman. This is not some old fogey, moaning about how everything was better in the good old days. It's the fact that Superman, the character of Superman, by his very nature, does not lend himself to dark and gritty. He's Truth, Justice and the American Way. He's supposed to look like this:

Not this:

Batman can be dark and gritty because he's at best, a borderline psychopath. Bruce Wayne is all kinds of twisted and tormented and relies on becoming Batman as his only means of attempting to deal with all his issues. Clark Kent as Superman can do anything. His powers are better and stronger than anybody else's. There is no problem he can't solve with relatively little effort. Okay, maybe it's possible to mine some existential angst from that - and comic books and tv have given us a mooy, broody Superman from time-to-time in their attempts to do so - but at the end of the day, Superman just has too many things in his favor not to end up just fine. Putting him in a grimey, grubby looking costume isn't going to change that. Here's the test: with whom would you rather be friends? While you may root for Bruce Wayne/Batman and find him more "interesting" overall, he's not somebody you'd want to watch a ballgame with.
That's not to say it's impossible to make a good Superman movie. I think it can be done, but it's got to be bright, colorful and relatively lightweight. Actually, if you take the Christopher Reeves Superman movies and dial back on some of the campy aspects (Lex Luthor and his gang, in particular) you can pretty much nail it. I suppose there's debate over whether modern audiences would want to watch a movie like that, but at least it wouldn't flat-out suck. 
Trying to make Superman into some kind of edgy anti-hero would be like casting the New York Yankees in the underdog role in a remake of the Bad News Bears. Or more accurately, casting Mickey Rourke to play Sheriff Andy Taylor in a dark, gritty reboot of the Andy Griffith Show and calling it something stupid like "Mayberry: Reloaded".

Actually, I'd probably watch that.

Whom to hate this week



I have been waiting months for a
reason to use a picture of this cat! 

Like everything else, because of the internet, hatred is different now. At least in terms of how we deal with it as a group activity. It used to be that something would exist or happen that would directly impact a large group of people in a negative manner. These people would develop a natural, organic hatred for this thing and form a connection with others who were affected under similar circumstances. As a result, a network of hatred would be created from these connections and that network would become so powerful that it would begin to influence those who had a much less direct connection to the thing. This process could take place for years before any serious mass hatred really started to boil up.


Sorry, Poland. We didn't have the internet back then.

 Not anymore, thanks to the internet!
Now, we find out about something we don't like and we all - ALL of us - just start hating it, for about a week, as one big collective with no (or at least very little) actual personal stake in the matter. Just an instant, gigantic blob of seething outrage spewing vitriol from the darkest part of our souls for something we didn't know existed before we clicked on it.

Here's a very brief rundown of whom we have been hating lately:

• May 16 - Amy's Baking Company, Phoenix, AZ
• June 5 - Sammy (@prodigalsam) Rhodes

It doesn't go back further than that because while I'm sure there was somebody or something that caused us all to be consumed in rage, that was weeks ago and who has time to care about whatever it was now? Sure, a lot of this is stupid and arbitrary (Honestly, what are the odds that even 1% of the people upset at Amy's Baking Company would ever actually find themselves in Phoenix for any reason, let alone end up eating at that restaurant? Do you know how many restaurants between Phoenix and where you live are owned and/or managed by psychos? Hundreds, if not thousands!) but this is the way we do things now: If you do something wrong, the entire internet will find out about it and instantly despise you for a few days. Maybe.
I say "maybe" because there's a lot of stuff going on out there and things can slip through the cracks. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest a candidate who truly deserves an entire internet's worth of hatred: Taylor Chapman.

This is internet hatred, which means
 anything goes, so your
bangs are stupid too, Taylor

Taylor Chapman is a woman in south Florida who made this video and doesn't know the difference between an obscenely inflated sense of self-entitlement and justified righteous indignation.
In case it isn't clear, this is all a result of her not receiving a receipt for donuts purchased during a previous visit. I feel bad for the DD employees as well as the poor bastard standing there who just wants some donuts and doing his best not to be a part of her assholery, not to mention all the innocent people with the not-unusual name of "Taylor Chapman" who will probably find themselves at the end of some unfortunate rage-fueled Google searches. At any rate, she truly deserves all the scorn and derision that can be heaped upon her, if for no other reason than her attempt to equate her reprehensible, racist tirade to retribution for 9/11.

If this is a front for Al-Qaeda, then I guess I support terrorists.

For more background on this upright-walking turd, here's a link to the story from The Smoking Gun's Buster section.
One of the last thing she says before the video ends is that she hopes it gets a million hits. Oh, me too, Taylor. Me too!

I know this is tempting fate, but...

The hotel where I used to work caught on fire the other day. $90,000 worth of damage was incurred and nobody was hurt, which is unfortunate. I realize that the way it's worded makes it possible to read that sentence and get the idea that I somehow wanted people to be hurt. Please, make no mistake; that's exactly what I meant. Certainly not any first-responders or guests or employees or any otherwise decent, useful human beings. But select members of the "management team" trapped under a burning I-beam or two? Oh yeah, absolutely.

Okay, not really. Nobody really wants to see anybody burnt up or crushed by flaming debris. Although, in some cases, it's definitely a lot of fun to think about!

See, I spent three years working at that hotel and it was easily the worst company I ever worked for. That stands to reason, since it's the worst hotel in town. Don't take my word for it though; I'm an admittedly disgruntled former employee. Instead, check out these reviews from guests on TripAdvisor.com. The oldest is from over five years ago and the most recent was yesterday. If you scan through, you'll see the same specific complaints pop up over and over again. Chronic complaints left unaddressed for that long should tell you everything you need to know. 

I was eventually fired because they said I had a bad attitude and that guests were complaining about it. I was never shown these specific complaints but I won't dispute that my attitude was terrible. After all, I was miserable. I won't go into specifics, but there were a number of problems with the way staff members (not just me) were treated. 

This was in the employee break area. The bottom line reads "No outside source can help you" and was posted in response to rumors that somebody had contacted the labor department about unfit working conditions.

Worse than any of that was the lack of support from management. We knew the elevators were death traps, we knew the free WiFi we advertised didn't work, we knew the restaurant was lousy. We also knew management would never address any of these concerns and that we would be bearing the brunt of our customers frustration and dissatisfaction. So yeah, I'm sure my attitude was terrible. Still, I think it says something that I was hired as a customer service supervisor for the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team that ranks in the top ten of all pro sports franchises and averages well over 90% in customer satisfaction after being terminated by what TripAdvisor.com ranks as the 87th (out of 158) hotel in Tampa.

There's no question I'm better off now and that getting fired was truly a blessing (I probably would have killed myself by now otherwise) and I know I shouldn't waste time, or risk bad karma, by getting enjoyment from this, but I'm only human. I promise I'll stop smiling while I visualize the people who tormented me surrounded by smoke and flames in a few days, as I transition to being happy while I visualize how they're going to pay for it.

It must be hard to be a tv news reporter sometimes

It must be hard to be a tv news reporter sometimes.
Imagine, you show up at the scene where some incident has taken place. You look around for subjects to interview and you find an African-American woman with long blonde hair extensions, wearing a NASCAR jacket with M&M's on it. "Oh yeah!", you think. "This is it!" Your cameraman hits the lights and you ask the woman to tell you what happened.

"Well, I woke up and smelled smoke and I was afraid the house was on fire. But I heard yelling outside so I looked out the window and realized it was actually my neighbor's house..."

Oh damn it! What kind of shit is that?!? That isn't going to get you on YouTube! A waste of a perfectly good trip into the ghetto. Why couldn't she have just started shrieking,

"Oh lawd, it was like Jumanji! I was all flappity-dappity with a jibbity-jabbity and a King Kong playing ping-pong in Hong Kong with his ding-dong! I like to have fell out! Sweet juicy magoosey!"

Where the hell is an Antoine Dodson, Sweet Brown, Michelle Clarks or Charles Ramsey when you need one of them? I tell you, those lucky stiffs on the daytime talk and courtroom shows have it made!

Take this weather with you

Thursday, around noon.
The red boxes are tornado warnings.

When I made the decision to live in Florida instead of Michigan, I was led to believe I was trading tornados for hurricanes. I would happily make that trade every single time. Don't get me wrong, hurricanes are no joke, but they give you warnings. At least a couple of days and sometimes close to a week before they hit. They'll still wipe out an area like a giant eraser, leaving you homeless, but at least you get a running start in terms of getting out of there and staying alive. Hurricanes are monsters but they're courteous. Tornados are straight-up assholes. A typical tornado warning tells you to take cover now, RIGHT NOW, cross your fingers and hope for the best. With a hurricane, you can sit down and watch tv for a half hour and get a fairly accurate prediction of where it's going to be and when, allowing you to pack some things, arrange a sitter for your pets, buy some supplies and head out if necessary. Sort of how you might make plans when you find out that Tom Petty is touring. With tornados, by the time you look up at the sky and say, "that doesn't look good", it's pretty much your ass right then and there. Growing up in Michigan, I developed a severe phobia of tornados, due in large part to what we learned in school. Here, watch this...

We watched that film (in stunning 8mm!) in school at least once a year, every year. That shit is scarier than The Shining! Now tell me how someone wouldn't grow up terrified of tornados?
It wasn't until I got down here that I learned Floirda has both and that's bullshit. All of this is to simply let you know why I'm not writing a "real" blog post today. Right now, Tropical Storm Andrea is bearing down on the northwest coast of Florida (not considered a threat to the Tampa Bay area), the weather around here is bonkers with multiple tornado warnings in effect (imminent threats to the Tampa Bay area and my clean underwear) and I might as well be 11-years-old because that's about how well I'm functioning right now.

Noon, Thursday: Okay, it doesn't look that bad but there were sirens going off and everything!

So see you Monday. Hopefully.

A good day's work

When it comes to work, I think the only thing better than enjoying your job itself is being proud of what your employer does that falls outside of what would be considered their normal scope. I'm fortunate in that I work for the Tampa Bay Lightning, a professional sports team that is aggressively active in the community beyond just trying to get people to buy hockey tickets.
For example, Tuesday night we went as a staff to St. Pete Clearwater Airport to welcome home World War II veterans who had spent the day in Washington D.C. via Honor Flight of West Central Florida, part of the Honor Flight Network. Honor Flight is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America's veterans by transporting them to Washington to visit and reflect at their memorials. This particular Honor Flight was underwritten by our owner, Jeff Vinik, and several Lightning staff went on the trip to serve as escorts and guides for the vets, all of whom were between 86 and 94 years old.
It was a moving experience and truly a privilege to be involved in even a small way in honoring these true heroes.

This is Kevin Alexander, one of the managers of our security patrol, performing his Honor Flight escort duties.



So proud to be a member of this team (I'm in the back, near the left).

 For more on the Lightning's involvement in the Tampa Bay Community, check out these links:

• C.H.A.R.G.E. Program
• Community Hero Program
• Lightning Foundation
• Community Hockey

At last; help is here for the (suddenly) wealthy!

Saturday, I found myself in an all-too familiar situation: trapped in line at a so-called convenience store waiting for somebody to get their lotto game plan figured out. This happens to me all the damn time. If it's not lottery tickets, it's cigarettes. Heaven help me if they're buying both.

"Give me a pack of Lungblazer Lights in a box. No, that's a pack. No, those are ultra-filter kings. No, those are menthol. Oh, and also I need some Big Bux scratch-offs. No, those are Dollar Dillies. No, those are Koin Killerz. No, those are Money Munchers..."

One's a near-sure cause of cancer and the other's a near-sure cause of poverty. What difference does the packaging or flavor make? "Well, I think I have the right to enjoy the delivery system of my inevitable future misery". Oh, shut up. Both are bets for suckers. I don't know what it is about those two items that makes it impossible for somebody to just walk in and grab them without a detailed back-and-forth discussion, but I wish they'd establish separate stores that only sell them. Sure, you could expect to spend several hours trying to check out of there but it would free up the Circle K's and 7-Elevens for those of us who just want to pay for gas and a Coke and maybe a bag of Doritos before getting on with our lives.
The particular lunkhead I was behind on Saturday was spending $380 on an intricate assortment of scratch-offs, pre-chosen lotto numbers and computer-generated "quick picks". Aside from the overly-complicated purchase, he was also giving a seminar on his theory about being able to tell which scratch-offs were likely to be winners based on their position in the roll under the counter. This had the clerk and another lotto player mesmerized, as if this was their ticket (Pun! Ha!) to The Good Life. It would have gone on even longer than it did if the woman with an armload of snack foods behind me hadn't broken it up by declaring, "Hey, I'm kind of getting tired of holding all this stuff!". The clerk said, "you could have just set it down on the counter", missing the point entirely.

Lotto here in Florida seems to be more popular than ever, no doubt because of the recent $560 million Powerball jackpot, won on a ticket purchased in nearby Zephyrhills. As of yet, the undoubtedly freaked-out winner of that prize has yet to surface in public. Good call. I'm sure they're hunkered down, trying to come to grips with their newfound wealth and making plans for how to deal with all the inevitable, incidental changes to their lives. If part of that planning doesn't include faking their own deaths, they're making a huge mistake, because you just know their friends and families are doing exactly that, minus the faking part. I mean, that's how it works, right? Somebody wins a ton of money in the lotto and then their family plots to murder them. I'm pretty sure that's what happens.
If you Google "how to fake your own death", you'll mostly find advice designed to talk you out of it. In the event that the Zephyrhills winner is getting frustrated trying to find out how to do this, I have a solid 8-step plan to actually get it done right here. You know, as a public service.

HOW TO FAKE YOUR OWN DEATH (for lottery winners)

1. Conceal two Post-It notes and a pen. We'll cover why in a sec.
2. If there's some chump you want to pin with your murder, now's the time to leave some incriminating (is there another kind?) evidence behind. I'd recommend breaking into their home and writing "Oh dear God, please don't murder me for my lottery winnings!" in your own blood on the living (irony!!) room wall. Maybe something less wordy - you don't want to bleed out and die for real - but you get the idea.
3. Lay really still. REALLY still. Breathe out of your nose and close your eyes. Don't be ticklish. It might take a while but eventually, if you do it right, they'll assume you're dead.
4. When they take you to the morgue, they'll take your clothes off and put you in an examination room. Wait til you're alone and write "I already did the autopsy on this guy. Natural causes. Send on to funeral hone. Thx!" on  the Post-It and put it on your forehead. Be sure to include the "Thx!". Everyone is entitled to and appreciates courtesy.
5. When you get to the funeral home, same thing, wait til you're all alone and write "I already took out the guts and replaced them with wadded-up newspaper or whatever. Thx!" on the second Post-It note and put it on your forehead. (If you're an Egyptian prince, mention that your guts were placed in ornate clay jars because they do that there; it's part of how they make mummies.)
6. When you're buried, take out the cell phone you concealed... did I not mention that you need to do that? Oh shit. Go back to step 1 and add that because it's important. Also, you know where you have to conceal all this stuff, right? I shouldn't have to state something that obvious (your butt).
7. It's probably a good idea if you read these instructions all the way through once or twice instead of as-you-go.
8. When you're buried, take out the cell phone you concealed and call me so I can come and get you out of the ground.
9. Give me some of your money for helping you (you're welcome!) and go start a new life under a fake name.

HOW TO FAKE YOUR OWN DEATH (for non-lottery winners)

1. What's the point? Stop wasting everyone's time.

My interview with Cate Colgan last week

Recently, I had the privilege of doing a pre-recorded interview with Cate Colgan, who is one of the most genuinely kind and compassionate people I've ever met, for her radio show, "Let's Not Talk About It" which airs locally on WTAN, 1340AM. The show aired last Friday.

My favorite part is either when Cate invites people to call in during the interview because "we can always talk over it" or when she put it on pause to interview somebody more interesting who called in or when it just kind of... ends, in mid-sentence. I can't choose.

Anyway, here's a link to the program if you'd like to hear it.

http://tunein.com/program/?ProgramId=500583&StationId=23052&popout=true

"Hello, this is Mike..."

I was at work on Saturday when a phone solicitor called, a gentleman with a heavy Indian accent.

MIKE: Hello, this is Mike and I'm calling...
ME: Mike?!? Are you kidding me?
MIKE: Yes, this is Mike and...
ME: Hiya Mike! What's your name?
MIKE: Ehhh, Mike. Michael.
ME: Well, which is it? Mike or Michael?
MIKE: You can call me Mike.
ME: Hiya Michael! Where are you from?
MIKE: Seminole, Florida.
ME: Seminole? Awesome! I'm right here in Tampa!
MIKE: The reason I am calling today is to tell you that you were selected at random to receive $100 in free gift vouchers in exchange for...
ME: Seriously? That's great! I'm all out of gift vouchers!
MIKE: Yes. These vouchers are available to you at no cost, in exchange for just trying our company's offer...
ME: Hey Mark, where did you say you were calling from?
MIKE: I'm...I'm from Seminole, Florida.
ME: Seminole? Awesome! I'm right here in Tampa!
MIKE: Yes. The offer...
ME: Seminole and Tampa are soooo close, you know?
MIKE: No cost to you...
ME: Did you go to Seminole High?
MIKE: W-what?
ME: High school. Did you go to Seminole high school? Go Bulldogs!
MIKE: Yes. I am in Seminole.
ME: You must be a proud Bulldog supporter then, huh? Go Bulldogs!
MIKE: Yes.
ME: Do you want to sing the fight song?
MIKE: W-what? No...
ME: You know what? I don't think their mascot is Bulldogs. Why would you say 'Go Bulldogs'?
MIKE: I didn't say that.
ME: Yeah, you did. You were all 'Go Bulldogs' every time you mentioned that you're born and raised in Seminole.
MIKE: I never said anything like that.
ME: Fine, I said it. But you didn't attempt to correct me.
MIKE: I did not understand. I do not understand now.
ME: Marco, I am very disappointed. If I can't trust you to tell me your name and where you're from, how can I trust you to give me the straight info on this offer you're calling about?
MIKE: I'm not from Seminole, I am in Seminole now, for work.
ME: Oh, cool. I get it. That's perfect because I'm not comfortable talking business on the phone. But since you're so close, I can just come over to your office. We can bang out all the details and you can just give me the coupons or whatever.
MIKE: $100 in free gift vouchers in exchange for...
ME: Sure, whatever. The point is, no mailing! You'll be saving your company postage fees! This could get you employee of the month!
MIKE: Well, we don't really... This is not a regular office.
ME: No problem. We can meet at a nearby restaurant and grab some lunch while we bang this out. What's a nearby restaurant?
MIKE: Uhhhh...
ME: Are you close to the Seminole Steak & Shake? Or the Seminole Subway? Or the Seminole Olive Garden? Or the Seminole Appleby's? Which of those is most convenient for you, Malik?
(CLICK)

Well, darn the Seminole phone lines. Now I don't know where to go claim my $100 in gift vouchers. 

It's the "thought" that counts.

This is a conversation I had with a friend yesterday (Sunday)...
.
HER: Hey, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your military service. That's what this weekend is really supposed to be about after all, right?
ME: Well, Veterans Day is actually when we say thanks to those who served in the military. Memorial Day is specifically set aside to honor those who died in service to the country. I was in the army but never really ever came close to seeing combat.
HER: Oh whatever, it's the same thing.
ME" Oh, okay. Thanks then.

Life...and lunch...in show biz

Here's a little glimpse into what life is like in the glamorous and exciting world of the sports and entertainment industry...
Frequently, circumstances will dictate that you spend a relatively long stretch of time at work. For whatever reason, shows tend to be scheduled in clumps, and of course, always on or around weekends. That means it's not unusual to go a full week or more without a day off. That also means spending long stretches of time with the same people in relatively close quarters under what can be hectic and stressful conditions. As is the case with lots of jobs, this can result in frayed nerves and short tempers where the slightest provocation can cause a huge fight. Of course, it can also result in a loopy state of mind where the smallest, stupidest thing can seem hysterically funny.
Last weekend, we had a run of ice skating shows with Disney characters, seven shows between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon. When we have runs like that, our employer is kind enough to provide us with free meals. Hayden, who is one of our part-time ticket sellers, is an affable, easy-going young man. He was in line getting food Saturday afternoon and was overheard saying, "Aw man, where's the basalmic vinaigrette dressing?". This innoccuous, innocent remark, the expression of mild disappointment at the unavailability of a prefered salad dressing, was seized upon immediately by co-workers and supervisors (I may have been involved to a slight extent as well).
First up were accusations of First World Problems:

"Oh, we're so sorry, sir. Does the selection of condiments for your free mail that you're not even required to clock out for while you sit down in a nice, quiet restaurant setting and eat it in peace fail to please your refined palatte?"

"Q: Do you know what the favorite salad dressing is in the Sudan? A: What is salad?"

"In the Ukraine, a salad is a bowl of snow with a couple of drops of diesel fuel for flavor. Unless your father catches you wasting diesel fuel and then 'salad' is just a term for him holding your ear tightly with one hand while hitting you in the head with a shoe with the other."

Then it was imitations of Hayden at lunch:

"Where's the goddamn basalmic vinaigrette?!?" (A la a pissed-off Harrison Ford)

"You call this a demi-glace, you worthless son of a bitch?"

"Who taught you how to make petit fours, you motherless hack??"

"Hey, where the hell's the goddamn basalmic vinaigrette??" (This last one was done with a "Hillbilly Hayden" accent for some reason. Not sure why; since Hayden doesn't have an accent)

And on and on and on and on and on and on. The more relentlessly it was driven into the ground, the fuinnier it was. For his part, Hayden smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "I just really like their basalmic vinaigrette dressing."
Okay, maybe it's not that funny. And I know it's a stupid way to spend a weekend but it's a lot better than being pissed off the whole time.

Let's go shopping!

As announced last week, I have a book for sale. In order to maximize $ales$, I need to make it available in as many places as possible. Naturally, that means I need to sell it via my web site, www.clarkbrooks.com. For that purpose, I built a store. But it seemed kind of stupid to have an entire store dedicated to selling one item (the book) so I padded the inventory a little. In addition to the book, you can also buy...

1. A bucket of scalding hot water. Long-time readers will remember this item from the ill-fated "Clarketplace" line. It's $1,000.00 because I don't really want people to buy it.
2. Hash browns. Delicious, lovely hash brown potatoes. Hash browns may not be your favorite thing about a big sloppy breakfast, but they're right behind whatever you think is. I love 'em. They're also way overpriced for the same reason of not wanting people to actually buy them, but if somebody does, for $1,000.00, I will gladly come to their home and make them. Absolutely.

Anyway, that's what's for sale at my store.

What lurks beyond boring brick walls?

"This is a church, there ain't no steeple. Open the door to the left if you wanna see naked people!"

This is a building on Broadway Avenue in Tampa, what 7th Avenue turns into when you take it all the way east out of Ybor City. Definable only as "nondescript", it looks like any one of hundreds of buildings you probably drive past every day without even thinking about it. Probably some kind of offices or a warehouse, right? If you zoom in on the banner, you'd say it's currently a church for Spanish speaking parishioners. And it is... but not completely. There are two doors (unseen in this photo) on the east end of the building (to the right) that do serve as an entrance to the church advertised on that banner. But what lies behind the doors to the left, the shuttered windows directly beneath the banner and the ones to the right of that is the much larger part of the building and populated by other tenants: professional pornographers.

It was once the hub of a "voyeur dorm" operation fronted by legendary porn star Ron Jeremy. His name is literally plastered on walls all over the place. It's no longer the site of around the clock, internet subscriber-fueled adult activity as it apparently was in the '90s, but it's still very much in use as a filming location and production facility. Sort of like Prince's Paisley Park, his all-in-one music and film production complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota... only for naughty movies.

I know because I visited this building once not long ago to visit a film being shot there. I had helped out with the script, hence my involvement. No, it was not a porno. The building is available for rental now to anybody.

When I arrived, I was met at the door by a caretaker. "Keep it down, they're filming." I said, "I know, that's why I'm here." "No, not your friends. Another film," he said. I walked in past a reception area that featured a couch, and a service counter, behind which was an empty, black-painted wall unit that had once housed about a dozen video monitors. The hallway to my left led to a dank, industrial area with brick walls, concrete floors, a laundry facility and an employee break room with vending machines and a microwave oven. This was where the people I was there to see were setting up, using the location for its resemblance to a prison. The hallway to my right was where various themed rooms were to be found. A school classroom, a doctor's office, all with the appropriate props. The other doors were closed so I couldn't see inside but I was told (very quietly) they just looked mostly like bedrooms. One of those doors opened up shortly after and two dudes, one carrying a small bag of camera equipment, and a woman came out. "We're all done", said the guy carrying the bag to the caretaker. The caretaker glanced inside the room, presumably to make sure nothing had been broken, stolen or, um, soiled while the male actor tucked his shirt in to his pants and the female actor brushed her hair and lit a cigarette.
"Did you guys do it?", I asked, suddenly turning 11-years-old.
"Do it?", the actress replied with a sneer.
"Yeah. You know, make a movie", I said, futilely attempting a smooth recovery, like all along I was curious about the creative process. Excuse me for never having been in a position of encountering porn stars immediately after punching out (so to speak) for the day. She rolled her eyes and made a "tsk" noise. I wanted to say, "I bet you made a lot of noises like that today", but I'm smarter than that so I didn't.
The camera guy said, "yeah, but it was just one scene."
I could have said, "Us too", but instead I asked, "How long does that take?". He replied, "we've only been here about an hour and a half, and that includes various set-ups After edits, we'll have about 15 minutes of usable footage." I nodded my head like 'yeah, that sounds about right (does that sound about right? I really don't know)'. "Is there really a church on the premises?", I asked and the caretaker said, "They're next door. We do our thing and they do theirs. We don't get in each others' way so it's no big deal. Although, we do have a church room. It's got an alter and everything. It's really nice!" "I'll bet!", I said stupidly and went back to the other hallway to watch my group film the jail scene.

Anyway, if you've ever wondered what's going on behind the walls of all those nondescript buildings you pass every day, don't be too surprised when you find out.

A couple of better plans for dealing with Abercrombie and Fitch

By now, you're probably familiar with what clothing manufacturer Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries said about his company's efforts to keep their products off the sub-par bodies of certain people. Oh you aren't? Well, here it is:

“That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores,” Jeffries said. “Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that.” He went on: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” - The Independent, May 8, 2013

Of course, thousands of companies have conducted business by adhering to that exact philosophy since shortly after the day people started buying stuff, but Jeffries was the first dummy to say so outside of a shareholders meeting or a Marx Brothers film, so he's Hitler basically. But cool.



He's his own man. And also his own Madame Tussaud's wax figurine.

 Being as that's the case, there's some backlash. You might be familiar with the "#FitchtheHomeless" campaign, which some guy came up with to promote giving homeless people A and F clothing and also get lots of YouTube hits. This campaign's message is simple and direct: 'You don't like not-so-cool people, Hitler Jeffries? Well, we put your clothes on the not-so-coolest people on earth: the homeless! Ha ha ha and fuck you (and also share my hashtag)!'
That might sound great on the surface but there are several problems with it, all laid out here at "Rage Against the Minivan". Basically, the fact that exploiting people perceived as being unattractive for the sake of teaching a lesson to somebody who perceived people as being unattractive is kind of stupid and mean.

So what to do? Shitty, elitist corporate scumbags certainly deserve to be taken down a peg or two, especially when they go out of their way to hurt people's feelings. But we don't want to demean others in the process. Well, as I see it, there are a couple of possible responses:

1. We do nothing. They don't want me wearing their clothes and I not only don't want to wear their clothing, I also don't want them having my money. That actually seems pretty reasonable (and easy) to me. There's lots of people like me and if A and F (and the other companies that subscribe to the same philosophy but are more subtle in expressing it) can make a go of it without us, so be it. Let the marketplace decide. In the meantime, we'll just keep avoiding each other. Now, if you're one of the young, attractive and cool people whose business they do want and you feel it would be appropriate to not give it to them, I applaud you for making ethics-based choices when it comes to being a consumer and I appreciate your gesture. You're on your way to being a kind, compassionate person who demonstrates empathy for your fellow human beings. Good for you! On the other hand, if you're one of those young, attractive cool people and you feel like you want to just keep on shopping there because "meh", go ahead. Odds are that if there's ever a horrible fire at an A and F store, you and people like you will be the only ones who burn to death inside, drowning in the toxic smoke from all the burning hoodies, low-rise jeans and graphic tees, using the last of your oxygen to scream in vain for help while an overweight lesbian firefighter sits outside eating a tuna sandwich. Hopefully. Sorry, but there are more of us than there are of you and I promise that nobody will miss you snotty, self-absorbed little pricks. Either way, this plan boils down to 'ah, fuck 'em', frankly.
2. Too passive? Fair enough. Tell you what, me and a bunch of other fat guys will get ourselves all greased up and head over to the mall where we'll try on every non-fitting garment in the place. Not only will the salty stains generated by our swampy armpits and crotches completely devastate their inventory but our mere fat, hot, sweaty, hairy presence clogging their store aisles and just generally hanging out should do wonders for their sales. Maybe some tv cameras will even show up. That would be funny, wouldn't it? 

So what say you? My preference is for the first plan. Not just because it requires less effort and I'm lazy as hell, but because I honestly believe it's the most effective. Either way, at least we're not insulting and demeaning a group of people to show somebody that it's not nice to insult and demean a group of people.

THE BOOK IS FINISHED!

Finally, finally, finally!
"A Ridiculously Inconsistent Treasury" is finished and available for sale!

There's going to be SUCH a party (details to follow soon). In the meantime, to order one or several hundred copies, go to either https://www.createspace.com/3779744 or the store at clarkbrooks.com

Thank you to everyone who has put up with my madness during this whole process.
Extra special thanks to my band, Amy DeMilo, Keri Ramos and Team Stehlik: Jessie and Pavel.

Oh, there is going to be SUCH a party!!

The hero we deserve?



NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman says he is heading back to North Korea with hope of using his influence as a friend of leader Kim Jong-Un, to secure the release of American hostage Kenneth Bae. Why? Because...

"I'll be back over there. I'm going to try to get the guy out," the heavily tattooed Rodman said in between waving to well-wishers. "It's going to be difficult because I think his nationality, because of his background, I think it's a whole different situation," Rodman said, implying that Bae's Korean heritage raised Pyongyang's suspicions.

The player known as "The Worm" said he has not consulted with US officials about his mission, explaining of his relationship with Kim: "I don't do politics. Like I said, he's my friend, that's it." - AFP, May 10, 2013



Besties Forever!

Oh, and also because "We got a black president -- can't go even talk to him. Obama can't do shit."

Okay then.

Go ahead and chuckle because, well, it's funny. But what if Rodman gets the job done? Clint Eastwood became a mayor, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura became governors, Al Franken became a senator and Ronald Reagan was elected president twice. Who's to say that Dennis Rodman can't be a diplomat? I'm not saying Rodman persuaded Kim to not follow through with his plans for testing his nuclear weapons when he visited him back in March, but those tests haven't happened.



This might have been a factor, too.

 Maybe a pierced-and-tattooed, attention-seeking former NBA all-star with a penchant for crossdressing and snatching rebounds like nobody's business is ideally suited to the role of modern hero. After all, he's as "out there" as any celebrity in recent history and we already know every detail of his backstory. As such, I'd guess that makes him immune to the scrutiny and ridicule you risk enduring if you're someone like Charles Ramsey.

Passing judgment on people for fun and profit!

(A preemptive disclaimer: I'm sure I've mentioned this before but because of jobs I've done and other circumstances that have absolutely nothing to do with talent, skill, physical attractiveness or anything else of merit on my part, I have met famous people. This is not the point of the following story and I only mention it to illustrate what is the point of the story, which will be made self-evident. Hopefully.)

The other day it was announced that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be retiring the number 99, last worn by former defensive tackle Warren Sapp. For those who don't follow sports, this is the ultimate honor a team can bestow on one of their players.

Sapp played nine seasons for the Buccaneers and during that time, he rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Around here (Tampa and the surrounding Tampa Bay area), it's actually difficult to find someone who doesn't have at least a second-hand account of an unpleasant interaction of some kind with him. Whether it was a refused autograph request, a run-in at a local nightspot or something else, you'll find no shortage of locals who are eager to dismiss him as a rude, surly jerk.
Here's the thing though: I've met Sapp four or five different times and he was never anything but personable and friendly with me, just like any normal person. Granted, that's not a huge sample size but 100% of the times I've dealt with him, he has never acted like a jerk in any way. I don't care about what other people say, I like Warren Sapp; he's always been nice to me.

Vince Naimoli used to own the Tampa Bay Rays (née Devil Rays), our major league baseball team. You will find about as many people who have nasty things to say about Naimoli as you will Sapp. He hasn't owned the team for over five years but there are those who would argue that his brusque manner and inept public relations efforts are responsible for the team's current attendance woes.
Here's the thing though: I worked for the Rays for over two years, including every home game during the 2000 and 2001 seasons, and every single time I encountered Mr. Naimoli, he was perfectly pleasant. If he wasn't in a huge hurry, he'd usually stop and want to chat about how the University of South Florida baseball team was doing. I don't care about what other people say, I like Mr. Naimoli; he's always been nice to me.

When people want to talk about the terrible, ill-tempered attitudes of Sapp and/or Naimoli, I can't participate. Sorry, but I make every effort to judge people, "famous" or otherwise, as individuals, based solely on my own personal experience. For me to say something nasty about either of these guys would simply be unfair. I'm not casting doubt on anybody else's experiences, it's just that I don't share them. "So you're saying you don't believe me when I say that Warren Sapp set my neighbor's house on fire and Vince Naimoli stole cotton candy from blind little leaguers?" No, not at all. What I'm saying is that for whatever reason, I don't share those experiences and for me to say otherwise wouldn't be right. How can I call somebody a jerk if they don't exhibit any jerk-like behavior in my presence?

That's a courtesy that I consistently try to extend to everyone I meet, with degrees of so-called fame or celebrity not being a factor and I feel good about it. Simply out, if you're nice to me, I will consider you a nice person and defend you as such to those who might say otherwise. Of course, vice-versa applies as well, although when it comes to the broad scope of things, I seem to encounter more nice people than assholes for some reason.

It's also largely for this reason that I'm glad time travel doesn't exist. Because if it did, I'm pretty sure there would be three lines at the time travel depot:

• One: Go back and experience great historical moments firsthand in order to develop an in-depth understanding of why the world is the way it is now.
• Two: Go forward and find out the results of sporting contests to come back and bet on them.
• Three: Go back and kill Hitler 

Line One would be basically empty except for the people who got bored while waiting in lines Two and Three which would be jam-packed around the clock. And of course, I'd be in the Hitler line, but based on my experiences listed above, I'd be afraid the whole time that it wouldn't work out as intended.

"Hello. My name is Clark Brooks. You killed millions of innocent people. Prepare to die."
"But... but... I made cookies!"
"Cookies?!? Who cares? You're a monster of pure hatred and evil, guilty of genocide on an almost unimaginable scale! The last thing I want is one of your damned cookies, Hitler!"
"What did I ever do to you?"
"Me? Nothing directly... but... Do I smell oatmeal raisin?"
"Just out of the oven, mein friend!"
"Well, shit." 

Special Mothers Day offer for you!



"We love you! Where's our food?"

 It's almost Mothers Day and you know what that means: it's time for predatory companies that exist for the sole purpose of feeding off of people who get panicky about participating in made-up "holidays" that exist for the sole purpose of separating panicky people from their hard-earned money.
Don't get me wrong; mothers absolutely deserve to be honored. If anything, setting aside one measly day out of the whole year is insultingly inadequate. The one day thing is strictly a shoddy excuse for parasitic profiteers to cash in.
Well, I'm here to cash in!
Sure, you could order some flowers. I'll bet your mom would take a lot of comfort and satisfaction in knowing that she raised someone who is incapable of coming up with an original thought. Plus, I'm sure she's a huge fan of watching dead things rot.
You could also order some candy-coated strawberries from Shari's Berries. There's no doubt that they're delicious... and available at any number of local bakeries near you that don't have an 800 number and a computerized shipping department.
Then there's Daryl's Barrels (your mom might make you some pickels!) and Roger's Personal Massagers, two companies I totally made up.
But why mess with the rest when you can go straight to the best; Clark's Marks! Here's how it works:

• You give me $20
• I scribble on your mom with a Sharpie

That's it! More creative than some dumb old flowers! Less permanent than a tacky tattoo! Just check out some examples...




This one is called The Rocky Balboa. It looks like mom went 15 rounds with Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang! Hey, mom, eye of the tiger! Ha ha ha!




Remember the Little Rascals? Mom might. If so, she might enjoy The Petey! How should I know?



I call this one The Ziggy Stardust. Wham! Bam! Thank you, mom!



This one is The Ultimate Warrior or The John Randle or The Gene Simmons or The Batman. It's literally nothing but me scribbling on some poor woman's face. I don't feel good about it. It's still $20 though.

So go to the internet, click on this blog post right here and enter the special coupon code of "RIPOFF" in the box below. Then send me $20. I'll take care of the rest. Don't worry about sending me your mom's address; I'll find her.

We need to talk

We all engage in idle chit-chat, often every day, often several times a day. Nobody really wants to get involved in someone else's personal matters when they say, "Hi, how are you?" It's just a polite way to acknowledge someone else's existence. Everybody knows that. This is not to moan about how we've all lost touch with each other and how much better the world would be if we all took better care of each other. Geez, what would we do if they replied, "Thank God you asked! I have these polyps on my genitals and I haven't been able to talk to anyone about it!" We'd freak out, that's what. Plus, all that added empathy would wear us out. We'd all be a whole lot busier and we wouldn't be happy about it.
Still, maybe we have let things slide a little too far. What we should say, if we're interested in being honest is, "Hello, I want you to know that I see you occupying this same general chunk of space at the same time as me. I do not find this circumstance unpleasant. In fact, it's nice to know you are not dead and that I am not alone in the universe." And then the other guy says, "Yes, I agree." This is really all that needs to be said, although you could add the person's name if you know it. But that is not what happened to me the other day. This is:

"Hey, how are you?"
"Not much. How about you?"
"Pretty good, thanks."

Then we both just kept going. Neither one of us thrown off enough to bother to correct or even address it.

"How are you?"
"Not much."
Huh?

Obviously, we each had presumptively loaded some dialogue into our brains and that encounter was supposed to either go like this:

"Hey, how are you?"
"Not bad. How about you?"
"Pretty good, thanks."

or:

"Hey, what's up?"
"Not much. How about you?"
"Same here, thanks."

Neither one of us cared enough to prepare to be spontaneous beforehand nor did we care enough to correct ourselves afterward. The fact that we had each rendered the other's pre-formatted responses inane didn't matter. As it turned out, we didn't have a conversation, we just tossed some words that translated into utter nonsense at each other's general direction and went on our individual ways, neither richer nor poorer as a result. It might as well have played out like this:

"Hey, banana crisper?"
"Tornado muffin. Roller chicken?"
"Mango beetle fart."

This was literally the least two human beings could do in terms of having a verbal encounter. I suppose we could have just grunted at each other, but that would be considered rude... even though it would have actually made more sense.

Film Follies of 1915

A co-worker recently expressed interest in seeing the entire list of the 100 greatest movies of all time as selected by the American Film Institute. I guess because I'm one of the more sophisticated (old), erudite (elderly), experienced (damn near eligible for the senior discount at Golden Corral) and venerable ("hey, what was life like before they invented television?") people in the office, he asked me about some of the movies on the list. Shamefully, while I'm familiar with almost every one, I've probably only sat down and actually watched about a third of them.

One that he asked about was #44 on the list, "The Birth of a Nation".

"Ooh. That one's very controversial."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. It's one of the many I haven't seen. Racism, I think."

"Well, it's one of the older movies on the list. It's a silent film that came out in 1915."

"That's true. Society has changed a lot since then. It's possible that what we find offensive now was just the way things were back then."

We took a look on line and learned some stuff. For instance, here's the movie's poster. 

Oh my, a masked warrior on horseback! What a classic icon of rugged American heroism. Not unlike...

Or...

But wait a minute; go back to the first one. What's it say down there in the corner...?

Oh shit!
Our further research revealed that in spite of it being a commercial success and the first motion picture to be screened at the White House (under President Woodrow Wilson), it was the subject of protests and banned in several cities because of its portrayal of black men (played by white actors in black face make-up) as ignorant, savage brutes as well as other general racist fucked-upedness (the real-life Ku Klux Klan used it as a recruiting tool and it was blamed/credited for a resurgence in Klan activity at the time). And that was in 1915! Think about that. You really have to question how offensive something had to be to get people to protest racism back in 1915: "Look, we're down with not letting them use our bathrooms or vote or date white women or play baseball or eat in restaurants or ride public transportation or stay in hotels or have access to good paying jobs, medical care and education. That all makes perfect, reasonable sense to us because it's 1915 and we're not even ready to treat the Irish or Italians like human beings. But Jesus, this! There's stuff that happens in this movie that just crosses the line. I mean, we're all racists here but come on!"

Still, it's on the AFI list. There must be some merit to it. Maybe just getting a 190 minute movie made in 1915 qualifies. At any rate, I suggested he start with "Tootsie".

I think I'm losing my edge

On my drive home the other day, I saw a group of kids on bikes waiting for a gap in traffic so they could cross the street. Between them and the street was a massive mud puddle, the result of a rain shower earlier that day. I slowed down and seeing that traffic was clear, swerved briefly into the other lane to make sure I didn't hit the puddle with my truck and splash muddy water on the kids. I did all of those things subconsciously. It never even occurred to me to speed through that puddle, a fact I realized when I looked in the rear-view mirror in time to see the car behind me absolutely drown those little fuckers. I mean a wall of water easily eight feet high delivered with such force as to knock one of them down, his bike falling awkwardly on top of him. All of them, doused head to toe, swore curses at the driver as he sped off.
This is the kind of missed opportunity that troubles me deeply; all I've got going for me is the entertainment value generated by my poor behavior and ill-informed decision-making. Granted, if I had hit that puddle like that, I would have discovered a pothole three-feet-deep and would have broken an axle or two, but that would be fair. The point is, how am I going to maintain any level of credibility on this blog if I'm not even good at being bad?