The Goo Goo Muck

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

2012-02-07T21:47:00.003-05:00

Sometimes my timing can be excellent. Last month I booked a trip to New York, sort of on the spur of the moment. I was lonely and bored in Jacksonville, and figured I knew a lot of people up there, so why not.

If you've followed my foolishness at all, you'll be familiar with my theory of how a weekend of hanging with friends and eating and drinking like a Roman emperor will jolt me out of whatever crappiness happens to be dragging me down at the moment.

For the most part, I’ve been doing OK recently. Sure, I have my problems, but nothing I’m really losing sleep over. This last week has been pretty stressful, though. It climaxed with the news yesterday that I will soon be taking a pretty substantial pay cut and having to repay some back pay, through no mistake of my own.

While it is novel to actually have a problem that can’t be directly linked back to some stupid action or character flaw of mine, that doesn’t isn’t really helping me feel any less poor and stressed.

But you know what? Screw it. I’ve got a credit card and a ticket to New York City. Sure, I’ll be coming home to minimum wage, but getting this news right before I leave will only make this visit that much more epic, even if nothing at all happens.

My vacation history is littered with pain, destruction and chaos. Will I injure any elderly French pedestrians this time? Get in a riot? Who knows? Thanks to work, I'm up for anything this weekend.

World Class Adult Entertainment

2012-02-03T22:40:00.006-05:00

Years ago I had a girlfriend who house-sat. Not as a profession or anything, she just got called when these friends of her parents were out of town. It was a sweet gig. The houses were amazing – two different childless married couples with all sorts of fancy food and booze and tech stuff. I would stay over and pretend I wasn’t having to work three part-time jobs to stay afloat. Nope, those days were far, far behind me. I was a respected member of the community. A gentleman with a taste for the finer things in life. Hey, I worked hard, I wanted to appreciate the fruits of my labor.

Some weekends she’d have to work, and I’d hang out in these houses alone. I’d turn on their expensive stereo and play my crappy records (one of their speakers probably cost more than the entire recording budget of most of the records I played over them), take a lap in the pool, then relax in the hot tub while drinking a gin and tonic. This was really living, I’d think, as a Misfits bootleg screeched over the outside speakers. Sure, I should be listening to that one Mozart song they always play to denote class, but I didn’t want to forget my roots. No matter how awesome my home here was, I was still a punk rocker at heart.

Maybe after another couple laps I’d watch Dolemite on the wide-screen.

One night while cooking dinner my girlfriend casually mentioned something about her friend finding the owners' porn stash.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, there’s tons of it over there by the TV.”

How the hell did I miss that? Was that whole pile of videotapes porn? This was like a Pharaoh’s collection of dirty movies.

“You want to watch some? They're kind of weird.”

Wow. Watching porn with the girlfriend. No way could this end up as anything but awesome. And it’s weird porno! This night just got awesome.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, hoping I’d put just the right amount of casualness in my voice. Man, this was gonna be great!

I put the first tape in. This fat, bearded biker guy was spanking this skinny methed out looking girl with a riding crop in the back of a limo. It didn’t look like anyone was really having a good time. I fast-forwarded a bit. Nope, still a bearded guy spanking this girl all bored, while she just sort of squirmed around a little.

“I dunno, let’s try another one.”

Next tape was a different fat bearded biker guy spanking a different skinny methed out girl, this time in a crappy motel room.

Next one was another fat bearded biker guy distractedly spanking another skinny methed out girl. I forget the location.

Same with the next one. My fun, sexy night was taking a nosedive, fast.
Who were these people? Were they friends of the homeowners? Was this stuff legal? Could the FBI tell that we watched it?

“Hey, you know what,” I said. “I think I’m done.”

“Yeah, I told you they were weird.”

We probably watched Dolemite after that and went to bed.

Couple weekends later I investigated the porno pile a bit more thoroughly on my own. They couldn’t all be homemade biker spanking videos, right? Bingo! After some investigation, I found a good one, one where attractive people looked like they were having a good sexy time and were all excited and everything. Alright, now we’re talking!

I put the tape in and started to watch. Well, almost. I was really distracted.

“I wonder if this is a trap,” I thought. “What if they have cameras hidden here somewhere? Would they send out some biker guy to lazily spank me in the back of a limo to punish me for watching their porn? I really don’t want that.”

I put the tape back into the mountain of videos and went outside to take a couple laps. Maybe I’d watch Dolemite again. Yeah, nice, safe Dolemite. He wouldn’t let some biker spank me.

The Running Man

2012-01-30T11:05:00.007-05:00

I registered for a 15K race, the first race I've run since high school. It's also probably farther than I've ever run before. I announced it on facebook, knowing that if I told enough people I'd be too ashamed not to do it.

I was running for a while at our old apartment. I had built up some distance and was feeling pretty good about it. That all stopped once we bought the house and I was spending most of my free time working on it and using most of my excess energy freaking out over all the money we didn't have and all the repairs we needed.

I picked it up a few times since then, but it would turn cold or rain for a few days and that would be it for me. Plus I was started getting shin splints, something I always thought were just made up by slackers for sympathy.

Once my neighbor Bryan pointed out that I was running way too fast, things got so much better. I'm not getting injured or burning out. I'm feeling the way I felt when I first started biking, not really obsessed but really looking forward to it on the days I don't run.

If Bryan can't make and I have to go by myself, I have a kick-ass metal and hardcore playlist. I had to make a playlist since listening on random would mean there's about a 67 percent chance that I'd get a novelty Halloween song or Dean Martin or some indie rock ballad, all of which are great, but don't give me the stuff TO POUND THROUGH YOUR STREETS, CLUELESS SUBURBAN SQUARES! Sure, I may look like a doughy middle aged guy stomping through the neighborhood, but inside I'm screaming for the youth! THAT'S RIGHT, MR. REAGAN! YOUR FASCIST POLICE STATE CAN'T STOP ME! RISE ABOVE, WE'RE GONNA RISE ABOVE!!!

Oh, that's right, most of those songs were written like 30 years ago. WELL, DON'T FORCE YOUR NAZI HEALTH CARE ON ME, MR. OBAMA!

After my forced transfer, I sit in traffic every morning, getting angrier and more frustrated by the minute. "This is no way for a man to live," I think, as I glare at the back of the stupid car in front of me.

Luckily, three or four times a week I get to feel like an actual person again.

Great Balls of Fire

2012-01-29T22:32:00.006-05:00

Being older isn’t really all that bad. Sure, there’s annoying stuff, like constantly being on patrol for ear and nose hair, but on the whole it’s not as awful as I thought it would be. Actually, I never really thought about being this old. As a kid, and probably up to my 20s or so, the whole length between 30 through 70 just seemed sort of boring, a vague halfway point between kick ass young adult-ness and the time when it would be acceptable for me to wear a white suit and give out long winded speeches about the old days to anyone who would listen. And yeah, before you comment, I realize that’s what I do here, but I don’t wear a white suit while doing it, so it’s totally different.

Luckily, I’m incredibly immature, so mentally and emotionally I’m about the same as I was in my 20s, with maybe a bit more self-confidence and knowledge tossed in as seasoning. Physically, I can probably do more now than I did back then; while this sounds awesome, like I’m Jack LaLane, or one of those senior citizens waterskiing on commercials, it’s more a comment on how sedentary I was in my 20s. After running track and cross country and skating daily in high school, about the only strenuous activity I regularly participated in was drinking King Kobra malt liquor, being an obnoxious loudmouth, and taking long showers.

But you know what’s really weird about getting old? Realizing that whole crowds of people are younger than you. Football players, sexy actresses, politicians, business owners, cops; all sorts of people that were always older than you are suddenly young enough to be your kids, if you started young enough.

But you sort of accept this, or at least don’t really think about it, at least until circumstances force you to confront this fact in the creepiest and most uncomfortable ways.

A few years ago I had a dermatologist appointment. As many of you know, I am terrified of doctors, but I’m OK with dermatologists, which you’d realize if you’d ever seen a picture of me from high school.

My Graduation Photo

This was a regular follow up visit to make sure I didn’t have skin cancer or whatever, and the previous visit took about 5 minutes. No big deal.

Except that weeks earlier I had noticed a little red spot. On my balls. I’m not really a hypochondriac, but this seemed like a good time to start. Was this the beginning of nut cancer? Some sort of weird ball leprosy? It couldn’t be a venereal disease, could it? I was happily having regular sexual activity, and was having a great time doing so. I knew there had to be a catch. But it couldn’t be that. I mean, I was with a regular partner, and we had discussed all that stuff before and besides, we used condoms, so…Oh wait. No, I guess we didn’t really. Shit, I wonder if I got it off some toilet in the library and spread it to her? How would I explain that?

This made for a stressful week before the appointment. I didn’t research any of this stuff on WebMD or any of the other sites geared to hypochondriacs, I knew too many friends who looked stuff up and became convinced they would die within minutes of shutting down the computer. No, better to wait and see what the doctor said.

My dermatologist was an older guy who told corny jokes and did his best to make his patients comfortable. He also played classic rock in the examining room. The last time I heard “The Boys are Back in Town” and “Maggie May.” While “Cowboy Song” or “Every Picture Tells a Story” would have been better jams, it was still nice.

I was early for my appointment. The assistant leads me back and starts talking to a group of young women in scrubs in front of the examining room. One of them is a youngish Asian woman. She is wearing pigtails and is showing off her new braces, both of which make her look about 12 years old.

“Oh, you finally got them,” the women exclaim, as I’m sort of paying attention but mostly wondering what sort of long and painful process they’re going to have to use to scrape this disease from my testicles.

I’m told to strip to my underwear. I notice there is no classic rock playing. It’s very quiet, a nice place for me to contemplate and accept my ball-less future, as I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that they’re both going to have to be cut off. I have a moment of acceptance. You know, what have they ever done but get me in trouble anyway? Things would probably be more peaceful and less stressful as a eunuch. OK. Let’s do this.

The door opens. Naturally, my new doctor is the Asian woman wearing cartoon scrubs, pigtails and braces.

“Wait,” I think. “What happened to Doctor Oldie?"

“OK, stand up, we’re just going to check your skin.”

I swear she giggled. Jesus, how old is this girl? Is this Take Your Daughter to Work Day?

She looks me over. I can’t stop staring at her pigtails and braces. When she left the house this morning did she purposely try to look as young as possible? I just came in to get my diseased balls cut off, not to feel like a pedophile.

“Everything looks fine. Anything new since the last visit?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

Tell her, tell her, tell her, tell her. You can’t ignore this. You have to have this looked at, if for no other reason than to stop freaking out.

“Good, then we’ll…

“Well, OK, actually there is something. Uh..you know, down there. I mean, it’s probably nothing but …”

“Down there? Where, exactly?”

“Uh…my …uh..”

“Your penis? Your scrotum?”

“Uh… yeah…uh… that one. Scrotum. Yep, scrotum.”

“You don’t have to be nervous. I’ve seen everything before. Just take your underwear off and let me have a look.”

Normally, I like hearing women say that last sentence but this time a lot of the sexy had gone out of it.

“Where is the problem?”

“Right …right here. That red spot.”

God, now this braces wearing girl is inches away from my equipment. Am I being filmed or something? I mean, they’d have to see that I didn’t try anything, right?

“Oh, that? That’s just a blood vessel that burst. People get them all over their body. Nothing to worry about.”

I swear she giggled again.

After that experience, I thoroughly research any doctors I might have to get naked in front of. They have to be at least 20 years older than I am. It’s much less stressful that way.

Dance Fever

2012-01-22T21:49:00.004-05:00

I had been hanging around the record player with my friends for most of the seventh grade dance. After discussing the finer points of Rush and Eye of the Tiger, and wondering why the girls kept requesting Michael Jackson when we had plenty of perfectly fine Van Halen albums to play, I decided the time was right. We only had the room for another half hour or so, and I had been dragging my heels long enough. I was finally going to ask my crush to dance. I had never really danced before, actually, I don’t think I’d ever even really touched a girl before, but it looked pretty easy – just sort of hug her lightly and sway back and forth. I could do this.

And this was a true awkward middle school crush. I rode my bike in front of her house constantly (which was like 3 miles or so from my house) on the off chance she’d walk out and …I don’t really know, actually. See me and decide we needed to make out on her driveway, I guess.

Joan Jett’s “Crimson and Clover” was playing as I approached her. The lights were low (as low as Catholic middle school would allow) and the dust from the art room filtered through the light from the windows.

“I’ve got to do this,” I thought.

I had been working on my approach at home for quite some time. In rehearsals I was pretty suave, giving off a mixture of both smoldering seventh grade bad-boy sexuality, with a hint of sensitive, artistic guy along with a studied air of indifference, just to seem hard to get. She was going to melt.

She was standing with her friends. Joan Jett was wrapping things up as I got closer. “Shit,” I thought. “What if she shoots me down in front of everyone? I’ll have to pretend to be sick Monday. And I’ll have to find a way to get my desk moved away from her. No more secretly staring at her neck (and sometimes getting a glimpse of bra strap, which was pretty exciting.) God, she smells so nice, and I’m going to have to give all that up after this public humiliation. I’ll have to find a new girl’s house to ride my bike in front of. I wonder if my parents will let me transfer schools. Maybe I could say I’m getting bullied.”

Should I look at her? Yeah, I mean, I had to look at her, right? But I don’t want to look at her too much, that would be weird. God, haven’t they heard of air conditioning in this place?

Well, I’m here. I have to do it now.

“HeyumCatherineyouthinkyoumightwanttodancetothenextdance? Um…With me?”

“Sure, I’ll dance with you.”

Man, this was easy! I could have been asking girls this whole time, dancing like a … I don’t know…dancing MTV guy!

Joan Jett finished and the next song came on. Journey. Don’t Stop Believin’ Hell yeah.

I put my arms stiffly around my dancing partner’s waist (I had a dancing partner!). Her arms were around my neck. We were swaying to Journey’s tale of lonely small town girls and city boys. I could feel her breathing under my hands. I couldn't really look her in the eye, but I could smell her hair. It smelled sort of like fruit. Beautiful, beautiful fruit.

It would make a much better story if I wet myself or freaked out when the song picked up, but I did pretty good, even if my arms were sticking straight out in a stiff 90 degree angle and I was swaying back and forth like a retarded robot. Of course, I never really talked to her that much afterwards, since she still made me nervous, and it was much easier to fantasize about being cool around her than actually, you know, having a conversation.

Years later my wife would express amazement that my first slow dance was to Don’t Stop Believin'.

“But you can’t slow dance to that song,” she’d say.

“You can if you’re a superstud,” I’d reply.

Reflections on a Facebook Forward

2012-01-05T11:35:00.007-05:00

I saw this thing a few days ago on a friend's Facebook wall where you look up the number one song from the date of your birth and post it. Naturally, I had to do it. I mean, it was 11 o'clock on a weekday. What was I gonna do, work*?

I did pretty good - "ABC" by the Jackson 5. Then I poked around the site to see what other songs America decided to give me as birthday presents throughout the years.

Not too bad - Two Blondie songs, "I Love Rock n Roll," "Kiss" by Prince, "Nothing Compares 2 U," Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady;" you know, the one that goes: "Push it in, Push it out, Push it in, Push it out,Disco Lady." Subtle!

Overall a nice little assortment.

Then I decided to see what hits were signaling my birth in the years before I was born. Still not too bad - some Elvis, Beatles, "Joy to the World," and the Chipmunks doing that "Witchdoctor" song. But I still needed to search further.

Then I saw it - Arthur Collins' bad 1899 jam, "Hello, Ma Baby." You know, the one tune everyone whips out when the occasion calls for an old-timey song. Like if you try on a straw hat or find an old microphone or see a guy in a bowtie or something. Really? You guys don't do that? Huh. Well, trust me, most normal people do.

Here's a cartoon frog doing a version of it

I was pretty happy to see the song was a hit on my pre-pre-birthday, but then remembered that "Hello, Ma Baby" was the only song released in America until about 1928, so it was a hit on everybody's birthday. That took some of the fun out of it.

Anyway, almost two weeks ago I heard Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" in the grocery store. That tune had been lodged in my head ever since. I didn't really mind it too much - it's not a bad song, but just the fact that it hadn't left my mind in close to two weeks was a bit troubling. I was considering seeking medical help, you know, like they tell you to do if you have a boner that lasts over four hours.

However, once I saw the words "Hello, Ma Baby," Joe Jackson was booted out of my brain, and that little green frog took up permanent residence.

Bookmark this page, loyal readers. Next time you have a song stuck in your head, go back. I can almost guarantee "Hello, Ma Baby" will clear it out. You might eventually end up wearing a straw hat and bowtie while singing it into an old-timey microphone, but that's a small, yet immensely entertaining price to pay.

* Note to current and potential employers - this is a joke. I didn't have to work til 12. Let's keep this out of the files, huh?

Highway Star

2012-01-04T22:38:00.002-05:00

Like many of you, I can do some embarrassing stuff in the privacy of my car. Singing, talking to myself, air drumming, you name it. Unlike the majority of you, however, I have fancy tinted windows, so you can not see what I'm doing.

I packed up the bike on New Year's to go to the Baldwin Trail. I usually ride the bike down there since it's an easy way to add another 12 miles to my ride, but my tires are worn down pretty smooth and I didn't feel like getting a flat on the way there in the crappy industrial part of town.

I usually go in the early morning but I screwed around until late afternoon, and was lazily packing the car with all the stuff I'd need. I'd leave the trunk open and go find my water bottles, leave a back door open while hunting down something else, just a lazy, footdragging load in.

I finally started driving. I kept hearing a noise in the back, but figured it was just the bike shifting. It did sound a little more organic than that, but it was probably just some crap I left in the floorboard shifting or something.

I couldn't really be bothered with backseat noise, because I was playing a live Thin Lizzy album really loud, and if Homer Simpson has taught us anything,it's that rock music achieved perfection in 1974.

Now, If I'm alone, I'm not going to just wussily hum or nod my head, I'm gonna sing the crap out of some stuff. I'll pull out the guitar face, the pelvic thrust, the pointed finger coming off the guitar riff, anything to give my imaginary audience a thrill. And the audience was loving it. I mean, it was "Cowboy Song,", a song scientifically determined to increase rocking by 75%.

I stopped at a light, and continued to give my imaginary audience 110 percent. Right before the light turned green, as I caught the eye of a particularly fetching audience member in the front row, I felt something heavy and needle-y fall into my lap. The concert was over. I jumped out of my seat, somehow keeping my foot on the brake.

When I had the doors open, my ancient cat had climbed in and fallen asleep in the backseat. He had managed to sleep through quite a bit of noise, but eventually my rocking had caused him to jump up and join the party.

I don't really give a crap about people catching me singing in the car, but catching me singing in tight biking clothes with a cat on my lap while letting out a girlish scream was just too much. I turned around, let the cat out at my house, then continued back to the trail. I played the music lower on this trip.

What, Me Worry?

2011-12-09T10:54:00.010-05:00

This might come as a surprise to those of you who know me now, but I worried a lot as a kid.

I worried about everything. Grades, scary older kids, angry dogs, you name it. This time of year was especially tough. I was never sure if I had been good enough for Santa. I thought I was pretty good, but good enough for presents good? Good all year? And who knows what exaggerations and lies my parents told him if they talked? Consequently, I was such a ball of nerves that I ended up throwing up every Christmas Eve night. This probably forced my parents to tell me the truth about Santa much earlier than they wanted to, but it was either that or clean up puke every December 24th.

I remember having some Star Wars science book where publishers tricked little kids into learning by having C3PO and R2D2 explain scientific facts. At some point C3PO describes how the sun will eventually burn out, taking out the earth and everyone you love with it.

Well, I'm sure it was phrased differently, but that's what I got out of it. I was a nerdy kid (again, I'm sure that surprised you), so I had already heard this fact and knew that it would take billions of years for the sun to explode. Still, having C3PO relay this fact made it seem much more real. I mean, if you can't trust a fussy golden robot, who can you trust?

My parents were teachers, so to calm me down they explained that a billion years was a very, very long time, and by that time I would be long dead and forgotten, along with all my friends, family and pets.

I'm sure they explained it much better than that, but that's what I took away from our talk.

I worried about the sun all summer long. What if C3P0's calculations were wrong? What if it burned out next month? Or tomorrow? It seems pretty hot today, you don't think the sun is getting ready to explode today, do you? And this whole dying thing opened up a whole new avenue of worry.

I was smart enough to realize this stuff was actually pretty stupid to worry about, so I kept my thoughts to myself, which is a strategy I would continue to employ up to the present day.

I continued to worry about stuff, but not as much after I found a medication that suited me (a combination of gin and tonics and ignoring problems until I blew up once a year), and am now the cool, calm reasonable person you know and love.

In conclusion,

Thanks for ruining my childhood, dick.

Smashing Pumpkins

2011-11-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

"Now hold on there just a second, boy."

"Why, it looks like that one's tryin' to get away."

"Oh, don't worry. I got him."

The late night silence of the suburbs was shattered with a sickening THWACK and the sound of two corrupt law enforcement officers descending into hysterics.
Except the two officers were me and my friend Curt. And we were in high school.

I should back up.

The night hadn't started well. My mom and I got in a fight. A huge fight that escalated quickly into probably the biggest we had ever gotten into. She grounded me, and I just picked up my keys, walked out the door and left. I had never done anything like that before.

But Curt and I had tickets to see Love and Rockets that night, and I wasn't going to miss out on that.

I vaguely remember all sorts of ridiculous plans on the way to St. Pete. I was going to run away and...well, I'd make money somehow, and I wasn't going to come back home until I had my first million. My parents would change their tune then, especially when they had some time to reflect on how shabbily they treated their now rich son.
Love and Rockets were great. Maybe not as awesome as the tour we had seen previously, but still, seeing the music that I played in my bedroom or car stereo actually coming out of three people on a stage about two feet away was incredible. Opening act Jane's Addiction were mind-blowing. All in all it was a great night of music that helped forget my problems for a little while.

Of course, I had the 35 minute drive home to worry about what was going to happen when I got home. Luckily, Curt had been saving something for just such an occasion.
He told me to drive about a half mile past his house. At the time this area was full of sandspurs, scrub brush and pine and Cyprus trees.

“Keep going…further…further. OK. Stop.”

“Open the trunk.”

I parked the car on the side of the road. Curt took the tire iron out of the trunk and led the way. I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but I really didn’t want to go home, and Curt had never steered me wrong, so why not take a midnight hike with a tire iron?

He walked to a little wooded area and stopped.

“Check it out,” he said, motioning with the tire iron.

He was pointing to a field of wild melons, all about the size of bowling balls, just hanging out in the moonlight.

“I’ve seen these from the bus for months,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to come out and smash them.”

As a grown man, I realize how silly this sounds (unless you are the beloved comedian Gallagher), but as teenagers, you have all this extra energy and aggression, and few ways to channel it. Sometimes massacring a bunch of fruit is exactly what you need.

And it was. The first melon smashed with a satisfying sound. We started talking in comical Southern sheriff voices, just to sort of set the scene a bit, and give the whole thing a little more flavor.

Soon our shoes were covered in melon guts, our hands ached from the vibrations off the tire iron, and I thought I was going to pass out.

Have you ever laughed so hard you actually thought you were going to die? Where your stomach hurts and you can’t breathe, but you can’t stop laughing at something that in retrospect, isn’t really that funny? It happens to me fairly regularly, probably because I’m easily amused, but this was the first time, and it still feels like last week rather than…jeez, over 20 years ago.

After we had destroyed all the melons, helping nature by distributing seeds for future growth, we probably had a 7-11 meal and skated for a while up at the middle school. Things were certainly looking better.

Mom and I eventually made up, and I have yet to make dazzle my parents with my first million. Or thousand, actually.

Now I’m not suggesting smashing up a bunch of fruit will solve all your problems, but…hey, you know what? Screw it. You’ve got problems? You’re stressed out? Go smash up some melons. Talk like Jackie Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit while you’re doing it. Seriously, you’ll feel so much better.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-18T20:22:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving kind of gets the shaft. Stuck in there between Halloween and Christmas, most people look at it as the lull between the two big holidays. Me, I love it. It's one of those holidays that all Americans celebrate, and nobody's gonna get all weirded out because they have a different religion or came here from England or India or whatever. I'm not sure how Native Americans feel about it, but I'd like to think that they look at it as the good old days, you know, before the whole genocide thing.

I don't remember too many Thanksgivings as a kid, but I do remember what might be one of my favorite Thanksgivings as an adult. Hell, it might be one of my favorite holiday memories as an adult.

My ex-wife was doing an art show in Gainesville the day after Thanksgiving and left the day before, so Thanksgiving morning I was going to drive to my grandmother's in Georgia, eat, drive back home, then wake up the next morning and drive to Gainesville for Thanksgiving #2. This is a little-known advantage to being married. You can frequently get two Thanksgivings.

It was about a three hour drive to my Grandma's. While I hate day-to-day driving, I love trips. Especially solo trips. No bathroom breaks, no fights over the stereo, leaving whenever I get the urge; just me driving all caffiened up and alone with my thoughts and singing.

Although my dad is an only child, my grandma has a lot of ... well, I'm not really sure if they are actually blood relatives or friends or what. I think there is some sort of family connection way, way off there, like 3rd cousins once removed or whatever. Anyway, they all love me and make a fuss over me, which is one of the few times that attention like that doesn't make me feel awkward and weird.

And damn, can they cook! Along with the usual turkey and stuff, there was chicken and dumplings, about a gazillion vegetables, the most tender ribs I have ever had in my life, and like 5 different kinds of cake. I mean, seriously, can you even name more than 3 kinds of cake?

My plate looked like John Belushi's in Animal House, and every time I'd stop to take a breath or pause to savor another bite, they'd be all over me.

"Do you need something else? Anything we can get you?"

I usually hate being the center of attention, but having all these old Southern ladies baby me was pretty damn comforting and sweet. I was also drinking a ton of sweet tea. Not sweet tea like you get at the store or McDonald's or whatever, this was genuine Old Southern Lady Sweet Tea, the stuff that turns you diabetic after a glass or two. Of course, as soon as my glass was about 1/4 empty, it was filled to the rim by my old lady protectors.

I ate and drank so much I was dizzy. They made me massive plates for Christie (which of course she never got) and the ride home, and hugged my neck and I was on my way back to Jacksonville.

I managed to hit that golden hour, right when the sun starts to set. I've loved that hour since I was a teenager because it meant that my work was done and I was on the road with my friends to a punk show or a skate trip. This time I was almost alone on the road, I was listening to NPR, Fugazi's The Argument, one of those later Man or Astroman albums and feeling completely contented, if still a little dizzy.

I got home to a completely empty apartment complex. Actually, most of the neighborhood was dark. I might have been the only one on our street at the time. I started in on one of my plates, opened a Guinness and started playing 7"s at a volume I wasn't usually allowed to, what with the paper thin walls and all.

It's not too often that I feel completely at peace, but after getting babied all day, eating a ton of food, knowing that I was going to see my wife and her family the next day, but that I had tonight to play the stereo loud, get drunk and eat even more combined with the drive home gave me the most peaceful feeling I had felt in a long time. I still feel good thinking about it today. I hope both of my loyal readers are able to get a piece of that this Thanksgiving.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

2011-11-15T16:55:00.001-05:00

I'm standing in the doctor's reception area after my appointment.

"OK Mr. Adams, you're all done."

"Actually, he wanted me to schedule a physical."

"OK, when was the last time you had a full physical? Last year?"

"Uh..."

"Two years ago?"

"Well..."

"Five? Ten?"

"More like over 20 when I had to get one to run track in high school."

"Oh. That has been a while."

"Yeah. Hey, he said something about me getting a chest X-Ray. Is that like a regular service? Do I have to pay extra or anything?"

"That's all part of the physical."

The last time I went to the doctor's they waterboarded me in an attempt to clean out some wax from my ear. I didn't pass out, but things were pretty iffy there for a couple of minutes. Today wasn't too bad since I didn't have to take my clothes off or get touched, but using my Nostradamus-like powers of prediction, I'm already seeing me hitting the floor at some point during this physical thing next month. I decided not to ask if they have any butt stuff planned. That would probably work better as a surprise.

Drivin' and Cryin'

2011-11-10T22:13:00.008-05:00

I used to be someone. I had promise. I had a Porsche. No, seriously, I owned a Porsche for about a year. Actually, I guess technically my ex-wife did.

My dad had a hobby of buying old cars and restoring them. He'd be driving around and see a wreck with a for sale sign on it or start talking to a guy at a yard sale and end up buying a car and then spending months fixing it up. How he did this on a teacher's salary, I have no idea. All the way from a Model A to an MG like the one he used to have as a swinging single to a 1981 Porsche 924, he'd be obsessed for a while, then move on to another car.

About the time my ex-wife and I were first married, he had finished restoring the Porsche enough that he could drive it to work occasionally or drive it around the neighborhood now and then. We were down in Bradenton for something and he offered it to her as sort of an extra wedding present.

Well hell, who were we to turn down a free Porsche? I think we had just gotten rid of her car, a Geo that was on its last legs, or maybe we got rid of it after the Porsche offer. Who cares! We had one reliable car and a piece of German engineering, something that was befitting of our new life as one of Jacksonville's power couples. And it was a convertible, too!

I soon discovered there was a big difference between driving the car two or three miles every other day and depending on it to safely transport your wife to her job about a half hour away, especially in the days before cell phones. Well, at least before we had cell phones.

Here is a transcription from memory of about 87 calls I would get pretty frequently:

"Hey, I'm at Publix. The car just stopped. I can't get it started. I hate this car."

I can't even remember all the mechanical problems that car had. We were brand new in Jacksonville with no friends and had no idea which mechanic to trust. We called around but the only place that would take it was an import place, and because of the age of the car, they couldn't find parts half the time.

I did like the smell of the car's interior, though. It had the same smell those old VW convertibles used to give off - a mix of plastic that suggested the action figures I had as a kid, as well as a fresh bag of plastic fishing worms or brand new cassette tapes, mixed with just a hint of gasoline fumes.

Oh yeah, those gasoline fumes were probably bad.

That car was a major source of friction in the early days of our marriage. It didn't help my relationship with my parents, either. If I mentioned the problems we were having with it, I could feel my dad getting more and more upset. I mean, shit, he gave us a free car, you know? And his ungrateful son was complaining about it all the damn time.

I had (and still have) a tendency to grasp onto the smallest pebble of a problem and through a combination of worrying and anxiety, transform it into a house-sized boulder that crushes me down until I can't sleep or do anything but worry about the most ridiculous possible outcome. So when there's a real problem, say a car that we've dumped over $3000 into that we didn't really have, I've already planned my future in the poor people's nursing home, where I'm mistreated by hateful minimum-wage immigrants while my friends are enjoying their mansions and yachts, while they mention every once in a while between bites of caviar, "Hey, I wonder whatever happened to Scott? Eh. I'm sure he's alright. More champagne, Jeeves."

I don't remember when we finally decided to cut our losses. It might have been after we figured out how much we had spent on repairs. It might have been after we finally couldn't afford to fix it any more. I remember it sat in our apartment's driveway for a long time. I'd look down at it occasionally, sitting down there mocking me.

We finally ended up donating it to some charity, something I only though rich people did. Like I said, we ended up paying over 3 grand in repairs over the life of the car. Sure, it would have been smarter to take that money and use it as a down payment for another car, but it's not like we ever had all that money at one time.

We were a one-car family for a long time after that. That had its own set of problems and stresses, but at least I didn't think my wife was going to die every time she went to work, and even waiting for the bus for over an hour was much less stressful than waiting to hear from another mechanic as our checking account took another hit.

So if anyone ever offers you a free sports car, run far, far away.

Billion Dollar Babies

2011-11-03T20:28:00.002-04:00

My sister and I were all set up to be billionaires. Back when she was in middle/high school I'd come home from a date or whatever and she'd be in the living room watching TV. I'd get in the other easy chair (I don't know what my parents had against couches) and watch with her for a while. I believe it was usually "Love Connection." You know, like the lyric in that Beastie Boys song - "dating women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery?" No? Well, maybe it was before your time.

We'd both end up getting sleepier and sleepier, with longer pauses between our comments about whatever we were watching. Turning off the TV and walking to our bedrooms seemed impossible. Not only that, but before going to bed we'd both have to brush our teeth.

Then the idea hit us. What if there was a pill you could chew that would brush your teeth for you? Say you come home late or you're out in the woods or just too lazy to go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, you'd chew up this pill, spit it out and have all the benefits of brushing your teeth without any of that effort.

We talked about this pill constantly. We were going to make a fortune. Do you know how many lazy people were looking for just such a time saver? Well, we didn't either, but it had to be a lot.

Of course, we had no idea how to actually make such a pill, or what would be in it. Would it foam up like Alka-Seltzer? Would it just automatically brush your teeth just by being in your mouth? These were the questions that we could never find satisfactory answers to. Plus, I'm pretty sure the toothbrush lobby was on to us and starting to ramp up their pressure.

In the end, we abandoned our toothbrushing pill plans, leaving behind untold riches and fame so we could better fit in with the common people. I have not noticed anyone picking up the gauntlet since, but a little-known patent law states that once a vague idea is written about on the internet, it acts as a sort of patent. So scientists, once you perfect that stuff, start sending that sweet cash to me and my sister.

Call Me

2011-10-30T21:48:00.002-04:00

I first heard Naked Raygun in my friend Curt's parent's car. I remember him slaloming around the curves on Riverview Boulevard as he played "Throb Throb." I can't remember if it was the end of high school or early college, but I do remember being blown away by the tape. We both had extensive punk music collections, but Raygun were something different. A super catchy band with a singer who could actually, you know, sing, with songs that stayed away from the simplistic politics most of our favorites were screaming about, instead focusing on post-apocalyptic comic book ...stuff with a sense of humor.

Naked Raygun were never that big, and when you found another fan, you generally found a friend. This was music for wise-ass nerds, people who were willing to dig just a little deeper, and who generally shared your same outlook and interests. I'm sure they had meathead fans as well, but living in Florida we never ran into them.

Curt and I remained Naked Raygun fans throughout the years, finally getting to see them about 4 years ago at a reunion show in Chicago. It was awesome. I figured that was the pinnacle of our Raygun experience.

Then in Gainesville this weekend (don't worry, I'll have a full story soon), I saw The Bomb, singer Jeff Pezatti's post-Raygun band bust out "Soldier's Requiem," one of my favorite songs of all time and one they didn't play at the reunion. That was pretty awesome.

And then Jeff Pezatti walked into the bar where I was with a big group of my friends. A lot of them have met him before (hell, he stays at my friend Shane's house when he's in Gainesville), but this was a first for me. He was super nice, even after having to hear loud drunken explanations of his own songs. They say you should never meet your heroes, but you know, maybe most people have shitty heroes.

Then he started prank calling his friends. Naked Raygun members, Steve Albini, I can't remember who all right now, but they all got a rendition of a group of us singing "Vanilla Blue" to them.

If you had told me in 1988 that I would be in a bar singing "Vanilla Blue" with the singer of Naked Raygun to his friends, I probably would have been able to get through some of my shitty years easier. "Just a few more years," I'd think. "Then I'll be singing Naked Raygun songs with Jeff Pezatti in a bar on a futuristic telephone machine with a bunch of drunks I haven't met yet."

Speaking of telephone machines, I had a SIM card replaced on mine a week ago. Since I didn't save all my addresses and numbers to the card, a lot of people got wiped out and I was only left with their email address, something I didn't discover until this weekend. This is the only downside to the whole experience, because through the whole thing, all I was thinking was, "I have to let Curt hear this."

So Curt, I'm sorry technology beat me again. I promise to save your info on the card ASAP, just in case I run into someone else famous.

Here's some proof. I call this one "Three Men and a Little Lady." And no, my neck is not that fat in real life.

The Power of Positive Drinking

2011-10-30T21:47:00.006-04:00

It's been a bad month. For a variety of reasons I've been feeling like a failure both professionally and personally. I sleep like I'm on watch - sleep two hours and stay awake two, all through the night. The hours I'm awake I catalog a litany of mistakes and missteps and future problems that snowball until I either fall back asleep or wake up and trudge through another day.

So I've been getting out of town on the weekends, which has been pretty great. Went to Chapel Hill two weekends ago, which was amazing. Lots of beer drinking, man talk and pork eating in one of the greatest little cities I've ever been in. I don't understand why all of America isn't trying to move up there.

Gainesville, Florida was up next in my tour of our nation's finest college towns for this big music festival thing. I didn't really care too much about seeing the bands, I was mostly in it for another big Gainesville group meet up.

As both of my readers might remember, these tend to happen once a year or so, when a group of about 20 or so ex-Gainesvillians gather for a wedding or music festival or whatever. A few have them have also magically lined up when I've been in the middle of some tough times, and have managed to pick me up and recharge my batteries for at least a little while.

I'm not really comfortable around a lot of people. I tend to hide different aspects of my revolting personality around different groups, and I generally stay quiet, feeling that people wouldn't want to hear whatever I would say, so it was nice to be around a group where I could be completely comfortable. Judging from the memories that flash through, perhaps I was a little too comfortable.

And the weekend seems to have worked its magic. Three days and nights surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world, full of eating, drinking, music and laffs, which naturally, I didn't get a single photo of. Official photographer Leila Campisi did get some pretty awesome photos, including this one of me eating some money. It made sense at the time.

How am I still single?

You could say that this is all a bunch of middle-aged Big Chill-type nostalgia, and I might agree, except that none of us were really bringing up the past at all - we were focusing on what we were doing now, catching up with each other, that sort of thing. I don't mean to make this sound like some therapy session or something, I was frequently laughing so hard at some nonsense that I felt I had ruptured my appendix or something.

As loaded as I was through the weekend I still had trouble sleeping until Saturday night. I slept like a log and woke up at 7:30 feeling more refreshed than I had in a long time. I went ahead and packed up and drove back to Jacksonville, feeling...I dunno, peaceful somehow, knowing that all my problems (which would be ridiculous to 90 percent of the world) can be dealt with or ignored. The sun was still rising and looked beautiful, every song that came up on the ipod sounded amazing, and I was on the road.

Sure, I might be a single middle aged guy who is frequently broke and has a lack of both marketable talents and social skills, but I've able to pick some goddamn amazing friends, and I'll be able to take whatever life dishes out, as long as I can keep in touch with them to remind me that I'm not as weird and out of place as I sometimes think I am.

And I can still eat the hell out of some money.

Rate the Vampires

2011-10-17T19:05:00.006-04:00

I read "Dracula" for the first time for a book club I'm doing at work. Strangely enough, I never read it before. I've read a hundred different abridged versions of it and seen even more of the movies, so I thought I knew the basic story.

Except the basic story is pretty different from the original. First of all, Dracula drops out after page 50 or so and it shifts to Lucy and Mina and their suitors, like someone snuck a copy of "Pride and Prejudice" into my vampire book. Dracula's death is strange, too. It's the last page and they just behead him and that's pretty much it. And Dracula has a mustache? Come on.

So I decided to rate the movie vampires. I was going to just rate the Draculas, but I expanded it a bit to create a completely arbitrary guide to movie vampires, just what the world has been crying out for.

Some of these I've seen recently in my run up to Halloween watching, some I haven't seen in years, but since this is the internet, I still feel that my halfway remembered version of a movie is absolutely correct.

Nosferatu (1922) and (1972)
The first time I saw the original I was at my Great Uncle Norwood and Aunt Tiny's house. Uncle Norwood was watching it on the TV in the Florida Room. I was about 7 and wasn't allowed to see it, which made me want to watch all the more. I read all sorts of books on monsters and ghosts and whatnot, so I figured I was old enough to watch some ancient black and white movie. I caught a glimpse of Nosferatu creeping up the stairs with his long claws and rat face and immediately started bawling. Sometimes the adults are right. Rewatched recently as a grown up, Nosferatu is still creepy and manages to create an overall sense of fear and unease. Sure, other German stuff at the time was more visually arresting with all those crazy angles, but man, that makeup job on Nosferatu is still aces.
Rating: 5 bats

Warner Herzog's remake with Klaus Kinski already has 3 points to recommend it. Klaus Kinski, Warner Herzog, and Nosferatu. From what I remember, this Nosferatu is more closely linked with the plague, but Kinski's Nosferatu is strangely able to become a sympathetic character.
Rating: 5 bats

Dracula (1931)
Dracula has it's problems. It's really stagey and you can see how movies were still trying to work out a style away from the florid silent tropes. There's a couple characters who either don't register at all or who spend way too much time on the screen. But when Bela Lugosi gets a scene, you're riveted. With his Hungarian accent and courtly manners that seem just a touch off, you can totally see how the Count was droppin' panties and stabbin' jugulars all across Europe. While nowhere near as scary as Nosferatu, Lugosi so completely owned the role that to this day if you grab someone at random and ask them to give a vampire, they're gonna do Bela Lugosi.
Rating: 4 bats as a whole, 5 bats for Lugosi

Christopher Lee's Hammer Draculas (1958 - 1974)
Christopher Lee's Dracula combined both the earlier approaches. In the beginning he could be smooth, but once he saw an unprotected neck or someone finally figured out he was a vampire, he'd become a feral, hissing fiend with the strength to toss people around his castle. You know what you're getting into in each movie; there's gonna be a visitor going to Draculaland who gets warned off by the natives, Van Helsing shows up, a bunch of pretty ladies in low cut gowns vampire around, there are some debates about science and religion where someone says, "Vampires? Why it's the 19th (or 20th) century," Dracula is eventually killed and then resurrected in the next movie. That's not to say that's a bad thing, even the ones where Dracula is running around in mod London are worth watching, and with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, the Dracula movies finally have someone equal to the Count on screen.
Rating: oh what the hell. 4 bats

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
I remembered not liking this one when I saw it in the theater, but I've warmed to it a bit more from constant rotation on TV. The Vlad the Impaler stuff is pretty cool, and Dracula as an old man is interesting, but seeing him walking around London with long hair and Lennon glasses and a wispy beard and mustache just doesn't jibe with my idea of a Dracula. Plus, this started the trend of vampires who whine about how terrible it is to be a vampire. Or maybe that was Lost Boys. It also loses a bat for there being no gratuitous Winona Ryder nudity.
Rating: 3 bats

Interview with a Vampire (1994)
This started the transformation of vampires from courtly Europeans or hissing beasts into college sophomores after a bad breakup, only with more frilly clothes and an urge to theatrically exclaim every emotion they are feeling. Really, how terrible is it to be a vampire? You get to sleep in cool old castles, turn into a bat, seduce ladies and you even get a cool-ass cape. If I were a vampire, you'd never hear me complaining about it.
Rating: 2 bats

Twilight (2008)
Obviously, I'm completely the wrong market for this, but come on. Vampires that don't turn into bats? That hang out in the daytime and don't drink blood? That go to school?
Rating: 1 bat, and that's generous.

The winner, and still champion

I Never Kissed a Bear, I Never Kissed a Goon, But I Can Shake a Chicken in the Middle of the Room

2011-10-13T21:31:00.004-04:00

I remember the first time I heard Wanda Jackson. I was living in Atlanta, delivering food, walking out each night with at least 30-40 bucks in cash on top of my regular paycheck. Most of this cash went with me to Wax n Facts every Wednesday where I would exchange it for stacks of vinyl. One day I found a couple of the Born Bad bootlegs. These were full of songs that the Cramps either covered, were inspired by or borrowed pieces from. Jackson's "Funnel of Love" was the last song on Volume One.

As you could imagine, these comps were full of weird, unhinged music, but Jackson's song was something else. A catchy, tuneful song with a singer who had a voice like a wildcat. I played that song over and over.

Flash forward to 2011. After a particularly bad couple of weeks, I decided to go see her perform to lift my spirits.

Things did not start promisingly. My friend Matthew and I have some of the worst directional skills known to man and were stuck with a non-working GPS. He was navigating directions from my phone, which worked about as well as you would imagine. The concert was in Ponte Vedra, which we later discovered was about 30 minutes away. We took about an hour and a half, full of conversations like this:

"I think we're going in the wrong direction."

"Are you sure?"

"Not really. Hey. Those barricades up there? Does that mean the road is closed?"

This also required a lot of U turns in the dark, as well as turning and merging on to roads where I wasn't quite sure what was road and what was median. I should probably get my eyes checked again.

Jackson was playing at a place that looked like a church from the '80s, and it was full of ...well, it wasn't actually full, and there was a strange group there. A couple rockabilly revivalists, some middle aged parents (wait, I guess I'm middle aged now. Well, older-than-me parents) and some people that looked like they donated to the place so had season tickets.

It is also the only event where I've had an usher tell me, "You know, it's not full, so if you want you can get up closer."

Despite all that, she was amazing. She had a good backing band who had the sense not to get in the way or fill the music up with a bunch of unnecessary fills and showboating. Her voice still has that weird, otherworldly quality, but it's aged a bit. She told stories from the stage about her life, which avoided sounding corny or showbizzy.

And she has a right to be showbizzy - she toured and went out with Elvis. She played some covers, some songs from her new album which sounded great, and played every song I wanted to hear, even "Fujiyama Mama," which was a hit in Japan, even with the lyrics, "I've been to Nagasaki/ Hiroshima too/ The same I did to them, baby I can do to you."

Altogether a great night, and another example of how you should really get out and see the old-timers while you can. And call your grandma this weekend too.

A New Record!

2011-09-19T13:19:00.007-04:00

Went to a record show down in Gainesville yesterday, mostly just for something to do. I only have a few records left. My turntable has lived in the top of my closet for about 6 years now. I am a terrible hipster.

Years ago I was faced with the problem of how to save 6 crates of vinyl from Mother Nature during a hurricane evacuation. Realizing they wouldn't all fit in the Civic with two cats, a wife, a computer and several essential bins of fabric and beads, I realized that maybe I didn't really need all that stuff after all, and started replacing most of my collection on CD, which took up a hell of a lot less space.

But it was still fun digging through the crates on a Sunday on the grounds of the old Hardback Cafe, even if I had to endure what my friend Pat dubbed scenester smell. "It's all full of sweated out cheap beer and cigarettes and unwashed armpits," was pretty close to his exact quote. I should have written it down.

I hit up the dollar and 2 dollar records for some wall decoration for my still barely furnished bachelor pad and managed to score a nice looking For A Few Dollars More soundtrack, The Impressions' Gone Away, which I might actually have to try to listen to, and some some exotica record with an evil nekkid Hawiian lady throwing bowls of fire at you:

Pretty boss, huh?

Cynics might wonder why I expended precious fossil fuels and my free time to spend a handful of money on stuff that I don't really have a use for. Well, if I hadn't, you never would have seen this:

Poor sad clown. I know the feeling.

I have no idea what this is, other than the possible inspiration for Fishbone's awesome Christmas carol "Slick Nick, You Devil, You," but I expect it will remain an integral part of my Christmas displays for years to come.

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

2011-09-16T16:05:00.005-04:00

Got me a new car this week. My old Civic was closing in on 240,000 miles and had a number of small problems that I had adjusted to over the years. The air conditioner made a noise like a lawn mower plowing through a field of rocks if you put it on the two settings that (sort of) worked. It had started to leak oil. If I didn't put water in it every week, it would come close to overheating when idling for over a minute or two. This weird indoor snow was coming off the sun-destroyed visor.

Still, we had a past, and it took me much longer than I should have to let it go. Mostly because I am cheap, lazy, afraid of change and have an intense hatred of people trying to sell me things.

I got the car back in 1998 as a signing bonus for getting married and finishing grad school. It was the first new car I have ever owned, and probably ever will own. It survived 6 months of daily commuting back and forth from Gainesville to Jacksonville, a whole bunch of long trips, a failed theft attempt, a couple of moves, a hurricane evacuation, and dozens of neighborhood cats sleeping and peeing on it. All the dings and problems with it were all mine. This new car, who knows what the pervert who owned it before me was doing in there?

I actually found maps from my honeymoon in the glove compartment, which was pretty sad, both as a reminder that I have a failed marriage to my name, and as a reminder that I haven't been bothered to clean out the glove compartment since owning the car.

The new car is pretty nice, another Civic I can run into the ground (I'm not giving out too many details. I don't want you internet freaks tracking me down). It's very strange to be driving something so quiet; something where I'm not constantly looking out for the next smell or sound or light telling me something's gone wrong.

The buying experience went much better than I feared since the salesman was brand-new and hadn't been fully indoctrinated into salesman mode. I was able to knock close to 2 grand off the price, which is funny, since I'm a worse negotiator than President Obama. Usually halfway through I realize I'm playing a game, the salesperson is playing a game, we both know it, and it just seems sort of stupid, so tell me what to pay and let me leave. But I was able to channel my dad and it worked. My dad could get deals on like, stereos and stuff just by asking, "So how much is this really?" Whenever I tried that, I'd just get embarrassed and write a check for an extra 50 bucks just to apologize for taking up the salesperson's time and subjecting him to my pathetic bargaining attempts.

I also liked when the salesman asked me to pick a radio station and I turned it to NPR, then switched over to Jones College Radio. I could feel him getting all flummoxed next to me but not wanting to say anything that would possibly blow the sale.

So I'm pretty happy, I suppose, and this new car will slowly take on a character. This new car also means I can't use my unreliable transportation as an excuse not to get out of Jacksonville any more, but luckily cheapness, laziness and comfort of being stuck in a rut will work just fine.

Mighty Big Shoes to Fill

2011-08-30T21:01:00.007-04:00

I went Bigfoot crazy a few weeks ago. It started when I caught an interview with an author plugging his latest book on NPR about the legendary creature (his shocking conclusion: Bigfoot probably doesn't exist, the 'bigfoot community' is sort of nuts). That sounded pretty cool. Then, within a week, two or three people mentioned Bigfoot or sent me a Sasquatch-related link.

Realizing this was a plate of shrimp moment like the movie Repo Man told us all about, I was powerless to fight fate so I loaded up my Netflix queue with whatever Bigfoot movies they had, checked out the NPR guy's book from work, and would have listened to Bigfoot music, if I could figure out what that was. I have a hunch he would listen to Fu Manchu.

Bigfoot was everywhere when I was a kid. Exploitation filmmakers cranked out films about him, he was on TV, he even had his own line of shoes, which I remember pitching a fit for in Buster Brown. I do not recall if my shitiness was rewarded.

I do, however, remember lots of time spent in the woods looking for the beast. This was back in the late '70s/early '80s when parents didn't really care what their kids did, just as long as they did it somewhere else, or at least did it quietly.

And man, did I love hanging out in the woods. My friends and I used our Bigfoot hunts as an excuse to follow trails for what seemed like miles and to freak each other out with outrageous lies as we got deeper and deeper into the woods. You could also fairly regularly find piles of waterlogged and moldy Penthouse and Playboy magazines out there which was an added bonus and safer than running into Bigfoot.*

There are adults who still do the same thing, although they are completely serious, which is funny, because even as kids we knew we were wasting our time. If you have cable you might have seen those ghost hunters who walk through haunted houses in green light challenging ghosts to fights. I'm serious. Half the running time is guys in Ed Hardy shirts yelling stuff like, "'SUP GHOST?! WHY DON'T YOU SHOW YOURSELF? YOU LIKE SCARING LITTLE KIDS AND WOMEN? WHY DON'T YOU MATERIALIZE RIGHT NOW, GHOST?"

The ghosts never show up.

As with many things I loved as a kid or teenager, Bigfoot tracking is probably the next ridiculous thing to hit the mainstream. Next time you're out on a relaxing walk in the woods looking for old dirty magazines, don't be surprised if you interrupt a camera crew shouting "C'MON, BIGFOOT! WHY YOU GOTTA HIDE, BRA?! I'M RIGHT HERE IN YOUR WOODS, DUDE!"

*Do you remember the thrill of spotting the back cover of a magazine somewhere as a kid, seeing a cigarette ad, getting excited thinking you had found some forest porn only to realize it was just a Newsweek or something? If I could bottle that euphoria and exhilaration I'd put 5 Hour Energy out of business.

Cunning Stunts

2011-08-06T16:12:00.005-04:00

For nerdy kids, there were few greater feelings than successfully pulling a prank over on someone. Not only did it get you laughs, strengthening your sense of theatricality, but it reinforced a vague sense that you were smarter than the adults.

Of course, looking back, the adults were probably just playing along to not crush your self-esteem. I mean, kids aren't really known for their self-control or patience, so when you suddenly started spouting,
"Hey mom, why don't you sit down? Like, right here? On this cushion? Aren't you tired, huh? Why don't you sit down," they probably knew what was up.

At least my parents played along with my practical jokes, my friends were once chased around the table by their murderous dad after he found a fake fly ice cube in his drink.

The company S.S. Adams (sadly, no relation) made it easy for kids with cheap practical jokes in just about every supermarket. This one-stop shopping area could get you joy buzzers, fake soap, snapping gum, whatever your heart desired.

While the packaging was amazing, the actual mechanics of the toys usually left something to be desired. That joy buzzer looked awesome, with that 1950s businessman jumping out of his shoes with lighting bolts all around him. When you actually used it on someone, it made a pathetic little 'bzzzz' sound as your victim just sort of stared at you. Of course, the joke was pretty much over when a ten year old you offered to shake hands with someone. What kid shakes people's hands? It also didn't help that it looked like you were a little kid wearing a wedding band.

S.S. Adams inspired a brand loyalty that would rival that of the guy at work that's always yapping about the newest Apple whatever, mostly because they were cheap and readily available. They also seemed a bit more realistic than the stuff advertised in comic books.

Although I really, really wanted my own personal 7 foot Frankenstein, my dad explained that it was just a cardboard picture and he couldn't really be used to settle neighborhood scores. Besides, all that stuff had to be mailed away for, which seemed a long, confusing and boring process, possibly involving checks.

Also, who had the patience to wait 4-6 weeks to wait for your X-Ray Specs or Sea Monkeys or...holy crap! The guy who invented X-Ray Specs and Sea Monkeys was a member of the Klan and the Aryan Nations? Shit, I'm glad I didn't unknowingly finance Hitler by buying those X-Ray Specs I really wanted.
Jesus, I wonder where the money for that 7 foot Frankenstein would have gone? NAMBLA?

Anyway, S.S. Adams is still going strong, and not affiliated with any creepy causes that I could find. Next time you're at the store you should pick up a can of those jumping snake mixed nuts. Looking at the packaging, they haven't changed since like 1962, but that's not the point. Everyone knows that you have to play along with that sort of stuff.

More Celebrity Sightings

2011-08-01T18:27:00.001-04:00

Security Guard: "I've been thinking all night about who you look like."

Me: "Aw, crap."

Security Guard: "No, no, you look like that dude in The Hangover."

Not sure which one he's talking about, but I guess it's better than Nathan Lane.

The Power of Bollywood

2011-07-17T13:54:00.003-04:00

I was in the back of a cab in D.C., while my friend Julie navigated.

"This music is beautiful," said Julie.

The cabbie made some sort of affirmative sound.

"Yeah, it's nice," I said. "Hey, I know this. Is this from a movie?" I asked the cabbie.

"Yes, yes," he said.

"Is this from Don?"

"Yes, it is," the cabbie exclaimed, a bit more excited.

"That movie's awesome!" I exclaimed. And I wasn't lying. Don is awesome. Here, read this review. If you're looking to an introduction to '70s Bollywood action cinema, this would be the one.

Don!

We talked for a few minutes about Don, Bollywood soundtracks, and Amitabh Bachchan's gazillion movies, and just like that, a gap was bridged, a gap between races, between cultures and ages, at least until we found that we didn't have enough money to leave a tip.

Even Jack Chick is Feeling the Recsssion

2011-07-11T22:59:00.006-04:00

Because of the rain, I've had to drive to work the past two Saturdays. This always sort of throws me off my game, as my daily bike ride to work depletes my dangerously full reserves of crazy.

On both of these Saturdays I get out of work, ready for some maxin' and relaxin.' As I'm walking to my car I notice something tucked under my windshield wiper.

"Sonofabitch! There's no way I can get a ticket! Weekends are free downtown! That's the one perk city employees still get!"

Oh wait. They weren't tickets after all. Looks like some sort of note. Crap. I'll bet someone hit my car and drove off. Then again, what if somehow Lynda Carter and Debbie Harry left a note telling me how sexy I was and how they were waiting for me at my house? This would require them having access to a time machine, as I'm strictly thinking of both of them circa 1977 or so. I'm not sure where they would get a time machine, but you know, they're famous and everything, and they seem nice enough that they'd want to use this new technology to help out a creepy middle-aged man explore his pre-pubescent fantasies.

Wait, what were we talking about?

Praying always in your Most Holy Faith

Then you open it up and there's a little picture of an American flag/Bible, while explosions light up the words. Not bad. I'm thinking this was inspired by the local 4th of July festivities.

The next week's was on cardboard, and simply has the American flag/Bible with "The Lord" in big ol' script.

While this anonymous artist has a bright, airy style, I feel they still need a little work. I suggest a study of mid-period Jack Chick.

I Have a Signature Sound

2011-07-11T19:47:00.002-04:00

The boss was talking to someone close to my little cubicle.

Boss: "Scotty's around,* right?"

Me: "Yeah, why, were you guys gonna talk about some lady stuff again?"

Boss: "No, I just knew you were there because I could hear your sound."

Me: "My sound?"

Boss: "Yeah, you have this weird sound you make. Sort of a combination between a sigh and a sniff."

Me: "Really? I never noticed."

Boss: "Yeah, you might want to see an allergist about that."

So now I'm the guy who creeps around work sniffing and sighing. I think I'm only days away from being the dude in Office Space who is obsessed with his stapler.

*Again, I have no idea how I got the nickname Scotty at work.

Reference Question of the Decade

2011-06-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

"Y'all have comedies? You know, funny talkin'?"

Sale!

2011-06-25T13:36:00.010-04:00

For about two years I was a stock boy at Ben Franklin, a store named after one of our nation's most kick-ass founding fathers. I have no idea what Mr. Franklin had to do with selling arts and craft supplies, but I suppose he needed something to do when he wasn't perfecting his electricity shooting kite or helping Paul Bunyan build the Grand Canyon.

One day I was told to stock the googly eyes, STAT. To those of you not in the craft business, googly eyes are...well, they're googly eyes. Little plastic moving eyes that you glue on stuff. Say you've got a pet rock or a sock puppet. You've painted, glued, crafted the hell out of it, and it looks pretty cool, but there's something missing, some spark of life, some vital essence not there. Glue some googly eyes on that sucker, and the Frankenstein feeling of creating life out of previously inert materials flows through your hands. And they all laughed at you at the university! The fools! They called you mad? You'll show them all! Arise, my sock puppet! Arise and taste the sweet breath of life!

So the things were not without their uses, but they weren't really a hot item. People would buy a pair when they needed them for a project, then the rest of the eyes would sit on the pegboard shelf, gathering dust and staring at you as you walked down the aisle.

"Make sure you bring everything out from the back," my manager said. "There's a sale in tomorrow's paper."

"Oh yeah?" I tried to give my question just the right amount of interested inflection, letting my boss know that I genuinely cared about the inner workings of Ben Franklin and the craft business in general. Meanwhile, I was trying to remember the lyrics from "Ace of Spades" and imagining what various cashiers would look like naked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "They're gonna be buying them up like crazy tomorrow. Look."

She showed me the advertisement. Googly eyes 50 cents.

"Wait. These eyes have been 50 cents since I started working here. And anybody that would care about our ads would know how much they are. These people are in here all the time."

"Just wait," she said.

Sure enough, the next morning the old folks came stampeding in at 10 on the dot, heading straight for the googly eyes(It was always exactly 10, because they'd start gathering outside the doors about 15 minutes earlier, their agitation increasing every minute they were locked away from their poly-fil, silk flowers and precious googly eyes. At 9:59 they'd start making exaggerated gestures towards their watches and at the digital bank sign across the street. These are the people, you would think, that won World War II and beat the Great Depression.).

I was up at the counter pretending to sweep and asked a lady why she bought 4 pairs of googly eyes.

"They're on sale," she exclaimed. "They're only 50 cents!"

"What are you gonna do with them?"

"I don't know...But they're on sale!"

Figuring this was one of those Spinal Tap "This one goes up to 11," moments, I wisely kept quiet and pondered the power of advertising.

Late Night Bonding

2011-06-20T17:44:00.003-04:00

Nobody thought their parents understood them growing up. I was sure mine didn't. I'm still pretty sure of it. I often wonder what my parents thought of me, now that I'm probably the age they were when I was a teenager.

In return for free food and a place to stay (and a rather large assortment of Star Wars paraphernalia), I would act like doing yardwork was the equivalent of getting shipped to the Gulag, and the stuff I thought was cool (rock and roll, monsters, videogames, skateboarding, dirty movies on cable) must have seemed ridiculous at best, and at worst, a path to a life of laziness and loserdom.*

On my side, my parent's square habits like waking up early and doing yardwork and their extreme thriftiness was just as alien to me. I mean, who would want to do that crap when HBO is showing Emannuelle at 3:30 in the morning?

Naturally, I am now obsessed with yardwork, cheaper than Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve and generally wake up around 7 in the morning.

Things got better once I was in community college and still living at home. I was making close to straight As (with the exception of my math classes, which I had to retake like 30 times), had steady employment, and was generally fairly responsible.

I was on the newspaper staff, which was a pretty sweet gig. There were about 8 of us, and our advisor would stop in maybe three times a semester. We would hang out for hours in the newspaper office, eating food from the cafeteria, listening to the Pixies and Descendents, and bonding the way you do over old-school wax and X-Acto layout.

A friend on the staff had a crush on me which I was oblivious to, as I had the social skills of a circus bear and was fairly ugly, so the thought of someone of the opposite sex actually liking liking me after the end of my lengthy high school romance seemed about as likely as my flapping my arms and flying to the moon.

At one point, the two of us were driving around Siesta Key after blowing off our night biology class, something we did fairly often. We parked and walked on the beach in the dark. The water was glowing yellow-green with phosphorescence. Every crashed wave would leave a glowing, otherworldly hue. Naturally, we had to get out in there.

I can't remember what time of year it was, I just remember we were freezing, making out while hundreds of thousands of glowing algae turned the ocean around us into our personal light show.

Well, with nature turning on the romance like that, we had to go back to her house. After messing around for a while, I figured I needed to get home, as it was approaching 4 in the morning. I didn't actually have a curfew at the time, but this would probably be pushing it, and I still had a 20 minute drive home.

My clothes were wet, so I borrowed a pink sweatshirt with a beaver on it and wrapped up in a towel. I figured everyone would be long asleep at home, so who cared what I looked like?

I turn the key in the door and see my dad sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by a pile of bills, probably trying to figure out how he was going to manage to pay for all the food I was consuming.

"Where the hell have you been? Do you know what time it is?

"I ..."

Dad was taking in my getup. No shoes, feet and legs still glowing green from the ocean, and a yellow towel topped off with a pink beaver sweatshirt.

"Just...just go to bed," he said, laughing.

Strangely enough, "To Everything, Turn Turn" by the Byrds came on. My voice got whinier and I said, "And at that moment, I realized my dad and I weren't that different after all."

And that was the best episode of The Wonder Years ever.

* Guess I showed them, huh?

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dumb

2011-06-12T13:53:00.004-04:00

I had quite a few unofficial jobs before actually getting real employment bagging groceries. I'd do yardwork, clean gutters, paint, whatever the old folks in my neighborhood needed and were willing to pay for.

Lots of people hate that stuff, but I found it relaxing. I could be out there alone with nobody bothering me and I didn't have to talk to anyone, two things I've looked for in jobs and relationships ever since. Plus, I'd have to do the same stuff at home anyway, but I was getting actual money for my work, as opposed to the free room and board and love or whatever my parents paid me with. I also noticed that working for other people had an actual stopping time, which I found a welcome change from my parent's managerial style.

At some point my neighbors across the street recruited me for a babysitting gig which I snatched right up. I wouldn't be sweating in the sun, I'd get to watch cable and eat junk food for a few hours, and as a bonus I knew that these neighbors had a stack of vintage Playboys in the garage.

I show up, having memorized the night's pay channel's lineup, paying special attention to the words "strong sexual content," "nudity," "violence" or the wild card, "adult situations."

I should mention that the kid I was going to babysit was sort of weird. He grew up to be a weird teenager. He's probably a weird man right now.

At some point we're playing a Sesame Street board game. I let the kid win.

"Yay! I win!"

"Yep, you won."

"Now we have to play until you win."

This round I make short work of the kid, since he's like 4 and I was in a gifted class. I'm actually fairly distracted, thinking of that pizza in the kitchen I heated up that the kid only ate like three bites of which is calling my name. Those Playboys in the garage are also calling to me. Vintage or not, they still had naked ladies in them, and I figured I could check those out as an appetizer before exploring the night's cable offerings.

As I navigate Oscar into Gumdrop Mountain, the kid realizes I won and starts bawling. Like, turning red and getting that hyperventilating thing when kids are really going off.

"Hey, look," I say. "I was supposed to lose a turn! Looks like you won after all!"

"Jesus," I'm thinking. "Did his parents never allow him to lose? This kid's gonna be all sorts of screwed up. I don't remember pissing my pants when my dad won at Monopoly."

"Uh uh uh uh O O O OK. N..N..Now we have to play until you win."

I beat the kid again and he starts crying. I discover another loophole in the rules which meant he actually won, then we have to play until I win. This goes on for a while, all while I'm thinking about cold pizza, Playboys and all the nudity on cable TV that is going on without me.

After about 14 hours of this, the kid finally gets sleepy and is ready for bed. Awesome! As I'm stuffing cold pizza in my mouth, he comes into the kitchen and picks out a mop from the closet.

"My mom said I could sleep with this."

I didn't really think that was true, but screw it, the kid wants to sleep with a mop, who was I to judge? I'd wait til he fell asleep and return it to the closet with nobody being the wiser. The important thing is that the kid is finally heading for bed, meaning I could check out some Playboys and prime '80s pay cable in the hour or so I had before the parents came back.

I'm sitting on the couch eating warmed up pizza watching a particularly exciting Cinemax offering (I had given up on going out to the Playboy garage) when the kid wanders in dragging his mop.

"I can't sleep. Are my parents home yet?"

"No, they're not back yet. Hey, let's go back to bed, huh? Wouldn't that be fun?"

This goes on for the rest of the night, throwing me off my Cinemax viewing, and impeding my mop return.

The parents finally show up, and although they thought the mop thing was pretty funny, I was never called to babysit again, which was fine by me. Mowing was much less stressful.

So He's All Like, Practice, And I'm All Like, Whatever

2011-06-03T16:52:00.003-04:00

We had a big jazz festival thing here last weekend. While not as exciting as Nerdfest, it had its moments. Plus, it was just nice to have food for sale out on the streets and to see people walking around Jacksonville’s usually deserted downtown.Seriously, walk around downtown on a weekend and you'll think you're the last person on Earth.

Even though I had to work, I managed to catch about 30 minutes of McCoy Tyner’s set. Tyner was about the only person I really didn’t want to miss, and from what I saw (only about 3 songs), he’s still in fine form.

Tyner played piano with John Coltrane from 1960 til 1965, meaning he played from "My Favorite Things" all the way up through “A Love Supreme,” leaving when Coltrane got too out there. According to the press release sent out by the festival, Tyner started his stint with Coltrane when he was 17 years old. 17. *Could you imagine that?

When I was 17 my only talent was the ability to fix the TV to get in the Playboy channel after my parents had gone to sleep and the ability to be a self-absorbed, creepy asshole.

That started me thinking about how I would have behaved, had I been in a world famous band that strove to challenge musical boundaries back when I was 17 (presuming I had somehow been granted musical ability by a radioactive spider bite or something).

I would imagine lots of blown off practices. Also, if you were to listen to the in studio excerpts from the box set, they'd sound like this:

"God, get off my back, I'll practice when I can, OK, Mr. Music Nazi!":

"I know we've got a show next weekend, but I already promised my friends we'd drive up to Tampa."

"I hate it here, and I hate your stupid band."

"Pfft. Yeah, that's real cool."

Luckily, not all people were as terrible as I was in my youth, and music was allowed to progress and flourish, all by keeping me far, far away from it.

*A quick jaunt over to Wikipedia and some basic arithmetic reveals that Tyner was actually in his early 20s when he joined Coltrane’s band, but the major point, that I was a terrible teenager still remains a matter of public record.

Weekend Warrior

2011-05-28T16:46:00.015-04:00

Occasionally the gods of leisure will smile upon you. Maybe it's fate, maybe they just tire of seeing you trudge through your same routine every week, but for whatever reason they decide to throw a whole bunch of fun at you just to see you happy.

Although knowing that mythological gods could be dicks, they might just want to see if you die of a heart attack from fun overload.

For whatever reason, the gods decided to reward me by scheduling the Jacksonville Backyard BBQ Championships and something called the Cult Movie Drive-in on the same weekend, one of the weekends I was actually off work and could attend a smorgasboard of awesomeness.

There's not too much you can really say about the BBQ Championships, other than it's a good excuse to eat a whole bunch of food and ...I dunno, I guess the ticket goes to charity or something?

I had gone to last year's championship, and while it was pretty fun, it was also sort of unorganized. So there would be long stretches of no food, then a group would gather in front of some booth after somebody said, "They've got ribs" in the same tone you'd use if you had found a kid in a well who needed help. If you were in the back of the group, you might get some ribs, or you might get a big ol' helping of nothing.

This year, there were a lot more people cooking, so much so that I was so loaded up on samples that I felt sort of sick after we left. This is the feeling of accomplishment.

BBQ even makes hipsters smile!

They have this really progressive work release thing where inmates from the local prisons and asylums learn valuable life skills through cooking. Here, a local inmate displays his favorite cleaver.

From there we went to the Cult Drive-in thing. It was pretty dead, which might have had something to do with there being no advertising. I only knew about it because my friend Pat happened to stumble onto their webpage which he forwarded on to me, after having HIS MIND BLOWN. Seriously, the email he sent said something like "abaadabab this just broke my brain."

All sorts of famous-to-nerds people were there, and since they weren't bothered by pesky customers, they were captive to the nerds who showed up who would regale these poor actors with recaps of their favorite lines and how their roles in action movies back in the '70s were totally inspirational at their sad IT or library jobs.

Mink Stole from the John Waters movies was the first person we saw. She was awesome, sort of like a cool aunt. She totally wanted to steal my friend Matthew. Oh yeah, he was visibly freaked out by like 95 percent of the stuff there. He almost fainted when Ms. Stole suggested he talk to Ilsa (you know, the She Wolf of the SS). Ilsa's there by Matthew's shoulder. Poor Ilsa, no nerds at her table yet.

If you pay them for autographs, famous people will pretend to be friends with you.

Pam Grier offered to take me away with her, but I have too much to do here.

Jim Kelly no longer has his amazing afro (where I think many of his powers came from), but was still pretty awesome.

There were all sorts of movies of dubious quality being sold there. They had deals where you could buy 3 for like 30 bucks. I ended up with Moonshine County Express, Killer Fish, Three Tough Guys, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, some animated Dracula thing and ...I can feel your eyes glazing over from here, so I'll stop. Suffice it to say, I loaded up on treats, even though I have the feeling they're all gonna be released next week in five dollar Criterion reissues.

For the next few days I thought of all the stuff I left behind - some Bigfoot movie, a couple Italian Jaws ripoffs, some spaghetti western where Robert Mitchum plays a priest with a machine gun. Man, I really needed some of that stuff.

I noticed how everybody thought it was awesome that I was spending a ton of money on foolishness. I hope all these people remember that when I hit them up for loans when I'm 76 and headed to my third job.

Fred Williamson did a Q&A, which was just amazing. He looked almost the same as he did in the '70s, even though he said he was 73. He came in drinking a margarita and just started calling on people. He had a long list of people who's asses he should have or will or could kick.

I asked what his favorite role was.

"My favorite role? You've seen my movies, right? They're all the same. I look good, kick someone's ass, get the girl if I want her, then leave."

Someone asked if he'd accomplished his goals. He said he didn't have any, and said something like, "I never thought I'd play football professionally, or act in movies, or direct. Or be in this room answering all these dumbass questions."

After that, we went home and I fully intended to come back at 8 to watch Coffy on the big screen, but after my day's adventures, I stayed home and looked at all my treats.

When will the gods smile on me again? Who knows, the ways of gods are unknown to mortal men. I'd like to think they helped me out during Sunday's adventures, when I teamed up with Pam Grier, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly and we uncovered a wide-ranging conspiracy based at the BBQ Championships. I'd tell you more, but a lot of that information is classified at the moment.

Breakout!

2011-05-13T13:27:00.001-04:00

Is there any greater feeling than getting out of work early? Just running errands, watching TV or whatever, you can catch a little wisp of a feeling, like a spring breeze that whispers, “Hey, you could be at work right now.” From that first step out of the door, where it feels like you’ve pulled off a successful jewel heist, to the little flashbacks during the day where you’re wondering what the poor saps at work are doing at the moment, man, there’s nothing like not being at work.

Calling in sick is a whole other beast. If you made up your illness, which you probably did, there’s always an element of paranoia if you leave the house. “Is someone from work going to see me somehow? What if someone takes a picture of me on this waterslide and posts it to Facebook?” Plus, you have to cover up your original lie the next day you come in to work.

“Oh yeah, it was just a touch of food poisoning, I guess. I was fine after that first night.”

By the way, food poisoning has been proven scientifically to be the laziest, yet most effective excuse to use when calling in to work.

By the time we’re in our late twenties, most of us have sensibly given up on our dreams. We realize we’re not going to be elected president or have a TV show or cure cancer. The best we can hope for is to grab whatever little bunches of happiness we can find here and there along the way. And when I was walking out of work at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, I felt like Jessie James, Dolemite and Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name all rolled into one*.

*I would like to stress that I was legally entitled to my early day, which did nothing to make me feel like less of a badass. I had worked overtime on a program last week, and …hey, what do you care? What are you, my boss all of a sudden?

Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Sign

2011-05-03T20:44:00.003-04:00

Saw a well-dressed but odd looking guy leaving the library this morning holding a cardboard sign, the kind that usually say "Will work for food" or "Homeless vet, please help."

This guy's said (in all caps, naturally):

SLANDERER
MISERABLE
LIAR

Don't know if it was court appointed or his, or if he was just borrowing it from a friend.

Don't Leave Home Without It

2011-04-26T20:02:00.003-04:00

Overheard on the way to work:

30ish man getting into car with kid. 30ish woman in doorway of house says,

"Honey, are you taking the bong?"

OK, she could have said "bomb," either one is pretty funny

Skateboard Madness

2011-04-21T11:23:00.005-04:00

There was a skatepark built in Bradenton the year I moved away. It was sort of like how my parents replaced the thousand pound beast of a lawnmower I had to push around through middle and high school with a sleek, easy-to-maneuver model as soon as I was out the door.

At the time I was driving down to Bradenton fairly frequently but I never went to the skatepark. I think I was never around when it was open, or when I was around I didn't want to be shown up by a bunch of little kids. Plus, I was spending less and less time skating. My skating friends had either moved away or moved on to other pasttimes, and, like with running, I was beginning to feel...not sure really, sort of like I was feeling my limitations, I guess. And with a lack of people around to push me to get better, I just sort of slowly stopped.

I had a newish Alva John Gibson board which I liked, although it was nowhere as smooth as my old Eddie Reatgui with the Conan/He-Man graphics, which was my favorite board ever. Check it out:

Hey, I wonder what happened to those two boards? Both of my faithful readers could chip in and buy them for me for my birthday, making a middle-aged man very proud.

Hey, at least I'm not asking for a Harley, like most middle-agers.

One evening I was in town for what was becoming a long, protracted break-up. The skatepark was out of business and soon to be destroyed. On the way out of town I pulled up next to the abandoned skatepark. I turned the motor off, leaving only the tape deck and the headlights on. I was playing a tape of the Volcano Suns' "The Bright Orange Years" along with some Gainesville bands. I pulled my deck out of the car and shimmyed under the chainlink fence.

I didn't care that I was trespassing right in front of a major road.

"I'm a grown man now," I thought. "I'd like to see some rent-a-cop tell me to leave."

Then I started skating.

When I remember that night, I picture me carving all over the snake run, pulling off impressive grinds and slides illuminated by the full moon and the headlights of a late '70s Pontiac Bonneville.

I also imagine that the joyousness of Peter Prescott's howls through "The Bright Orange Years" mixed with my skating helped me realize that there was no reason to be miserable any more, that a new life was about to open up for me.

In actuality, I wasn't able to pull anything off, which I blamed on the dirt and pebbles in the bottom of the run. The breakup would continue for much longer than it should, resulting in much embarassment on my part, as well as a lot of letters which are hopefully burned or slowly rotting in a landfill somewhere.

But still, the image I have of myself skating that abandoned skatepark is pretty powerful, one that has almost supplanted the truth by now. When I'm lying in my poor person's old people home, wracked by the alzheimers while being ignored by my helper robots, I'd like to think that that's the one that will stick.

Because man, those little kids really would have shown me up.

Bustin' the Block

2011-04-11T17:41:00.006-04:00

Like most Americans I haven't been inside a Blockbuster in years, but the one near my house was closing and selling off their movies so I figured I should look for treats.

I put off going until the last day, which was probably a mistake. The place was pretty well picked through, with scavenger families buying up stacks of movies, seemingly not knowing or caring what they were, as long as they got a good deal. I walked out without buying anything.

As I drove away, I remembered how many times I had driven out of that same Blockbusters without any movies.

I remember asking for American Movie years ago.

"Uh, all our movies are American," said the clerk, rolling his eyes.

Then there was the week that Enter the Dragon, The Great Escape and The Searchers had all been reissued in fancy new editions. I didn't see them on the shelf and made the mistake of asking about them. I was met with a blank stare and treated like I was the retard for wanting to rent an actual movie instead of one of the thousand copies of whatever movie based on a video game based on a toy commercial they had in stock.

I discovered Netflix soon after that.

I realize that space is limited, and I don't expect a video store to sacrifice proven profits from recent crap over ... I dunno, Fleurs du Clown de Guerre*, but man, is there anyone in America that will really miss Blockbuster going out of business?

* I totally made that movie up to sound smart.

Driving Miss Daisy

2011-04-08T20:12:00.003-04:00

I'm riding home from work Monday night. It's dark. I'm coming up to the Publix on Riverside, meaning I've got to be on my guard for cars pulling out in front of me or backing out of parking spaces along the street. It has already been a bad night. Cars have been giving me about an inch to ride on. I've had to stop at stop lights on Riverside. Nobody uses turn signals before they turn in front of me.

A car pulls out of the parking lot and is going parallel with me. I'm far enough on the right side that it doesn't affect me. The window rolls down. It's an old black lady.

"I do beg your pardon, sir. I surely didn't see you there."

I was in a good mood after that.

I Never Get Brad Pitt

2011-04-04T17:30:00.002-04:00

Guy walking by desk: Did anyone ever tell you you look like Nathan Lane?

Me: No.

Guy: Well, you do. You really do.

Here's a picture of me on the hit TV show "Modern Family."

World Music

2011-04-02T11:11:00.006-04:00

It was weird hearing so much American music in London. We heard the Cars, that New York song with Jimmy Z and ...I dunno, one of those Kardashian girls?, and a bunch of other U.S. stuff while we were over there. And it's not like we were hanging out at Cowboy Bob's Big American Down Home Feedbag Diner or anything. We did hear Morrissey and "My Generation" in a pub, but I sort of expected that stuff to be piped through the streets over there.

I guess every country views every other country's music and culture as exotic - like the British guy I saw on the tube wearing an Atlanta Braves cap, or when some friends of mine were over there a decade ago at some big music festival. After watching, I dunno, Blur or Radiohead or whoever was big at the time, they got up to leave. The Brits they were sitting next to said something like, "You're not gonna stay for Sheryl Crow?" They were also drinking Miller Lite instead of tasty British people beer.

This isn't a bad thing at all (except for the Miller Lite). If we could only listen to our own country or race's music it would be a terrible world, and I'm pretty sure there would have been a couple more world wars, just out of boredom.

We went to a club on our last Saturday night in London. It was fairly small and there weren't that many people there at first. There were some girls having a birthday party. A couple people still wearing shirts from the budget cuts protest. An old skinhead and his young friend or kid. Some people who looked like they just got out of school or work. Other than the old skinhead guy, they all looked about mid-20s, maybe early 30s. One guy was wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt.

But the DJ at this place was something else. He was playing actual vinyl, 7" records, and they were all obscure American soul and funk from the '60s and '70s with the occasional latin jam and a couple old ska tunes. It was awesome. How obscure were they? I only knew one song ("Readings in Astrology," by Curtis Mayfield which wasn't even an album cut), and I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about such things.

And these people knew all these songs, or most of them, anyway, and were dancing and singing along and generally having a great time. And why wouldn't they? The DJ was playing the jams. Is there a place somewhere in America where people dance to obscure English music from 40 years ago? I'd like to think there is. Hell, I know there is.

So what did I learn from this? Nothing I didn't already know. That there's still tons of unexplored music and media and art out there in the world just waiting to be unearthed and bring people together in shared experiences of awesomeness. There is never a stopping point. There will always be more amazing finds just around the corner.

That, and that first Curtis Mayfield album has an awesome cover. Just look at it:

Streets of London

2011-03-30T22:26:00.019-04:00

Since everyone loves looking at other people's vacation photos, here's a few from London. I could have sworn there were more, and I also thought mine were better than they came out. I thought I was photojournalismin' all over the place.

Believe it or not, this is how most people get around in England. It costs a bit more than a cab, but it's totally worth it.

Henry VIII used this golden Tommy Gun when he teamed up with Al Capone and Admiral Nelson in World War 1. I think. There was a lot of history being thrown around.

This is from the British Museum, all full of awesomeness. I wanted to live there.

This is British people's idea of a chicken quesadilla. It is made with vegetable soup.

Step One: Find picture of pretty lady on the internet. Step Two: Find picture of self. Cut and paste over stock photo of Big Ben. Convince people you really went to London. Step Three: Profit.

This is a bank that got all smashed up. It also features one of Jackson Pollock's only murals.

If that girl would get out of the way, I could have an awesome album cover.

We figured we should get a photo in one of these little red phone booths. We didn't know they'd smell like a port-a-potty at the state fair. Taken right before gagging.

Britishness!

Where the King goes to church.

Aw, look, dedicated to animals in war. What's that say? "They had no choice." Geez, thanks for bumming me out, statue.

Britishness!

While they fall behind in Mexican food technology, the Brits are amazingly good at stocking rooms full of awesomeness.

Aftermath of riots on a statue of ...I dunno, Hercules? On the other side it says "punk's not dead." I'd like to apologize to the country of England, my parents and the rest of the world in general for being a punk rocker.

White Riot

2011-03-29T20:24:00.007-04:00

I don't have the greatest vacation track record. Whether going off on a Hunter Thompson-esque drunken tirade and public spectacle in front of 7,000 people in Chicago(warning - link takes you to my ancient myspace page) or nearly assassinating a poor old French woman in New York, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to just be a normal person and just see some sights and buy some trinkets, you know?

So in London we ended up in a huge anarchist riot. No shit. Check it out.

We went out shopping Saturday with about a gazillion other people. At the same time, a huge protest was going on a few miles away. From what I was able to gather from the helpful British people on the TV, banks and financiers made a bunch of risky deals, bankrupted the country, and now cuts are being made on public services mostly used by the poor and middle class. What a crazy country they have over there, huh?

While the little lady (or Bird, as they say over there) was looking through some store or another, I hear all sorts of chanting and commotion. I go outside to check it out and there's a group of a couple hundred people marching down the street. Well, that's sort of cool. They looked like the people that are at every protest, although there were a few older people and a couple English Nigels that looked like they were riding their bikes and just decided to follow the crowd for a while.

Fellas, if you ever need a diversion from shopping, watching a march that might turn into a riot will hit the spot.

This splinter group of anarchists ended up smashing up banks, occupying department stores, battling charming-looking English cops, and setting a big fire in the middle of ... Geez, I've already forgotten. A really major intersection in London.

The funny thing is, we would be walking around looking at stuff and come across a bank with their windows smashed and alarms ringing while cops formed a guard around it. Or we'd walk by a McDonalds smashed and paint splattered the next few blocks over. Somehow we kept following the destruction whichever way we went.

At one point in the night most of the streets were blocked and there were hundreds of anarchists, regular old shoppers and cops decked out in riot gear. Some people were trying to tip over a cop car (or Lorry, as they say over there). I took a few pictures, which I will be selling to punk bands for album covers over the next few years.

I never really felt in danger, mostly because we were Americans on vacation, so nothing bad could happen to us. Also, you'd see a line of riot cops (or Bobbies as they say over there)holding back protesters while a guy at the end helped a tourist read a map.

The riots lasted most of the night, and they caused all sorts of damage. I'll have some funnily captioned photos soon.

Don't know where the next vacation is. I hear Libya is nice this time of year.

Werewolves of London

2011-03-21T18:04:00.003-04:00

I'm taking off for London soon. Real soon. I don't want to tell you exactly when because I don't want the international brigade of internet thieves and perverts to rush to my empty house.

So I've been brushing up on my English English, thanks to the many resources available to you at your local library. I don't want to embarass anyone over there with my crude American speech, so I took home some CDs to teach me to speak good.

"Lesson One. Are you 'avin' a laff?"

"Are you havin' a laff?"

"Fancy a shag, guv'ner?"

"Fancy a shag, governor? Wait. What?"

"Wot's all this, now?"

"What's all...hey, that's what the stuffy policemen say, right? When am I going to have to use that?"

"The telly is off in the lift and me loo is flooded."

"OK, now you're just making stuff up."

Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited. I figure I'll have to eat at least one funny sounding dish (leaning towards Spotted Dick, obviously), hit a bunch of museums and culture and what-not, have a whole pub turn quiet and inhospitable when we walk in like in those old Hammer movies (or American Werewolf in London, take your pick) and generally packing a whole lot into less than a week.

I know that college students and annoying travel people always tell you to pretend to be Canadian, but I figure that ain't gonna fool anyone, especially since this is the only shirt that I remembered to pack.

Lend Me Your Ears

2011-03-16T21:43:00.003-04:00

What are you doing next Monday night? Probably not much. You should fix that and go to Underbelly (yes, I know it's a terrible name) in Five Points in Jacksonville for the Popnihil Zine Release Extravaganza. It's at 8:30, so you won't have to stay up late, it's free, so you can't complain about that, and I'm gonna read a short piece that, upon reflection is sort of cringe-inducing, but it's too late for me to back out now. Folio Weekly did a nice story on it, only getting one thing wrong - the date. So don't show up on the 31st, show up Monday. Or don't. You'll probably just make me nervous.

Straight as Arrows

2011-03-12T19:01:00.003-05:00

Some night back in the late '90s I was walking with my friend Pat back to his apartment after buying a bunch of beer at Gator Beverage to get the evening started. Many nights started like this - drinking beer and listening to records, then heading out to find adventure at the Hardback or at a party or whatever.

We walked behind Checkers, probably discussing the merits of the Effigies or why there was a Surf 2 when there was never a Surf 1, and why didn't someone release Surf 2 on VHS yet, anyway (I told you it was the late '90s)?

At some point during our conversation 2 or 3 big gangsta guys approached us.

"Are you straight?"

This took us by surprise.

"What?"

"Are you straight? Do you like women?"

"Uh...yeah."

"OK."

Question answered, we walked the remaining way to Pat's apartment where I drooled over his record collection and we drank our beer.

Later I wondered what that was all about. No follow-up questions? They just took our word? What would have happened if we said no? Would we have had dates for the evening? If we were gay, couldn't we have just lied? These were all worthy questions, but ones I have never successfully come up with answers to.

Working Men are Pissed

2011-03-07T17:44:00.004-05:00

I can't believe I wrote a whole story on crappy jobs and neglected my Kash & Karry experience.

My roommate Todd and I were in our late 20s. I had just moved back from Atlanta and was writing press releases for UF in the morning, then delivering campus mail in the afternoon. Neither job would hire me full-time, which is understandable, since my job habits were fairly relaxed at the time. As long as I turned in a story a week for my first job, I was good, and I could usually do that with little or no problem. As for the campus mail job, I had a 3 hour shift, and could usually complete my deliveries in 20 minutes. The rest of the time I generally held court in my friend Pat's record store, or drove around in the minivan running errands or listening to tapes. I helped a lot of people move in that minivan.

Todd and I were always on the lookout for extra money to finance our record buying habit and had somehow heard there were opportunities awaiting us at the Kash & Karry deli. Not only would this job enable us to buy our hold bags currently being held at the record stores throughout Gainesville, but we'd also be able to indulge in our passion for free food.

Visions of Scooby-Doo sandwiches in our head, we applied and heard back within days.

A manager lady took us upstairs and made us watch training videos. I'm almost certain one had a clown who fell down a lot to teach us about safety. I thought it was weird that all her comments were about bagging groceries and not quizzes on delicious deli meats and cheeses, but I assumed someone else would teach us about that later.

We were told to always take customers' "buggies" out to their cars unless they strongly objected. As an example, Manager Lady adopted a gruff tone and said, "I'll take 'em out myself, what do you think I am, some kinda queer." We quoted this for years.

After we passed our training, we were dumped by the registers and told to start bagging groceries.

"But we were promised the deli," I wanted to squeak.

Bagging. That was the first real job I ever had, and over 10 years later I was back to asking people for their paper or plastic preference while my college degree sat at home in a cardboard mailing tube. Taking the buggies out to the parking lot, I was sure I would run into a professor I had interviewed earlier in the week.

"Well, he said he was writing for the press services, but I'm almost positive I saw him at Kash & Karry."

My next shift was Halloween night. I would work from 11 PM til 7 AM. At least I'd be spared the embarassment of running into anyone.

We went to a party where we were dressed, rather awesomely, I'd like to think, as Devo. I had to leave early, change out of my cool-looking Devo suit and start my 11shift.

When I got to the store, I was given a razor blade on a 5 foot pole. My task was to walk up and down every isle and scrape the gum and ground in crap off the floor so they could be mopped later on that week.

I scraped throughout the night, a mixture of self-pity and hatred fueling me. Every few hours costumed college students would come through buying beer to keep their fun times going.

"Oh look. There's a sexy nurse, a slutty Dracula and a hot kitty cat. I wonder if they need a guy with an apron and razor blade pole to complete their gang."

By 1:30 my mood had soured considerably.

"More beer. Yeah, that's just what you need. What sort of half-assed costume is that anyway? Better have all your fun now, because you'll be joining me on the night shift in a few years."

Walking out to my car at 7AM, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, my hands were withered into arthritic stumps after scraping and mopping, and I knew I had to quit.

Todd was fine with quitting, and we returned our aprons to Manager Lady that afternoon, who wouldn't even look at us.

We kept our nametags with the names "Shits McCray" and "Balls" ...something or other on a privileged spot on the refrigerator for the rest of the year. Later we would add our second checks from Kash & Karry Co, two checks for 65 cents and 78 cents.

They Call Me the Working Man

2011-03-06T14:29:00.006-05:00

I'm not sure how many jobs I've had since joining the world of work as a teenager. Quite a few. I think I have a pretty steady stream of unbroken employment since I was 15 or 16.

I didn't really mind most of my crappy jobs, they got me out of the house and they were usually easier and less frustrating than the jobs I'd be doing there, plus there were always weirdo co-workers, work crushes and overbearing mustached assistant bosses that continue to serve as meat for stories to this day. Plus, I could always quit and get a new crappy job within a week.

I was always a pretty good employee; even though I remain fundamentally lazy, my poor self-esteem, fear of authority figures and puppy-like desire to do a good job ensured that bosses knew they had a sucker that would do whatever crap they needed to be done without a lot of the sass and backtalk the younger generation is known for.

My friend Curt was pretty much the same, work-wise. We had a number of crappy jobs growing up, but we took them for what they were, vehicles for providing gasoline, skateboard decks and records, so we did whatever Mr. Mustache told us to, then had our fun.

That didn't seem to be good enough for our parents. Although both sets of parents grew up in the '50s, they seemed to have a 1920s idea of employment.

"Why don't you just go to a store and start cleaning for them," my parents would suggest during my few lulls in employment. "Or tell them you'll work for free for a while until they hire you."

I didn't think that employment in the 1980s and '90s worked that way. I didn't think think employment in the 1950s and '60s worked that way either.

My parents were much better than Curt's, though. On the morning of his first day of Christmas break back home from college he was awoken by his dad throwing the classified ads on his bed. He had helped by circling the advertisements he thought his son should apply to: Plumber's assistant, union electrician, airplane mechanic, things that a 19 year old with no previous experience would ever qualify for.

My parents sort of kept out of my work, except for the few times they thought I was being wronged. At one point the terrible photo processing job I had laid me off after I got a hernia. This was probably illegal, but I didn't really care. I wanted out of that place anyway. Dad erupted with Southern dad indignation. Like me, he instinctively sided against management (Now that I am management, I stay non-hypocritical by hating myself) and was gonna bring some teacher's union rage down on CPI Photo Finish.

"That's some sorry bidness, there, now," he'd thunder. "They're going to lay you off even though you can still do the job? I'm gonna go down there."

Somehow I was able to convince him not to head down to DeSoto Square Mall and union agitate the place up.

I'm not sure if my many years of crappy jobs actually taught me anything. I'd like to say that observing so many terrible management styles, I realized what not to do, but I think they just taught me to always beware of people with mustaches in positions of authority. They also made me sort of suspicious of people who didn't have a lot of crappy jobs.

"You mean you didn't work sweeping beets in a factory or selling socks at a flea market?*Well, hello Mr. Fancy Pants."

*These were actual jobs held by my friends. My roommate Scott's first job was sweeping beets in a factory when he was like 12 years old. Really. I think Oliver Twist was his work buddy.

Advice My Parents Gave Me

2011-03-01T18:14:00.004-05:00

"You should write a best seller. You know, like that John Grisham."

London Calling*

2011-02-20T14:38:00.008-05:00

The girlfriend is celebrating a big birthday in a few months (25!), so we're heading to London at the end of March.

To quote that girl in Saved By the Bell before she became a stripper, "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so...scared."

While I can't wait to walk the streets of London with me bird in 'and, watch loveable chimney sweeps dance and sing, and get a banger in the mouth**, I don't really think I'm much of a traveler. I worry too much. I like my house too much. I'm constantly worried that my cat died or peed all over everything (which is usually the truth), or the house caught on fire, or my white trash neighbors noticed I wasn't home and decided to finally break in and steal my few sticks of furniture. And London, with their pickpockets and Jack the Rippers and Draculas and soccer hooligans running all over the place sounds pretty scary. Wait, Dracula hung around London, right?

But I'm going to try to let all that slide and have a good time, just like a normal person would. We'll see how it works.

Hey, anyone want to donate to my vacation fund? Paypal makes it easy.

*Yes, I realize using "London Calling" is the laziest headline ever when writing about London, but I'm feeling especially lazy today. It's the first day of spring, give me a break.

**Yes, all my knowledge of other countries comes from Fox TV shows, just like how all my knowledge of opera comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Dear Lady in the Black Accord

2011-02-15T18:22:00.007-05:00

First off, that red thing a block ago? That was a stop sign. You were supposed to apply the brakes.

Secondly, in America, when making a turn, we generally only use one of the two lanes in the road (i.e., not the one that might contain another car or bicyclist on his way to work). I'd go into how easy it is to make a turn signal in today's modern car, but I've given up on that. The savages have won.

You did look very happy talking on your phone, but did you ever stop to consider the person on the other end? Do they really want to listen to your bullshit at 8:15 in the morning?

"Guess what? I'm driving to work!"
"Daddy's little girl has certainly grown up."

"How's your day going?"
"I dunno. It's 8:15. It hasn't started yet."

However, if I hadn't stopped to yell at you, I might have missed seeing the following things on my way to work:

A black cat wearing a fluorescent pink cast chasing a bird

A fat guy with no shirt on, man boobs out in proud defiance of the laws of both God and man, pushing a dog in a baby cart in the 40 degree weather. He looked a lot like a younger version of this guy:

A woman in a '70s Cadillac singing along to the Eagles with the window open

A woman on the Riverwalk singing over and over again, "Jesus, Lord almighty."

It was like I was in an art film (the kitty with a cast represented my soul), or perhaps you actually did hit me like you wanted to and I was stuck in some sort of weird purgatory until I could absolve my sins.

So actually, thanks for running that stop sign, making a wide turn with no signals and almost hitting me. It started the day off on a surreal note.

The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner

2011-02-01T20:01:00.007-05:00

I'm not sure how I stumbled into joining the track team. I think some friends from middle school joined freshman football and were already reaping the rewards in female attention. I would soon discover that there was a big difference between track and football when it came to the ladies.

It was determined that I was too uncoordinated for the hurdles, too wimpy for discus or shotput, and too slow for the sprints. So I was shuffled off to the distance events.

While some might see this as the deep right field of track (my position throughout middle school PE), it suited me just fine. I have a strong stubborn streak, so this was probably the best place for me. I could just keep on keepin' on, and try not to come in last.

Distance running was fun, giving me the same feeling long-distance bike rides give me now. You're completely alone, you don't have to talk to anyone, and you can use the time as a sort of meditation, to work out humorous blog posts or life-changing plans or what have you. Plus, at the end, you feel physically and mentally wrung out, a nice ...afterglow of a feeling.

But for all the character building and sportsmanship and whatnot I suppose I learned, one of the things a former high school distance runner will never forget is the boredom.

Getting out of school at 1:30 was awesome! Then you'd ride a bus for about an hour, which was cool, since I'd pass the time by blaring punk rock, throwing food out the window, and being obnoxious. Then you get to the school hosting the track meet.

Then you waited.

And waited.

And waited.

You'd watch everyone else compete in their events, at least for a while. You couldn't eat or drink anything. Well, maybe some people could. I couldn't. Distance events were the last things scheduled, so by the time your event rolled around, everyone else was sitting on the bus, ready to go home, while you had spent 7 hours alternately nervous and bored before your 15 minutes of running (or more. I once ran an extra lap since nobody was there to tell me how many I completed).

Cross country was a little better, if only because you ran through actual trails, with nature and stuff around you, and you were usually finished by 11 in the morning.

Secretly, we all realized running was boring, but still got all indignant that we weren't generating the same excitement as other sports. Once we were practicing while a TV crew set up to film that night's football game. With all the righteous anger a group of teenagers can gather, we peppered the poor cameraman with comments about how he should be filming the real athletes, us. Those football players didn't even have any lower body strength! There's no way those guys could last more than an 880!

Those were all great arguments, but you know why they didn't film us? Because we were boring! Who the hell would want to watch a bunch of teenagers huffing and puffing through the woods for 20 minutes? Hell, we didn't want to watch each other and we were on the team together.

I actively discouraged my parents from attending meets because I liked to act the fool without my parents around to assess the damage I was doing to the family name, but I'd also like to think I'd spare them the boredom of sitting on some unpleasant bleachers for hours on a Saturday morning after working all week. Mom and Dad, you're welcome.

Shoot the Piano Player

2011-01-25T21:15:00.006-05:00

I have very few beliefs or ideals, but I do posses a great love of democracy. I am a true lover of the people. The elites can suck it.

This goes double for the arts. I think poor and middle-class people should have art and music supplies airlifted in regularly. Give it to them as a tax break. Besides, it will keep them occupied so they won't have the time or inclination to break into my pleasure compound.

Some of my favorite art and music has come from the untrained, the unschooled, people who just have a burning desire to express themselves and create something out of nothing.

Lately, however, this love for the common people and their artwork has taken a turn.

As part of some sort of city-wide program, two pianos have been moved into the library lobby. The idea is for people walking by to play them and express the beauty which lurks within their weather-beaten and cigarette-reeking fingers.

For the most part, people are actually playing or attempting to play songs, which is a nice surprise. I was envisioning lots of angry Hulk-inspired bashing, if not teams of our regulars pushing the wheeled pianos out the front door in a mad rush to the closest pawn shop.

So while the idea has been somewhat successful, it is telling that the people who birthed this idea are safely walled away far, far away from the actual pianos. Me, I work on the two floors where I'm constantly hearing pianos echo throughout the day.

Last weekend, someone plinked out the piano part to Elton John's Benny and the Jets for about an hour. I'm not a big Elton John fan in the best of times, other than that Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting song, when he actually put some rock music in that rock music of his, but hearing the same six notes over and over again in the course of an hour would make the most hard-core Elton John fan run for the exits. Since that day, I have had just about every Elton John song I know running on a constant loop in my head, taking up precious space that could be used for making coherent blog posts.

Not only am I starting to feel like I work in the perfume counter at a particularly low-rent mall, I'm starting to hate the piano in general. If Beethoven himself got on one of the pianos, backed up by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Schroeder from Peanuts, I'd still want to set the thing on fire and dump it in the river.

Nobody seems to know when the pianos will be removed, but my love for music and artwork coming from regular people? That was removed several weeks ago.

Reflections On a Picture My Friend Kevin Uploaded to Facebook

2011-01-20T19:37:00.005-05:00

It's 1986. You've just gotten off work and all you want to do is microwave some Orville Redenbacher, drink some Miller Lite and watch Magnum, P.I..
Your significant other wants to go out.

Shit. Instead of a relaxing night at home, you're going to have to be in a crowded, sweaty club, full of obnoxious people, overpriced drinks and DJs playing Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, when you could be watching Magnum solve a mystery and mess with Higgins.

Then again, if you go along with this idea and don't act like too much of a baby, there's the possibility you could get laid at the end of the night, so after some negotiation (two hours, tops, with the possibility of one dance depending on darkness, intoxication levels and music selection) you end up going out.

After walking in you realize you've made a mistake and are already checking your watch every few seconds wondering what she sees in this place. You've got better music at home, and you don't have to pay to drink, either. I'll bet Magnum's doing something cool right now.

"No, I don't feel like dancing right now. You go ahead, though. I'll be right here."

Jeez, this sucks. I wish I had that popcorn I was going to make. Well, she's happy, maybe that'll pay off later. I should really go to the bathroom.

God, these people are just terrible. Don't they have to work in the morning? And they see me heading to the bathroom. You can't just move two steps? No? You're going to make me walk all the way around you while you have your yelly conversation? Yeah, that's cool, why ...

Holy shit.

Hanging out by the bathroom you see them. Three people who deserve to be carved into a Mount Rushmore of '80s awesomeness.

"What...what are you guys doing here?"

"We're looking for people to join our big rock and roll comedy awesomeness tour. Mr. T's sleeping on the bus. Looks like you're tonight's big winner."

"Let's go. I can call work from the road."

After that, people describe your life as a roller coaster ride. This is laughingly incorrect, as you will only encounter constant highs, highs not known to mortal men. You will experience explosions of excitement and exquisite life-changing ecstasy day after day. You will also be turned onto Rodney Dangerfield's secret knowledge of the occult, which will pay dividends for the rest of your life.

At least that's what I got out of the picture. You might just see Pee Wee Herman, Rodney Dangerfield and David Lee Roth hanging out in front of what looks like a county fair or miniature golf course.

Dennis the Menace

2011-01-18T20:05:00.004-05:00

Remember that old '50s TV show based on the Dennis the Menace comics? No? It used to be on Nick at Nite all the time. It was called Dennis the Menace.

Well, about 15 years ago I was visiting my parents and decided to drive up to Tampa to check out this antique toy show. I figured there would probably be some cool old robot or monster toys that I probably couldn't actually afford, but it's not like I was doing anything else, and maybe that cute girl that ran that vintage store in Ybor City who was nice to me would be there and she'd dump her stupid boyfriend/co-owner and we'd start a new life together, buying and selling awesome old toys and ...

Oh yeah, Dennis the Menace.

Jay North, the actor who portrayed Dennis was advertised as being a special guest star for this thing. I didn't really care. I was more concerned with the two women in front of me who kept braying in horrible New Jersey accents about how the show was being run inefficiently because it was done by Floridians.

I'm not a huge regional pride guy. I mean, sure, you have a connection to your area, either because your parents made you grow up there or you were too frightened of the bigger world to move away or you just like the area, but really, who cares? What are we? Bosnia?

But these ladies were really rubbing me the wrong way, mostly because they betrayed a lack of manners. I wouldn't go to wherever they were from and loudly complain that people used made-up words like 'youse' and 'dese' and dressed in wife-beaters and sweatpants. When you're in a foreign place, you accept the local culture.

No matter where I went, they always seemed to be right in front of me. They had to make comments at every booth, saying stuff like, "What is dat? Dat's stoopid" to vendors, and generally bringing a hateful little cloud of sarcasm and rudeness into my hunt for robots and Draculas. Strangely enough, the only thing they seemed to be excited about was the special appearance by Jay North.

I finally lost them and was hanging around a booth that was full of boss (and expensive) Planet of the Apes toys. As I'm poking around I hear Jay North take the stage. I still don't care, so I keep shifting around the plastic apes, wishing that my part-time offset printing job actually paid enough to provide for both essentials and awesomeness.

After a while, I realize that Dennis is getting more and more excited, so I start paying attention. I manage to catch him right in the middle of a rant about how television changed for the worse in the '60s.

"It seems people didn't need family friendly TV anymore," the Menace raged. "No, they only wanted weird stuff about hippies driving around solving mysteries, smoking dope and having sex."

Wait, how did I miss that show? Was that on HBO?

He continued on in that vein for a while, sounding angrier and angrier, but that's the only quote I can remember. I'd like to say that someone pulled him off with one of those big shepherd's crooks, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I did see the cute Ybor City vintage store owner, mumbled a "hi" to her and left without buying anything or starting a new life.

A couple years after that I heard Dennis the Menace had a right wing radio show, which makes a lot of sense, although it's not on his Wikipedia page. He will probably be Florida's next senator.

And the obnoxious women? They would end up being the first female co-presidents of the United States. But that is a story for another time.

I'm Your Garbageman

2011-01-17T16:31:00.002-05:00

My trash can was left rolling around out in the street this morning. I am at the age where this results in letters to the editor and decade-long speeches on how nobody takes pride in their work anymore.

Truthfully, I can't say anything. Back in high school my friends and I came up with a game. I drove a huge '77 Lincoln Continental. Think of a tank, only faster and a bit more maneuverable, piloted by a 16 year old blaring out Bad Brains and the Clash.

Every Thursday was trash day. Every Thursday morning I'd pick up my friends to drive to school, and we'd cruise the neighborhoods looking for trash cans. After spotting one, I'd floor it, sending the trash can either into outer space, or frequently being dragged under my transmission for a half mile or so.

Naturally, this was hilarious to us.

There was one house that constantly put their three garbage cans out in a sort of pyramid shape, which was pretty much asking for us to drive through it. Looking back now, considering it was Bradenton, the owner could have been a WW2 veteran, a guy who served his country honorably and whose only solace now came from arranging his garbage cans once a week.

Being teenagers, we didn't think about any of that or even consider what pains in the ass we were. We just liked seeing all the trash cans fly away when being hit by a huge chunk of Detroit steel.

Man, was I a shitty kid.

So today when I have to lug my empty trash can from the street in the rain, or I have to stop the car in the street because the can has blown into the driveway, I figure it could be a lot worse.

Moving Pictures

2011-01-13T19:53:00.003-05:00

I saw True Grit last night. It was good. As a general rule I avoid remakes, because, really, what's the point, but you know, it's the Coen Brothers. Even their crappy movies are pretty good.

Now that I'm out of the coveted 18-35 year old age range, nobody gives a shit what I think about movies, and it shows.

Actually, it doesn't seem like Hollywood gives a shit about movies, period. Three quarters of most movies are remade from an older, better movie (True Grit gets the Awesomeness Exception), or based on some TV show that nobody liked 30 years ago, or a video game or a comic book nobody cared about. And do you think anyone involved in any way in shit like The A-Team or GI Joe actually cared about it? Did the directors or writers really yearn to tell a story? Did the actors really try to find the inner B.A. Baracus? No, they didn't care, and I think they actually hate anyone who actually paid money or wasted their precious cable time to see their shitty movies.

The indie ghetto is almost as bad, but at least you don't feel the hate for the audience from every frame. More like condescension. You know as soon as you see the handwritten credits while a guy and girl tonelessly sing with a kazoo or ukulele, you're gonna get a story about a guy who works as a crossword puzzle editor who's gonna meet a girl who knits sweaters for birds navigate their way through the trials and tribulations of being young, quirky, and upper middle-class.

Then there's a gazillion CGI movies where plastic shiny animals trade pop culture references and fart at each other, but as I'm childless, I don't have to watch those.

It's been said there are only a handful of original stories, everything since the time of the Greeks or Cavemen or whatever has just been updating and refining these universal themes. But there are really only two themes for a good movie.

There is only "Holy Crap! Check this out!" and "Listen to this story." Examples of "Holy Crap! Check this out" would embrace everything from Buster Keaton to musicals to martial arts to exploitation flicks. "Listen to this story" could be anything from "There's this cab driver who's all messed up" to "This village keeps getting raided so they try to find some protection" to "This cowboy goes on a 5 year obsessive quest to track down his niece."

Obviously, "Listen to this story" could apply to anything, even movies based on crappy kid's TV shows that were made to sell toys, but it has an important qualifier. As soon as you have to add sentence like "Yeah, you remember that old commercial/sci-fi movie from the '50s/TV show," the "Listen to this" story gets weakened, and eventually dies. If you have to add, "Someone wears a fat suit and farts a lot" or "Nicolas Cage and John Travolta" or "Adam Sandler and his less-funny friends" or "Yeah, it's Will Smith's kid" the genre shrivels up.

Is this a perfect system? No, it's not. It's more a "I'll know it when I see it" system. But it works for me. I guess. I'm watching a PBS American Experience on the Civil War as I write this, so maybe I am too old to comment on pop culture.

Death and Taxes

2011-01-11T21:48:00.002-05:00

Every year at work we get about every tax form under the sun. So far this year we've only gotten a bunch of 10-40EZs. They're all up on a wire rack in the front of the library. A few days ago an older couple was looking for some specific form and couldn't find them. When they realized all we had was the 10-40EZs, the man walked off muttering, "What has that Obama done?"

That was almost as good as the time the Tea Party was meeting at the library before walking over to City Hall to protest the indignity of paying taxes. One of the older guys noticed the DVDs and asked, "How much are these?"

"They're free with a card," I said.

"Free?"

"Yep."

As a dedicated public servant I fought the urge to say, "Yeah, they're free. Just pay your damn taxes and shut up."

Reading List

2011-01-02T11:28:00.006-05:00

Few things in life give me more pleasure than seeing movie punk rockers, so I pretty much had to buy a copy of Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide to Punks of Film since Santa crapped out. The thing is huge; at over 450 pages, it will stand as the definitive guide to movie punks. The size is justified, if there was a guy with a mohawk being booked in the background of a scene for 30 seconds, the movie gets a review.

Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly keep a conversational tone throughout, with an overall feeling of talking movies with a couple of your buddies. With review summaries like, "A stupid, unattractive man is denied intercourse," you know you're in for a good time.

They also have a good eye for Hollywood shortcuts and cliches: "...Wearing black means you're depressed; if you're male and a hairdresser, you are most certainly a flaming homosexual; dyed hair and headphones means you're probably a shocking and eccentric babysitter at the door of Steve Martin or Tim Allen,"

Movie punks were all over the place in '80s and '90s movies, whether showing how wild and weird the big city was, how things regressed after the Road Warrior inspired apocalypse, or just as zany sight gags in stories of nerds trying to get laid. Because of this, not only have Carlson and Connolly compiled an exhaustive tome on movie punks, they've created an amazing record of trash cinema, one that brought back memories of working through Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia to Film back in the early '90s.

Mixed in with the more cliche movie punks are longer reviews of what I guess would be considered the punk movie canon, Repo Man, Suburbia, Another State of Mind and Rock and Roll High School. Interviews are featured with actors, writers, musicians and directors, even a page-long interview with the patron saint of cinema nerds, the great Eddie Deezen.

Eddie Deezen!

The authors are opinionated, funny and rude when needed, yet are still able to convey what makes a movie like Suburbia stand out from the more exploitative fare, and to enthuse wildly about classics like Surf 2, Get Crazy, Rollerblade, and Class of 1984. Well, they're classics to me, anyway.

If you have any interest in punk rockers, trash movies from the '80s or fun in life, get a copy now.

I also managed to read Unbroken: a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption over Christmas, written by the lady that wrote Seabiscuit. It's the story of Louis Zamperini, who started out as a juvenile delinquent who decides to start running track, comes close to breaking the 4 minute mile, goes to the Jessie Owens Olympics, shakes Hitler's hand, causes an international incident by stealing a Nazi flag, survives 47 days at sea after his bomber crashes (fighting sharks with fists and oars), then survives brutal conditions in a series of Japanese POW camps for years. I, on the other hand, couldn't ride my bike on the trail yesterday because it looked like rain.

After coming home, Zamperini suffered from PTSD, and he figures the best way to deal with that is to go back to Japan, find the commander of the Japanese POW camp, and kill him.

Obviously not as light-handed in tone as Destroy All Movies, Unbroken is a great non-fiction page turner, one that's inspiring and awe-inspiring without giving in to "greatest generation" hokum. I mean, look at that sentence up there! That's material for like 3 or 4 awesome books! Read it and go hug an old person.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

2010-12-29T21:39:00.003-05:00

It was co-ooold this week. I realize that to yankees reading this, the twenties are reason to wear sandals and wifebeaters, but for Florida, it's cold. Cold enough that I ran around like an asshole covering up plants that will end up dying through my neglect anyway and wondering if I should run the faucets like the news tells me to do.

Since my house was built in the '20s, it offers little in the way of insulation. I probably would have been warmer outside, especially since my heat decided to die over the weekend. I'm too cheap and frightened to buy a space heater, mostly because I feel I've already cheated death with one earlier and I don't want to push my luck.

Back in the mid '90s my roommate Todd and I had a pretty awesome house. I had what was originally the living room as my bedroom, and he had an actual bedroom. It didn't have heat or AC, but I don't remember it getting too hot, mostly because my mattress was in the corner between two windows and there was always a nice breeze coming through. Winter was different, however. The same windows that made summer so pleasant let in a never ending stream of arctic air thorough my sleeping body. So I came up with a solution.

We found a couple of ancient space heaters up in the attic and each took one. These things were almost rusted through with layers of electrical tape wrapped around the cords. They would constantly trip the breakers, requiring us to walk out in the cold to fix it.

Since the heaters didn't have much range, I came up with an ingenious solution. I placed it on a board on top of a milkcrate, aimed the thing at my feet (which were about a foot away, covered in every blanket I owned, all both of them), then went to sleep. To this day, I'm not sure how I managed to not burn the house down with this invention.

Christmas Greetings!

2010-12-23T16:44:00.002-05:00

The streets were pretty dead today after lunch, I guess most people figured out how to start their Christmas vacation early. But there is a woman walking a few steps ahead of me, and a smattering of bums here and there to add Dickensan Christmas spirit.

"Merry Christmas," shouts out a bum on the corner, presumably to the woman in front of me.

The woman keeps walking.

"That's kind of shitty," I think. "She could have at least given him the head nod or something."

Now the bum's looking at me. "I guess I ought to say something," I think. "He's making eye contact. I guess that failed Merry Christmas also covered me? Alright, here goes..."

"CRACKER!"

Guess that Merry Chrstmas didn't cover me after all.

The Reason for the Season

2010-12-12T16:37:00.004-05:00

This graphic design association, AIGA, sponsored a toy design and remake ...event for Christmas. Basically you could make a toy or redesign one and put it up for sale. One of my coworkers decided to enter. Instead of making a toy, he decided to remake one. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "And That's What Christmas is all About, Charlie Brown:"

Here's a view from the top:

You could say it's a meditation on childhood innocence and the evil lurking slightly below the surface or an ironic take on the Norwegian Black Metal church burnings. Or you could just say it was a funny way to mess with Charlie Brown.

Boredom, Boredom

2010-12-07T22:16:00.005-05:00

Kids today never have to be bored. What a strange feeling. From what I remember, boredom was an essential part of growing up and taught so much. It taught you to look around you for something to do, to make up lies or invent things to annoy siblings or parents to pass the time. Sort of what I do here, only utlizing the internet. Boredom also taught you how to shut down, to be in a space physically while taking a little nap mentally. This tactic would save my life many times, from soul-deadening jobs to death treks through bead stores.

As a kid I couldn't imagine being able to watch a movie in the back seat of the car while on vacation. Or being able to play a videogame while trudging through the grocery store. Smarter people would insert a sentence here about how these kids are using someone else's imagination and ideas instead developing their own, but I mentally checked out of that last paragraph like two sentences ago.

My parents were like the Wonder Twins of boredom. On their own they frequented some pretty dull places, but together they could form an unstoppable force - the antique store. The thing that killed me about antique stores is there was always a chance of seeing something cool there - swords or old stuffed bear heads or Nazi helmets or ancient artifacts looted from cursed tombs - but it always ended up being me walking through rickety hallways full of glassware and furniture.

Still, antique stores at least gave the illuson of adventure. This was not the case in fabric stores. I have no idea why a big chunk of my childhood seemed to be spent in these horrible places. I don't remember my mom making her own clothes or anything, but man, were they terrible. About the only way to amuse yourself was to look through the big books of Halloween costumes.

"Hmmm...that kid's a tiger. That looks cool."

"That girl looks pretty happy running around dressed like a witch. I think we've actually passed like 3 Halloweens since we got in here."

Since growing up and having to spend more time in fabric stores (I got married) I've noticed something. They always put them in strip malls far, far away from anything remotely cool. There's no saying, "OK Honey, I'll drop you off. Come get me at the fireworks and puppy store next door when you're ready." Nope, they're always next to a discounted bread warehouse or a Food Lion or something.

Sometimes when my Mom got tired of making me walk through fabric stores, it would be my dad's turn. My dad's tactic was a little better, only because his stop had the promise of adventure. Have you ever had to go to a car show as a kid?

"Oh boy! Car show! That sounds awesome! How many cars can we race?"

"You can't drive them. In fact, you can't even touch them. Don't even breathe on them."

"Well, is there anything cool there, like the Batmobile? A car that shoots missles?"

"Nope. There's gonna be nothing like that at all."

Then I'd end up walking around a field for hours, watching the car guys (always guys with white mustaches and baseball caps) glare at me for even thinking of doing anything fun with their cars.

I'd like to say that being bored taught me something, that I gained a rich inner fantasy life, but most of that inner fantasy life I stole from TV. It did teach me the shutdown technique, which has been handy for decades, but if I could go back in time, I would pack a smartphone or portable DVD player in a second. I mean, amusing yourself looking at Halloween costumes kind of loses its charm after hour 3 in the fabric store.

You Will Be Visited

2010-11-29T20:53:00.007-05:00

Last month, Jacksonville Magazine recognized my talents and sent me and the girlfriend to an east coast beach town to report about how there was no oil on the beaches and how you should spend your vacation there. OK, she actually works at the magazine and got me the gig, but still.

See, no oil

Basically, the city's chamber of commerce put us and a couple other writers up at a swank condo, fed us about a thousand meals over the weekend and even got us VIP tickets to a wine festival featuring REO Speedwagon. In return, we would write articles in our respective magazines talking the place up.

We totally witnessed a murder in that room across the way.

The New York writers were mystified by our Southern traditions, like grits and hush puppies and were amazed that we had actually heard of cannoli. They were also much tanner than the Floridians. Weird.

So that was the fun part. The crappy part, of course, was actually sitting down and writing a story.

I had never written a travel piece (although I totally want to do more. Sign me up!), so I was a bit apprehensive. Plus, every time I tried to start, I was interrupted by some rather annoying ghosts.

The Ghost of 23 Year Old Me: "So you're really gonna stick it to those PR hacks, right? Expose them to the world?"

Adult Me: "What? No. Everyone was great. I mean, they've got to get the word out, you know? And it's not like I'm lying. It was a lot of fun.Great city. I know you're constantly broke, but you should have planned a trip there at least once."

23: "Sounds like selling out to me."

The Ghost of 17 Year Old Me: "And REO Speedwagon? Did you throw a rock at them or something? Yell at them for being lame and old?"

Me: "No. I - What? Why the hell would I want to do that? I'm not a fan or anything, but they're out there working hard, putting on a show, making people happy, you know?"

REO, making people happy.

17: "23 is right. You sold out, man."

Me: "I know you won't understand this, but I've been trying to sell out for years, just nobody wants to buy in. And besides, things change once you get older."

17: "Jesus, you sound like Dad. So what do you do when you're not watching lame old REO Speedwagon?"

Me: "I dunno, stuff. Work in the yard, I guess. Ride my bike. Go to the gym."

17: "Man, this is just depressing. Do you still skate?"

Me: "No. Remember, we weren't really that good to begin with. But you will start to enjoy all sorts of things you hated, or at least pretend you hate right now. Like country and classic rock, gardening, and football."

17: "Alright, I'm outta here." POOF!

23: "OK, now that the kid's gone, you can tell me. How does it feel to completely abandon all your journalistic principles?"

Me: "Now I remember why I never liked either one of you."

I was able to finish the article even with the interruptions(page 28 of December's issue! On newsstands now!), but about a week after I turned it in I happened to read a travel article in GQ. With my now-experienced eye, I could see what went into the article - Oh, that one motel he mentions must be the one he got put up in. Those 3 restaurants must be the ones they drove him to. Now I know how the sausages are made.

Freedom Fries

2010-11-23T19:10:00.003-05:00

Nothing tastes better than free food. Back when I lived in Gainesville, a large number of my friends were employed in the food service industries. This meant that there was always a pretty good chance of walking somewhere and getting a meal on the house.

At one point my roommate, who I probably shouldn't name, as he is now a husband, father and pillar of the community, worked at Burger King. We worked out an pointlessly complicated series of codes for when he worked the drive-thru. I'd be sitting on my bed playing Donkey Kong Country and the phone would ring.

"The rooster crows."*

That was my cue to start the car, drive up and take two or three overflowing bags of food. Even if I wasn't hungry, I took pride in being a good roommate and took the bags anyway. This was the time Burger King was introducing the Western Whopper (basically just a Whopper with Bar-B-Q sauce on it) and we ate those things constantly. He'd also hide garbage bags full of frozen hamburger patties and buns in the trash that I'd pick up later and save for our gin and tonic winter cookouts. Now that I think about it, those cookouts were fueled by burning a bunch of pallets that would always mysteriously show up by the dumpster. Between that and the Burger King patties, there's no telling how many carcinogenics are battling it out in our bodies right now.

But as sweet as that free food was, there were the more elaborate food scams. These involved calling up a restaurant and speaking to the manager with a claim of mild food poisoning. The key to this, as with all lies, is believing your own fiction. While my roommate was amazing at this, he will gladly admit he learned from a true master.

This master, who again, I probably shouldn't name, would get so involved in his lie that he would start believing it himself and get frustrated that these managers wouldn't help him. One night in Atlanta he spoke to two or three Hooters managers in an attempt to get 50 free wings. At one point he put his hand over the phone and said to us, "They want to offer me 25, but we got sick off 50 wings. How do we know which ones we got sick off of?"

The managers caved and we got 50 wings. A lot of times we could tell they didn't believe us, but we got free food, so who cared, right?

We would always tip big, because it wasn't the servers fault we got sick (see, I'm believing it again just thinking about it), and were super polite to everyone we encountered. I guess that sort of made up for the whole "Thou Shall Not Steal" thing.

Now that I'm a grown up and have more money than I know what to do with, thanks to the lucrative field of library science, I look back at our scams with some shame, but still a bit impressed that we were able to pull them off. With today's technology food scams are harder to pull off, but under the current economic picture, every once in a while I think of how I should really sharpen my skills at manager calling, just in case.

*It might have possibly been "The eagle has landed." Something to do with a bird.

Overheard in the Park by Work

2010-11-16T23:02:00.003-05:00

One of Our Regulars: "Listen up, listen up, listen up. I hate working. Everytime I get a job I quite it as soon as I can."

Music for Pleasure

2010-11-10T20:28:00.003-05:00

I was relaxing in my house Sunday when my thoughts were interrupted by crappy music. My ancient house has no insulation, so noise and the elements are free to seep through the walls and windows.

For about 20 minutes I got to hear a lot of music that the kids love. You know, robot voices, some rapping in there, usually some guy explaining to his intended that he really loves her.

I was wondering if I should go over to the white trash neighbors and say something, but by the time I got up it stopped.

I got to the car and said hi to my neighbor to the left. As I started the car, I wondered, "Did she think I was playing that crap? I mean, she's gotta know I'm a rocker, right? She has to know that I don't listen to music for 14 year old girls, right?"

This bothered me the rest of the day, whether or not my elderly neighbor knew I loved the rock and roll.

Just Observin' at Work

2010-11-06T16:31:00.001-04:00

"You look tired."

"No...not tired...just useless."

Later that afternoon I watched a kid execute a series of roundhouse kicks over his baby sibling's head for about five minutes while his mom made a very important text.

Just Another Day at Work

2010-10-26T19:18:00.002-04:00

First customer of the morning, to another librarian:

"I represent the black people, OK? My people? And the white people are always following me. I work for Farah and Farah, OK? I AM an attorney. You better contact your attorney and let them know they are going to be sued. Seriously. I work with the police in the park. I represent the homeless. Seriously. I graduated college at age 4."

"Oh yeah," asked the librarian. "What college?"

"It doesn't matter." Seriously, I come in to change clothes. I am an attorney. And you have people taking pictures. Smile, say cheese, click. You're sued! My daddy lives in Atlanta, Georgia. That's right, Atlanta. Seriously. And he's homeless by choice. I work for Farah and Farah and you will be sued. Call 1-800 fuck you."

I gotta win the lottery soon.

I'm on a Highway to Hell

2010-10-19T20:46:00.001-04:00

I'm on the desk watching a girl walk across the lobby.

"Look at that fucking hipster," I think. "Wearing big stupid 1985 mom sunglasses indoors, a pair of cowboy boots, some stupid mismatched sweater over an ugly skirt. Why do they do that to themselves? Why do hipsters and indie rockers go to such great lengths to make themselves ugly and childlike? Who the hell wants to be a kid? I didn't want to be a kid when I was a kid! I wanted to grow up so I could eat cake for breakfast and say bad words and drive cars and get into rated R movies. Screw that childhood innocence jazz."

"God, she's coming this way and...hey, wait a minute. She's walking sort of funny. You don't think she's... Oh shit. I've spent the last thirty seconds hating on a poor retarded woman. I am totally going to hell for that one."

How About a Little Fire, Scarecrow?

2010-10-12T21:09:00.004-04:00

Ever had a movie scare you even before you've seen it? In the middle school circles I ran in, the movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow was a topic of much discussion, so much so that I knew just about everything about the plot years before I saw it. In this made for TV movie, a group of angry redneck townspeople, led by a sinister mailman blame Bubba, a kindly mentally challenged guy for hurting a little girl and go to his house to deliver some vigilante justice. Bubba's mom tells him to play "the hiding game," so he hides in a scarecrow. The gang finds him and shoots him, then they are picked off one by one by an unseen force after seeing a creepy scarecrow.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow was recently reissued on DVD, so I decided to face my fears. Hell, I did it with SSSSSSS, so why not give this one a shot.

Holy crap, I can't believe this was on regular old TV, for little kids and old ladies and whatnot to just stumble upon. Everything about it works, lots of atmosphere, actual characterization, and you're constantly wondering who is really knocking off the gang. That little girl who keeps singing all creepily? Bubba's mother? Is it one of the gang trying to ensure their secret stays secret? Or is it Bubba the scarecrow back from the dead? And hey, are they implying that the mailman is a pedophile? Could you do that on TV back then?

The weird part is, even though I never saw the movie, the shot of Bubba's frightened eyes seen through the holes in the scarecrow's face before getting shot has been burned in my brain somehow. I guess all that playground talk soaked in.

The last five minutes or so are some pretty creepy stuff, even if one of the victims is being menaced by a tractor and never, you know, just steps out of the way. Even discounting that, the final shots made me recheck that all the doors were locked, even though I have done nothing to anger any mentally challenged scarecrows that I can recall.

It helps that scarecrows, like mummies, are inherently creepy, even though they're not the most mobile creatures, and most people won't have the opportunity to stumble across a real one. Zombies and vampires have had their time in the spotlight, evil scarecrows will be the next big thing. Trust me on this one.

So yeah, use the Netflix and get this one in time for Halloween. Now if I could only get my hands on a copy of The Legend of Lizzie Borden, my childhood terror re-viewing would be complete.

Lies My Parents Told Me

2010-09-29T20:08:00.002-04:00

I think my parents were pretty honest with me. Like all parents they lied about lots of stuff; Santa Claus, secret trips to the doctor's office, and anything involving 'building character,' but they always seemed to come clean when asked. So I'm inclined to believe them more often than not.

Every few years they will tell me about how the bassinet (sort of like a crib, but...different somehow) that my sister and I used growing up and subsequently passed around the family was owned previously by country superstars George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Apparently the Jones family lived in Lakeland for a while, where my sister and I were born and somehow the bassinet made its way to my parents.

Like I said, I'm inclined to believe them, and it doesn't really seem like something they'd make up, but a couple things don't seem to add up. First of all, how the hell did the bassinet get to my parents? I'd like to imagine George Jones loaded out of his mind running across my dad in a parking lot or something and saying, "Hell, I gotta bastardette you can have, hold on a second." Or maybe my dad won it from him playing poker. I'd like to think Jones and my dad compared sideburns afterwards.

On a side note, George Jones getting a DUI on a riding mower on his way to get a drink is funny and somewhat charming in an old school Otis the Drunk manner. When my neighbors get drunk, I just get to hear a lot of cussing and Kid Rock. As a society, we really need to bring back the comical drunk. C'mon people, put some style in that drinking!

I can pull off a mean "She Thinks I Still Care" in the shower, and there was that time my sister found a hidden stash of cocaine and whiskey in the bassinet, so there just might be something to the story.

George Jones is playing here next month. It's fifty bucks, which means I won't go. I'm thinking of seeing if I can locate that bassinet and emailing his management. Reuniting him with his long-lost baby...bed or whatever the hell a bassinet is would surely warrant free tickets, right? He would be overcome with emotion, remembering the times he and Tammy rocked their kid together and have to get me front row tickets.

My Friends are Thirteen Years Old

2010-09-24T12:41:00.005-04:00

My good friend Patrick was in town last weekend. I had to work. Whenever we meet up with each other, we exchange gifts as a sign of respect, much like the wise Native Americans of ancient times. Or maybe it was the Dutch.

Anyway, since most of the crap we like is juvenile, stupid or of interest to only a handful of nerds in the world, it just makes sense to give it away, rather than trying to sell it on ebay and trying to reclaim about a tenth of what we paid for our treasures.

By the way, I just bought a ton of '70s Italian Star Wars ripoff DVDs. Will these eventually end up as Christmas gifts? Only if my friends are very lucky.

I hid my meager bag of stuff for Pat, hoping my white trash neighbors wouldn't steal it or use it as a training tool for their 30 pit bulls. When I got home from work I had a huge box of treats waiting for my by the front door. A ton of really nice Ben Sherman shirts, some old band T-shirts (scored a sweet Mod target shirt, Black Flag bars, Birthday Party, Smiths, Devo, all sorts of stuff it seemed like I should have had at one point), and a smattering of DVDs and CDs. Yeah, that box was pretty packed with awesome. What's that? The box itself? Uh, well, here's a photo of the box that was on my doorstep for the mailman and God and everyone to see:

The other sides give operating instructions ("in the butt") and celebrity testimonials. I'm sure my neighbors had a good laugh over this when they were up on my porch looking for stuff to steal.

An Actual Question I Got Today at the Reference Desk

2010-09-21T19:54:00.003-04:00

So, uh...there was this movie...it had a girl in it...she had, like, a nose. I think it was a comedy...or a drama. Do you have that?

I'm walking through the jungle gathering mangoes. I meet Raquel Welch. I make a nice mango cream pudding.

2010-09-15T22:51:00.001-04:00

I absolutely hated doing yard work growing up. There were some things I didn't mind, watching the grass yield to the power of my mower, that was pretty cool. But pulling weeds or raking the yard was like being sent to the gulag to a 13 year old me.

But the absolute worst job was gathering mangoes. We had a huge old mango tree and my sister and I would have to gather the rotten mangoes off the ground and put them in a trash bag. We might have had to separate the good mangoes and put them aside or something, I have completely blocked that out of my memory.

We would put this job off as long as we could. It didn't help that we never knew when it was going to be forced upon us. My parents didn't seem to have any sort of schedule for chores, it was more like my dad would decide, "hey, this is the exact minute the kids need to clean the yard of nasty, rotting mangoes. Let's get them on it right now."

Standing out in the sun, praying for rain or the sun to set, picking up brown, squishy gnat-infested mangoes was like working on a chain gang. And that smell - that sweet, rotting smell - that stuff smelled like death. The worst were the mangoes with bites out of them. That meant that the huge river rats had been feasting the night before, and were probably hanging out in the darker parts of the yard waiting to bite us and fill us full of the rabies.

It also didn't help that we could see our dad sitting in his chair watching football while were slaving away. He didn't have anyone telling him to work, we bitched to each other. And none of our friends had to do yard work. I remember my neighbor telling me, "My parents hire people to do that stuff. That's what you're supposed to do in the '80s." My parents did not subscribe to that theory.

Picking up mangoes could take us all day, mostly because we would have to gingerly pick up the smallest portion of mango possible with our thumb and forefinger and throw it into the bag before the rats came charging at us, and also because we didn't understand that it would have been a lot quicker to, you know, actually do the job instead of standing out in the yard complaining about it.

I suppose that stuff was supposed to build character. I don't know if it worked or not. Now that I am old, I am obsessed by yard work. I can easily spend all day pulling weeds or raking or mowing. And I have my dad's "I just got this idea! It has to be implemented right now" trait. But you know what I will never do? Touch a damn mango. Neither will my sister. Just seeing the nasty things bring back memories of brown, rotten, rat-bitten fruit baking in the Florida sun. Do you know how many times I've been in a nice restaurant and heard a waiter describe a piece of fish that sounds awesome until he utters that terrible phrase, "covered in a mango salsa?" Too many to count, my friend, too many to count.

Body Blow, Body Blow

2010-09-01T21:13:00.004-04:00

When watching boxing or a Muhammad Ali documentary almost every guy will think, "You know, I could do that." You realize you couldn't land a punch or anything, but you could probably last a round or two. Hell, who hasn't been punched before? And they use gloves in boxing, right? That ring's pretty big, with some fancy footwork you should be able to run out the clock for a while, take a punch or two, collect your huge paycheck and go home.

I'm a doughy, out of shape 40 year old, and I still secretly think I could box professionaly. I don't have these delusions about other sports. I know I could never complete a pass in the NFL. I would have no chance of making a layup in the NBA. Hell, I probably couldn't even sink a free throw, what with everyone shouting and waving crap at me.

But boxing? I could totally do that. Worst case scenario, I get knocked out within seconds, and I have a story for the rest of my life. I could be watching Mike Tyson in The Hangover on my wall-sized TV and legitimately say, "I fought that guy once."

"Really?"

"That's what they tell me. How else do you think I could afford this gold-plated house?"

I'd like to think that when my opponent and I tapped our gloves in the beginning, I'd do that "fake hand shake to the hair adjustment" move. I figure I'm getting knocked out soon, may as well give the people their money's worth. And how awesome would it be to dramatically rise off the floor while the ref is counting me out and my crusty trainer is shouting at me to stay down?

'80s movies are to blame for my delusional belief in my boxing skills. As everyone knows, to be a great boxer, all you need is heart, someone to believe in you, and a training montage set to an inspiring '80s ballad. I don't really have the first two, but I could totally do a montage. Run on the beach for a while, do some sit-ups, hit that big ...punching bag thing, no problem. "Eye of the Tiger" is a bit too obvious, let's go with ...hmmmm. Def Leppard? Not enough synthesizer. Journey? Too played out. Hey, this montage might be harder than I thought.

Of course, this fantasy only applies to old school boxing. MMA is too dude-touching for me. Hey, you know, boxing is probably losing tons of revenue to MMA. They should be looking for a new underdog story to teach America how to dream again. And with my "everyman" physique and "Joe Six-pack" avoidance of training, hard work and sense of entitlement, I could be just the underdog they're looking for. Where do I sign up?

*When I say "almost every guy" I really mean, "Me and a guy at work I talked to about boxing once." With that sort of rigorous sourcing, I could totally be a lifestyles feature editor, if I only lived in New York.

NEERRDS!!

2010-08-29T13:08:00.004-04:00

I don't want to shock anyone, but I've spent some time in comic book stores. I was always more of a tourist than a resident, but I went enough to have a familiarity with the clientele and workers there. I would always have the same reaction after being in there for a while:

"Look at all these fucking nerds."

But wait, I'd think. I'm in here, too. So am I one of them? Well, no, I mean, they probably thought James Bond just walked in here. Hell, yeah. Nerds better recognize.

Then I'd go to Target or somewhere where normal people congregated and realize I was a hideous, socially retarded nerd myself, only my subset of nerddom, record store guy/movie nerd was a step or two more socially acceptable. But my musings about how I'd give my firstborn to get a copy of the complete Big Boys discography or how a full stack of Rudy Ray Moore party records on vinyl was the only thing stopping me from having a full, complete life were equally as incomprehensible to normal people.

There was a comic book store a couple blocks away from our first apartment in Jacksonville. I'd get bored on a Sunday and walk down there to play Golden Axe, a pretty boss '80s video game that I think only got played when I walked up there. The guy who worked there was always cool to me, especially since I was basically taking up space and not buying anything.

Others were not so lucky. A friend of mine would go in there weekly, dropping some serious coin. You'd think that as a regular, he'd get some special treatment. One day he walks in and the guy's watching TV.
"Oh cool, Arrested Development," my friend exclaims.
Click!
The guy turns the TV off immediately and goes back to looking at pictures of She-Hulk.

My ex-wife would go there every once in a while to buy old kids comic books to use in projects. You'd think the guy would be happy to unload of all his old Archie and Casper books dusty-ing up the place, but he'd always drop her change into her hand from like two feet up with a sneer on his face.

You know, I'm always instinctively going to side with the nerds, the freaks and the misfits, but do they have to make it so hard all the time?

If the Van's A-Rockin,' Don't Come Knockin'

2010-08-25T21:19:00.005-04:00

I hate driving. Actually, that's not exactly true. Long drives are awesome. Driving alone through the sunset or late at night all caffeined up, eating boiled peanuts and listening to the Minutemen, or Thin Lizzy, or Naked Raygun, or Ted Leo, or any number of CDs I have to have on a long drive, or just half-paying attention to NPR? Man, that's some fun tymes.

But daily driving to go to work or the store or whatever? That shit's for the birds. This could be because I'm a terrible driver. I get lost easily, even in areas I've driven through thousands of times. I'm prone to road rage. I inspire road rage in others. There's a reason I ride my bike to work.

But if I had a van I'd be a much better driver, as well as a whole lot cooler. I had the chance to watch Supervan recently, a van/car chase/CB exploitation flick. While it didn't have the same effect on me as King Frat or The Greatest Movie Never Made, it was definitely worth watching.

There's this guy on his way to compete in this big van contest, see? His original van gets smashed up, so he gets Vandora, an experimental solar powered van this big company is trying to keep under wraps so they can keep selling gas guzzlers. He picks up a young woman along the way and they eventually fall in love. The CEO of the company is trying to stop him from entering Vandora. You can tell the CEO is bad because he looks like Ted Knight and doesn't like rock and roll. They all make it to the big van contest and see noted American author Charles Bukowski hosing down girls at a wet T-shirt contest. That's right, Charles Bukowski is in a '70s van movie hosing down girls in a wet T-shirt contest. You don't see Thomas Pynchon doing stuff like that.

All that plot stuff is OK, but what really makes Supervan worth watching is the footage of vans on display. While a lot of them just look like regular family trucksters or windowless molestermobiles, the few that don't are shining monuments to '70s awesomeness. Shag carpeting, fantasy airbrushing, chandeliers, pretty much everything you'd ever want in or on a van. The only thing bringing down the visuals is the lame country rock being played over it. Just imagine how awesome a bitchin' Fu Manchu track would be over all this. Here, you don't have to think too hard.

I love how exploitation movies act as time capsules for their eras. Churning movies out on the cheap, most used real people and sets, giving the movies a life and spark not seen in generic, sterile modern blockbusters. Watching the stuff filmed at the van contest brought me back to hundreds of flea markets, auctions and fairs my parents took me to at the time. I also learned that women were not allowed to wear bras in the '70s, which I guess I didn't pick up on as a kid.

Riding to work this morning I was thinking about vans, and their distant, snootier cousins, the Hummer and the SUV. A van is always inviting (except for those windowless ones). It says, "Hey, man, come on in. Ladies, check out the shag carpeting and waterbed. I don't know exactly where we're going, but dig this picture of Dr. Strange on the side. Let's get some beer and hang. You like Cheap Trick?"

SUVs and Hummers say, "I got mine. Fuck you. Out of my way, I'm on my way to a neighborhood association meeting."

I know which one I feel more comfortable with. As soon as the Honda dies (which probably won't be long, I'm close to 300,000 miles), I'm getting a van. Screw the fuel economy. I don't drive that much anyway. I just have to find someone who can airbrush a Conan the Barbarian mural on the side.

Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Cornbread

2010-08-11T19:14:00.002-04:00

My favorite lunch place was packed today, so I wandered downtown in a haze of hunger pains. Hey! Da Real Ting is open again for lunch buffet! They might have been open for a while and just didn't have a snazzy sign.

I went there a few years ago and it was awesome. I went today and it was awesome. Jerk chicken, some sort of spicy broiled fish, plantains, man, it was amazing. They even had peach cobbler for dessert, even though I'm not sure that's really Jamaican. They were playing a Toots and the Maytals best of CD, which I believe they were playing the last time I was there. Had to knock them down a grade however, because while the new waitresses are better looking than the older women that worked there before, I liked thinking that the previous women could be my Jamaican lunch lady grandmas.

As I was leaving, I was told that the security cameras captured my meal for posterity. You can see a clip of it here.

Another Favorite Customer

2010-08-07T11:17:00.003-04:00

There's this older guy who comes in occasionally and wants us to look up song lyrics. Like many of my favorite customers, initially I didn't like him, but his persistence won me over and I kinda love the guy now.

He's missing a leg, and looks sort of like a skinnier, less kept-up version of old school Barry White. You know, like this:

Well, it's sort of a stretch, but work with me, babe. You know, I know that people been talking about me all over town, but girl, don't pay them no mind. You know we got a stone groove together. And baby, you know that we got it together, and nobody can --

Sorry, got caught up in the Barry White vibe there for a moment. Anyway, this guy is in a band and is constantly looking for lyrics to old soul and R&B songs. Usually a line will form behind him while I'm looking up lyrics, since he usually doesn't know the title, just a few words from the chorus. He's a pleasant, cheerful guy and is always happy when you find lyrics for him, or let on that you've heard of Mandrill or the Isley Brothers. He'll say hello to whoever is in line and usually ask them a question.

"Excuse me ma'am, he's looking up a song for me. Do you know that one? Goes like, (and here he'll start to sing a bit)'baby, I'm so in love with you?' That's a jam, there."

He's not crazy or drunk or smelly, like a large portion of the public, but I always love seeing people shy away uncomfortably as he croons at them.

Couple months ago he wanted some Curtis Mayfield song lyrics. I hipped him to a documentary we have, "Movin' On Up," which is all kinds of awesome and you should check it out now. We got to talking about just how awesome "Curtis," Mayfield's first solo album is. Any album with both "Move On Up" and "(Don't Worry) If There's Hell Below We're All Gonna Go" on it is just one of the best things in the world. Plus, that cover of him chillin' in his bright yellow flares should be hanging in the National Gallery.

He started talking about "(Don't Worry) If There's Hell Below We're All Gonna Go."

"That's a jam, there."

"Oh yeah," I replied.

"I've wanted to do that one for a long time, but people might have a problem with the opening."

If you don't recall the opening, there's an awesome fuzzy bassline, a woman talks about reading the Bible, then Curtis shouts out what adults now refer to as 'the N-word.'

"Yeah, I guess those were different times, huh?"

"Oh yeah. You know, I might get away with that," he laughed. "But I don't think you could."

"Heh. Yeah, you're right. I'm not going to even try that one."

Then he thanked me and went on down the line to sing to some uncomfortable soccer moms.

Get Out of My Head

2010-08-04T20:59:00.003-04:00

I've had the chorus of a song stuck in my head for about 2 or 3 weeks now. I finally looked it up. Apparently the song is "Never Been Any Reason" by Head East. You know this song. You might not think so, but if you've ever listened to a classic rock station, you know this song.

The chorus goes like this:

"Save my life I'm going down for the last time/Woman with the sweet love better than a white line."

I'm hoping that by passing this on, it will leave my head and find a home in both of my faithful readers' heads.

Lord of the Flies

2010-08-04T20:18:00.002-04:00

I'm not fanatical or anything, but I'd like to think that I keep a fairly clean house. I don't keep food out, and yeah, the dishes might linger a while in the sink before their trip to the dishwasher (what, like I'm going to hand wash that stuff? It's the 21st century!), but I'd like to think that I keep up at least minimum standards of cleanliness.

So why do I have swarms of flies in my kitchen?

Couple mornings ago I noticed a few flies on the window. "How dare you invade the sanctity of my home," I thundered, as I swatted the offenders to their death. I came home from work that afternoon and had a new gang of flies buzzing around the window. I have just enough of the OCD that I can't let that stand, and would swat flies until they were all dead, their nasty little insect carcasses littering my windowsill. Then the next day I'd start all over again.

I'm familiar with plagues, having dealt with both fleas and swarms of locusts before, but these flies are really freaking me out. A co-worker told me he had the same problem years ago, only in the bathroom, which is of course a thousand times worse than my problem, but it still feels like I'm living in an unclean house. I've been told to pour bleach down the sink and also to cover the drains with dishes, ensuring that when I move the dishes, I'll unleash swarms of bleached, angry flies all over me.

Plan B is bringing in an army of spiders which would not only eat all the flies, but would also give me an early start on my Halloween decorating.

It's a Beautiful Day, Go Outside!

2010-07-24T11:10:00.006-04:00

My sister and I weren't allowed to watch too much TV growing up. It could be because our parents were teachers, although maybe they just wanted to save money on the electric bill.

My parents weren't Amish about it or anything, they just had certain rules. No TV (except for the news or 60 Minutes) during dinner, and very, very limited TV during the daytime. Whenever I mention the "no TV during dinner" rule to people they act like we were from Little House on the Prarie days.

"So what did you guys do while you were eating?"

"I dunno, I guess we just talked. Argued. Passed food around. Whatever normal families did."

"But you didn't watch TV?"

"Not while we were eating, no."

"Were you one of those weird families who had to complete logic puzzles at the dinner table? Did you have to go around the table and give dissertations on current events? Did you share craft projects?"

"We weren't the Tannenbaum family. We just ate. Like normal people around a table. Only we weren't watching Wheel of Fortune at the time."

It's still weird to me when I go to someone's parent's house and they bust out the TV trays. "I suppose I shouldn't say anything," I think. "Maybe they're too poor to have a dining room table, or they've really been anticipating this hour of E programming. Best not to say anything and go along with it."

But if that rule freaks people out, not being able to watch TV during the day really blows their mind. I'm not sure if that was an actual stone tablet rule or anything, or we were just hassled into going outside or given work whenever we were caught watching TV during daylight hours. I do remember an exception was made for Creature Feature every Saturday at 2:00 if I got my chores done, so thanks for that one, Mom and Dad.

So did my parent's TV rules affect us? I'm not really sure. I do know that my sister has a TV in every room in her house, and I almost always watch TV while I'm eating. And I'm generally watching something that I first saw on Creature Feature.

If I'm not eating, I get sort of weirded out watching TV during the daytime. I've gotten over this feeling by eating constantly, but you know those lazy Sundays where you watch football for 5 hours or watch whatever crappy movies TBS decides to run on a constant loop? I can't do that. If the sun is shining, and I'm trying to watch TV, it just freaks me the hell out.

It doesn't help that TV knows that. That's why they show crap on Saturday and Sunday during the day. I don't know if they made a deal with my parents years ago or what, but those days are where they dump all those terrible movies made from TV shows or syndicated shows like Mama's Family that exist in their own phantom time; where the sets look like a high school play and it's impossible to tell if the show was filmed in 1987, 1996 or 2008.

This is TV messing with you. "Why aren't you doing something," The television asks. "We can play this crap all day. You know you can't win. You're not going to catch Jaws or an episode of Arrested Development or even a cool nature documentary. It's going to be episodes of Charles in Charge and Rob Schnider movies all day long. Now don't you want to go outside? Isn't there some work you should be doing?"

No matter how I try to fight, I realize TV will win, as it usually does.

Back...to the Future

2010-07-22T16:07:00.002-04:00

Best question this week:

"Where would I find, you know, stuff. Like time machines. Like to go back to the days of like Billy the Kid?"

"Third Floor."

Badge of Dishonor

2010-07-14T21:49:00.004-04:00

Free Comic Book Day was sometime last month. This is a day when comic book stores use the lure of free comic books (usually stuff like Archie and the gang teaching you how to brush your teeth) in an attempt to ensnare a new generation of nerds to replace those who have managed to escape by talking to girls. This has become so successful that record stores have tried it, launching Record Store Day. While I kid the nerds, I hope both days are successful, as I recognize them as my brothers and sisters, and will gladly stand arm in arm with them when the time comes. Well, maybe not arm in arm. Have you ever been to a record show? Those people smell terrible. But I will offer much moral support.

In honor of Free Comic Book Day, my friend Keith made me this snazzy button. Here, check it out:

I should probably mention that Keith was our children's librarian.

Apparently in the comic, the Nazi ape saw something so awful that he puked in a rather spectacular fashion. Think about that for a minute. Something was so disgusting that a Nazi officer gorilla threw up. What could that be? Love? Friendship?

All I know is that I now have a button to wear whenever the occasion calls for it.

Ever Get that Not-So-Fresh Feeling?

2010-07-06T20:25:00.004-04:00

Got back from a library conference in Washington, D.C. last week. I had never been before. Got to check out some museums, saw some bands and monuments, and kept seeing the Capitol Dome looming down the street from the motel. Naturally, it reminded me of that Bad Brains cover.

D.C. is hot and humid. Really, really hot and humid. I knew that before, but figured, "Hey, I'm from Florida. How hot can it really be? I'll run a marathon up there, just to show those Washington fat cats they can't push me around."

That was not the case. My clothes were constantly soaked. I went out to see the monuments one night around 10 o'clock and I was still bathed in sweat, but you know, I'm an American, so I couldn't let the humidity and heat stop me from checking that stuff out. And hanging out at the Lincoln Memorial with a big group of tourists with the Washington Monument in front of me and the full moon to the right made me want to give my own "I have a dream" speech, so it was worth it.

On the last day, I woke up early, saw author Dennis Lehane give a really good speech, then took off for the airport. I'm naturally oily and sweaty, and airports and trains and stuff always make me a bit nervous, thinking that I'm going to lose my boarding pass, or I'll be shipped off to Guantanamo for trying to carry too much toothpaste on board or something, so I was not at my freshest. Oh yeah, and I had pretty much worn the same pair of jeans for most of the trip.

I get to the Jacksonville airport to my car with its half-assed air conditioner and find I can't get out of the economy lot. So I wait and wait until they send someone to manually take my credit card and let me go home. Meanwhile, I'm sweating like a pig.

You know how when you bring home a pizza or something and then a day later you get in the car and it still smells like delicious pizza? Yeah, that's awesome. Well, a bit later I got in the car to go somewhere and notice this smell. Not overpowering, but definitely nothing you'd want to subject anyone else to.

Somehow all my stink and sweat had seeped into the car and was reminding me what a horrible smelling person I can be if left to my own devices. It aired out after a couple of hours, but it was yet another reminder that I should not be around respectable people.

Uninformed and Uneducated Thoughts on the World Cup

2010-06-14T18:44:00.003-04:00

I have friends who actually know stuff about the World Cup and can tell you all sorts of statistics on what country is going to beat what country and who plays what position and how this is going to be the year that soccer finally takes root in America.

If you care about that sort of stuff, you should read their blogs.

There are also a gazillion sites that deride soccer as a pansy European sport that no American should care about.

If you care about that sort of stuff, you should have someone read their site to you.

Amazingly, the one thing both these camps have in common is that they tend to absolutely hate the one thing that is awesome about World Cup soccer.

They both seem to really, really hate when a player (generally an Italian) will get nudged in the shoulder or something, then fall to the ground as if they were stabbed trying to pull a foul on the other team. Then the ref leaves and the player gets up.

This is the one thing that I absolutely think is awesome about soccer. In fact, it might be the coolest move in professional sports. To me, it recalls Ric Flair, master of ring psychology, when he'd fall to his knees and pantomime begging for the mercy of an opponent. Then, he'd punch him in the balls when the ref wasn't looking.

Dunks from the foul line, Hail Mary passes, fake kicks on fourth down; all of these are awesome moves, but to see a guy fall down screaming in obvious fake pain only to pop right back up and continue playing - this move should be in every professional athlete's bag of tricks.

Tattoo You

2010-05-27T15:03:00.008-04:00

Poor people sure love their tattoos. Every third person that comes up to the reference desk looks like a Maori tribesman, if the New Zealand natives were infatuated with Taz, rings of barbed wire and hip-hop lyrics. My favorite used to be the young man with an outline of the state of Florida between his eyebrows, but today I crowned my new King of Tattoos.

Remember when someone was foolish enough to pass out at a party? Remember how funny it was when they woke up the next day with Sharpee-written witticisms and symbols over every inch of exposed skin? Well, I think that happened to this guy. He had all sorts of stuff scrawled on him in fonts that recalled that blocky handwritten style used in advertising to denote kids. You know, like a sign that says Lemonade with the E backwards. I couldn't read all of this guy's etchings, but I was able to preserve his best in this painting I commissioned acourtroom artist to do for the site.

I'm assuming these are the fellow's two favorite types of popular music. I feel this would be a lot more effective if they were on his knuckles or hands, if only for the chance to say, "Do you like country? Or do you like rock?" before punching someone. Another wasted opportunity.

Overheard While Eating Downtown

2010-05-20T18:36:00.002-04:00

One attorney/city worker looking guy in his 40s to another

"What's wrong with you? It's like you don't even care who won American Idol anymore."

iSurrendered

2010-05-18T21:36:00.003-04:00

I finally gave in and bought an ipod. I have a perfectly good old school MP3 player, which is about the size of an old Walkman, but I had some extra scratch and decided to get something with more room (64 gigs!).

This might have been a mistake. I'm catching all sorts of stuff that didn't make it over into itunes and it is driving me insane.

"What? 'John Wayne Was A Nazi' didn't make it over? What the hell? The whole point of having a portable MP3 player is so that I can listen to 'John Wayne Was A Nazi' any damn time I want, which is right now! My old player would never treat me like this."

I'm also having trouble importing stuff in, which is causing me much more stress than I can handle right now.

Hell, it could be worse, I could have bought an iphone. Is there anything worse than being in a group when someone asks a question like, "I wonder if Bob Hope is alive." In the old days, this could lead to different conversational tangents, like how weird it is that Jerry Lewis is still alive. Or that Jerry Lee Lewis is still alive. Or that time Bob Hope played Gator Growl. Or what was that one player for Florida? You know, the receiver back in like '93?

Now of course, some chucklehead has to whip out his magic little phone and announce loudly that Bob Hope is in fact, dead, which also kills conversation and fun.

And don't even get me started on an Andy Rooney-esque rant on people texting during sporting events and concerts. What are you saying? "I'm at a baseball game. LOL." "This concert is awesome." Then get off the phone and enjoy it, dummy.

Jesus, you see what the new technology is doing to me? I should have stayed with my ancient old MP3 player.

IMPORTANT TECHNICAL UPDATE

I've been trying to connect to itunes for two days now. Apple's tech support is a picture of a feather saying 'breathe,' but it's sure designed well. I'm going back to my walkman.

Ain't No Party Like a Skinhead Party

2010-05-12T21:25:00.006-04:00

I was probably only one of two or three people delivering food from Hunan Palace in Atlanta who wasn't a skinhead. They weren’t Nazis or anything, in fact one of them was black and one was from somewhere in South America. Of course one of the big white power skins in Tampa/St. Pete was Puerto Rican, so who knows? I got along with them alright, we liked some of the same bands, but the whole worshiping this magical time in England from before they were born was a little strange, as was their habit of beating the shit out of people every weekend.

This made for some interesting weekend recaps. I'd get blow-by-blow stories about putting some dude in the hospital, while I'd come out with something like, "I saw The Crow at the dollar theater with my roommate. It kinda sucked."

It was weird running into them outside of work. I remember a Buzzcocks show where I was drinking with them before the band started where you could just feel the tension. Somehow, somebody was going to get their ass kicked that night.

Of course, it wasn't gonna be me, so screw it.

So I get invited to this party at a warehouse. A bunch of bands used to practice there til they got kicked out, so they figure they’ll have a big party and trash the place. I think I got a ride with someone after work. It soon becomes clear that everyone there is a skinhead, except for like 2 or 3 other people and me. Even though I had a pretty good idea nothing would happen to me, I had heard those guys tell enough stories about how they looked for an excuse to beat some outsider’s ass that I was pretty nervous. To take the edge off, I had a couple beers. A couple bands played while the rest of the skinheads destroyed the warehouse. After a few more beers, I figured I’d help ‘em out. Somebody handed me a crowbar so I started banging away on some drywall. “Oh shit! Hey, that’s a Jam song! I know that song!” I threw my crowbar to the ground and pushed past a bunch of skinheads and ran up to the band. Like I had many times in Gainesville when a band played a song I knew, I figured I’d help them out. I snatch the mic from the singing skinhead and give the crowd my rendition of "Boy About Town." About ¾ through the song, a reminder fought its way through all the beer in my brain. “Hey. You’re not at the Hardback. You’re at a skinhead party where you know a handful of these bald people. Do you think they appreciate you taking the microphone from their bald brother?” I sort of mumbled the rest of the song and tried to inconspicuously slink back to the corner.

However, the skins seemed to be impressed that I sang and was helping destroy the place, even though I had hair. They kept giving me drinks all night and I felt sort of like the nerdy waterboy hanging out with the football team. After a while I got paranoid that they were getting me drunk to surprise me with a stomping, so I took off on foot through a pretty sketchy neighborhood and walked about 2 miles home.

The next day at work I didn't hear that anyone got their ass beat, so I guess the whole thing worked out for everyone.

Dream Warrior

2010-05-07T15:40:00.003-04:00

Since I realize nothing is more fascinating than other people's dreams, here's one that I had the other morning.

I was teaching this adult education class with Steve Carrell. I recognized a few people in the class. At some point, a pack of rabid dogs run in the classroom. Steve is trying to keep everyone calm while I run for help (I can call him Steve since we taught together). Oh yeah, the classroom was up a ladder for some reason. So I go running around looking for help, but keep getting distracted. I finally make it back with some meat to lure the dogs out of the classroom, but the dogs have left or fallen asleep or something. Everyone still thinks I'm a hero though, because they don't know about how I stopped looking for help and would go off and do something else. At one point my friend Todd comes up and is all serious about how scared he was of the dogs. Then like a second later we start doing our impression of "Little Mad Guy," the kung fu movie where the wispy-haired master says, "Oh Fatty, why can't you catch those snakes? It's so damned easy."

This is what would happen in real life.

So come on, all you internet Freuds, what the hell does that mean?

The Saddest Comedy in the World

2010-04-29T15:06:00.004-04:00

A couple weeks ago I'm at the gym wondering why the elliptical machine insists on lying about the elapsed time (you can say 3 minutes as long as you want, Mr. Running Robot, but I think we both know I had to have been on you at least 10) and glanced up at one of the closed captioned TVs the gym offers. "Everybody Loves Raymond" was starting and since I needed something to take my mind off my lying robot coach, I started watching, pretending I had just been struck deaf from some terrible accident.

It's in the beginning, before the credits. Ray and his family are in the kitchen, trading barbs and insulting each other. Without sound or a laughtrack, the show was a bleak, depressing rumination on a family that hates each other with a blinding passion and takes every opportunity to point out each others flaws, yet is somehow determined to stick together. It also helped that I was translating everything in overly dramatic 'actorly' voices with lots of pauses, so that it went sort of like:

"Raymond. (pause) You did not empty the dishwasher again."

"I know, honey. I (pause) just (pause) forgot, OK?"

Here's an actual script I found off the internet:

Ray: Take a look at your daughter.

Debra: Yeah, so? She looks happy.

Ray: She’s happy, that’s very happy.

Debra: What, shall we call a doctor, Ray?

Ray: I… look, I’m just saying, look how good it is to be five. Oh, you’re truly happy at five. You’re happiness peaks at five.

Debra: Oh, come on, I’m happy.

Ray: You’re not that happy. You can’t be. Look at her. Ally, what are you thinking of?

Ally: Candy.

Fill that full of pauses and serious voices and you can see what a depressing view the writers of "Everybody Loves Raymond" have on marriage, childhood, and the elusiveness of happiness.

I can't wait til tonight when I get to dramatize "Two and a Half Men" in this manner.

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's 40

2010-04-26T19:29:00.002-04:00

I turned 40 Saturday. It really freaked me out. I never cared about birthdays before. Hell, I can't even remember a big stretch of birthdays from my 20s on, and not even in a "brah, I was so wasted" way. My parents would call, I got some presents, probably went to work, ate some cake and forgot about it.

But 40. 40 was messing me up. For about two weeks before I'd wake up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache from nighttime worries that would jolt me awake but I couldn't remember. A lot of them were tied in to the fact that I just sort of assumed I would have accomplished a lot more by the time I hit 40. Or you know, accomplished something by now.

But the day came and I felt OK. The girlfriend went all out on the surprises, we went out to eat with a bunch of people, I got some nice gifts in the mail, and thanks to the facebook, people sent messages and whatnot. I think I'm feeling OK about the whole thing now, but who the hell knows.

Now all you kids get off my damn lawn. And you're not getting your frisbee back until you tell your parents.

A Sociological Test

2010-04-18T16:26:00.007-04:00

If you were ever a fan of any sort of non-mainstream music, no matter what it was - techno, punk, black metal, swing, goth, Peruvian folk music - whatever, and you run into someone who was into the same stuff years later, ask them about music.

They'll probably say, "Yeah, I don't listen to that stuff anymore."

Ask them what they listen to now. There is a 95 percent chance the answer is Wilco.

Me, I listen to about the same thing I did when I was a teenager.* Why? Well, check out this picture of DYS:

Look at that little guy with the guitar! Look how much fun he's having!

*Except for around Halloween and Christmas, when I revert back even further.

A Real, Actual Promotional Quote from the back of a Book

2010-04-12T22:15:00.002-04:00

"Like Hunter Thompson on acid." - P.J. O'Rourke.

Not only is the whole, "like X on acid (or steroids)" my least favorite critic phrase ever (well, 'Mats' for The Replacements is up there, too), but wasn't Hunter Thompson Hunter Thompson on acid? And it was written by P.J. O'Rourke, who actually knew Hunter Thompson!

That Must Have Been Some Party

2010-04-11T16:34:00.005-04:00

Went to a party last weekend. Ended up drinking way too much. When this would happen in the past, the night would be lost forever, living only in the memories of people I insulted or made feel uncomfortable. Thanks to technology, however, I have an actual record of texts (some failed to be delivered, as my coordination took a severe nosedive after the 30th drink) to document the night. Just like the brave actors on CSI, we can piece together a night from a sparse set of clues.

To Several Recipients: We are 138!!*

To Todd: Listening to Love and Rockets. Drunk.

From Todd: I'm watching Floor right now. Drunk.

To Todd: Dry Ice?

From Todd: They've got 2 smoke machines.

To Todd: Oy Vey. I love that shit.

To Pat: Love and Rockets id awesmm

To Pat (Undelivered) Now I'm wearing a boa and listening to show tunes. KICK ASS!!!

To Todd: I want to pilot

I have no idea what the I want to pilot thing meant. Was I revealing my secret dream of going to pilot school?

There ends our texts. Nothing like technology in the hands of drunk middle aged men.

* I have what I feel is an endearing habit of texting old punk lyrics after I've had a few.

Why I Am A Shining Star At Work

2010-04-02T16:45:00.002-04:00

Boss: "I wanted to show you where the key to the laptop is since I'm going to be gone for a week."

Me: "It's in that drawer, right? In that secret thing right there?"

Boss: "How did you know that?"

Me: "You showed my like three years ago."

Boss: "And you remembered? Scotty*, I'm impressed!"

Me: "Actually, I know where the key lives because you told me it unlocks your secret candy stash."

Boss: "You should have stopped earlier. It would have been a lot more impressive."

* Yes, somehow Scotty became my work nickname.

Why Punk Rock in General, and The Minutemen in Specific Were Cool

2010-03-20T16:19:00.003-04:00

"(The Minutemen would) be driving on tour, arguing over whether it was Henry II or Henry IV who got excommunicated. So we'd have to find a library, pull the bus over to the side of the road, just punching each other." – Mike Watt

Two Gentlemen Discuss Cinema

2010-03-16T21:03:00.004-04:00

The film up for review, John Frankenheimer's 1979 environmental horror film, "Prophecy." A few weeks back I got on a '70s 'animals attack people/Jaws ripoffs' movie kick and was told by a friend that this one was not to be missed. The following are our undoctored emails, definitely not done on work time, taken right after a viewing:

Me:"Prophecy." Just...wow.

Indian ax vs. logger chainsaw, monster tadpoles, burny bear fetuses, Holy crap, that big melty bear just totally ripped off the roof!

Patrick: Don't forget when they're all like, whew, the melty bear drowned, and then OH JEEBUS HE'S COMIN OUT DA LAKE!!

Scott: STAB HIM WITH YOUR ARROWS, INDIAN!!!

Patrick: Why must the white man poison the earth with his greed, Scott Adams? WHYYYY?

Scott: Hey, you like your paper, don't you? Well, then you're part of the problem.

Patrick: Hm, yes, well. I suppose I am. Bring on the melty bears then I guess.

I would like to add that the melty bears came about though a paper company dumping chemicals in the river, which makes our final conversation make a bit more sense. Oh, and check out that melty bear!

Five stars for "Prophecy."

Finally, My Talents Are Noticed

2010-03-03T19:29:00.003-05:00

I get back to work Monday after a week-long vacation in which I forgot everything I ever learned about work (Charleston, SC. I'll tell you about it later). I'm on the public desk first thing. When I go out there, I'm blinded by a light setup and a bunch of college students filming a movie. One of them is behind my desk. They got permission from someone, so I don't really care, especially since they are keeping the crazies away.

They ask me if I want to be an extra, and naturally I say, "Hell, yeah," and sign some papers. I'm on the desk on the computer working through my mound of emails from vacation while a guy carrying a skateboard gets accosted by the the actress portraying the librarian who says, "Sir, you can't bring that into the building." Then she directs him to the foreign language materials (incorrectly, by the way. I mean, third floor, duh!). This shot was done over and over again for an hour.

The movie is tentatively called "Blue Llama" and is about a washed up professional skateboarder. Netflix that shit! I'm hoping I get a Pee Wee Herman as bellhop scene out of this, my first big break.

So I am sad to say that I am soon giving up the library biz. Showbiz is calling, and who am I to deny the world such entertainment?

Man's Day

2010-02-28T16:39:00.003-05:00

Jennifer: "So what did you and your friend Pat talk about?"

Me: "Oh, you know, the usual stuff. We talked about how we were both getting fatter and talked about each other's clothes. I really liked that Ben Sherman shirt he was wearing. We probably gossiped about people we know."

Pause

"Then we drank some appletinis and went out to buy some new shoes."

Actually, I'm pretty sure we talked about the usual punk music and stupid movies at some point, but still. And I would like to point out that the appletinis and shoes were completely made up. Really.