The Goo Goo Muck

I Did Not Understand This, But That Does Not Make It Any Less Awesome

2008-10-09T14:32:00.002-04:00

Overheard conversation at work:

Kema: "Howard, when you think of Halloween, do you think of ghosts or werewolves?"

Howard (very quickly): "Ghosts. I think of werewolves every night."

Dental Damn

2008-10-03T22:25:00.000-04:00

Had a dentist appointment really, really early this week. Apparently, time snuck up on me and I hadn't been in a couple years. Hey, I've been busy.

You can add an extra three months on to that since I've had two appointments with this dentist fall through. I was going to pull out of this one since I specifically stated I needed a Monday morning appointment that wasn't too early which they interpreted as 7:45 Wednesday morning.

After waking me up a couple times, the dentist and cleaner lady tell me I've been grinding my teeth in my sleep. If you are reading this and are someone I work with, my wife, my family, or possibly a friend of mine, this is all your fault.

Actually they mentioned this the last time I was there and tried to sell me some $500mouth guard thing that isn't covered by insurance. Like any problem over $100 or involving health, feelings or effort, I put it way, way in the back of my mind and proceeded to forget about it. I've found that this novel compression of stress and worry to be an effective way of...hey. You don't think that would have anything to do with the whole tooth grinding thing, do you? Yeah, me niether. I think they're in some sort of scam with the insurance company.

This time the dentist and cleaner lady (and why do I always get the old lady cleaners? Is my wife involved in this somehow?) showed me how my teeth were getting looser and looser, which sort of freaked me out. Maybe they weren't making this all up after all.

Now our TV blew up a couple months ago, which brings me to a decision. Should I use the money for a new TV or for my teeth? I'm getting kind of tired of watching stuff on the laptop, and TV has provided me with much enjoyment in the past, but I guess not having my teeth fall out would be OK, too.

Although I do like pudding.

Stop! Thief!

2008-09-29T19:03:00.003-04:00

This weekend I completed what I hope was one of the final big days of yardwork before fall comes. I ended up with two bags full of trash and a sunburned neck.

As I pulled into the driveway Sunday afternoon after running some errands, I noticed something was different somehow. Yes, something was definately off, but what was it? Hey! Somebody took one of the garbage bags.

Now, I've seen dudes driving their trucks around the night before garbage day picking up appliances, furniture, or anything else that might be able to be resold (At least I guess that's what they do with all that crap). But what the hell would anyone do with a garbage bag full of yard waste? And why did they take just one bag? If you're going to take my trash, take all that crap. The whole thing sort of freaks me out, sort of like those stories you hear about freakazoids breaking into houses just to make a sandwich or make the bed and leave.

I hope my garbage thief is happy with his bag full of branches, weeds and cat crap.

Work Party

2008-09-13T21:40:00.003-04:00

I love a work party. Well, at least I used to love work parties in our old department. Pretty much the whole department took that stuff seriously. No bags of plain potato chips or store-bought cookies. We had homemade bean dip, these awesome little ham sandwiches, deviled eggs, a pork loin one time, this awesome pie made up of chocolate pudding, candy bars and something else; man, those days were awesome. Not only would I not have to bring a lunch, I could step outside my office periodically and grab some treats throughout the day.

Work parties are different at the new library. Sure, my department always does it up right, but the building-wide parties are a bit disappointing. First of all, the whole, "Hey, you guys are awesome, you deserve a party. Now sign up to bring food" thing is sort of weird, but whatever. Hell, we're getting rid of bottled water, you can't really expect a fully paid for spread.

Then there's the fact that most of my department never goes to the things, which is just sort of weird. I mean, free food!

So we had a party a couple weeks ago. I made a cake. I gotta say, my cake is pretty bad-ass. The actual cake is nothing special, but the frosting has enough sugar and bad stuff to make you join Weight Watchers just looking at the thing. The actual ingredients include a stick of butter and a pound of sugar.

So I bring my cake in a little after 12. Now that's another thing. You don't want to get there too early or the good stuff isn't laid out yet and you're just sort of standing around trying to make conversation with the people from other departments you try to avoid. But if you get there too late, everything is gone.

I was also waiting on a co-worker. He had made this Thanksgiving casserole, which combined everything awesome about that holiday into one wonderful tray.

So, I made the mistake of setting my cake down on the wrong table. You would have thought I came up with a dead rat on a plate for all the screaming that was going on. I had a good mind to take my cake down to my desk and have my own cubicle party congratulating myself on all my hard work, but I carried on.

Then there wasn't any place to sit, so I took my plate out on the patio. This was also a major faux pas for some reason.

I made two trips - I didn't have completely loaded plates, either. I could have stuffed some more treats on my plates, but figured I didn't want to deprive others. My co-worker's Thanksgiving Surprise hadn't arrived yet, but I figured I'd be able to sneak up after my next desk shift.

Well at 2:00 I sneak up there and all the food is being cleared away. I see one little piece of my cake left which I was going to snatch, but someone else wanted it, and I figured I wouldn't have to clean up the pan that way, so it was theirs. The true tragedy, however, is that all the Thanksgiving Surprise was eaten.

The two people from my department that went to the thing were dreamily talking about it all day.

This is not how a work party is supposed to end. You are supposed to have food hanging around the breakroom for the rest of the day. I actually felt hungry at the end of the day. This should never, never happen at the end of a work party. With no Thanksgiving Surprise to warm my heart, my ride home was sad and lonely.

Edited Version

2008-09-13T20:53:00.003-04:00

I read a lot of books. I generally have one book at work I read on lunch breaks so I don't have to talk to people if I don't want to, and another one at home to read before I fall asleep. And hell, after 10 years of marriage, it's not like there's anything else going on in that bed anyway.

I'm not one to make a big deal about it or anything, like wearing READ buttons or sighing when people talk about "American Idol" and reprimanding them for not reading Plato or "The Federalist Papers" or something.

Lately, however, my reading has only served to make me angry. I was reading this book called "Heavy Metal Islam" at work. Basically the premise of the book is that young people in repressive, war-torn countries in the Middle East are increasingly turning to extreme forms of music, which could possibly incite a Velvet Revolution-type situation. Pretty interesting, huh?

So I'm going along fine, until the author mentions Iron Maiden's mascot, Freddy. Freddy? Jesus, who with a passing knowledge of metal doesn't know his name is Eddie? He also confuses a couple album titles for band names.

I still finished the book, although that Freddy thing still bugged me.

Then I was reading this book called "In Heaven, Everything is Fine," about this flamboyant dude who wrote the song that the lady in the radiator sings in "Eraserhead," and who starred in "New Wave Theater," which was apparently a nexus for National Lampoon/early Saturday Night Live people and Los Angeles punk.

Although opening with a fight between Fear and Chevy Chase will pretty much guarantee that I'm going to read it, the thing hurt my head with all the fact errors and generalizations. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks had their heyday in the early '80s, not the mid '70s. Full body tattoos were more likely to be seen in the circus in 1984, rather than a punk show. Nobody was "moshing" in 1981, they were "skanking" or "slamming." You'd pick "New York's Alright if You Like Saxophones" as an offensive Fear song? Really? Over "Beef Bologna?" "I Love Livin' in the City?" "We Destroy the Family?" A Boston band was splitting their set between reggae and jazz in the late '60s? Reggae was barely born in the late '60s, would a band in Boston really be playing it and expecting people to care? Doesn't the abbreviation LA mean Lousiana instead of Los Angeles? Was Eddie Murphy even a cast member of SNL in 1981 when Fear appeared? Well, OK, that one seems to check out, but I shouldn't have to be fact checking for a book unless I'm getting paid for it.

Every time I catch something like that, not only does it take me out of the narrative, but I wonder how much other stuff the author got wrong. I mean, if you can't get Eddie's name right, why would I trust you when you tell me about death metal in Iraq?

Don't publishing companies hire editors anymore? Why can't I just relax and fall asleep reading a book instead of getting upset that nobody bothered to tell this dude that Iron Maiden's mummy guy is not named Freddy?

Husband of the Decade

2008-09-04T20:56:00.002-04:00

Threw a little surprise party for my wife last weekend for our 10 year anniversary. It was pretty awesome. Here's her being surprised.

Here's us dancing:

Food was awesome, the gin and tonics were strong, and we had about 70 or so good friends there, some of whom we hadn't seen in close to ten years. Cool thing about the anniversary as opposed to the wedding is that I didn't have to invite anyone I didn't really want to just to be polite. Soundtrack was awesome, too - mostly new wave with a bunch of old ska and soul thrown in there.

Ten years is a damn long time when you think about it, especially since last month I had to sacrifice my man room in the ever-increasing wave of beads and fabric and I wasn't sure we would even make it to the party. Occasionally I'd feel a pang of regret for what I was doing to the dudes there, knowing their wives would be silently measuring them against me, but fellas, I had to do it.

So yeah, I figure we'll try another 10 years and see how it goes.

The Saddest News Ever Reported

2008-08-26T22:02:00.002-04:00

The place I get my Cuban sandwiches just upped the price on me by like 50 cents or a dollar. It was hard to tell through the tears.

I know their game. Tempt me with deliciousness, give me a free sample just to set the hook in deeper, then when I'm hooked raise the price on me.

Hell, what am I gonna do? I'm sure I'll be back there next week.

Media Blitz

2008-08-23T17:50:00.003-04:00

Finished "The Turnaround," the new George Pelecanos book this week. It was similar to some of his more recent stuff, in that it focused more on the consequences of a violent act in the past rather than his more cinematic earlier stuff that usually ended up in "Wild Bunch" like shoot outs between one or two protaganists and a gang of evil-doers. Actually, "Turnaround" seems to be almost a reaction to those books, in that you can feel the tension mount, and you just know there's gonna be a big showdown at the end, but it ends up swerving. As usual, the focus is on blue collar DC, with questions of what it means to be a man and father. And yeah, you're gonna get dialogue where dudes debate basketball, music and muscle cars. Don't know if Pelecanos is intentionally getting away from his pulpier crime stuff, but as always, he's a good read.

I should also be getting "I Got the Feelin' James Brown in the '60s" soon, which is a 3 DVD set of awesomeness. It includes a documentary explaining how James Brown stopped a riot through a televised concert, which I think I saw on VH1 in between comedians making jokes about Strawberry Shortcake and Swatch Watches. The other discs include the concert as well as assorted odds and ends of awesomeness, including stuff from the TAMI show, which you really oughta go youtube right now, as it includes my favorite stage move ever, where he passes out and has a dude drape a cape over him and try to pull him off stage until he re-energizes, throws the cape off and starts dancing again.

Also watched a double DVD of a Stooges concert from 2005 or so for review. While the concert was as good as you'd expect, the bonus features are kick-ass, with interviews with the band (excluding Mike Watt and that saxophone guy, both of which would be interesting) and an hour long retrospective which has just about every Iggy Pop clip from the '70s on, including talk shows with David Bowie. Pretty awesome to see how charming and charismatic Iggy can be talking in contrast to his craziness on stage.

Let's see, also managed to watch half of the last season of "The Wire" before my wife hijacked the Netflix queue and ordered the collected works of her boyfriend Johnny Depp. There's one storyline that seems out of character and too risky even for a character known for taking risks, but otherwise the show is as strong as ever, especially in the way it portrays day-to-day work, something not really seen that much in most entertainment. This season focuses on the media, and the newsroom scenes remind me of my limited newsroom experience, especially how there'd be the one guy who was like a living AP manual who you'd always hope to impress. I also love how the highest compliment the police give each other is "he's good police."

Other than that, just waiting for the rain to stop so I can finally get outside and ride my bike. This is the longest I've been off since I started in May (four days and counting) and I can feel myself getting fatter.

Riding the Storm Out

2008-08-21T16:21:00.003-04:00

You know what's awesome about our TV being broken? Not having to watch hours of local news clowns stand out in the rain saying stuff like,"Well, we don't know where or when the storm is going to hit, but it sure is windy and rainy out here at the beach." Then they go and harass some surfers who seem to be doing just fine.

Instead, I can just look on the internet and see what's going on.

You know what's not awesome about our TV being broken? Not watching sweet, sweet TV.

Music and Politics

2008-08-09T11:32:00.003-04:00

If Obama is really in this to win this, he should consider changing his campaign song to Motorhead's "Bomber." Seriously, take a listen to the chorus, it totally sort of sounds like Lemmy's singing, 'it's Obama, it's Obama,' if you kind of stretch it a bit. With that bold move, Obama would capture the coveted record store nerd vote, easily bringing in dozens of votes, provided the nerds actually made it to the polls in November and didn't get distracted by some shiny new CD reissue or a chance to display their obscure record knowledge to a fellow nerd.

On a related note, while riding my bike last weekend, I was totally cracking myself up with a proposal to change the national anthem to Bad Brains' "Pay to Cum," if only for the fact that by the time you got a stadium full of people at a football game or whatever to stand, the song would be almost over. Sure, nobody can sing it, but nobody can sing "The Star Spangled Banner," either. Plus, how funny/awesome would it be to see crowds of people all shouting out the lyrics, which I always thought were something along the lines of "hubbadubbadooranmakamakaflooremanamanamamamaFIGHT!"

This also started me thinking of how many '80s hardcore bands were lauded as the fastest band in the world - off the top of my head, I can recall Husker Du, Bad Brains, DRI - I'm sure there's tons more. Sort of how about a half dozen bands were called "America's Wire" - Mission of Burma, Urinals, Minutemen, etc. I guess it's kind of like how there are about a million "Master of the American Short Story" authors out there - Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, etc.

Money Changes Everything

2008-08-03T21:54:00.003-04:00

I often wonder what sort of rich guy I'd make. Understand that when I say "rich," I don't mean well-off or comfortable, I'm talking diving in Scrooge McDuck money tanks rich.

Would I be an Elvis kind of rich guy, where I'd have a gang of hangers-on indulging my every whim while I shoot out TVs and pass the days in a self-medicated haze? Would I be a Howard Hughes rich guy where I hermited myself away from the germs of the common people while I grew my beard to ZZ Top lengths? These are the sorts of questions that keep me up at night.

Sure, there's the Bill Gates/Andrew Carnegie model, where I donate tons of my riches to charity, but where's the fun in that? I guess it does give you a pretty good bargaining chip at the pearly gates - "See, I could have been shooting out teevees but instead I established libraries and helped AIDS patients, so you really ought to cut me some slack on some of that other stuff."

Of course, this is all just a daydream, as I'm barely a hundredaire after paying the monthly bills.

Oldies

2008-08-01T19:26:00.003-04:00

The other day at work I was trying to get across the concept of 'assist,' and I came up with the classic Magic Johnson assist to the Kareem skyhook. The person I was speaking to didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

Then I realized that all my sports metaphors, much like my musical tastes, seem to have frozen around 1988.

The Greatest Elvis Movie Never Made or The Healing of A Nation

2008-07-27T17:29:00.003-04:00

Recently I've been rereading Peter Guralnick's double volume Elvis biography. Right now I'm close to the end, where Elvis doesn't want to record anything new and his concerts have become drugged out spectacles, where he'd give long, rambling speeches or forget the words to songs or just walk off stage after a couple minutes.

One of the things the King did seem to get excited about, however, was screening then-current blaxploitation flicks. He watched "Shaft," "Black Belt Jones," and "Across 110th Street" repeatedly, boring his hangers-on as he discussed these awesome movies over and over.

Elvis was so impressed with these movies that he wanted to star in his own action flick, which, as opposed to 80% of the movies he had starred in, he would have actually give a crap about.

"I want to be the baddest motherfucker there is," said the King, according to Guralnick.

The Colonel wanted him to do a semi-documentary on karate, then convinced him not to do any movie at all and Elvis died a few years later, brokenhearted.

Now here's the movie that should have been made.

Elvis and Rudy Ray Moore, Dolemite himself, run competing karate studios on different sides of town. Elvis' school is mostly white, Rudy's is mostly black. There is some tension between the two schools, but the King and Dolemite respect each other's martial arts abilities and bad-ass fashion sense, so they have a wary understanding.

Meanwhile, The Man (played by a dead ringer for Richard Nixon) is scheming to take over the youth center where the two schools meet for tournaments and use it to get kids hooked on dope. Nixon uses his Southern Strategy to divide the two races into fighting against each other rather than working together to fix their city.

Then Elvis and Rudy have to team up together and unite the city to take down The Man with their kung fu.

The soundtrack would be '70s Elvis, with assists from Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. Oh, I should probably put in "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye, even though that was the title song for another movie, just 'cause it's so bad-ass. We'll have it in the scene where Rudy and Elvis ride around looking for information. They're both sort of weary, especially since the comic relief has just been killed (I'm picturing Jerry Reed, Burt Reynolds and Isaac Hayes), and they're steeling themselves for the big showdown.

Final scene would be Elvis and Rudy standing on a pile of rubble as the sun rises after the big battle. Elvis' "American Trilogy" is playing. As the "Glory, glory, hallelujah" line rises, Elvis and Rudy shake hands. In the digitally remastered version, we can have the ghost of JFK embrace Barack Obama off on the side.

What would have happened if this movie were released? For one, with our country's racial problem fixed, America could put our energies elsewhere and I would be dictating this to my sexy robot secretary from my flying car.

For Elvis, it would have rejuvenated his sagging spirits, he would have fired his manager, kicked out all his sycophants and hangers-on, dumped the pills, and started making music again. His 1980 tour with the Clash would be seen as a high point in both his career and the history of awesomeness.

President James Brown would have led us into an unprecedented new age of peace, prosperity, and funkiness. George W. Bush, freed of the expectations of having a Presidental father, would have stayed in Kennebunkport, running businesses into the ground, terrorizing the help at the club, and living off his parents. He would gain fame as the model for Ted Knight's grandson in "Caddyshack."

Terrorism, hippies, conservatism and fundamentalism of any stripe would never gain a toehold in America, because nobody wanted to be the dick that wrecked the place that gave the world that awesome movie where Dolemite and Elvis fought crime.

Me? Well, for bringing this outline (well, I guess my parents would have had to do it, since I would have been in grade school) to Elvis' attention, I become one of the richest men in the world, regularly recieving loving tribute from all the nations in recognition of my gifts.

Man, I gotta get working on that time machine, quick.

The Gossip Game

2008-07-22T11:15:00.003-04:00

In college I had this friend who always had to know what everyone was doing. I wouldn't say he was gossipy, since I don't think he used the information to talk about them behind their back or anything, and gossipy sounds sort of fruity, so let's just call him overinterested.

I found this sort of annoying. I'd be telling a story and he'd interrupt a dozen times wanting to know who I was with while I was trying to get to the meat of the story. After a while I found a way to turn this annoyance into a amusing little pasttime. By simply dropping a little information, I could entertain myself for about a half hour or so. I'd start out simple.

"I went to the movies with ...ah, you know, that one guy and the girl? Anyway, it was pretty cool."
"Was it Dave?"
"No, no, it was..you know, that one dude. Anyway, Bruce Willis is running in front of this big fireball, then he turns and says, 'hot enough for you,' and -"
"So was it Jenn? Julie?"
"No, you know, that girl with the hair that hangs out with that guy? Anyway, so Bruce Willis throws a spear at the main terrorist and says, 'stick around,' cause he stabbed him with a big spear -"
"Did you go with Scott? Casey?"
"No, no, no. So then the terrorist pulls out this uzi and is all like, 'eheheheheheheh' and Bruce Willis pulls out his gun and is all like 'gushgushgush' and -"
"Was it Jimmy? Todd?"
"Nah, it was, you know, that one dude and the girl. Anyway, so Bruce Willis is all like 'gushgushgush' and ..."

By this time the guy's face would be turning red as he practically recited the Gainesville phone book to determine who I went to the movies with. If I was feeling especially sporting, I could drag this out to a half hour or so. Awesome thing is, he'd fall for it every time.

July 15, 2008. A Date That Will Live in Awesomeness.

2008-07-15T14:10:00.004-04:00

Not sure exactly how I did it, but I just won a free Cuban sandwich over at International Cafe. Perhaps spending $3,000 in Cubans over there in the last couple years helped. Perhaps that girl behind the counter just needed an excuse to gaze longingly at me. Regardless of how or why it happened, this just might be the greatest single event in my life.

Let's see...graduation, marriage, first real job...yep, pretty much greatest day in my life.

Man, is that free sammich gonna taste good.

HOLY CRAP! UPDATE!

So I went to the store tonight and figured I probably ought to buy a bag of candy to replace the office's depleted supply. Unbeknownst to me it was 2 for 1 and I got the last bag. So now I have a raincheck for FREE CANDY!

Who knows what tomorrow holds? I think I'm hitting the liquor store and the car dealers.

Dream Weaver

2008-07-05T19:12:00.005-04:00

If any of you out there could tell me what this dream means, I'd be glad to hear it.

So I go to work and my boss tells me I have to go to another branch. I'm pretty mad about it, but when I get there I realize my job is to stand on an overpass and count these baby animals that are floating by on a river underneath me.

"Ha ha," I think, "Wait til I tell my boss that I spent all day out here counting baby elephants and hippos as they float by. Hey, you know who would really like to see these cute little animals? My wife."

So I get out the phone to call her, but it falls and breaks into a million pieces. The end.

Oh yeah, there was also this part where I'm riding a train into a tunnel while putting hot dogs into donuts, but I don't see how that could possibly mean anything.

Happy Trails

2008-07-05T18:14:00.007-04:00

After riding my bike to work every day for about a month, I've gotten sort of addicted. On the rare day that I have to drive the car I feel sort of weird - I guess because the daily ride burns up a lot of energy that I later convert into crazy and/or worry.

This week I discovered the Baldwin Trail, this cool 14.5 mile bike path about 5 miles from my house. I've been there twice this week. The first time I figured I'd do 5 miles in, then 5 miles back which is my daily commute. After about 6 miles, I noticed I wasn't dying, so I ended up doing the whole thing. It probably helped that Christie is redecorating the house, and my once mighty Man Room is being reduced to a Man Corner or Man Alcove under the rising tide of beads and fabric, so I felt it was better for me to be away from the house as much as possible.

Today I took the camera with me, since I noticed all sorts of cool animals Monday. This morning I saw a family of wild turkeys, a chicken family, and a big indigo snake, but they were all too quick for my camera. Instead, I got a picture of a cow.

Most of the trail is covered by a canopy of trees so you don't get too hot.

Through most of this ride, I had Toto's "Africa" and a bunch of Journey songs going through my head thanks to some karaoke last night, so it was sort of like I was reliving the audio of one of my 8th grade dances. I did a passable version of Tom Jones' version of Prince's "Kiss" last night but feel I could have performed better had I hit the gin and tonics.

You also get to pass by all these cool looking swampy areas.

And a gun range

A big chunk of the trail goes around the back of people's farms and trailers and stuff. I read a review that thought this was pretty trashy, but it reminds me of growing up, so I kind of dig it. I didn't take any pictures of people's houses, 'cause I was afraid the sound of freedom might be coming after me.

These are the sort of trails you could find moldy old Penthouse and Playboy magazines on back when I was a kid. The internet has made things a lot easier.

Towards the end of the trail, there's this little skatepark. Man, I would have loved a skatepark when I was a teenager. Actually, I probably would have come up with some Dead Kennedys-esque conspiracy theory about how Reagan was gathering all the skaters in one place to ship them off to the camps or something.

Yeah, I was pretty stupid back then.

You see those? Those are the legs of a man, not some car-driving pansy. Suck it, OPEC!

Droppin' Science

2008-06-29T18:04:00.003-04:00

When the old computer imploded and I was able to salvage the old hard drive as an external drive, I made a promise to myself that I was going to back up all that old data.

The awesome thing about promises to yourself is that nobody hears you and it doesn't really matter if you keep them or not.

Then the external hard drive got dropped. Now, it's not important to play the blame game and determine who exactly dropped the drive and how it happened, what was important is that the external drive held a ton of downloaded music files, my wife's patterns and instructions and a bunch of my aborted or semi-finished writing projects that I had pretty much given up on ever seeing again.

After a couple weeks of wondering if I'd ever re-find that Barry White soundtrack album where he sang about taking down The Man or all the old hardcore 7"s I found off soulseek, I enacted a last-ditch effort. I froze the old hard drive.

According to the internet, freezing the drive will allow the metal to contract, giving you about 20 minutes before the metal warms and expands to transfer all your files. I didn't have anything to lose, and I figured they couldn't put it on the internet if it wasn't true, so I gave it a shot.

Nothing happened.

Then, using logic, I determined that if a hit had caused the problem, another hit of equal force should fix it. So I hit it with a screwdriver.

You know what? It works pretty OK now, although a couple files are acting funny. However, I was able to save all the word files and start making some awesome mix CDs from all the music I forgot I had - right now I'm making an awesome '80s dance mix - Cure 12"s, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," "Egyptian Lover," "Timezone," "We are the Jonzun Crew," all the jams.

This all reinforces a basic principle of physics. If something mechanical doesn't work, just hit it.

Don't Get Too Comfortable

2008-06-24T21:30:00.003-04:00

With our new schedules, I work a 6 day week, then a 4 day week. Since this new schedule hit, I've noticed that I'm so used to being at work that I've started to treat it as a second home. I don't know how many times I've caught myself almost unzipping my fly on the way to the bathroom then realizing that, no, I am not at my house and I have to keep my pants on.

Now that I'm riding my bike and changing clothes twice a day (have I mentioned that I have no office?) this is only going to get worse. Come quitting time, I've had to stop myself from unbuttoning my dress shirt in my little cubicle.

So if you hear my name mentioned in any sexual harassment suits, everything was totally a big misunderstanding.

Fashion Plate

2008-06-14T13:06:00.004-04:00

Remember those high school teachers who would wear the same thing day after day? I had a history teacher who constantly wore a white short-sleeve dress shirt, black pants and what I think were Beatle boots. Did he have a closet full of identical outfits? Did he wear the same shirt every day? Did he go home and wash his short-sleeve shirt every afternoon while watching the news and grading quizzes?

Since we were high school students and he was a high school teacher, naturally the class thought this was about the lamest fashion choice ever. It was the '80s! Why didn't the old guy buy some new clothes? Didn't he know about the mall? Didn't he know about Chess King?

OK, truthfully few of us actually shopped at Chess King, I just put that reference in there so I could use that amazing ad. Man, look at that dude in his Chess King clothes and Walkman all ready to fight dragons in the future! And after that chick from the Bangles uses her knife on the future dragon, they're totally gonna do it!

Anyway, I was reflecting on this lame-o a couple weeks ago when I realized that he was sort of right, and not just because now I'm proabably only a couple years younger than that fossil was at the time.

Now I'm not advocating wearing the exact same thing every day, that's still sort of lame. Unless of course you have a job or heist where you get to wear one of those bad-ass Bottle Rocket/Devo jumpsuits every day.

But the more I reflected, the more I realized how hard it is to find a picture of me from my mid to late twenties where I'm not wearing black jeans, these awesome brown wingtips I bought for 3 bucks in Atlanta and a button down shirt in some shade of yellow, orange or green.

Actually, I tend to avoid cameras like Nosferatu avoids sunlight, so it's fairly hard to find photographs of me from that period anyway.

After that I went through my guyabera phase which was kickstarted when my mom unloaded all my dad's shirts on me without his knowledge. After retiring, Dad pretty much wears overalls 24/7 anyway, and I think my mom realized that my borderline OCD personality would cause me to gradually phase out the yellow shirts, which for some reason my family really hated.

Most of my guyaberas are missing buttons or stitching now, or have that weird grease/soot from the grill, so I've hesitantly been moving into striped polo shirts, but I'm not sure if this will be another 5 year fashion phase or just a quick spring/summer detour.

Although the more I look at that ad, the more I'm thinking of bringing back the Chess King look.

Ben and Me

2008-06-10T19:37:00.005-04:00

If you were to rate the founding fathers on a scale of awesomeness, any reasonable person would put Ben Franklin up there in the top three. Not only did he convince France to help us out in the Revolutionary War, he invented bifocals, the public library and the volunteer fire department in his spare time. Plus, he could summon the power of lightning to smite his foes.

Last week Ben came to our library for a program. Apparently this is the go-to Ben Franklin for the History and Discovery Channel. I got my picture taken with him, but haven't received it yet. This is a historical tragedy.

Anyway, a coworker (luckily, not in my department) asked if Ben was coming back. Then they asked, "So was that the real Ben Franklin or his son?"

Burning Bridges, Breaking Chains

2008-05-29T21:22:00.006-04:00

I went ahead and cancelled my parking last week. Naturally, this morning on the way to work my bike chain popped off right at the beginning of the Riverwalk, which means that now that I'm all addicted to riding to work, the bike will be in the shop for a while, waiting for the bike dudes to act like dicks to me for not buying a thousand dollar bike and instead riding my free Target/Wal Mart crapper.

For those keeping count, this makes a TV, an external hard drive and a bike that I've managed to break in a little less than two weeks. If you are a parent, you should probably keep your kids away from me just in case.

But you know what's awesome about riding to work? The Riverwalk. I was going to take some pictures this morning but I wasn't feeling very photographic after walking my bike the whole way.

I had been on Riverwalk once before to watch the 4th of July fireworks, but didn't know how long and awesome it was. You get to ride right next to the water, for downtown it is fairly bum-free, and if you get really lucky, when you go over the overpass thing there'll be a train on the tracks right below you. Sometimes you have to dodge around the office ladies out for their morning constitutional, but it beats driving through the streets (Hey America - that stick on your steering wheel? That's a turn signal. It signals which way you are going to turn.).

Sadly, I think my Riverwalk days are over for a while, at least until they figure out what keeps breaking my chain.

Fashion Police

2008-05-27T18:54:00.004-04:00

Had some paypal money burning a hole in my pocket (not like it's real money) so I bought me a porkpie hat.

I bought it thinking I'd look like I was in The Specials, but I think that I look more like I'm in special classes.

Stagecraft

2008-05-20T20:53:00.004-04:00

My all-time favorite stage move has always been when James Brown would act exhausted after giving his all to the audience and would fall to his knees shaking his head in a gesture of I-can't-do-this-anymore, whereupon one of his dudes would drape a cape around his shoulders and lead him offstage, only to have James throw it off, run up and grab the mic, re-engergized by his kick-ass band.

Second place? Probably a tie between the humping the guitar/machine gun guitar and the '70s Elvis karate demonstrations.

In fact, my friend Pat and I got quite a bit of milage joking about how indie rock would be a lot more entertaining with a bit more showmanship (and a good editor). How awesome would it be if Sebadoh would break down mid song, then have a dude put a ratty thrift-store cardigan or horn-rim nerd glasses on Lou Barlow and have him re-energized and ready to (theoretically) rock the house?

Anyway, couple weeks ago I got this Stax Records documentary from Netflix. I put it on and was doing something else while the DVD played. It was pretty interesting, but since I've read a couple books on Stax, I figured I didn't really need to pay attention too much.

Then they show a clip from the Stax 1968 European tour. Sam and Dave are playing "Hold On, I'm Coming." Like most of the live Stax stuff I've heard, the song is much faster and grittier, making you forget all the times your dad's friends felt all Blues Brotherey after a couple beers and would attempt to sing that or "Soul Man."

So the song is ending and getting faster and faster and they're both doing this crazy dance that looks like they're trying to pull up their pants while shimmying all over the stage. As the song accelerates, they're pretty much just yelling "hold on" over and over to each other.

Then one of them passes out. Two dudes grab him and take him to the side of the stage. Then about 10 seconds later he shimmys across the stage to keep screaming out "hold on" some more.

That just might be the greatest stage move I've ever seen.

Zombiefest is Over

2008-05-17T22:31:00.003-04:00

The 5th Annual Library Amateur Film Contest is over. This is the one I prepared the least for, freaked out less over and generally didn't do any sort of prep work for at all until this week. And it worked out great. I suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere.

All the submissions were good - you've already seen one, so you know what I'm talking about, and we had 78 people, only a few of which were staff or coerced staff wives.

It was a fairly straightforward presentation this year - no skits or run-ins like past years. Oh. We did have a zombie judge.

We were supposed to be part of the greater Jacksonville Film Festival again this year but at the last minute I noticed that we weren't in any of their calendars or promotional material. You know what? Who needs 'em?

There were a couple mistakes - most of which involved a VHS tape that wasn't rewound all the way. Trying to find the movie on a an ancient VCR while I could feel a crowd getting more and more anxious was no damn fun, let me tell you. Oh yeah, and announcing the winner of the first prize as second place wasn't really a high point, but I'm chalking that up to being more used to a crowd of 10.

Christie said she could tell I was nervous as the MC, although I didn't really feel that nervous, other than the aforementioned VHS problem. It was a letdown finishing up the workday, being all jacked up on adrenalinie and little brownies.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the whole thing. It totally washed the bad feelings from last year's away. Will there be a 6th year? Who knows? I always say each year is the last year, but I'm a bit more optimistic now.