|
March 30, 2007
--
I think my throat is going to have to come out. It’s all sore and
inflamed this morning, and I’m afraid the doctors will want to remove
it. My entire throat.
Is that irrational?
I felt fine yesterday, until the evening. I went over to my old office
and finally mailed back my computer and crap, then came home and got
dressed-up in fancy pants and went to a “job fair” at a company
nearby. We had dinner at Applebee’s (which I’ll tell you about in a
few minutes), and during all this I felt completely normal.
Then, suddenly, I was sick. There was no discernible transition period;
I was good, then bad. Just like
that.
It happened as we were preparing to watch LOST.
What did that guy on The Office say? “I’m
going home tonight and getting my beer on, getting my LOST on…” Heh.
That’s exactly when it happened, when I was preparing to get
both those things on.
And now my throat feels like it’s just lousy with disease. I sure hope
they don’t have to carve it out.
-- I don’t have much faith in so-called job fairs, but the one I
attended yesterday was hosted by a company I’m really interested in.
So I gave it a shot.
Most of the positions they’re trying to fill are for general labor,
but their website said they have a few management jobs open as well.
And I figured if I hand-delivered a resume, instead of just
hitting the SEND button while wearing humongous hamburger pants, it
might do some good.
I followed the computer-generated signs with arrows on them, to a room
way down at the end of a hall. As
I walked I passed several offices with people inside. Working.
They all have jobs, and I do not…. And that’s how my brain
sees things at this point.
Inside the room was a big U-shaped table, and about ten people were
seated there, apparently filling out applications.
Most looked pretty normal, but a couple of them were wearing
baseball caps, three or four gigantic t-shirts, and gold chains around
their necks.
Call
me a crotchety old fart if you want, but I wouldn’t even waste my time
talking to guys like that. If I was given the responsibility of hiring a
dozen workers, or whatever, and someone waltzed in with a Yankees cap balanced
on top of his head, and making all sorts of rapper gesticulations, he’d
be out of the running before he even opened his mouth.
And that’s what it was, too: balanced.
The cap wasn’t pulled down, it was just sitting up there all
tall and slightly askew. I don’t
know how it didn’t fall off. And
here’s the clincher: it wasn’t even a real Yankees cap; it was white
with a pink logo. I mean seriously….
The
law says you can’t discriminate because of race, religion, sex, etc.
And I completely agree with that.
But there’s nothing on the books (yet) about assholes and the
practitioners of high-douchery. Right? Shit
man, at the very least pull on a polo shirt.
This is a job interview, not “Bitches Night” at Club Metro.
Anyway,
I was taken to a separate room, for reasons unknown, and spoke with a
person there for about ten minutes. He
was really nice, and asked me some questions and told me a few things
about the company. He barely
glanced at my resume, but said someone would contact me if they wanted
me to come in for a formal discussion. And
that was that.
Right before I left he called me back, tapped his chin in deep thought,
and said, “I don’t know your situation. But
would you ever consider moving to
Houston
?” I
told him I’m not ruling anything out, and he said, “Thanks for
coming in.”
What the?!
-- We don’t eat at Applebee’s
very often. I don’t know
why, but of all those types of chain restaurants, we visit Applebee’s
the least. I’ve got nothing
against the place, really, I just never think about it. Ya
know?
But last night Toney suggested we go there, and I shrugged and said it
was fine with me.
We were seated in a corner booth, and the place was pretty crowded. A
woman who seemed almost giddy appeared at our table without delay, told
us about the “specials,” and took our drink order. She
was just so freakin’ happy about everything.
I started looking at the menu, but was having a hard time concentrating
because the oldest Secret never stops talking (never!), and there was a
stereo speaker right above our heads, blasting classic rock. As
I attempted to make my selection I was also paying attention to a recap
of that day’s Mythbusters,
and trying to ignore a blaring song by Canned Heat, or some such crapola,
that was boring a hole straight though my brain stem.
It seemed that every item they offer at that place contains at least one
ingredient that disqualifies it. Stuff
like garlic and mushrooms and chutney(?!) and any of the novelty
mayonnaises. I felt a tiny
twinge of panic as I realized time was running out. The
shiny happy waitress would be there soon, smiling like a retard and
eager to take our orders.
And you don’t send a waitress away during that delicate part of the
process, because they’ll stay gone for a loooong
time. Trust me, I know about
these things.
The oldest Secret was telling me about a dummy that was hurled out of an
airplane, or whatever, and Aerosmith was now rocking, and everything had
the words Portobello or pesto attached to it…. I
was beginning to run my hands through my hair.
Then the cell phones started ringing, and people began having really
loud conversations into them about delivery confirmations and decorative
gravel and shower gel. Mountain
came on after Aerosmith, and a couple near us, I shit you not, pulled
out a portable DVD player and put it on the table in front of their
toddler. Then they proceeded
to turn on Dora the Explorer,
at full living room volume.
Backpack backpack Backpack
backpack Mississippi Queen
if you know what I mean and the head came completely off the dummy and
one arm too I always liked the apricot gel but whatever is
fine....
It was incredible. I thought
I would surely have a nervous breakdown, right there in the corner booth
of an Applebee’s. I seriously wondered if we were being Punk’d.
I ordered last, so I could have a few extra seconds, and finally went
with the chicken fajita wrap. It
featured some kind of questionable spread, called MexiRanch or
something, but I asked her to leave that crap off. I
didn’t like the sounds of that, not one tiny bit.
The volume never eased up. It
was like eating dinner on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The
good news? That chicken wrap
was quite good.
And you’re all caught up, my friends. I’m
going to start doing Google searches now, for prosthetic throats. Have
a great weekend.
I’ll see ya on Monday. permalink
March 29,
2007
--
Not to trigger any unpleasant memories of yesterday’s update or
anything, but this one’s gonna have to be brief.
I’ve got a few non-website things to take care of today, and I’m
no longer accustomed to putting on pants and leaving the house.
So let’s jump into it, shall we?
-- Spring is finally making an
attempt at breaking through in these parts, and it’s putting us in the
mood for camping. Unfortunately,
of course, we have no way to haul the rolling box o’ beds anymore,
since I ditched the Chevy TearMaker. Plus,
there’s the inconvenient fact that, you know, we never really had much
fun doing it.
But it gets in your blood for some reason, and the change from winter to
spring causes certain chemicals to slosh together in the brain, and you
start thinking about camping.
I’ve talked to Toney about this, and she sort of agrees.
It is my contention that the best part about camping is the
planning of it. You have all
these romantic visions dancing in your head. You get all the supplies
out and start scratching things off checklists.
You scrub down the camper while whistling a cheerful tune, and
make sure the fishing poles are in good working order….
Yes, that’s the pinnacle of the experience.
When you actually pull away
from the house, I think, is when everything starts going down the
shitter.
Within hours you find yourself plunged inside a laughable chair in the
middle of a mudhole, you’re covered in a mixture of grease and filth,
there may or may not be a tick setting up operations in the crack of
your ass, and it’s way too early to start drinking.
Plus, there’s that nagging fear you’ll wake up one morning like
this.
So maybe that’s what we should do? Just
plan camping trips, and never
actually take any. Perhaps we
should trim away the fat, once and for all?
What do you think?
-- It looks like the good folks
at collegehumor linked to our
Pulitzer-caliber feature,
“People in newspaper ads who look like they’re farting.”
There’s massive traffic this morning, at least to that
particular farty page. Good
times.
-- A few days ago I invited
everyone to join the Surf Report mailing
list. And now it’s
maxed-out at 500 subscribers. Needless
to say, the company that hosts the list wants me to give them money to
increase the number allowed. And,
of course, that ain’t gonna happen. I’ve decided to take a different
route: cheating.
So give me a few hours and all should be well in Mudville.
Or whatever.
--
Earlier this week I spoke with the T-Shirt Lady, to make sure she
still has our logo on file. And
she does. I’m thinking about
making shirts available again, for a limited time, and need your input.
Please take this
poll about sizes desired, and also let me know if you have a
preference for color. Last time
we did black, as evidenced here,
and I’d like to try another one this time.
But, of course, if it’s black you want, then it’ll be black
you get. It’s no skin off my
scrote.
A couple of things I’m NOT going to do:
maintain multiple inventories of different colors, or change the
design. It’s hard enough
keeping track of the sizes requested.
If I had to add colors to the mix, I’d probably just take your
money and never mail you anything. And
I like the design, so it stays.
Oh, and no Cafépress crapola either.
No reason to even suggest it.
They suck on it.
So let me know, and maybe we can get the Surf Report Distribution Center
up and running again.
-- Check
out the new West Virginia Tourism slogan.
And the entire country shrugs its shoulders, and says, “OK. Not
a problem.”
-- Here’s
some crazy news straight from my hometown.
Sweet sainted mother of the entire decorative concrete industry!
-- I
have more, lots more, but I’d better get the show on the road here.
However... I’m going to leave you today with something
extra-special:
a new weekly columnist!
Brad, my old friend from Peaches Music & Video in Greensboro, has
agreed to tell us what’s happening off Exit 149 every week, and I’m
appreciative.
I know you folks will be too.
In addition to being a good friend, Brad is also a talented and funny
writer. And
he wore a Surf Report t-shirt to
his wedding.
How’s that for dedication?
You can read his first column here.
And that’ll do it, boys and girls. Have
yourselves a great Thursday.
I’ll see ya tomorrow.
permalink
March 28, 2007
--
I think I grew up at the height of the tighty-whitey era.
I haven’t researched it, of course, that would be incredibly
creepy.
But it’s what I believe.
As best as I can tell, all boys in the 1970s wore the same kind of
underwear, and it was the style Spongebob
currently favors. In fact, I wasn’t
even aware of any alternatives. Oh,
we’d sometimes happen upon plastic tubes of animal-print flyless
mini-briefs at JCPenney or Sears, but those were just put there for
comic relief, I think. I mean,
seriously. My brother and I would
howl with laughter.
No, there was no known deviation from the norm.
We all wore the same stuff, and it wasn’t even something to
consider. It was purely a
functional item, designed to throw up a cottony barrier between your
jeans and your junk, and cut down on the friction a banana seat can
create. And to the dismay of
mothers everywhere, it also served as a nifty air filter.
There was nothing more to it; it was like putting on a third sock.
Nowadays kids have Ninja Turtles doing battle across their butt
cheeks, and Spiderman swinging out of God knows where.
But we had nothing of the sort; there were no fashion
calculations to be made. It was
either tighties or the Schwinn supernova, and those were your choices.
In those days there was a seam running up the sides, I recall, as if the
fronts and backs were created separately then sewn together.
I don’t think it’s like that anymore, I believe the
practitioners of underwear science have made giant leaps forward over
the years.
I wonder if it was more prestigious to work on “fronts” than “backs”
at the Fruit of the Loom factories back then?
After all, the fronts are far more complicated affairs; the back
is just one big sheet of material. Wonder
if folks went out for celebratory dinners after being promoted to briefs
fronts? Wonder if anyone has ever
been the recipient of a front-themed toast in a restaurant or bar?
Wonder if people were sometimes busted back to backs for
insubordination?
Yeah, these are questions I’d never pondered until today….
And so it went, for many years. I
saw no reason to make any changes. Why
should I? They served their
purpose nicely, and I’d only witnessed one catastrophic tighty-whitey
malfunction in all my days. In
high school I watched a guy (who is now a big-time insurance hotshot)
receive a wedgie so atomic in nature the entire waistband came off.
But
that was a single isolated incident, and word on the street was that the
underwear was already in pretty sad shape before the wedgie even
commenced.
So I had no reason to alter my course. Until
I reached my early twenties, anyway…. That’s
when I suffered my first and only undergarment crisis of faith.
My longtime girlfriend and I broke up, and I was suddenly faced with dating.
I started questioning everything, all the way down to my
skivvies. Perhaps it wasn’t so
cool to be sporting the same style of draws third-graders wear?
Maybe the ladies don’t care for that sort of thing anymore?
I was entering uncharted territory, my friends, and it was all fairly
unnerving. But I made the leap to
boxers cold turkey. I tossed all
my old underwear into the dumpster behind the apartment, and replaced it
with a stack of striped and checkered boxer shorts.
And thus began the most uncomfortable year and a half of my life.
There was a glacier effect that I hadn’t counted on.
Over the course of a day everything would move southward, I
found, slower than the human eye can perceive, until I ended up with a
situation to contend with. Then I’d
find myself doing these freaky little knee-bends, and constantly wanting
to make “adjustments.”
I hated it, but fought the urge to backslide.
Sometimes I’d pass displays of the old underwear in stores, and
sigh sadly. You’re too old, I
told myself, and would venture on, a-pinching and a-tugging, and doing
virtual squat ‘n’ thrusts in the blender aisle.
Then I started dating a woman who said to me one night, “Why do you
wear that old-grandpa underwear?” This
was the eighties, and apparently it wasn’t yet cool to wear boxer
shorts. And that’s all I needed
to know. It was one of the
happiest days of my life. I
practically danced to Target.
Since then I’ve dabbled in other styles, and made a few minor changes.
Oh, nothing too exotic…. I
never went to the tubes, or the poofter designers, or any of that
strange European stuff with the horizontal wiener slots.
Just some minor age-appropriate tweaks to the original formula.
And, I’m proud to announce, I am once again completely at ease with my
underwear.
Now, if you folks would like to break up into individual discussion
groups and explore this essay further, please do so.
Footnotes and bibliographical information available upon request.
See ya tomorrow.
permalink
March 27,
2007
--
Toney took today off, for no particular reason, and after we
delivered the Secrets to the local indoctrination centers, the two of us
went to breakfast.
Our usual destination is Waffle House, but I had some recent trouble
there and I’m kinda soured on the place. They double-charged my ATM
card a few weeks back, and it took multiple phone conversations with a
woman whose voice sounded like the latter-day Babe Ruth, to get it all
straightened out. And I can’t
have that. I go to Waffle House
for glistening “breakfast meats,” not terrifying relationships.
I suggested a little diner down the road, and Toney groaned.
Once again. You see, I’ve
suggested this restaurant many times before, and her reaction is always
the same: a groan. One of her
friends said the place is constantly full of cigarette smoke, and you
come out of there smelling like you “spent the day in a bingo parlor.”
Always a bingo parlor.
Plus, my wife has a low-tolerance for small town cliques, and that sort
of thing. It pisses her off.
So she steers clear of places where the longtime locals
congregate, and this is definitely one of them.
You get the feeling everyone in the joint went to grade school
together, back during the Warren G. Harding administration.
But I like that kind of thing, and gently insisted.
I’d been there alone several times, and the food is excellent.
The fact that we’ll still be outsiders even if we live here for
forty years doesn’t detract from the quality of the bacon.
Why sweat the small stuff?
So that’s where we went. We
took a booth as deep inside the non-smoking section as possible, and
told the waitress we’d both have coffee, thank you very much.
It’s a great place. It’s been
around since the 1960s, I think, and I doubt much has changed in that
time. There are individual
jukebox terminals at every table, but they probably haven’t worked
since I was in Little League. In
fact, the one at our table this morning was soldered by the years, and
you couldn’t flip the pages inside. Our
best bet, as far as I could tell, would’ve been “Candida” by Tony
Orlando and Dawn.
The walls are covered in dark paneling, and on top of that: framed
pictures, many with autographs and praise of the eggs. They have Kramer
up there, Jesus (not signed),
a few unknown NASCAR drivers, customers in wacky hats, etc.
And way up near the ceiling, in the center of the back wall (a
place of obvious reverence), is a formal portrait of John F. Kennedy.
Toney
went with a bacon and cheese omelet, and an order of hash browns with
onions (yum), and I opted for the breakfast sampler.
It was scrambled eggs, bacon, two sausage patties, and three
slices of French toast, all for $4.75.
While we waited on our food to arrive, we took in the ambience. And by ambience, of
course, I mean the people. We
were children compared with the general clientele, and many of our
fellow breakfast-eaters were all gnarled up, probably with Jap shrapnel
buried in them somewhere. Some
had to basically tuck a fork into a crevice at the end of their arm, and
go to town.
A man seated at the counter went off on a frenzied coughing jag shortly
after we arrived, and was still going strong when we left.
Straight into his pie. I
was worried he was about to go down (or start puking), but nobody else
seemed to notice.
Everyone in the house was talking real loud (needless to say), and if
you concentrated you could eavesdrop on a whole host of conversations.
Two women across the aisle were discussing a granddaughter, and
her lifelong dream to be a nurse. And a man I never actually saw was
railing against tattoos and people with multiple piercings.
“Some of them even have stuff pierced down
there,” he said with a shudder.
Highly entertaining.
Supposedly the owners of this place have some sort of axe to grind with
school teachers, and if they know you are one, forget about being
served. That’s the word on the
street anyway. They reportedly
believe teachers are more dedicated to their union than to the children,
and have a wild hair up their ass about it.
Oh, it’s quite a rich tapestry….
And the food is nothing short of great, far superior to Awful House.
Actually, I like Awful House as well, but this place is even
better. Toney even had to agree.
And while there were some tired-looking people swigging cigs on
the other side of the room, I never caught wind of it.
Another myth busted.
I love little diners, and shady dive bars.
And that's the reason for this late update.
See ya tomorrow.
permalink
March 26,
2007
-- I
returned to my office on Friday, planning to box up my computer,
monitor, printer, and digital camera, and ship ‘em back to Burbank
.
It was pretty freakin’ weird, man.
My passcard worked as normal, and I walked by the security guards as if
nothing had changed. I made my
way across the mezzanine, where the Shuffler works (worked?), and there
was only one guy there. Usually
it’s a beehive of activity, but there was nobody around on Friday.
The dude gave me a knowing nod as I walked past, and I gave him
one back.
I unlocked my office door, and it was like stepping into a Twilight Zone
episode. I know it’s only been
a few weeks, but they’ve been looong
weeks, filled with all manner of exhausting emotions.
Everything was exactly as I’d left it on my last day, including
a half-eaten bag of barbecue chips beside the phone.
I powered-up the computer, and logged into my email account.
All passwords worked without a problem.
I had 1035 unread messages, including about fifty from Friday
alone. I sorted them by senders’
names, and checked to see if there was anything of interest.
Nothing.
I sighed loudly, and began deleting files from the desktop.
Most were Phil Hendrie mp3s, and I started one playing while I
worked. It had something to do
with a “retard” on an airplane that kept licking a slice of baloney
and sticking it to a window.
I also had this
file saved, for reasons unknown, and this
greeting by Richard from Greenford, a regular caller to the Clive Bull
Show. The man’s voice box has
been completely destroyed by decades and decades of smoking “ciggies.”
So many cherished memories….
Then people began stopping by and asking what I’d been up to.
It was a parade of folks and I was glad to see them.
Many will be in the same situation as me, starting in June.
So we talked about our plans, and what we hoped to do.
We’d been forced together by work, and spent a substantial chunk of
time in each others’ company, and now it’s over.
That particular group will soon be gone, never to return.
Sure, I was always the outsider, the “guy from California
,”
but it was a role I played well. I
was a part of the group that is being scattered to the wind.
I
spoke with the General Manager, and he sounded depressed.
He told me he’s down to one shift now, instead of three running
‘round the clock, and if I wanted to ship my computer back I’d
better hurry. They’d be closing
soon, he said.
Closing! I never thought I’d
see the day.
Screw it. I’d just send the
stuff back next week. I deleted
everything that wasn’t crucial to the computer, including the temp
files and surfing history, stripped it completely to the bone using a
savage little program called CCleaner, and shut it all down.
I know they could recover all that crapola in one of those Law & Order labs, but just a regular ol’ douche in Burbank
won’t
be able to see any evidence I’d ever even used the computer.
And that’s the way I prefer it.
But what should I leave on the memory card in my camera? Perhaps just a
single well-considered snapshot as my going away message?
Help me out with that one, folks.
It needs to be something dramatic.
Yeah, I admit that I get sentimental about things, even things I don’t
really like. Whenever I move I
invariably begin thinking about all the fun times I’ve had at that
particular house or apartment, even if it’s a shitty dump.
And then I get a little sad.
Same goes for the cars I trade in. I
remember walking away from a beat-to-hell Chevy Luv truck with a
baseball-sized hole in the floor, through which mud and rainwater would
regularly rocket, feeling like I was about to start crying.
I hated that thing, but we’d been through so much together.
Yep, I have a hard time closing doors. My
parents on the other hand… they just make huge life-altering decisions
all willy-nilly, and seemingly don’t give it a second thought.
I don’t think they have a sentimental bone in their bodies.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they long ago tossed my
baby pictures into a dumpster out behind the Union
76
station, to give themselves more drawer space.
Me? I’ve got boxes and boxes of
souvenirs in the basement, and am guilty of romanticizing the past.
Like Atlanta
for
instance. When we lived there we
wanted out. In fact, I remember
us buying out-of-state newspapers (places like Portland
,
OR
),
and plotting our escape. But when
I think about Atlanta
now,
it was all fun, all the time: a freakin’ paradise.
What about you? Are you the
sentimental type like me, or a Klingon like my parents?
Use the comments link to elaborate, if you’re so inclined.
And I’ll get back to the funny stuff next time.
I promise.
Oh, and just so you’re up to date…. I
did indeed eat a few of the chips I found in my office on Friday.
They weren’t very good, but I had
to know.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
March 23,
2007
--
I’m living with a dark, dark shame, my friends. I can barely
look at myself in the mirror. When I awaken in the morning there’s a
split-second when it feels like everything is still normal and good,
then reality comes crashing down and I’m plunged, once again, into a
horrible despair. I cannot believe what I have done….
Are you all sitting down?
This is so difficult to talk about. But they say it’s best to just get
it out there. Right? So that’s what I’m going to do. Oh God…
Earlier this week Toney and I, um, watched, that’s right, an
entire episode of Dancing With The Stars.
There, I said it. And I won’t blame you at all if you now click away
from this site, never to return. It’s a fair reaction. But in my own
defense, just let me say: there was a one-legged woman on there. And she
was, you know, dancing. So it’s
not as bad as it might seem. …Or am I just making excuses?
Also, there was the spectacle of Billy Ray Cyrus doing some sort of
frenzied cha-cha-cha that
resembled a gas-huffing hillbilly caught up in a swarm of hornets out
behind the shithouse. Man, he was going to town.
And the one-legger isn’t even a sympathetic character; she’s always
up on her high-horse about something or other, and is currently in the
process of Screwing Over a Beatle. So there’s little to no guilt when
you sit there and pray that
she does one of those big leg kicks, and her prosthetic comes flying off
and hurtles end-over-end into the audience, with shoe still attached.
So anyway, it’s all out in the open now. Do what you must, my friends.
I am so ashamed….
-- I have to go to my old office today, box up my computer and printer
and crap, and UPS it all back to Burbank
.
I’ve been putting it off, but they’re starting to bitch a little on
the left coast. So, I guess, today’s the day.
Earlier this week my ex-boss’s assistant called me, and said, “What’s
going on?” I answered, “Oh
nothing. I’m just sitting here pushing pins into a voodoo doll.” She
didn’t know what to say to that, so she got right to it and asked
about my computer. I promised to overnight it someday this week.
And if I were a less-mature man (ahem), I might consider ending my
twenty-five year streak today. Right in the pencil tray of my desk
drawer. But, of course, that ain’t gonna happen.
--
Yesterday I received my THIRD damaged and unplayable 24 disc from Netflix. Since I’ve been a member of that elite
outfit, I’ve rented dozens and dozens of DVDs, maybe even a hundred or
more. And the only problems I’ve
ever encountered were 24-based.
I don’t know what the story is. Perhaps folks get all cranked up on
Jack Bauer, start walking different and being rough with things. I’m
just not clear on it. But those 24
discs are beat all to hell, and sometimes arrive with a milky glaze that
I don’t even want to think about.
Pass the 409.
-- Yesterday I sent out a brief Note From The Bunker email, through the
Surf Report mailing list. If you believe you’re signed-up for that
so-called newsletter and didn’t receive it, there’s a problem with
your email address. In fact, about seventy-five bounced back to me as
undeliverable.
I haven’t been maintaining the list very well, which is but one of the
many half-asseries in the world of Jeff Kay, and it’s been a long time
since I’ve even used it….
So, I’m going to clean up all the bad mojo on this end, and if you’d
like to receive periodic updates on Surf Report happenings, please
subscribe here.
You can expect a short email note, every month or so, with bits of
information that might be of interest.
And I’m suddenly very, very tired.
-- Remember how I was worried that LOST
was starting to list a bit toward suck? Well I take it all back. The
last several episodes have been excellent, as great as ever.
I didn’t much care for the six or eight shows that started the “Fall
Season,” where Sawyer and Kate were locked in tiger cages, or
whatever. But they’ve got the old magic working again, and I’m back
to proclaiming it Best Show on Television.
It’s so good, in fact, we don’t even fast-forward through the
commercials, so we can stretch it out longer and savor the experience.
And that’s sayin’ something.
-- I’m thinking about buying one of these;
I’m most-definitely an edge man. Man, I love me some edges. Toney, on
the other hand, likes only the land-locked variety. Weird, huh?
-- This is
a really cool collection of TV show opening credit sequences, that
supposedly fit each program perfectly. And it includes freakin’ Mannix.
Oh yeah.
Which ones did they miss?
-- And finally, here’s
a short video clip entitled West Virginia
911.
Check it out.
You guys have yourselves a great day.
I'll see ya on Monday. permalink
March 22,
2007
--
What does it mean when light bulbs just start burning out on you,
all willy nilly? Over the past
couple of days it seems that every time I turn on a light in this house
there’s a hollow popping sound, then darkness.
Nobody else has had this problem, only me.
I’m all the time changing bulbs, first screwing to the left,
then screwing to the right, and muttering Very Bad Things.
Toney says it might be a sign of some sort, and I don’t like the sound
of that. I’m no expert on the
subject, but “signs” that involve sudden blackness concern me.
Ya know?
What do you folks know about this? Should
I be getting my will in order? Should
I be making a list of friends and family members I’d prefer “tote me
to the hole?” Wonder if it has
anything to do with that pineapple? So
many questions.
-- While I was sitting outside the
elementary school this morning waiting for the aides to finish off their
bear claws, wipe the glaze off their quivering lips, and finally open
the doors, a few things occurred to me….
When I was a kid my Dad used to threaten to box
my ears all the time. He’d
say, “Jeff, if you don’t stop that racket, I’m gonna box your
ears!” What in the hell?
Also, I had an aunt who was a teenager in the late ‘60s, and I
remember her and her friends using the phrase, “Oh, suck my nose!”
It was injected into situations where “bite me” might be used
today. Suck my nose.
Man, that’s about as disgusting as it gets.
I’m surprised the phrase hasn’t stood the test of time.
During that same period, I recall my grandfather promising to set my
aunt on fire. I think he was
threatening to spank her, but he’d always get mad and holler, “I’m
going to set you on fire!!” Holy
crap! When you’re five, or
whatever, that’s some scary-ass stuff. I
had visions of kerosene slinging, maniacal laughter, and the whole nine
yards.
What are some of the other disturbing and bizarre down-home threats or
put-downs? These are just three
that popped into my mind while the bear claws were being polished-off.
I’m certain there are many others.
-- Speaking
of disturbing…. I get some
great email. And by great, of
course, I mean quite fucked-up. I
guess I bring it on myself, I don’t know.
Anyway, check this one out. For
reasons that are unclear even to me, I’m going to withhold the person’s
name. This note was received
last night under the heading, “I Nearly Prolapsed.”
Tuesday
afternoon before we were to go to the Funeral Home
(?! –ed.) I was in terrible pain and in need of a poop. I went to the bathroom
where I found the process very uncomfortable.
It
seemed that my bowels lacked the proper moisture to properly dispense my
shit. I was in misery as I tried to push and nothing moved. My butt hole
would not close, there was shit stuck in there and it would not move.
I sat on the toilet for a long time and finally had to get up and try to
go about my duties with my butt hole still opened. I felt horrible. Here
is a picture of what I felt like at this moment.
I soon cramped something awful and had to return for another round. This
was much like the first go around except my asshole did close after I
was able to drop a couple of marble sized pieces out.
But
this did not mean the job was finished, not by any long shot. I was
still full of shit that just would not go. About 30 minutes after this
second incident I once again returned to the toilet and after a rough
start was able to push out a large load and rid myself of the pain that
I had felt. However, I am not sure that I may not have hurt myself,
it hurts to fart with any kind of force now.
Thank you, Reader, for the update. I’ve
forwarded your note to other equally relevant recipients, folks like
Willie Mays, Boris Yeltsin, and the Supernanny. Please
keep us apprised of any further developments.
-- I spent a good part of
yesterday in Allentown
, attending career counseling seminars. Specifically: self-marketing
and networking. It wasn’t
as satisfying as usual, for a number of reasons.
First of all, we were packed into a tiny conference room (the main room
was already in use), and about fifteen of us were sitting literally
shoulder to shoulder. I don’t
much care for the shoulder to shoulder, if you want to know the truth. When
you can smell another man, you’re entirely too close, I believe.
Also, the advice we received seemed a tad, you know, crackpot. Oh,
some of it was solid, but many of the things they suggested we do I will
never do, in this lifetime or the next. So
I spent considerable energy rolling my eyes, and chuckling inside my
head.
At one point I realized I was scribbling a note to myself, while my
entire professional career hangs in the balance, about the teeth of a
woman seated across the table from me.
They were black & white! I’m
not kidding, the rest of her was in color (of course), but when she
opened her mouth it was pure American Movie Classics in there. How
does something like that happen? How
does everything just go gray?
And is it possible that I’m not yet taking this job search thing
seriously enough? I’m starting
to wonder.
-- I’ve got more, lots
more, but I’d better pace myself here. I’ll
leave you now with a Few Cool Things.
This
is a photo of Surf Reporter TxTy backstage at a recent Toadies show in
Houston
, along with an honest-to-goodness Toadie.
Check out Ty’s excellent choice in wardrobe.
And here’s
a really funny YouTube video, short and, um, sweet.
At this site you can do a
search for your surname, and find out where other folks with your last
name are living. Supposedly there
are more Kays in California
than in West Virginia
. I have a hard time
believing it, but whatever.
And finally, here’s
something new from our good friend Buck.
I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Have
a great day. permalink
March 20, 2007
--
When I started this website, back in the early days of the
universe, the only people who visited it were my brother and a few guys
I went to high school with. I’d
spend a couple of hours writing my daily updates, and seven people would
read them. Or six, if Rocky’s
computer was on the blink. I felt
like that guy in the Lyres.
Before TheWVSR I published a paper zine. Since
I had no deadline, real or imagined, things moved s l o w l y, and I’d
publish, on the average, one new issue per year.
So, I’d spend literally twelve months or so “writing” it,
have 500 copies printed, and mail out about half of ‘em.
Yeah, you can do the math on that one. A
full year’s worth of effort for 250 readers – at the most.
I mean, just because I mailed people a copy didn’t mean they
actually looked at it, right? I
received lots of zines in the mail that were hardly even glanced at.
I’m certain my little Surf Reports received the same treatment.
So, I’d frequently get frustrated and quit.
Then, like clockwork, I’d start acting all squirrelly and
pacing the apartment. I’d stand
around looking out the windows like a dog, run my hands through my hair
as if I were funky on the junk, and wanted to be out doing something all
the time. An old girlfriend and I had constant arguments about this;
I never wanted to be home.
I eventually realized that I need to have something creative happening
in my life, or I’ll very likely end up in the wacky shack, talking to
foil.
During one of those dark periods when I’d given up on the zine, I came
across something called an “online journal.”
This was shortly after I’d bought my first computer, and the
internet still seemed like fantastic voodoo black magic.
It was written by another zinester, named Krista
Garcia.
Krista published the always-excellent Scaredy
Cat Stalker. She grew up in
Oregon
, but had recently moved to
New York City. Her journal (the word “blog” hadn’t been invented
yet, as far as I know, and it was a better time) was nothing more than a
daily, or semi-daily, recounting of the things that had happened to her.
And it was highly entertaining. I
began reading every update, and thought it was just about the best thing
ever.
I
sent Krista a few gushing emails in the early days, but got the feeling
she was a mildly frightened by them. So
I disappeared into the shadows and became a lurker. And
I’m still there, grunting softly in the darkness.
Somewhere along the line I started thinking…. Hell,
I could probably do one of those journal things as well. It
wouldn’t be as good as Krista’s, but it would be something to keep
me busy, and possibly out of a mental institution.
So I started TheWVSR. I
wanted it to be simply WVSR, but the West Virginia Split Rail Company already
had that domain name. The
bastards. In the early days I
only updated on Mondays and Thursdays, and I had the aforementioned
seven readers. Or six.
During that period I also won at least one prestigious award for
Shockingly Ugly Web Design. It
was something I’m proud to say I earned.
Then everything promptly went ass-over-tits. Through
my vast network of liars and backstabbers I got my hands on a scan of
one of Mike Piazza’s paychecks. I
posted it to the site, and it felt like a scud missile hit the bunker. Fark
linked to it, and many others followed suit. Suddenly
I went from no traffic, to hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per
day. I received actual death threats, and people were talking about my
little site on the radio, and everything.
It was great! Scary, but
great. I met some of the best
and most loyal Friends of the Surf Report during the Piazza era, folks
like NJGirl, Lucas, and MsDeniseWight. And
man, I wanted to keep it going. I
was intoxicated by it all. It
had been a long time coming.
So I worked hard at building readership. I
put in massive effort, and it often felt like I was bashing my skull
against the bricks. For a
while I was literally doubling my traffic every few months. But
it was hard work, real hard.
Along the way I had a couple of other Piazza situations, most notably
the Deadwood Fuck
Count, which was simply insane. In
fact, I turned down a lot of interview opportunities during that
craziness, for reasons I still don’t want to reveal. (Maybe
someday.) It could’ve been
even insaner.
Anyway… I’ve gotten lazy with the site. That’s
the point of this whole longwinded update. I’ve
been on autopilot for the past year or so, and haven’t been putting
forth as much effort as I once did. And
I’m making a vow to rectify the problem.
Yep, I’m all fired up again; I’m a street-walking cheetah with a
heart full of Wendy's. Soon
this site will be more than
just reports of my latest visit to Sam’s Club, even more!
Not tomorrow, though. I’m
taking tomorrow off to attend a networking strategies seminar in
Allentown
. Soon though, very soon.
Please stay tuned for the new era. You
know, as soon as I can get around to it…. permalink
March 19,
2007
--
This time they were right about the snow, the pricks.
We got about twelve inches of the stuff on Friday, and I spent a
big hunk of the following morning shoveling the driveway and sending my
back muscles into a state of distress.
Folks are driving around with a big snow mohawk (snohawk?) on the
tops of their cars again, and parking lots are just a gray slushy mess.
And all of this happened after daylight saving time had already kicked
in. I don’t much care for
it.
-- I’m not feeling so hot
this morning. I think my
husky torso is acting as an incubation chamber for some sort of
quickly-mutating illness. Like
maybe a cold, or something. I
want to lie on a couch ‘neath the Scrote-watcher, turn on the TV and
hope for the best. And
nothing else. Just thought
you should know.
-- Yesterday Toney went to
Sam’s, the exclusive club that pursued us as members, then asked me to
help carry in the stuff she’d bought.
I sighed loudly, put down my steaming vessel of Eight O’Clock,
and began hauling the crap indoors.
”How much did all this cost?!” I asked, with genuine alarm.
Hell, I’m unemployed. What
are we doing filling an entire trunk of a Honda with food??
Hondas have big trunks.
We finally got it down to the last few items, and I spotted a full-on
pineapple in there. No way
was I touching that thing. Pineapples
are menacing; they’re sharp in every direction.
So I refused to carry it in, and we actually got into a mini-argument
about it. Toney said I was
being purposely “ridiculous,” and I asked her what’s wrong with
just canned pineapple. I
mean, who buys the whole thing, with those razor-sharp Bowie knives
sticking out of the top, and needle-like briars going everywhere?
This is
America
,
for crying out loud.
She apparently thought I was joking, and wasn’t in the mood for that
particular brand of levity. But
I wasn’t joking, pineapples
are scary. Those things
could cut a man wide open.
--
On Saturday I almost called 911 because I needed a haircut, bad.
It seems like I just had one, but it was clearly time to do it
again; the back of my neck was all fuzzy, and the top of my head was
thick and misshapen. And I
can’t have that.
So I went to my regular shop (the place where I met the Brit who smelled
like poop), and nobody was home. There
was a CLOSED sign in the window, and the parking lot hadn’t even been
plowed. The hell, man?
I thought about giving up, but I looked in the rearview mirror, saw
something that resembled Bert Convy on a five-day drunk, and decided to
press on. I’d try the
other place a few blocks away. They’re
too expensive, and you always have to wait there, but this was an
emergency.
I put my name on the list, and settled down with a battered copy of Us
magazine, prepared to log some substantial time.
It’s one of the reasons I gave up on the joint….
But to my surprise, I was barely into an article about Mary Kate
Olsen when they called me back.
I’d forgotten that they wash your hair in that place.
And it’s another thing I dislike.
I wash my hair at home, thank you very much.
I don’t require a hair-washing professional, at an offsite
facility. Plus, they use
some kind of shampoo that makes a person smell like a walking, talking
salad bar. But whatever.
When I finally got to the elevated chair, the girl started in with the
forced chit-chat. How’s
your weekend going? Just
hanging out today? Have I
cut your hair before? On and
on it goes.
Needless to say, these types of conversation-starters don’t go very
far with me. I’m like an
emotional cul-de-sac when it comes to forced chit-chit.
When they ask me how my weekend’s going, I always want to tell
them not so good. I can’t
stop the music that’s playing in my head, I’d like to say, the
merry-go-round music that just keeps getting louder and louder, and
makes me think Very Bad Things.
But I usually just answer, “fine.”
-- Speaking of music, I
watched the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame ceremony on VH1 Saturday night.
It was pretty good, especially REM’s performance.
Perhaps I was slightly drunk, but I thought REM sounded damn
good.
The Van Halen situation was fairly pathetic.
Nobody showed except Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, and another
band, Velvet Revolver, performed Van Halen’s songs. Apparently
Eddie is in rehab (again), and David Lee Roth was engaging in some sort
of hissy fit (again). Sad.
What’s the deal with the lead singer of Velvet Revolver, anyway?
It’s the guy from Stone Temple Pilots, correct?
Why does he act like Dieter in Sprockets?
“Would you like to touch my monkey?”
Freaky.
In any case, I thought it was a good show.
And it caused me to break out my REM CDs yesterday, and get all
excited about them again. Especially
this
one ,
the most overlooked album in their catalog, and one of my all-time
favorites. Oh yeah.
-- A couple of things before
I call it a day here…. I
need your help in solving a crime. That’s
right, a crime. Please view
the evidence here,
and I’m confident we can bring a murderer to justice.
Pass the beer nuts.
Also, I’ve added a new friend to the Big List of Friends over on the
sidebar to the left. Longtime
Surf Reporter brianf has started a blog, and you can check it out right
here.
That’ll do it for today, boys and girls.
This afternoon I’m going to Staples, Long John Silver’s, and
JCPenney to buy slacks. Not
pants, mind you, slacks.
Will somebody please shoot me? permalink
March 16,
2007
-- What in the wash and wear hell??
There's up to twelve inches of snow coming our way? A day after I raved
about the changes of season?! It's unbelievable. Twelve inches! Oh, that
might not be a full-blown Milton Berle storm like last time, but it
sounds like it could be a Don Johnson, and that's bad enough. A Don
Johnson is nothing to dismiss, my friends.
I didn't know anything about any of it, until Toney told me last night.
I never turn on the TV during the day (fat people crying on couches),
rarely glance at the newspaper (house fires and people bitching about
change), or listen to local radio (more bitching about change, only in a
real nasally voice), so I'm pretty much cut off from society. The world
could be coming to an end, and I'd be sitting in the bunker smiling and
listening to Barenaked Ladies.
I do pay close attention to the news during some of those old Jean
Shepherd broadcasts, but they're from, you know, 1960, and don't really
help me much. I tried to strike up a conversation with a man at the
credit union the other day about all the vacation-time Ike has been
taking, but it didn't really go anywhere.
I was planning to drive down to Allentown today, for another
"seminar," and maybe a cigar and snifter of brandy with my colleagues.
But I guess I'd better stay close to home. I don't want to spend the
night in the Lehigh Tunnel, sobbing into my airbag and sucking the
grease out of old Burger King sacks for sustenance, after another
well-managed Governor Rendell "snow event."
Hello?
-- Last night we went to an art show at the oldest Secret's school. It
was your standard stuff: watercolor paintings of soccer matches between
two teams of men with elephantiasis, or some similar disease that causes
one leg to grow real big, papier mache sculptures of striped snakes or
what appears to be angry potatoes, and so on. I walked around, scratched
my chin, and made the approving noises required of a father in such a
setting.
Then I got to the Big Wall of Self Portraits, and everything began to
break down. I try hard to be a mature adult, I really do. But it's just
so difficult.... Check
it out. I have no idea who drew this, or his (her?) story, but I
do know it's funny. Real funny. Sweet Maria.
-- Since I suddenly have a lot of free
time on my hands, I've been observing our dog Andy (Black Lips Houlihan),
and his various pee methods. He has three, in case you're interested,
and switches back and forth depending on situation and/or terrain.
If he's in a hurry, if there's an urgency of some sort, he'll just drop
down in the back, like a girl dog. I'm not really a fan of this style of
canine whizzing, probably because I'm not accustomed to it. I've never
owned a female dog, they've all been boys, and this dropping-down
technique still feels foreign to me.
I cringe when Andy does it, but, I'm sorry to report, it's probably his
most-favored method. Perhaps we should let him out more frequently? I
don't know. But he often walks into the middle of the yard, the back-end
collapses, he raises his head high in the air and makes his body into a
45-degree angle. Then you hear it slapping the grass.
His second-favorite is the much more acceptable hike-the-leg technique.
This happens when he's just out there taking his time, tiptoeing around
and snorkeling everything. Like most dogs, he simply cannot walk past a
tree or a post or a mound of snow, without raising his rear
passenger-side leg and slinging a little piss on it. I'm often amazed at
how long he can hold his balance while in this tripod configuration. I
guess it's just a natural doggy talent?
Andy's third, and rarest, pee method is the "going statue"
variation. It's very similar to dropping-down, but is done standing
completely upright. Sometimes he'll be walking and suddenly stop, then
let it go without changing his posture whatsoever. I like this one, for
some reason. Maybe it's the element of surprise? Or perhaps I envy his
ability to seamlessly work peeing into his lifestyle. There's no fuss,
no prep work, nothing. He's just walking along, needs to take a leak,
and, by God, does. Right where he's standing. ....I'm sorry, I'm getting
a little emotional here.
I've seen our dog kick after peeing as well, I call it urination
punctuation. But he usually reserves this for post-crapping festivities
only. And he doesn't do it every time, just sometimes. I haven't been
able to figure this one out yet. What triggers a kicking episode, and
what doesn't? Is it weather-related? Does it matter if he's on grass or
on gravel? Perhaps it's no more complicated than mood? I just don't
know.
But rest assured, I'm working on it.
-- Have you ever heard of a band called the
Lyres? They're from Boston and were (are?) led by a maniac who calls
himself Mono Man, or somesuch. They sounded like a sixties garage band
all cranked-up on, um, coffee, and I really liked 'em back in the day.
The reason I bring this up is because I heard one of their songs
yesterday on a Rhino punk compilation, and it brought back a memory that
I'm now going to attempt to work into a Question of the Day....
When I lived in Greensboro there was a funky little club in operation
called Underground. I used to go there to see Dash Rip Rock and Jason
and the Scorchers, and bands like that. One night the Lyres were
supposed to perform, and I was highly excited. Their On
Fyre album was a favorite, and it didn't seem like the band
played outside of New England very often. No way I was going to miss
this one.
So, my friend Cam and I went to the club, and there was almost nobody
there. It was just the two of us, and maybe ten other people. When you
talked there was a slight echo, and you could actually hear other
people swallowing their beer. Unbelievable. I felt uncomfortable, and
embarrassed for the band.
But to their credit, the Lyres came out and played a full set. Oh, they
rocked the place, and all twelve of us had a great time.
Afterwards, this Mono Man character walked off the stage and went to the
beer window. We walked over to congratulate him on a great show, and the
dude went off. "What's wrong with this town?!" he snarled.
"Don't you people support live music here?? I was told this was
going to be a show tonight, not a fucking garden party!"
That's exactly the phrase he used, garden party.
Oh man, he was spewing venom. And one of the Faithful Dozen said,
"Dude, don't be pissed at us. We're here." Mono Man
considered this, accepted it, and apologized. Then he stood there and
talked to us while finishing his Budweiser, or whatever. From that point
on, he was, well, semi-friendly.
So that's the Question: have you ever been at an event where the crowd
was so small you felt uncomfortable? It doesn't have to be a
concert, it can be a baseball game, or whatever. Use the comments link
to tell us about it, won't you?
And I'm going to go watch it snow.
See ya on Monday. permalink
March 15, 2007
-- When I took the youngest Secret to
school this morning it felt like baseball season outside. I didn't even
wear a jacket, and can't remember the last time I left the house without
first encasing myself in some sort of commercially-produced quilt sewn
roughly into the shape of a man.
The thick granite-hard snowpack that's been on the ground for the past
month is melting away, from the bottom up it seems, and it feels like
the whole world is getting a much-needed bath. Birds have been chirping,
caribou wandering around....
Man, you'd have to be one hard, hard sumbitch not to love the changes of
season.
-- I went to Subway yesterday for lunch, and they now offer apples as a
sandwich topping. Apples! They sure are attached to the novelty fixin's
at that place, aren't they?
Perhaps I'm out of the loop (anything's possible), but I have a hard
time with a lot of that stuff. Even back in the old days, before things
went completely crazy, they would ask if I wanted black olives on
my seven dollar lettuce sandwich. Do I look insane? Am I wearing a
sombrero of turds here? Is my wiener out? Olives? On a sandwich?? Blecch.
Those things taste like a mouthful of buffalo nickels.
Hell, they're not even shaped right. You can't have a sandwich topping
that rolls. Am I wrong about that? It seems to me society decided the
sandwich rules a long time ago, and Subway is in repeated violation.
You're supposed to stack it up with stuff that's generally flat. You
make layers between two slices of bread, or inside a bun of some sort;
it's not a difficult concept. Keeping the sandwich level should NOT be a
concern.
And don't even get me started on fruit. That's just showboating, plain
and simple, and not worthy of a reaction.
-- I finally received my Shoes
CD a few days ago, and it was indeed a CDR. A bit of a pisser, but
not completely.... Sure, I would've preferred an actual, collectible,
commercially- produced compact disc. But, I didn't buy the thing as an
investment, I bought it to hear all the great songs again. So mission
accomplished on that front; it sounds great, all the music is there,
blah blah blah. I'll just try to ignore the little "Is it live or
is it Memorex?" printed around the middle of the disc. Try,
I said.
On a similar subject.... I received a
note from eBay yesterday informing me that the person from whom I bought
a four-year subscription to Blender magazine is, apparently, a
complete fraud. They'd shut down his operation, etc., and are urging me
to "take all possible steps to receive reimbursement." Bastard
took off with my $1.99!
-- I saw this today in an
article about the death of Boston lead singer Brad Delp:
Toxicology tests by the state medical examiner's office showed that
Delp committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, said Lt. William
Baldwin. Police said Delp had sealed himself inside a bathroom with two
charcoal grills sometime between 11:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday
afternoon, when he was found by fiancee Pamela Sullivan.
Locked himself in a bathroom with a bunch of grills going?! Have you
ever come across that one before? Yeah, me either. That's the weirdest
suicide method I've heard about since a guy in my hometown strapped an
entire weightlifting set, bars and all, to his body, and casually walked
into the Kanawha River.
What are some of the other strange ways people have hastened their
departure from this world? Do you have any local stories to share?
Please tell us about 'em, won't you?
-- I don't know why, but I struggled with this update like a man atop a
toilet at a cheese festival. Every word was earned, believe me. I
apologize for its brevity, but I'll leave you today with something I
know you'll enjoy.
This,
my friends, is Brenda
Love's vision of Nancy & Nostrils and their brood of l'il
translucents. And I'm telling you.... she's pretty freakin' accurate.
Don't miss this one, folks! And thanks Brenda, for salvaging my Thursday
update.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
March 14, 2007
-- I've been spending considerable time
in Allentown, at the office of an outplacement firm my former employer
hooked me up with. They offer seminars and classes, and help with your
resume, etc. When I first learned of this, I rolled my eyes and
dismissed the whole thing. It sounded suspiciously like counseling, and
I had visions of grown men sitting in small rooms blubbering into
tissues, and possibly even hugging each other. And that's not the way I
roll.
But Toney convinced me to give it a look, and I'm glad she did. To my
surprise, the information they're providing seems to have actual value.
It's good solid advice, and not all about emotions and feelings.
Well... there's a little of that, but not much.
Plus, I just enjoy going there. I always come away feeling hopeful and
positive, which is a welcome departure from the norm these days. There's
a group of guys who seem to hang out at the place, all of whom are going
through exactly the same thing I am. So, in addition to all the stuff in
their formal mission statement, the joint also serves as a social club
for middle-aged overweight unemployed professionals of eastern
Pennsylvania. And, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I like
it. All that's missing is the cocktails and cigars.
Of course, when all those guys start getting jobs it'll be a different
story.... That's the downside, I fear. If I'm one of the last to go, I
can see myself working up a good head of bitterness, and walking around
with a powerful urge to start kneeing balls. Just random balls, and lots
of 'em.
But I'm enjoying it while I can.
-- Last night we were having dinner and four fully-grown deer casually
walked past our front window. We live in an established neighborhood
here, not a thatched hut in the middle of the forest, and aren't really
accustomed to seeing, you know, fucking caribou. It was one of
those moments when you're not fully convinced your brain is processing
things correctly, and sit there silent for a few seconds waiting for it
to correct itself.
But it really was deer, four big 'uns, and they didn't seem to have a
care in the world. Until Andy saw them, anyway. And man, he went wild. I
was afraid he might actually crash through the front window. He'd never seen
dogs that large.
The big-ass things heard the ruckus
coming from inside our house, and all four bounced across Half-Shirt's
yard, and disappeared somewhere down the street.
And last night when I was outside with Andy, letting him sling a little
urine before bedtime, I had a small but nagging concern that one of
those beasts would suddenly burst out of the bushes, and start doing
that thing where they stand on their hind legs and pummel you into
submission with a wild flurry of flying hooves.
Is that unreasonable?
-- My friend Bill told me that a guy he knows recently had a boil on his
ass "the size of a can of tuna." He went bowling with the
thing, and everybody could see it through his sweatpants. Finally it
exploded, while the dude was sitting on the toilet, and it took
considerable time to clean up. But, he told Bill, it's nice to be able
to sit level again. Just thought you should know....
-- I watched Borat
last night. I believe I might've been the only person left in the world
who didn't know anything about any of that stuff. I wasn't familiar with
Sacha Baron Cohen, or Ali G, or the Borat character, or anything.
Oh, I knew it was supposed to be popular and hip, and there was some
controversy, but it was all very vague and murky to me.
Good God, I laughed my ass off. That has got to be one of the funniest
movies ever made. So many great scenes.... All morning little snippets
of the flick have been popping into my head, and I start laughing all
over again. I think I'm going to have to watch it again, before Netflix
gets it back. The shit is Hendrie-level genius.
-- Here's an interesting email I received from Surf Reporter Lucie
earlier in the week:
So you got me hooked on Bentley Little & I have been requesting 3
of his books at a time from the library. So I go in yesterday & pick
up 3, one of which is “The Return” and as I was removing the slip of
paper with my name on it a frigging razor blade fell out of the book!
First off he totally creeps me out with his books & then one of his
readers almost cuts me up with a RAZOR BLADE!!!!!!! WTF???
I don't really know what to say to that, except it feels somehow
appropriate that a Bentley
Little fan would use a super-sharp sliver of steel as a bookmark.
Disturbing yes, but not all that surprising. Next time it might very
well be a ring finger.
-- I spoke with a guy yesterday about possibly redesigning the site. The
dude didn't hear a thing I said, and just went on and on with his own
ideas. He apparently thinks it would be a fabulous idea to turn TheWVSR
into some sort of storefront(?!), with shopping carts and that sort of
thing. I told him that wasn't at all what I had in mind, and it
was is if I hadn't even spoken those words. He said he'd be glad to
build me a fully-functioning e-commerce site for $3000.
Perhaps there was a bad connection? I don't know. And $3000?! All I can
say to that is: Ha!
-- I've got a few more half-assed little things, but I've suddenly run
out of enthusiasm. But I do have a rare treat to share with you folks
today -- a new update from Metten. That's right, Metten. Check it out, right
here.
And I'll see ya tomorrow. permalink
March 13, 2007
-- The annual St. Patrick's Day parade
is one of Scranton's crown jewels. It's supposedly one of the biggest
such events in the country, and the city is proud, proud, proud of it.
It also has a reputation for being quite wild, and for featuring all
manner of drunken debauchery.
In fact, on Parade Day the bars are allowed to open at 7 am -- and are
reportedly full. I can't even imagine such a thing. The only time I've
ever started drinking at 7 am was after working a midnight shift
at the old Dunbar Toll Bridge a few times, and didn't much care for it.
There's just something unnatural about cracking open a Schlitz during
Coffee Time.
But on that one day every year in Scranton, all such rules go out the
window, I'm told. And, of course, things get crazy. Having young kids, I
never felt comfortable attending this so-called parade, and have stayed
away. I had visions of the gutters running wide with vomit.
This year, however, we decided to go. I think it was Toney's idea. She
said we need "distractions," and I'm all for that. Wallowing
in despair can take a lot out of a man.
We parked beside a Ukrainian church, or something similarly confusing.
The guy there charged us ten bucks, and told us we'd have to be gone by
four, because the church is having a "supper." Not a problem,
I said, I have a feeling we'll be gone long before the cabbage roll
cutoff. I hoped none of us would be stabbed.
We walked on muddy, uneven, and collapsed sidewalks toward downtown, and
our shoes were covered with what looked like black soot from a factory
furnace by the time we reached level ground. As we walked, the number of
people increased until we found ourselves in the middle of a seething
crowd.
In addition to public intoxication, one of the traditions of the parade
is apparently novelty headgear; it was wacky hats as far as the eye
could see. There were big green Dr. Seuss top hats, three feet tall and
tilting in the wind, knit caps with the words "Kiss My Irish
Ass" lovingly sewn into front, and great eruptions of sparkly
shamrocks on sticks, then attached to the skull. I felt woefully
underdressed in just my Brooklyn Dodgers cap. It doesn't blink off and
on, or anything.
And t-shirts, there were also plenty of
interesting t-shirts. Some said "Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced,"
others read, "Irish, drunk, and horny," and lots referenced The
Office with "Ain't no party like a Scranton party, 'cuz a
Scranton party don't stop!" In fact, The Office has now been
fully-embraced by the local population. When it first appeared there was
some grumbling about Hollywood making fun of the city, but that's all
gone now. It seemed like every other person at the parade was sporting a
Dunder-Mifflin shirt.
I told the Secrets to assume everybody is drunk, and to act
accordingly. I'm not sure what I meant by that, but it felt like good
advice. To my surprise though, it seemed like only about a quarter of
the crowd was under the influence. Huh. Who could've predicted such a
thing?
We found a spot near a corner, past where the parade would soon be
passing. The congestion was a bit thinner there, so we decided it was a
decent place to stake our claim. An old woman shoved a shopping cart
past us, full of what looked like pretzels she'd cooked in her own oven
at home, and sandwich bags full of Cheetos (blechh). She told everyone
to get the hell out of her way.
People were everywhere, and most were dressed like mental patients: huge
glasses, big feathery boas, ludicrous necklaces, jackets that made
noises.... I've never been to the Mardi Gras, but feel like I have.
To be fair though, we had no problems. In fact, everybody seemed to be
in a good mood (heh), and I only saw one small argument break out. A
teenage girl and a suburban mom got into it, and somebody called
somebody a "fatass." But it was over pretty quickly, and
didn't amount to much.
The parade itself seemed never-ending. A piece in the newspaper said it
took three full hours for it to pass by -- three hours! There were
thousands of people involved in the thing, and many thousands more
watching. Supposedly the equal of the entire populations of several
local counties was in Scranton on Saturday. It's one big-ass
"parade."
But we didn't stay for the entire three hours, not even close. About
halfway through, I'd guess, the boys started complaining, and we left
early. On our way back to our parking spot we saw some doucheketeer with
his hat on sideways driving on the sidewalks, spinning his wheels, and
yelling out his window for no apparent reason. He went across a yard,
almost took out a newspaper box, then fishtailed on down the
street.
I think we got out just in time.
Here
again are some of the pics I snapped. Hopefully they'll give you a feel
for the cluster-fuck that is the Scranton St. Patrick's Day
Parade.
And I need to cut this one a little short, my friends. I'm driving down
to Allentown again, to meet with a headhunter. <sigh> Thanks to
everyone who contributed to the Surf Report cause yesterday and today,
either with cash, or by spreading the word. I appreciate it, sincerely.
For a question of the day... how about drinking before ten in the
morning? Have you ever done it? Under what circumstances? Tell us about
it, won't you?
And I'll see ya tomorrow. permalink
March 12, 2007
-- I hate to even go into all this,
because it's not very funny. In fact, it's not funny at all. But I spent
a big part of the weekend thinking about this website, and how we've
somehow arrived at one of those proverbial crossroads. I'm concerned
that TheWVSR as we know it may be in jeopardy, my friends.
Please allow me to explain....
I was in a unique and perfect situation with my job. I was working at a
large manufacturing/distribution facility that operates 'round the
clock. The company that actually paid (pays) my salary is located in
California, and I had to sorta straddle the Eastern and Pacific time
zones. Because of the three-hour difference, the workday here is almost
half over when they're just getting cranked-up in Burbank, and those
Cali boys can sure generate their share of last-minute mad-scramble
Chinese fire drills. So I went in later than most people, and drove home
in the dark.
This schedule allowed me time in the mornings to write my ridiculous
updates, and still put in a full-day's work. And I can't see that
happening again. Ya know? I just don't believe there are too many
zone-straddling opportunities available out there.
No, when I do go back to work it'll almost certainly be a
"normal" deal, where I'm required to arrive at 8:00 am, or
whatever. And if there's a commute on both ends of it.... Well, you can
see what will happen to the site: it'll sit dormant most days. There
simply won't be any time for me to maintain it. I can imagine a scenario
where I'm struggling to squeeze out one pathetic update per week, on
Sunday mornings or somesuch.
And that makes me sad. It sounds like a joke when I say this site is the
only thing that keeps me sane, but I suspect it may be true. Except for
my family, it's my favorite thing. I'd probably go spiraling into
depression if I didn't have TheWVSR to cling to. That, or I'd get really
into collecting things, and spend my evenings in the basement wearing a
jeweler's glass.
Will somebody please hold me?
Some of you have suggested I make an effort to "monetize" the
Surf Report, and try to turn it into an actual business. And while the
realist in me scoffs, I have to admit it's a mighty appealing idea. I
know there are people who maintain sites similar to this one, and
reportedly make a living from it. Why not me too?
Well, I did some research and it
appears those folks thrive on a combination of ad revenue and donations
from their readers. None charge for content, via subscriptions or
anything like that, it's just voluntary contributions. One doesn't even
run ads at all, it's completely reader-supported.
So... I'm going to give it a shot. Over the next few weeks, while still
looking for a real job, I'm going to explore the idea of having TheWVSR
overhauled by a professional site designer. I think it looks amateurish,
and I'm ready to take a shot at legitimacy with my very one "web
guy." I want the RSS feeds to work automatically, I want it to be
slick but cool, and I want to be able to update from any computer. I'm
willing to plunk down some bucks to make it all happen.
Also, I'm going to research ad programs, and try to hook up with a good
company. I've got a half-assed hodgepodge going right now, with no focus
or clear strategy, and the results have been predictably lame. TheWVSR
receives thousands of unique visitors every month, and an impressive
number of pageviews. I'm confident I can get better results.
I've been monkeying around with a secret side project as well, a planned
one-shot zine-type of booklet to be called My West Virginia Jobs.
I've got a complete first draft finished, about 20,000 words, and am
going to work hard at finalizing it over the next few weeks. I'm hoping
it'll generate a little excitement, and maybe lead to something fun.
More on that later.
Now here's the hard part.... I'm asking for your help. I've set up
donation accounts with both Amazon and PayPal, and added a big red
DONATE box at the top of the second page. (I'm sure you've already seen
it.) If you believe the site is worthy, I would appreciate a small
monthly contribution. Or hell, if you can swing it, a large
monthly contribution. Whatever.
If you can't, or don't want to contribute, that's cool. I can't see who
is or isn't dropping anything in the ol' tip jar, so there's no social
pressure here. The last thing I want is for anyone to walk around with
deep-seated Surf Report Guilt.
One last request, as if I haven't asked enough already.... Please tell
your friends and enemies about the site. If I have even the tiniest
chance of pulling this off, I'll need to increase the readership.
So, if you know someone who might enjoy what we do here, please spread
the word. It's important.
And that's about all I can stomach. God, I feel like I need to take a
shower.... I appreciate your help with this particular Ralph Kramden-style
pipe dream, and promise not to whore myself too much in the
coming days.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about our very first encounter with the
cluster-fuck that is the Scranton St. Patrick's Day Parade. To whet your
appetite, here
are a few pictures I snapped. Man, talk about your picture-taker's
paradise.... If the Secrets hadn't complained so much, I might still be
down there.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
March 9, 2007
-- I thought our dog Andy was about to
die Wednesday night, I really did.
He was acting normal when I got home from Allentown. He greeted me at
the door with a smile on his face and his tail a-wagging, as always. I
took him outside and he ran a few laps, slung a little urine around,
then assumed the kangaroo position and engaged in some low-grade
turd-tumblin'. Nothing out of the ordinary.
After dinner I gave him a piece of fish one of the Secrets left on his
plate, and the hound devoured it with the usual ferocity. Then he wanted
more: Please, more! Just like every other night.
As soon as the boys went to bed we cranked up an episode of Veronica
Mars on the Big Ass Television, and afterwards Toney said she was
going to hit the sack as well. And as she was heading upstairs, she
said, "What's the matter with this crazy dog?" He was standing
at the top of the steps, panting heavily and staring into the family
room with his head all hyper-extended and low.
Who the hell knows? Probably just another of his ploys.... He constantly
wants to go outside; it seems to be his biggest non-food related
ambition in life. And he's become a master at manipulating us, and
getting his way. He's all the time pretending to be on the verge of
exploding in a great supernova of pee. Then, once in the yard, he
doesn't do a thing except tiptoe around and snorkel stuff. It's
maddening.
But this time it might be for real, I thought. He doesn't usually pant
like that. So I went up there and opened the front door, and noticed
that he wasn't walking right. His legs seemed to be wobbly, and he
grazed the door as he passed through it. The hell? Then I watched our
dog s l o w l y walk out into the middle of the snow-covered front yard,
and lay down. Oh no!
I hollered for Toney, and started trying to convince Andy to come back
into the house. He finally hoisted himself to his feet, with great
effort, and wobbled into the living room. He was panting and shaking and
his head was waving all around, like one of those felt-covered dogs
people used to put in the rear windows of their cars.
Then he tipped over sideways, like he was made of ceramic or some shit.
And he just laid there, breathing real hard, with all four of his legs
sticking straight out.
Andy was dying! What had happened to
him?? Did he have a stroke, or something? Had someone poisoned him? Oh
man, the Secrets are gonna freak. Hell, I'm freaking. That crazy
dog gets on my nerves a lot of the time, but I sure don't want anything
bad to happen to him. And it doesn't get much badder than dying.
Toney and I sat in the floor beside him, stroked his fur, and waited for
it to happen. But after a few minutes of this, Andy suddenly turned his
head and deposited what looked like the world's largest fried egg on the
hardwood floor. I don't know what was in that vomit, but it was white
around the edges, and yellow in the center, like an egg. And it was as
big around as a serving platter.
I began howling in protest, because I'm the one who's always on puke
detail around here. I'm not sure how that happened, but it's one of
those pre-defined roles we have. And man, that looked like it would
require a whole roll of Bounty.
But Andy was a little better after that. He went upstairs, walking
almost normally, and laid down on his blanket beside our bed. He even
managed to wag his tail a little when I checked on him. Maybe he was
going to be OK, after all?
Toney blamed it on the piece of fish I gave him. But he's eaten an
entire ocean of fish in his life. Why would one tiny piece suddenly
cause him to go all spastic like that?
Then I found out he'd run-off earlier in the day, before I got home.
Toney had been carrying in groceries, she said, and Andy took advantage
of the situation and went on an adventure. And it was trash day.
God only knows what he might've gotten into. Maybe Mama Half-Shirt had
cleaned out their refrigerator, and Andy got holt of a furry length of
bratwurst, or something? The possibilities are almost endless. On trash
day.
So my wife was sorta blaming me, and I was sorta blaming my wife. And so
it goes.
But Andy seemed like he would pull through, so Toney went back to bed,
and I returned to the B.A.T. I had a disc of 24 episodes from
Netflix, and got myself all wrapped up in that particular
ridiculousness. A couple of hours later I decided I'd better call it a
night, and shut everything down.
And when I went upstairs there was a landscape of vomit in the
living room. There was a big meaty pile beside the front door, another
on the rug in front of the couch, and a third in the dining room. All
were humongous, and seemed to be built on a foundation of pot
roast. Sweet sainted mother of Bonnie Franklin!
It must've taken thirty minutes to get rid of all that puke. I ran up
and down the stairs with big wads of toilet paper, flushing every second
or third trip, and trying not to notice the warmth I could feel through
the paper. It was full-on disgusting.
But Andy's back to normal now, and I'm already calling him a dumbass
again. He's returned to his tried and true method of staring, and willing
me to do his bidding with his non-blinking laser-beam gaze. And he's
right back to begging, gobbling, tip-toeing, and snorkeling, as if none
of that tipping-over-like-a-ceramic-doo-dad stuff had ever happened.
The dumbass.
-- Before I go.... I took a really time-consuming computerized test
yesterday, as instructed by my "career coach," and it told me
I'd be happiest working as a writer. How's that for groundbreaking
information? Hell, I could've saved myself the hour.
I also sat through two classes on Thursday: one on interviewing, and
another on negotiating. I'm supposed to meet with an executive
headhunter on Tuesday, and there are a few other little things going on
as well, all at least mildly encouraging.
But I keep going back to that test. I wish I'd never taken it. Because
the OBVIOUS bright spots of the week were the writing of that dog puke
story you just read, and when I told you about our bed collapsing, and
all that stuff. The test only serves to rub it in.
I know it's dangerous to even contemplate such a thing, but just how
great would it be if TheWVSR could somehow become my actual job?
Extra-great, I say.
And I'd appreciate it if one or two of you good folks would drive up
here now, shoe me square in the nuts, and bring me back to the real
world. I thank you in advance for your assistance in this
matter.
See ya on Monday. permalink
March 7, 2007
-- I'm driving down to Allentown today
to meet my "career coach." I'm from Dunbar, WV and don't know
nothing about no career coaches, but we'll see how it goes. My
ex-employer is paying for the service, and I've been told by more than
one person that it's a valuable asset. So I'm gonna sit down with them
and see what they have to say.
It's been a bit frustrating, because I haven't really gotten started.
The information packet from that consulting firm screams, over and over
again, not to apply for jobs or approach any companies, until I've met
with them first. So I've been laying back a bit. I did answer a couple
of internet ads for gigs that sounded like a good fit for me, but
haven't yet felt comfortable jumping into it with both feet.
We're burning daylight here, foo's! I'm itching to get the ball
rolling. And yes, I realize I used both the words "itching"
and "ball" in the same sentence. What of it?
Yesterday I got my fax machine up and running. A year or so ago you
folks helped me buy a really nice Canon all-in-one machine, via your
Amazon purchases. It's a kick-ass little unit, but I never had a use for
its faxing capabilities until now. So I had the phone company come out
and re-activate the old phone jack in the bunker, a relic from the dark,
dark Compuserve days, and I now have yet another way to communicate with
the outside world. It's like freakin' NASA in here. Except, you know,
for the loud Wreckless Eric music.
And I'm getting calls from so-called recruiters who don't have my best
interests at heart. One wanted me to come in and interview for a
position as an insurance salesman(!?). Apparently they contact every
single person who posts a resume to the internet, and past experience
isn't relevant. If I created a CareerBuilder account for our dog Andy, I
bet "Barbara" would try to issue him a briefcase. I told her I
wasn't even remotely interested, and she hung up on me. How's
that for phone etiquette?
I also have odd emails waiting for me every morning when I turn on my
computer. They're supposedly lists of new job opportunities
"selected especially for me," based on my work history, etc.
Completely baffling. They're sending me stuff like bio-chemist, house
painter, rhythm guitarist, and steamboat captain. What in the tan and
sandy hell?
Yeah, this is going to be an excellent adventure, I can just feel it. I
think I've sighed more during the past week than the previous forty-four
years combined. Pass the discs o' lard, dammit.
-- I listened to Clive
Bull yesterday, for the first time since everything turned
upside-down. It was like comfort food. He did almost an entire hour on
whether or not his producer should eat a sausage roll that had been out
of the refrigerator all day. He was taking calls, and carrying on
lengthy detailed conversations about it. Good, good stuff.
I love radio. I love television as well, of course, but I think I like
radio even more. There's just something about it. I've written before
about my fondness for the old Larry King overnight show, which I believe
was what first got me hooked on the medium as an ugly teenager. He aired
calls from all manner of nutcases, kooks, conspiracy theorists,
religious fanatics, and maniacs. And it was just highly entertaining.
Now I'm addicted to Clive, and Phil Hendrie, of course. I'm a former
disciple of Christopher Rude's hilarious old morning show in Atlanta,
and still tune into Neal Boortz a few times every week. And one of the
best things about taking a long car trip is scrolling through the AM
dial and hoping for the best. It makes Toney crazy, but it's like
archeology to me.
Oh, I've unearthed some real gems doing that. We once stumbled across a
religious program Down South somewhere, to which a hysterically sobbing
woman called-in and said she'd caught her husband masturbating in the
bathroom the night before. I almost drove my car into an embankment
because of that greatness. And then there was the bizarre
swap-meet type of deal where a man was looking to trade twelve good
laying hens for a stump-remover that works, or whatever.
Long car trips are often great, but especially below the Mason-Dixon
line.
I've also got a fairly massive old time radio mp3 collection, including
more than 800 episodes of Suspense, and practically every
existing recording of Gunsmoke, Dragnet, I Love a
Mystery, Escape, and others. It's not unusual for me to turn
the TV off in the evening, and fire up something from 1948.
Just a couple of weeks ago I purchased a huge cache of old Jean
Shepherd broadcasts, off eBay. He's the guy behind A Christmas
Story, and for more than twenty years lorded over a legendary
late-night program on WOR in New York City. There were no callers or
gimmicks on his show, it was just Shepherd talking and telling stories.
Great radio.
I was recently listening to one of those programs from the late '50s,
and Shepherd was talking about being unemployed. He said that one of the
best things that can happen to a man is for him to lose his job. He
invariably ends up happier, he claimed, and stronger. "You learn
that nobody can hurt you. Not really," he said.
Those were words uttered in the middle of the night, almost fifty years
ago, by a man who's now dead, into a microphone somewhere in New York
City -- bringing me comfort in 2007.
And just how cool is that? permalink
March 6, 2007
-- I've been watching a show called Mythbusters
with the oldest Secret. ....You know, seeing as how I've got a little
extra time on my hands. I was aware of the program, knew the general
idea behind it, but had never actually seen it until recently. And it's
pretty darn good.
In case you're like me and maintain only the most tenuous of connections
to popular culture, the hosts of Mythbusters
conduct experiments to discover whether or not certain
"myths" are true. For example: cell phones can cause
explosions at gas stations. Stuff like that.
The two main guys are supposedly special effects professionals, and
really get into it. They're always blowing shit up, and crashing cars,
and all manner of coolness. It's a perfect show for a son to watch with
his unemployed father.
Anyway, I saw one last week about farts. The myth had something to do
with a fat man who went on a "bean and cabbage" diet and
flatulated himself to death. The dude reportedly lived in a tiny
apartment, and eventually succumbed to the fumes.
Heh. As urban legends go, that's gotta be one of the weaker ones, right?
I mean, who's ever heard of a bean and cabbage diet? That just makes me
laugh. I have a sneaking suspicion this particular "myth" was
created by a sixth grader somewhere.
But it sure makes for good television.
The first step was to "capture a flatus" and have it analyzed,
to see if there are any actual lethal components. One of the Mythbusters,
the guy with the horn rim glasses, stripped down to a Canadian-style
wiener-wrapper bathing suit (blecch) and sat in a bathtub full of water.
The other 'buster attached some sort of apparatus to the tub, with a big
fart-collecting funnel on the bottom. Then everybody sat around waiting
for the bubbles to commence. Oh, the suspense was palpable.
Once they finally had a fart under glass, they rushed it to a laboratory
where it was, um, broken down by scientists. (I told you this was good.)
And it turned out there were trace amounts of three gases in
there that can literally kill a person.
The next step was to
see if beans and cabbage really make people more gassy. They did this by
asking three members of the staff to keep track of how many assplosions
they experienced in a given day. The numbers ranged from three (a girl),
all the way up to fifteen (Mr. Horn Rim again). Nobody asked, but all
the numbers seemed mighty low to me. What are your feelings on this?
Then they went on the diet and reported back. This meeting featured a
person uttering the phrase, "6:17 am: good long brap, followed by
two pops." I couldn't believe what I was seeing.... Back during the
Brady Bunch days they weren't even allowed to show a toilet on
TV. Now it's good long braps?? I'm sorry, I'm getting a little
emotional here.
Bottom line? All three increased their flatulence substantially. One was
all the way up to thirty-some farts per day. Or as it's commonly known:
the real world.
So they built a replica of the tiny apartment and began pumping in the
three gases, one by one, to see how much it would take to reach a lethal
level.
And when it was all said and done, they calculated that a person would
have to lie in bed and fart continuously, almost in a non-stop open-ass
flow, for about twenty-three years, before it became deadly.
See what you guys are missing by working for a living?
-- This baseball
card was supposedly Photoshopped "as a joke" by an
employee of Topps, then accidentally released to the public. As you can
see, the Prez is in the box seats (standing extra-tall), and Mickey
Mantle is chilling in the dugout. Publicity stunt? Of course it is.
-- Here's
a fortune I found in my cookie a few days ago. It's the best news I've
received in months.
-- This
is reportedly the Surf Report's ranking around the world. We're fucking huge
in Romania.
-- And finally, here's
some rare video footage of me watching The
Aristocrats a few nights ago.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
March 5, 2007
-- On Saturday morning Toney came
upstairs and woke me by prodding my back fat, the preferred method. I
groaned loudly, wallowed around in the covers for a while, then finally
extracted my heft from the dormancy platform. Another day of uncertainty
was upon me. Or something.
I found my gigantic sleeping pants on the floor, and pulled them
on. There might've been a minimal amount of scratching and
"adjusting" at this point as well. As I was preparing to exit
the room, Toney returned. She was telling me about something she'd read
in the newspaper that morning and, still loopy on the sleep, I flopped
down on the corner of the bed to listen.
And the whole thing collapsed.
There was a loud cracking noise, the sound of wood exploding, and
everything was suddenly on a slant. The corner near the footboard, on my
side, had given way, and I was now sitting in a hole with my knees above
my head. The corresponding corner, near the headboard on Toney's side,
was way up in the air. I don't think my wife stopped laughing until
shortly before lunch.
Screw that, I muttered, I'll deal with it later, and made my way to the
nearest pee-catcher. I'd enjoyed a few pints of the golden elixir the
night before, and that had resulted in a familiar urgency. I stood there
and took care of the problem, then flushed. And right away I saw that
something wasn't quite right.
Instead of the expected roar of power, there was only a tiny GULP when I
pushed down the handle. It sounded like a man with a mild case of the
dry heaves. Then the water started swirling lazily -- and rising! Holy
crap!! I began howling in protest, and right before my panicked eyes a
small turdlet appeared, as if by magic, and rose to the top. It was
roughly the size of a Super Ball, and was rotating round and round,
seemingly above the rim.
"Water" came rushing over the sides, and across my feet, and I
looked around to see if, by any chance, Allen Funt was convulsing with
laughter behind a partition. What the hell, man?? This had never
happened before. Who'd unleashed something so large as to obstruct, you
know, sewer pipes? The Secrets! I ran downstairs and retrieved the
plunger, and put that ridiculous thing to work for a while. Then I
mopped the bathroom floor, and finally made my way to the kitchen
for my first cup of coffee.
Needless to say, Toney was having a
great time with it all. I'd only been awake for ten minutes, and was
already collapsing beds and overflowing toilets.... It was like a Buster
Keaton movie come to life.
I sat in the living room with a piping hot mug of good ol' Eight O'Clock
bean coffee, and talked with the family for a while. I asked the boys
what they'd eaten the night before, but neither of them would take
credit for sealing off the waste removal system. Kids today.... The
oldest suggested that I might've been the culprit. "Maybe your
pee's too thick?" he said. I didn't really know what to say to
that.
Eventually I made my way to the bunker, and turned on the computer. And
a godawful buzzing noise filled the room, causing me to duck and cover.
The shit?? It sounded like it was coming from the front of the computer
tower, and it was loud. I frantically shut the thing down, before there
was a fire. Or an explosion.
I couldn't believe it. It was literally one thing after another. And now
my computer?! Oh, I can't live without that thing, especially at this
particular point in time. I convinced myself it was a simple issue with
a fan or somesuch, and tried to push away the nasty thoughts about the
hard drive buying the farm.
Hoping the problem had magically corrected itself I hit the power
button, and the horrible screeching started all over again. Sweet
sainted mother of Big Bob Pataki.
I managed to take a shower without slipping and falling, and caving my
skull in. Then I called a computer repair shop near our house. For some
reason I believed they were only open Monday through Friday, but a man
answered. I told him what was going on, and he said he'd be there until
four o'clock and would be happy to take a look at it. But, he warned, I
might have to leave the computer with him for a few days. My ass was
already starting to hurt.
The shop is located next to a strange little cigar store with a barber
chair in the middle of it. I'm not kidding, I once got a haircut there.
The barber had been outside when I arrived, repeatedly revving the
engine on a motorcycle for some reason. The woman behind the counter
told me to have a seat, then hollered through the screen door and told
the old guy he had a customer.
While I waited a man who looked like Travis Tritt came in and bought two
boxes of cigars, as I sat high atop a 1940's barber chair. Travis gave
me a little nod and left, as if it were a normal everyday
occurrence.
The barber smelled like gasoline, and proceeded to scalp me down to the
raw skin with some sort of huge vibrating box that was throwing off
sparks and making halting noises. I thought the whole place would surely
go up in flames, and was relieved to walk away with only the
worst haircut of my life.
Anyway, the computer repair shop is next door to that place, and I went
inside fearing the worst. The man popped off the cover, and said,
"Christ! It's a wonder this thing will work at all." Everybody
loves to yell Christ! up in these parts.
He was referring to all the dust. It looked like the floor of the tower
had been carpeted, and all the parts above it appeared furry. It
embarrassed me, but who vacuums the inside of their computer tower? He
grabbed a can of pressurized air, and took it and my machine outside.
Then he began kicking up a great mushroom cloud of dust. People driving
by in cars were doing double-takes and almost rear-ending each other.
Oh, it was a sight to behold.
Finally, he plugged the computer in, and it immediately began it's
terrible howling. It's the floppy drive, he said, without hesitation.
Then he unplugged something, and the noise stopped. I told him I don't
use floppy discs anymore, so he just changed the setting to "not
installed," and that was that. He charged me five dollars.
I went home and fixed the bed, plunged the toilet again just to be sure,
and everything was back to normal by early afternoon.
And it had all looked so bleak on Saturday morning. permalink
March 1, 2007
-- Before everything went upside-down,
Toney found a good deal on airfare and bought us tickets to Reno in
July. We're being required, via industrial-strength guilt, to fly out
there and visit Sunshine & Mumbles this summer. Under the
circumstances I'm not sure we'll actually be able to make the trip, but
we're still operating with the assumption it'll happen. Hopefully we'll
be back amongst the living by July.
A couple of things, though....
If/when we go, we're staying at a hotel, and this is going to be a HUGE
problem for Sunny. As is quite obvious, she doesn't believe in such
things. She thinks that any city on the globe where a relative lives, is
a city where she has a free place to stay. The idea of renting a hotel
room when there's a perfectly-good floor to curl up on, just doesn't
compute with her. And she'll almost certainly take it as an insult when
we tell her.
But this is non-negotiable, as far as I'm concerned. S&M live in a
tiny apartment with one bathroom, and we'd literally be living on top of
each other. And a person needs a little decompression time at the end of
the day, and their own space to retreat to. Ya know? One of the things
that's hard to take when they come to our house for another of their
marathon visits, is that there's almost literally no down-time. Every
waking moment is taken up with "entertaining."
Also, I'm allergic to cats, and Sunshine has one that's roughly the size
of a miniature collie. The thing has freaky blue eyes, clearly hates me,
and is the spawn of Satan himself. No way I'm sleeping with that
creature prowling around, for a number of reasons. At the top of the
list is the knowledge I'd return to Pennsylvania, not in the passenger
cabin of the airplane, but in the cargo hold -- inside a box.
So, the hotel will be a bone of contention. Plus, Sunshine wants us to
go camping while we're there. With tents. In the Sierra mountains. And
there's nothing about that that sounds appealing. Nothing.
For one thing, you don't fly then camp. Am I wrong about that? The whole
concept seems bizarre to me. And I'm no fan of the idea of sleeping in
the freakin' dirt either, with a pine cone eating into my pancreas. Call
me a radical, but that's not exactly my idea of a good time. What are
we, a bunch of hippies here?? Will we be vacationing at the Spawn Ranch
this summer? Perhaps I should buy one of those big cotton shirts with
shoelaces in it?
I remember an overnight rafting trip I
took years ago, where the "bathroom" was nothing but a wooden
box amongst the trees, with a toilet seat nailed to the top. I got up in
the morning and our guide was sitting atop that ridiculous thing,
reading a magazine. He just gave me a jaunty little wave, and turned the
page.
And I can't have that.
Plus, aren't there, like, saber tooth tigers in those woods out there?
The east coast forests are full of all sorts of scary things, but I
believe it's even worse in the west. Shit gets bigger in those parts.
I'd be lying there terrified and wide awake the entire time, believing
that every sound was a mountain cat circling and waiting to pounce. A
thin layer of fabric might seem like a valid shelter psychologically,
but who are we fooling here?
So, we've got some issues to hammer out before boarding that plane. Why
does everything have to be so difficult? Why can't we just go out there,
have dinner at Claim Jumper a few times, scarf down a dozen or so Jim
Boy's tacos every day, visit the car museum, and return home? Would that
be so horrible? I think not.
-- And that'll just about do it for today, children. My current
unemployment emotion: mild panic. Stay tuned for continued coverage.
I'll leave you now with a realization of my worst fear, straight from my
hometown of Dunbar, WV.
This poor woman went out as a Fark link. Check
it out.
See ya next time. (Notice how I don't say tomorrow
anymore?)
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