A Fool's Errands (Monday, 7/27/09)

1) Remind the nice policeman to check the trunk.

2) Breakfast, lunch & dinner at Taco Bell. Midnight snack in E.R.

3) Two words: Lava Diving.

4) Pick up kids after soccer practice.

5) Search for lost keys ... inside the toothy mouths of sharks.

A Fool's Errands (Monday, 7/20/09)

1) Eat pail of lead paint chips.

2) Place another rotten mango offering at personal shrine to George W. Bush.

3) Stick tongue into moving box fan.

4) Pick up dry-cleaning.

5) See Transformers 2 for a third time.

Love Democracy? Then You Should Vote For Me.

Seriously. You should vote for me.

Because it will make you feel good. Like virtuous good. Like when you come home from the gym. Or when you give your change to the Girl Scout panhandling outside the Pathmark.

Click this: http://www.sideshowtoy.com/?page_id=6962&utm_source=wp_news

Plus, if enough people vote, I'll get something cool for free. Which I like.

Mine are videos #1 and #2. But please vote for #1 so we don't split our vote.

So vote. That is, if you really love Democracy. Or America.


Should you not care to vote, or if you just hate America, here they are for your perusal anyhow. Communist.


Here's Video #1:

And here's Video #2:

Now get to voting!

Oh, and in case you're a producer or director-type. Dad here is played by Richard Waddingham and the Son is played by Greg Barkhamer.

Hire them!

Till next we meet ....

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream ... Cuz It's Bullshit!

Double scoop of righteous indignation? Don't mind if I do.

So, after a recent ... oh, let's call it a "Brush With The Law" ... I was on the NJ Motor Vehicle website doing a bit of research.

(See, I got a couple of tickets recently. Oooh, I hope they're to a show! Or maybe a theme park!)

Anyhow, during said research I happened upon a list of moving violations and something struck me. Hard.

"Improper passing of a frozen dessert truck."

Well, that didn't make any sense at all. So I read it again. And sure enough:

Frozen.

Dessert.

Truck.

Written right there. Right into New Jersey law.

Huh.

And so, by the power vested in me by nobody in particular ...

I call "Bullshit."

We concur. 'Tis bullshit, verily.

I mean, it's one thing for traffic to be held up by a school bus that's collecting or depositing its passengers. School is a necessary and important part of society. And I, for one, don't mind being inconvenienced by it.

But an ice cream truck? Really, New Jersey? Really? This is something you thought was so important that it needed to be explicitly spelled out in your State Vehicle and Traffic Code?

So the entire world has to stop and wait whenever a fat kid waddles across the street to get their gooey, melty, sticky fix from a carny/ex-con in a rusted-out, converted ambulance?

Yes, the world waits for you, you tub of shit.

So I repeat for emphasis: Bullshit.

I blame the powerful Frozen Dessert Truck lobby for exerting their delicious, delicious influence to get a law passed that's favorable to them.

Their lobbyists watch you while you sleep. Fatty.

Just another example of how the common man is crushed under the sticky thumb of Big Sweetness.

Bull. Shit.

Not a suggestion. That would be illegal.

Till next we meet ...

Mr. Furious

I've got an angry face.

It's not a relaxed, open, friendly face. The face people see across a room and instantly want to hang out with. The kind of face that just makes you want to smile, no matter what kind of day you're having.

Nope. That face isn't mine.

I have the kind of face that can be off-putting.

Well, maybe a smidge more than "off-putting."

Okay, I'll be honest. It's the face of a guy who's quite looking forward to punching someone -- anyone, really -- to custard. With bare, blood-soaked fists.

"Custard will be punched, muthafuckas!"

The trouble is, that's not who I am at all. It's just the way my face looks. That's just the way it hangs together naturally on my skull. It just looks furious. Even when it's totally slack and relaxed.

I've got dark, beady, little eyes and a low, pronounced brow that, sadly, when furrowed gives the distinct impression that I want you dead. And not just regular old dead. The kind of dead that awakens family members you haven't seen in years -- who live on different continents -- in the middle of the night with a terrible pain in their gut and an inexplicable urge to call and check on you.

In short, I've got the face of a guy who's just about to start changing into a werewolf.

Me. About three minutes from now.

And not the good kind of werewolf either, who can wear a varsity jacket and dunk. Nope. The bad kind. The kind with all the biting and the howling and the eviscerating.

The good kind.

The other kind.

But the great pity is that many people I've met over the years have gotten the distinct, albeit misguided, impression that I'm a tightly-coiled ball of rage just waiting to explode into a violent conflagration of viscera and death.

"This time Blutto's gonna pay, goddammit. Ike-ike-ike-ike."

But the truth is, I'm not a stone-hearted brute. Honest! I'm really quite the softie. Pinkie swear! It's just my face. It's just how the DNA crapshoot got crap-shot.

I'm actually the kind of guy who stops by CuteOverload.com at least once a day to coo at puppies or bunnies or whatever soft adorables are on offer. I'm the kind of guy who's guaranteed to weep uncontrollably during any Pixar film. Even Cars, for godsakes.

"I'm only terrifyingly furious on the outside. Promise."

To be fair ... back in the day I was kind of a douche. (See blog entry #1. Also see any subsequent future entry in the "Apology" section.) But to my mind there's a pretty big difference between being a thoughtless, socially maladjusted douche ... and being perpetually furious, ticking time bomb of rage and violence.

That's just not my deal. Never has been. Hell, I've never been in a physical altercation in my adult life. The Missus and I don't even argue. I'm kinda supernaturally even-keeled. Even bordering occasionally on optimistic.

Do I get frustrated? Sure. Irritable? Who doesn't? Mad? Sometimes. Maniacally wrathful? Not so much.

Honestly, I don't expect the world to suddenly ignore what their eyes are telling them and accept me as all soft and cuddly just because I wrote a blog post.

But at this point I'd settle for people just thinking I was kinda stern.

Panties = Bunched.

On the other hand, looking like you're about to turn into a werewolf does sometimes have the occasional advantage. People tend to not want to sit next to me on the train, so my unpleasant commute is marginally less unpleasant. And pan-handlers tend not to pester me for cash.

Also, I've never been mugged, which may or may not be coincidence.

Me. About five minutes from now. Oh no! My junk!

Ultimately, I may not like it, but I understand it. I see how people get the wrong idea. After all, I own a mirror and my eyes work. I'm aware that I am, in fact, in possession of an angry face. And I also recognize that my natural disposition contributes a bit to the problem. I'm something of an affable curmudgeon. But the angry face really tends to overshadow the "affable" part. So it just seems like every little irritant in the world fills me with blinding, pants-crapping rage.

But it doesn't! I swear! These pants remain steadfastly uncrapped! Scout's honor!

Some days,though, I'll be honest ... I wish I had a different face. Maybe one that looked like I was about to turn into something other than a werewolf. Something maybe just a little more adorable.

Wuv me?

Till next we meet ...

Hey, guys! I'm here! What'd I miss?

I'm what you might charitably call a "late adopter."

Look up my name in the dictionary and you won't exactly find the word "trendy" listed next to it. Of course, you probably won't find my name in the dictionary either, since that's not really how dictionaries work. They tend to be more about words, meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms--

I digress.

(Though if you do happen upon a dictionary with my name in it, I'll totally buy it off you. My mom would love that.)

In any case, the point is, I'm not the guy you look to if you want to see what's fresh, cool and cutting-edge. Never have been. And, unless the world suddenly starts spinning backward, never will be.

Hell, I didn't get a drivers' license till I was in my 20's. Didn't get my first cell phone till just a few years ago. And I'm just now thinking of purchasing my first pair of Hammer Pants.

Me. A visual approximation.

So it should be a surprise to exactly nobody that I'm about a decade behind this particular "blogging" wave.

It's not that I've had nothing to say all this time. On the contrary, ask anyone. I'm full of nothing if not opinions. Long, often tedious, opinions. (Also organ meat. A great deal of organ meat. And fat. But again, I digress.)

It just takes me a little while to warm up to new technologies. (I'm still casting a wary eye toward that Nintendo 64 in the corner.)

But, hey! I'm here now! And that means it's a PAR-TAY!! Am I right?!

Right?

Hello?

Blogosphere?

Anyone?


Hmm.

Well, complete and utter lack of interest certainly won't stop me. Never has. Quite the opposite, pontificating into the void is something of a specialty of mine. An audience isn't expressly necessary once I crank up my bloviating engine.

So what should you expect in the entries to come? Well, I envision this blog as being equal parts entertaining, informative and maybe even a little redemptive.

"What the hell are you talking about," you ask?

Well, I see myself doing some of the usual bloggy things: opining pompously on deep truths of human nature ... pronouncing my learned and considered judgments on the latest Hollywood offerings ... and presenting, from time to time, short films that I've cobbled together myself with my own two little hands.

And occasionally, I'm thinking perhaps monthly, I'm also planning to offer apologies.

See, the thing is, for the first ... say ... 30 to 35 years of my life, I was pretty much a raging asshole.

As a result, I've kinda left a swath of sorrow, anger, outrage and hurt feelings in my wake for more than three decades. Though perhaps I'm thinking a little too highly of myself. More likely, it's a trail of people who vaguely remember me as that one guy ... the short one ... with the hair ... you know ... the one who was kind of a raging asshole.

Either way, I'm going to start apologizing.

It's not a 12-step kind of thing. To my knowledge, I'm not addicted to anything. (Unless fine meats and cheeses count.) Nor have I had any kind of spiritual awakening or suffered any recent traumatic blows to the head.

I've just kind of grown a conscience. That happens with age, I guess. But for me it just happened about 30 years too late.

To be clear, I have absolutely no illusions that apology recipients will be eagerly following this blog awaiting their turns. I won't pretend that the various folks I've abused over the years still care, or even remember. It just seems like the decent thing to do.

Hey, don't knock me for having a conscience ... I haven't had it very long.

Anyhow, I look forward to clogging the Interwebs with lots of prattle, a fair amount of blather, and the occasional heartfelt mea culpa.

Till next we meet