Darwinfish 2

Who Knew?

2012-01-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

My last post was about how I got my guitar: I won it at a big company meeting and it was presented to me on stage. I had the opportunity to play it for everyone, up on a stage, plugged into a giant Marshall stack. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to play a guitar so the moment was pretty much lost. I’ve regretted it ever since.

This post is to make clear that while that stage was the scene of one of my biggest regrets, it was also the scene of my greatest triumph. I was called upon to make a presentation to the same group of Regional and District managers and I killed. Killed! Here’s the deal…

It was the year following the guitar episode. Our “Merchandising” department had a new VP, a guy brought in from the toy industry. I still worked closely with my mentor, Vinnie, the singles buyer, but we both reported to the new VP.

The Merchandising department was given an hour of time, to make a presentation to the whole group. The VP would go up and make some introductory remarks and then turn it over to seven of his people, who would each give a 10-minute spiel on their area of expertise. I was one of the seven and we would all be sitting up on the stage as the others presented.

While I tend to shun the spotlight, I was perfectly OK with this. I knew my shit and I knew what I wanted to say. But I also knew that my shit was pretty dry. If I’m going to have my ass up on a stage, I refuse to be boring. So I came up with a couple of introductory paragraphs that was just plain comedy writing. I felt it would be a good way to butter people up enough to accept the thrust of my talk: “Stop spending so damned much money with outside vendors.”

I wordsmithed the opening bit probably more than the meat of my speech. The timing had to be just right. I rehearsed it a number of times at home to make sure I had all my inflections just the way I wanted. It was one of those rare times where I felt my degree in radio production wasn’t a complete waste of time. I certainly knew how to mark up a script to enhance the reading.

But even though I was ready, I was still tweaking my opening, even on the morning of our presentation. The Loss Prevention guy that went on before us mentioned something about the trick speakers use to put themselves at ease: picturing the audience in their underwear. I knew I could use that. And it’s always a good idea to work in something that’s fresh… it gives the illusion that you’re right on the ball and up on things. So as he was talking about underwear, I was scratching more notes onto my speech notes.

So, there we were at the appointed time. The seven of us were all up on the stage, sitting in folding chairs and the VP came up for his opening remarks. He then rambled on for two goddamn hours! He yapped right through all of our time and deep into the time belonging to the VP of Marketing. (And from what I was told later, she was seriously pissed!)

Then after this mind-numbing yak-a-thon, he had to gall to turn to all of us up there with him and say, “OK, wrap your stuff up quickly; we’re running long.”

Motherfucker! I was steaming mad. Luckily, I wasn’t the first one to go on so I had time to calm down and consider the job at hand. And I also had to consider what I should do. I could easily cut my time down by about a third, if I skipped the comic intro.

It was decision time. And I’m sure you know what I did, too.

That’s right, I did the whole thing. I figured, “Fuck him, I worked hard on this bit and it’s exactly what this audience needs right now. They need something to bring them out of the coma.”

So when it was my turn, I let it rip. I started by mentioning the Loss Prevention guy’s underwear trick. I said I do the same thing, except that in my eyes, “you’re all wearing your underwear on your head.”

Their laughter encouraged me, so I continued with some more stuff I added that morning. The LP guy’s speech included material on EEO laws, so I worked that in too. I said “I never planned to end up in this job, but I was an EEO hire, to fill the quota for the Follicle Impaired, because the Regional Managers don’t count.” (4 of our 5 Regional Managers were acorn-heads like me.) That damn near brought the place down.

I went on to do the rest of the stuff I’d planned. I wove in Monty Python references, referred to myself as playing "Aye-gor" to Vinnie’s "Dr. Fronkonstein," and generally performed like I was doing a standup act. I only wish I knew what the hell else I said. I had meant to keep my script, but I lost it in one of my planned bits. After one line where I knew I’d get laughs, I took the top page of the script and tossed it back over my shoulder. That was fine… but I forgot to go retrieve it afterwards. That was the page that had all the “material.”

The funny thing was; I was never nervous when I was doing the shtick. I never got nervous until I was well into the meat of the presentation… the stuff where I knew what I was talking about. I think it was the adrenaline wearing off and I was coming down. They couldn’t see it from the seats, (I asked), but my hands started shaking like crazy. And it didn’t help when I spotted our company CEO slip in the door about half way through. But I got through it… I lightened the mood, I dropped some knowledge, and I got off the stage.

After my bit, the VP got up and said that due to the time, the rest of his team would make their presentations the following day, and right now it was time for lunch. As we left the auditorium, I wondered how my bit was received by the execs. I mean; I did defy my boss and spent five precious minutes catering to my sense of whimsy.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. I could barely turn around in the lunchroom without someone clapping me on the shoulder and telling me how good my bit was, and how much it was needed! People were recreating the scene for me, from their vantage point… “First the VP gabs us to death for two hours and suddenly there’s this guy up there who’s just ‘bringin' it!’

Even the Regionals, of whom I’d made sport for being as bald as I was, made it a point to come up and congratulate me. (I think they just liked being mentioned. Judging from the skit they put on at the next meeting, I have them all pegged as frustrated song-and-dance men.)

In the following weeks, I heard from people that weren’t even there, who would tell me, “I heard you killed at the meeting last week…”

My favorite response came to me second hand. A co-worker of mine was sitting right behind the Regionals and while I was up there doing my routine, one of them turns to the other, shrugs his shoulders and says, “Who knew?”

Another of my co-workers still had to do her presentation and asked me if I could give her some jokes to do. Seems I’d found my niche. The VP never said a thing to me. I think he realized I'd saved him by changing the mood in the room.

It was without doubt, the high point of my career with that company. The following year, I was laid off with about 20 other people, as a part of a major cost-cutting operation. The old windbag VP was gone and one of the Regionals took over. The same guy that said, “Who knew” was the guy that decided to bring in some kid from a store, pay him half what I made, have me train him and then shitcan me.

You know, he was the one Regional that wasn’t bald. Perhaps he felt left out.

Or maybe bald guys are just naturally nicer human beings…

Guitar Zero

2012-01-26T20:58:00.001-05:00

I hate it when I know I let major opportunities slip away. It haunts me for years afterward, especially when it would have been something really cool. Like this story…

First let me set it up. As you may have picked up from reading prior posts, I’m a music geek. And the reason I think I’m such a music geek is that I so much wish I could produce actual music. But as I’ve discovered, I have absolutely no aptitude for understanding music theory. Oh, I can use the music lingo of performance… bars, riffs, fills, phrasing, verse/bridge/chorus… But the physical act of putting notes together or understanding how music works in real terms; it’s like a secret code that I just can’t crack. So instead, I’m devoted to music “appreciation.” I spent 13 years working crappy jobs with terrible pay, just so I could be near the music business.

It’s funny… when I was a kid, I was always so happy that my folks never forced me to take music lessons, like so many of my friends’ parents did. I was always available to come out to play, because I wasn’t encumbered by piano lessons or sax lessons or guitar lessons.

But now, what I wouldn't give to be able to pick up a guitar, or sit down at a piano and entertain people.

Rock and roll is a guitar culture, so I’m especially fascinated by the good guitarists. I love to watch their hands when they play. They make it look so freakin’ easy, but once you hold a guitar in your hands, you realize that it is anything but. It’s only easy if you’ve cracked the code. I know this because I actually have a guitar; a good one, too. I’ve had it for about 20 years. How I got it is the gist of the story.

Back in the early 90s, when I worked at the home office of my music retail company, we would have these big semi-annual company meetings. All the Regional and District Managers would come from all over the company for three days of meetings and seminars with us home office folk.

I loved these affairs, not only because you got to meet the people you’ve only dealt with over the phone, but there were other cool extras. They’d bring in music stars for the meetings and the nightly entertainment. Celine Dion, Patty Smythe, Steve Forbert, Norman Nardini, (and several other R&B stars of the time whose names escape me) all played our event.

Another was Vendor Day, where reps from all the record labels and accessory manufacturers would set up display tables with information and goodies. I’d come home with bags stuffed with CDs, tapes, display racks, tape cases and all kinds of tchotchkes. The vendors would also “sponsor” various meals, where they’d pay for the food and then give a presentation during the meal.

One afternoon there was a lunch sponsored by Relativity Records, who at the time was home to hotshot guitarist Joe Satriani. As part of their presentation, they had a guitar giveaway. Everyone was instructed to check for a red tag under their chairs. Then if anyone with a red tag could answer a question, they would win a brand new Ibanez electric guitar autographed by Joe Satriani. (That was the kind of guitar that Satriani played.)

Well, I found a tag, as did two other girls, and each of us answered the softball questions to win guitars. They didn’t have the guitars there; they would need to be built. They said they would send them to us.

OK, so no immediate gratification, but still, it was very cool.

After the meetings, the plan began to change. The Relativity label guy said that we would get our guitars presented to us on stage at the next big meeting. He further insinuated that we would be expected to play something on it when it was given to us.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but as our next meeting drew closer and the label guy kept asking me what I’d be playing, I began to fret about it. He kept going, “What, you can’t play a little ‘Louie Louie’ for us?”

Apparently, that was supposed to be easy. But whatever… how the hell was I going to learn to play? I didn’t have a freakin’ guitar yet! I hadn’t even held one since I was a kid. Now if they were giving away air guitars, I could have given them a real show.

I considered taking lessons or something, but still, I had no guitar, no one I knew to teach me and no money to plunk down on formal lessons. So I basically did nothing.

Then there we were at the next meeting, in a big auditorium with the stage dressed to accommodate the rock act they had booked for the afternoon. It had mics, amps, and giant Marshall stacks on each side of the stage.

The girls were called up on stage first and were presented with shining white guitars. Neither of them could play either so all they did was pluck a few discordant notes and then scurry off the stage. I knew I was going to be lame, but was determined not to be that lame.

They called me up and presented me with a bright red Ibanez. Hot red! I loved it!

The autograph is on a panel on the back side. I bought the amp for it at a later date.

They strapped it on me and plugged it into the amp. I was good to go.

I wish I could say I had something special in store, but alas, I didn’t. BUT, I did have a long history of watching guitarists’ hands, to further enhance my air guitar abilities. (Don’t judge; it was the 80s!) So I did the one thing I thought I could pull off… I just focused on one string, the bottom one that makes the highest notes. I pressed the string up high on the fret board and began hitting the string. As I “played” I slid my fret hand lower and lower on the neck, making the guitar pitch higher and higher, until I got to the bottom and just let it scream. I probably should have used the Whammy Bar, but for my limited abilities, it was about as cool as I could do.

The whole thing probably didn’t last any longer than 10 seconds. I got in and out quickly, feeling weird about occupying everyone’s attention when I didn’t know what I was doing. You probably don’t believe it, but I’ve never felt comfortable in the spotlight, especially when I’m not confident in what I’m doing.

I still have that guitar; it sits on a guitar stand in my living room. Right out of the chute, I picked up some How-to-Play books and tried to teach myself to play using tablature (meaning diagrams of where to put your fingers, as opposed to reading the music notes). In 20 years, I’ve managed to learn three chords, E, A and D. That’s it. But I figured out that you can play “Louie Louie” with E, A and D. The label guy was right, after all.

I’ve never been able to form a C or G without stopping completely and carefully arranging my fingers. That kind of thing brings a song to a halt pretty quickly.

With the place my life is at now, I could definitely hack taking lessons, but the onset of my Delayed Pressure Urticaria (hives) in 2001 made guitar playing pretty much impossible. If I press the strings for more than 10 minutes, my fingertips will swell up like sausage links. Not good, when you type for a living.

Twenty years later, I still think about that day. What an opportunity I had, to do something cool and unexpected. I totally should have scraped together some bucks for some guitar lessons. I wouldn’t even have had to learn that much. I’ve thought about this a lot; if I had a do-over, I’d learn how to play the intros to a couple of classic rock songs. If I could have strung a couple of those together, it would have killed because it would have been so unexpected, coming from me. Here’s how I see it now:

A tall gangly guy ambles up to the stage and a bright red guitar is hung around his neck. He looks like a deer in headlights as he glances up at the crowd. He plucks a few single notes, as if checking the sound. As the last single note sustains and fades, he arranges his fingers high on the neck and begins a grungy, fat-fingered version of “Louie Louie.” The crowd approves, as no one expected him to be able to play anything recognizable.

After a chorus/verse/chorus of “Louie Louie,” he sustains the last note, then looks up and smiles. The crowd begins to applaud, but before they can get going, he raises his hands over his head and starts a rhythmic clap. As the crowd picks up the beat, he hits the strings again, producing the instantly recognizable beginning of “Smoke on the Water.”

After a couple of passes through the main riff, he again holds the last note and looks to the audience. With a small smile at the corner of his mouth, he plays the opening to “Highway to Hell.” The crowd goes crazy… they had no idea that the guy could play. Now they were going along for the ride.

In quick succession, he ran through the openings of Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” and J. Geils Band’s “Come Back,” before finishing with AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds” and “Whole Lotta Rosie.”

Throughout most of the songs, he stood stock still, concentrating on his fingers, but as the AC/DC rolled, you could see his body come to life as he moved his legs with the signature Angus Young leg stomp and head bob. As ‘Rosie’ kicked in, he suddenly turned and did the Angus ‘scissor-kick’ over to the side of the stage and back.

As he retook the center of the stage, he held one last note; left hand on the strings, right hand reaching for the sky, as a thankful salute to the appreciative crowd, before bending into a deep bow. He straightened and cut the note off with a flourish on the fret board and waved as he strode off the stage.

“Follow that,” he said to himself as he disappeared into the wings.

A guy can dream, can’t he?

Bluz, You Have a Mitch Cumstein on Line 1...

2012-01-24T19:24:00.000-05:00

As you may have seen in posts from earlier last year, I love practical jokes and there are few lengths to which I will not go in order to pull off a good one. I can be inhumanly patient for the payoff too. In fact, I set one up in 2005 and I’m still waiting for it to pay off.

Parallel to that, I’m sure you can tell that I love puns and word play. Fake names are some of my favorite things. My family and I used to always call each other up at work and give unusual names to whoever answered. I remember I’d be all busy managing my record store and one of my clerks would come up to me kind of puzzled, and say, “You have ‘Mitch Cumstein’ on line one?”

I’d laugh because I knew that was my brother, using one of the joke names from ‘Caddyshack.’ My poor clerk didn’t know if she was being put on or what…

We weren’t always that clever on the phone. When I’d call my dad at work, he’d answer the phone with his name… “Jim Dude…”

I’d always say, “Big fuckin’ deal.”

It’s his own fault; he’s the one that told me that was what he always said when he called his friend, The Lob, at work.

OK now let me see if I can tie all this together.

I mentioned in Comments to an earlier post that we have a thing at work called a Desk Audit. This was where once per quarter, someone would come in early in the morning and check everyone’s desk to make sure we were adhering to the company’s Clean Desk Policy. That basically covered keeping your drawers locked with no keys in sight and making sure there was no personal or proprietary information left on your desk for someone to steal or make mischief with.

I gave a copy of this cartoon to the girl doing our Desk Audits. It killed.

Now, let me be straight here: I’m all for Desk Audits. In that department, we handled a lot of customer paperwork with names, socials, etc. We needed to be sure they were secure. So I had no problem with the Desk Audits at all…

That is, until I started failing them. The first one or two, OK, they had a point… I had something minor that was wrong. Then I failed an audit because my file drawer wasn’t locked… in my file cabinet that HAD NOTHING IN IT. I didn’t even have a key to it. It’s enough to drive you to drink.

Then I failed one because I had a department phone list posted on my wall, because we often needed to get a hold of our folks on the road. These lists had been up in people’s cubes for years. So NOW it’s an issue? My beef was that I’d have been happy to comply, if only someone had mentioned that they were changing the freakin’ rules.

So I redacted all the personal information out of my contact list. And I failed again, because now they didn’t want people’s desktop extensions listed in sight either. I lost my shit with this one; I was so pissed. I accused the Compliance people of trying to make people fail. (I wasn’t the only one pinched on that.) Any of us would have complied with all of these stupid rules, if they’d only told us what they were!! Suddenly I’m living in Dilbert world.

I decided to start messing with my tormentors. I started by placing “decoy” keys around my cube. We were supposed to keep all desk keys on us, but I (and many others) hate carrying keys around. So we usually hide them somewhere handy. That’s a no-no. But since I had the most brilliant Key Hiding Place ever (which I will never disclose), I decided to taunt my tormentor by attaching a paper clip to one of those wire key circles. I stuffed the paper clip down the inside rim of my potted plant and left the key ring visible. I had some hanging down in other places as well.

I also took down my department phone list and put up a new one, populated entirely with fake names. But I couldn’t just leave it at regular fake names; I had to use funny ones.

Way back in the 70s, when the National Lampoon magazine was still relevant, they used to do these incredible parodies. They did a complete Sunday newspaper, every word of which was a joke. (The Classifieds were priceless.) They also did a High School Yearbook parody, again, painstakingly detailed. I remembered that they had the freshman class pictures all on one page, cut down to thumbtack sized, with a huge list of names underneath. Every name was a joke.

Fortunately for me, I was able to find the list online and steal a bunch of them for my list. OK, I they’re not all literal copies… I made some alterations to a number of them, to make them less obvious and more, well, “name-like.” A couple more, I made up out of whole cloth, and then threw in a few more that I’d heard somewhere along the line.

So now, there I was, just daring someone to bust me now.

Never worked out. Shortly after that, the girl that was doing the checks left the company. Before she left, though, I had her come in and see if she could find my key hiding spot. She couldn’t, although she thought she had me with the decoy. Revenge is mine!

I’m in a different department now but I still have the list up on my cube wall and we still do Desk Audits. My new Desk Auditors have never mentioned the phone list. I have a feeling that the phone list prohibition was unique to my old department. It’s been 7 years and I’m still waiting for someone to notice.

But now, whenever I need a quick alias, I can consult my list and pick one of the following:

Aaron Buoy

Bert Toast

Penny Lofer

Castor Hoyle

Milton Yermouth

Hammond Ecks

Jacquelyn Hyde

Val Vita

Stu Pendus

Mandy Lifeboats

Daryl Licht

Barbara Blacksheep

Phil Landerer

Vic Trola

Justin Thyme

Nick O’Thyme

Rhoda Horst

Al Fresco

Eva Destruction

Sara Ann Dippity

Patti Melt

Lance Boyle

Al Dente

Michael Hawke (a distant relative of Michael Hunt)

Maraschino Evil

2012-01-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

When my folks were back in town for Christmas, Mom told me this story about her father, The Storyteller.

As you may have read in the past, my grandpa was one of my earliest role models; a lighthearted merry prankster and premier teller of funny and often times true stories. After watching him kill yet another room full of jaded adults, I’d always think, “That’s the guy I want to be.”

This story took place during World War II. One of Grandpa’s brothers was stationed in the Pacific, building shit with the Seabees. One of the provisions, though, was “no booze.”

I always thought the alcohol prohibitions were for the Middle East, so I guess you learn something new every day.

Anyway, in letters home, his brother lamented the inability to get a good drink. Grandpa wanted to help, but obviously couldn’t ship him a big crate of liquor. So he devised a work-around. He sent them maraschino cherries instead.

The Navy passed the cherries straight through to Grandpa’s brother. One full case of maraschino cherries… could be the harm in that?

What the Navy didn't know was that Grandpa had poured out all the cherry juice from each bottle, replaced it with bourbon and packed it up again. Mom said she’d never forget the sight of her dad, surrounded by cherry bottles, draining each of the little bottles and painstakingly pouring in the bourbon.

Now that’s how you Support the Troops! Beats the hell out of just slapping a ribbon magnet on your car, doesn’t it?

The Army commanders eventually realized that their men were getting loaded, but never figured out how they did it… defeated by a good brother with a little Italian-American ingenuity.

Modern Family Warfare

2012-01-19T18:45:00.000-05:00

I spent about a half hour on the floor last night, laughing at “Modern Family.” I get more consistent laugh-out-loud moments from this show than any other in recent years, save for maybe “30 Rock.” And for me, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the yumminess quotient is off the charts.

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But as you may have heard, last night’s episode touched off some controversy this week, because word was out that a storyline featured 2-year old Lily, adopted daughter of gay dads Cam and Mitchell, dropping an F-bomb at home and later at a wedding.

Now, knowing this show as I do, I was sure it would be presented tastefully and fit in with a relevant plot. This is not a crass or vulgar show at all; for all the craziness of the three families, it nevertheless has a sweet, gooey center that always leaves you feeling good at the end.

So naturally, here come the conservatives to try to spoil the fun. First, some 18-year old college student, that founded a “No Cussing Club” that claims 35,000 members, began making noise about getting the episode pulled. He apparently formed this club in 2007 when he was 13.

Yeah, like we want 13-year olds (OR 18-year olds) dictating public standards. (Although that might explain the continued popularity of “Two and a Half Men.”)

Later, the Parents Television Council got in on the act to condemn the episode, which was titled “Little Bo Bleep,” saying that they don’t want children exposed to that kind of language and emulating that behavior.

I had to laugh… like these PTC people are watching the show anyway… Modern Family features a gay family that acts like any other ordinary family. That disqualifies it for them right there. God forbid the children see this realistic portrayal and become infected with the gay.

Anyway, all this happened before the show even aired. I was half tempted to write this rebuttal yesterday, but unlike any of these bloody do-gooder groups, I thought I’d wait to see the episode first and then write an informed opinion.

As in keeping with the show’s history, it presented this very real situation quite tastefully and reflected a problem parents have had across time and space. What happens the first time your kid says something off-color? And what happens when the kid says something at a formal event, like a wedding? Parents, you’ve all been there, right? Or at least you know you will be one day.

When filming the show, they had the little girl actually say “fudge,” so not to taint the little doll, and then bleeped the word and pixilated her mouth.

All I can say is “What’s the fuckin’ problem?” No harm, no foul.

Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cam, said it best in a couple of tweets:

“Lily didn’t ACTUALLY say FU*K, she said fudge. How bout see the episode, THEN form an opinion. For fudge sake people. Chill the f-k out… how bout redirecting the efforts of the No Cuss Club to reading to the elderly, picking up litter, feeding the hungry.”

I’ll come in here and add my usual solution to these kinds of TV-content issues… If you disagree with something that’s on TV, turn the goddamned channel. You get to control your own TV, not mine or anyone else’s. Get over yourself and stop projecting your tight-sphinctered morals on the rest of us. We’ll decide what we can watch, not you.

Around my house, swearing was not really a big deal. It wasn’t really encouraged, but there were no real repercussions from the occasional lusty swear word for emphasis. Time and place were more of the focus. We learned not to swear around our relatives, for sure. But mostly we learned that there was a big difference between, “Dad, I smashed my fuckin’ thumb,” versus, “Fuck you, Dad.”

If I’d ever uttered the latter, I’d have been in a coma until I was 35.

But when your mom teaches you your first dirty jokes, the parents forfeit taking the high ground. I don’t think I ever caused any of that kind of trouble when I was little, but my brother did.

When he was in, I think, 2^nd grade, each morning one kid got to go up in front of the class and tell a joke. One of his friends gave him a funny joke to tell, and my brother was naïve enough to do it.

“What’s pink and lays at the bottom of the ocean?

Moby’s dick.”

All I can say is that the class found it far funnier than the teacher did.

I don’t recall my brother getting into any serious trouble at home though. I’m pretty sure Mom just told him to stop listening to his friend.

Good thing we didn’t have a No Cussing Club in 1970, or he might have gotten suspended. Gotta protect the innocent children, you know?

Unrelated Note

I’d like to thank the people that delurked themselves here for DeLurker Day. I heard from PPG Industries (T-Man), Anchorage (Betty) and Salineville (Brooke). Thank you for stepping out of the shadows and publicly supporting my little slice of the internet. (And abating my growing paranoia over who might be is stalking me…So relieved it wasn’t the CIA, the No Cussing Club, or the C-Street House.)

Dedicated readers are like currency because it is through you that I have a richer blogging experience.

Call it 'Unfocused Tuesday'

2012-01-17T18:32:00.001-05:00

I apologize ahead of time for this post being kind of a mishmash. Sometimes, that’s how it goes, in my head.

First order of business: I still consider it DeLurker Day and I will until someone actually DeLurks! So far I haven’t had anyone comment who hasn’t commented before. And even more disappointing, I’ve had visits from all five people that I called out in the post, and they still haven’t commented.

Come on… someone has to go first!

In other news, I have a guest post up at AskCherlock. I think it’s kind of like when you turn to your last-resort babysitter: all the good ones are busy but you still need to get out of the house, so you turn to your ne’er-do-well brother-in-law and hope he doesn’t destroy the place.

Cher asked me to do a political post, so I was happy to oblige. That’s like handing matches and kerosene to a 12-year old boy in a tree house… something’s getting burned down. I definitely brought the pain.

In fact, I plan on cherry-picking the good parts to flesh out here, as we roll toward the November elections. But to see it all presented in coherent (if elongated) form, click here to check it out. If I send enough traffic, they might ask me back to defile their site again next year. And now, onto…

Hey Bluz, what do you think about…

…Martin Luther King Day?

Monday morning when I woke up and heard the traffic report, I remembered it was MLK Day.

When I left for the subway station and there were no cars on the road, I remembered it was MLK Day.

When I got to the subway station and there were hardly any cars in the lot or people on the train, I remembered it was MLK Day.

When I walked to work and downtown was a ghost-town, I remembered it was MLK Day.

But when I ventured out into the freezing cold to mail Judie’s tee shirt at the post office, I forgot it was MLK Day.

Shit.

…that cruise ship overturning in the Mediterranean?

Where’s Shelly Winters when you need her?

The Poseidon Adventure Part 3 – Head Over Keels in the Med

…the final four Super Bowl contenders?

I don’t like this at all.

The first order of my rooting business is that the Ratbirds can’t win, so I’m forced to root for the Patriots. I had been counting on rooting for the Packers or Saints to go on to beat the Pats in the Super Bowl, but they both lost last weekend.

So I’m left with San Francisco, who I can’t root for to win because it would give them six Super Bowl wins, which would tie the Steelers. That makes rooting for the Giants as my last alternative. I don’t feel strongly about the Giants either way. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that their owners, the Maras, are old friends of the Steelers’ owners, the Rooneys.

All in all, I’m calling it Super Bowl ‘Meh.’ Maybe the commercials will be worthwhile.

…the new poll that shows Romney running in a dead heat with Obama?

It’s largely irrelevant. Republicans, for better or worse, have been all over the news and when not criticizing each other, are going after the President. Obama has been largely unheard from. No ads, no big speeches, no appearances on the talking head shows, nada. But behind the scenes, the troops are massing and the money is being collected.

Show me the polls when both sides are running in earnest and then I’ll pretend it matters.

…of that video Jessica mentioned in the last post?

Jessica left this in Comments of my Why Heathens Make Good Friends post and I just had to pass it on. Hilarious.

Of course, this has nothing to do with MY religious upbringing. We never went to a church that was even close to being this slick, but I know it’s part of the Mega-Church trend now. This piece takes it down a notch or two, stylish glasses and all.

DeLurker Day 2012

2012-01-14T13:22:00.000-05:00

On various sites throughout the Internet, January 14 has been proclaimed “DeLurker Day.” This is a day designed to coax those people that regularly visit a blog without ever commenting, to come forth and join the group by leaving a comment.

I’ve been itching for this day to come around. I missed it last year, which severely pissed me off. As you probably know, I track my blog stats and visitors with the intensity of a dog staring at a bowl of pork chops. (Or, me, staring at a bowl of pork chops.)

In using my StatCounter service, I can see people turning up several times a week, if not daily. I’m always so curious about who they are and how they came to find this site. I wonder if they return because they enjoy it, or if they just want to see what that idiot is going to say next. Is it an old friend or enemy, checking in to see what’s become of me?

I want to know who is checking in from Anchorage, Alaska and Dallas, Texas. Who is coming from PPG Industries, Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh? Who arrives from Salineville, Ohio via Cassie’s site, or who checks in daily via Uncle Crappy?

This is not to say I’m complaining about the visits. I’m always glad for the attention. I merely say to you, my regular silent guest, that if you have come this far, why not come just a bit further and participate? And why not give everyone else the opportunity to check your blog, if you have one? As you should know, all are welcome here.

Well, all that aren’t assholes, anyway. That’s my job.

Now, I’m thinking of trying out a new short-form feature, where I talk about issues that have surfaced, and give a brief opinion because I don’t have enough material on it to flesh it out for even an Odd Bits bit. I call it:

Hey Bluz, What do you Think About…

…Lindsey Lohan posing in Playboy?

I’m kind of “meh” about the whole thing. She was made up as Marilyn Monroe the whole time. What’s the point of celebrities posing naked if they look like someone else?

Note to Lindsey: Marilyn did it better. Now go back to your public service stint.

Note to you: If you click the link and check the pictures, please know that only a couple of these shots were actually in the magazine and the ran many that aren’t shown here at all.

...the charges that the show “2 Broke Girls” is racist?

At a press conference with the show’s stars and show runner, reporters made repeated charges that the characterizations of the Asian diner owner, the old black cashier and Russian cook were racist. I never really sensed racism in these depictions, I just laughed a lot. However I’m a mild-mannered Italian heathen. Maybe if they had one of those on the show, I’d be more offended.

I think they’re getting a bad rap. What half-hour sitcoms drop fully developed and nuanced side characters into the first season? Give them some time, for cryin’ out loud.

…the new show “Work It?”

“Work It” is a show about guys dressing as girls to get a job… or in other words, “Bosom Buddies” with an office instead of a school dorm. From the promos alone, I thought it looked like a horrible show. It’s been pretty much savaged by every critic in America as the worst show ever.

Sitcom Kelly likes it though. I can only assume she’s growing tired of putting dresses on the athletes she keeps in her basement Silence of the Lambs pit, and craves some variety.

...those Marines peeing on Taliban corpses?

I’m of mixed mind on this. While I wish they handled themselves with more decorum, I can certainly understand what may have driven them to such lengths. On one hand, fuck the Taliban. I make room for the notion that if I had been fighting these guys for months, had watched them shoot or blow up my buddies, had them shoot at me, watched what they’ve done with those that they’ve captured, I’d be sorely tempted to express my feelings in a similar vein.

However, I would NOT have put a film of it on the fucking Internet! Now, we have an international incident with severe repercussions, just because someone wanted to impress other soldiers or his buddies back home? Good God, if you must record this sort of thing for posterity, keep that of shit in the fucking camera. Who knows how much of the success to which these guys contributed, just got rolled back into oblivion?

...Mitt Romney saying he likes to fire people?

When the Republicans take a line out of context and them blow it up and repeat it all over the media, I’m glad that this time they’re doing it to one of their own. Yes, I know the so-called “Liberal Media” ran with it too, but right out of the gate it was blown up and batted around by the other Republican presidential candidates.

While I think Mitt’s phrasing was clunky and a bit tone-deaf, I don’t think he was wrong. We all should have the option of being able to “fire” those institutions that are providing us with substandard service. Whether or not Mitt was callous or cavalier in the firing of employees working for the companies that his Bain group acquired is a different conversation, which has no bearing on this particular story.

…the employee evaluation you got yesterday?

It was just fine, but I had to laugh. My boss included the following statement on my evaluation form: “Enjoys a good debate.”

I laughed out loud and said, “I know what you really wanted to say was, ‘Argumentative asshole.’”

She denied that, but I declined to argue about it. That wasn’t an argument I needed to win.

Why Heathens Make Good Friends

2012-01-12T16:00:00.003-05:00

The other day I found myself emailing with my Hot Arizona Auntie, Judie, the Rogue Artist. Seems she had a bit of a problem with Blogger (and who doesn’t?) where it posted her same comment 8 times. I emailed her to tell her that I would delete the extras.

Bluz: It’s just another service from your friendly, neighborhood Heathen.

Judie: Heathens are the best kind of friends!

That got me thinking, which as you know, can be dangerous. But it can also provide an angle for a blog post!

I immediately started composing a list of why Heathens make good friends. It started out pretty silly, but kind of snowballed from there. It didn’t emerge all at once, but over a series of emails with Judie. It’s so much easier for me to create when I’m outside the echo-chamber of my own head. So with that, I give you:

Why Heathens Make Good Friends

We’re always available on Sunday.
We don’t judge.
We’re always at work because we don’t have any special holidays.
We’re hard to scandalize because we don’t claim to be prim or proper.
We’ll drink, dance, gamble and swear with you.
We’re not ashamed of our bodies (although maybe some of us should be).
We don’t intertwine sex and guilt.
We make better music.
A recent survey showed that the non-religious tend to be better informed on religious doctrine than those that believe, because we make the effort to find out what we’re rejecting.
We will be good for the benefit of society, rather than out of fear of afterlife retribution (or reward).
At our house, you can start eating dinner as soon as the food is served, so it’s still hot.
We don’t hassle people about their religion because we have no holy book that commands us to go out and recruit.
We will defend your right claim your own religion with the same voice we use to claim our own right not to be bound by it.
We have complete immunity from cults, Scientology or otherwise.
And as follows, we will never be seen in coordinated track suits.
We will never be linked to priests, preachers or any church officials who:

Get caught in heterosexual sex scandals.
Get caught in homosexual sex scandals.
Molest children.
Cover up for any of their officials that are known to be engaging in the prior three actions.
Burn holy books to inflame the people to whom the books are holy.
Desecrate military funerals in order to promote their own whack-a-loon societal views.
Build lavish churches and live large at their parishioners’ expense.
Preach hate, intolerance or suppression toward entire groups of people because of their opposing religious views, or the way they were born.
Spread health-related misinformation and lies under the guise of salvation.
Blame the Devil (or the media) whenever they’re found to be doing something in conflict with what they preach.
Support a nest of blood-sucking vipers like the C-Street House.

In related news, do you remember a couple posts ago where I showed you pictures of the new tee-shirts I got for Christmas? (OK, I got them for myself, but whatever…) I mentioned that one of them, my “Heathen” shirt, was delivered in a Boys XL size instead of a Mens XL.

(Heathen shirt pic)

When I contacted the fine people at Café Press, they immediately sent me the proper size and said to just keep the original one they sent me. They didn’t want it back.

That’s fine, of course… saved me a trip to the post office. But I don’t know any XL Heathen boys… what am I going to do with a Boys XL Heathen shirt? .

Why, have a give-away, of course! And this one isn’t even complicated… first one that asks for it, gets it. I’d say it would fit a small to medium-sized female so don’t think it necessarily has to go to a child. I’m 6’3” and two hundred {cough)ty pounds and I could fit into it, although it was snug like a scuba suit. And don’t worry, I had it on and off in about 6 seconds. It is not befouled in any way.

Here it is, in comparison to a Mens XL from the same shipment.

Just tell me you want it in Comments (so others then know not to ask) and email me your address (and name, if you go by a nom de blogge). Check the “Important Stuff to Know” page for my email address, if you haven’t emailed me before.

If no one claims it, I’ll be forced to donate it to an organization like the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities.

If I didn’t know that it would never again see the light of day, it might be worth doing, if only to see the looks on their faces.

Ripples of Terror

2012-01-10T18:39:00.000-05:00

So my Steelers lost last weekend, to the wet-behind-the-ears Wonderboy Tim Tebow and his Denver Broncos. As I stated in the last post, I was prepared for the Steelers to lose next weekend to New England, but not to the Broncos. But I can’t complain. Denver probably did us a favor, so we don’t have to go up to Foxboro and get our asses kicked all over the field. But still, a period of mourning is required.

Yesterday, I went to work wearing all black… black shirt, black pants, black tee-shirt underneath and a black hat. If I had bangs, I would have worn them over my eyes. It’s my emo-Johnny Cash look. Today I’m a little better, so I’m wearing dark gray slacks and a gray and black checked shirt. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll wear an understated blue. Then on Thursday, I may break out the red, so that by Friday, I’ll be pooping rainbows again.

But in trolling through the news on Monday, I could see the Bluz-depressing after-effects that the big Tebow win had produced.

Total Recall

There’s another big medicine recall… this time it’s Exedrin, Bufferin, No-Doz and worst of all, Gas-X!!

(Gas-X should not be confused with Rain-X. I swear, they’re completely different products, even if they’re both from the “X” family. I wonder who the inventor was, Malcolm?)

I dashed to my cabinet and was relieved to find that I last bought “store-brand” anti-gas tablets. Phew! I’d hate to be pent up in a cramped meeting room after a Mexican lunch, and have to worry about the sanctity of my simethicone tablets.

You know, someone should work on a pill that lets you fart, but takes the odor out. That way you still get that gut-clearing sense of satisfaction, only without nauseating those around you. I totally want to do the commercials.

Scene: Corporate conference room

Boss: Bluz, I just laid out our downsizing plans for the quarter; why do you look so happy?

Bluz: You don’t want to know. But it’s a good thing there’s no smoking in here.

Family Gal

Shortly after I read about the pills, I got another punch in the gut. Kristy McNichol, who was in a number of after-school specials, movies and TV shows, most notably the 70s drama “Family,” came out of the closet in support of bullied kids.

As much as I support her trying to do something positive for bullied kids, it broke my heart. Man, I used to have it bad for her back when I was 15. It was different to like her, as opposed to, say, Charlie’s Angels, because she and I were about the same age. She seemed attainable. I’d see her on talk shows or celebrity competition shows and she just seemed so cool and together (and cute).

I don’t’ care how old and lesbian she gets, I still remember this little cutie.

I guess I blew it. I know she was diagnosed as bipolar in the 80s or 90s, but I also know I could have fixed her. I should have run away to find her when we vacationed in California back in the mid-70s. If it didn’t work out with Kristy, I could have hooked up with Joan Jett.

No wait…

Shit.

I sure can pick’em, can’t I?

Snap Judgments

In other news, a woman went bungee-jumping off a giant bridge in Africa and the bungee cord snapped.

On the bright side, the girl lived! (Video of the incident is included on the page linked above.)

I know, right? Holy crap! Australian Erin Langworthy, 22, bungee jumped of a 365-foot high bridge at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe when the cord snapped, sending her plunging into the Zambezi River. The river is also infested with crocodiles and to make matters worse, whitewater rapids, which are considered to be among the world’s most challenging. As if the football-field length freefall alone wasn’t enough peril for an adrenaline junkie…

The plucky Ms. Langworthy managed to surface but as she shot down the rapids, the cord, which was still wrapped around her ankles, kept snagging on the rocks. She had to dive under and free herself before she could make it to the river’s edge. I’m not sure that even Cassie is that bad assed.

I wonder if she Tebowed when she got out…

She is currently recovering from bruises and a broken collarbone and says she would consider a repeat performance, but not any time soon.

If that was me, I wouldn’t even use rubber bands any more.

Lastly, a Reminder

If you haven’t played the video embedded in the previous post, what are you waiting for? It’s the most wicked piece of boogie-woogie piano playing you’ll ever see. Do it!

Odd Bits - The Country Club Edition

2012-01-08T12:06:00.001-05:00

You probably haven’t noticed, but I have one of those little Country Trackers down at the bottom of page, that automatically tallies the traffic that visits, by country. I installed it in August of 2010, I believe. (As of this writing: 28,364 hits from 130 countries.)

As someone who is fascinated by statistics and data, I enjoy parsing out the information. This was especially true when I first installed it. I loved collecting the different countries and got a special [Sqeee!] every time a new one turned up.

I also noticed some odd groupings and mentally perceived them as mini competitions. For example, obviously the US provides the most hits… that’s not even a fair race. But the race for second between Canada and the UK? That started off very close, although Canada has steadily pulled away, leading the UK 1222 to 1131.

I also found that the Scandinavian countries seemed to group themselves tightly, especially at the outset. Now it runs: Sweden (88), Finland (61), Norway, (51), and I’ll throw in Denmark (64). Perhaps Norway would be doing better if I counted Cassie’s hits there.

Sometimes some odd designations show up, like Europe (4), or Asia/Pacific Region (9). Can they not be any more specific? If they're going to be so indistinct, why not make one “Western Hemisphere" and call it a day?

I understand that Georgia (12) is a distinct country, but what the hell is Jersey (1) doing in there? Does “Snooki” now count as her own country?

Then there are the "odd couple" countries, like Bosnia and Herzegovina (4). Since when is “and” part of a country name? I don’t like it, but it seems to be catching on. There’s also Trinidad and Tobago (5), St. Pierre and Miquelon (1), Antigua and Barbuda (1), and Turks and Caicos Islands (1). Are these like “couples?” Did two neighboring country governments get together and be like, “We can’t pull this off alone so how ‘bout we get together? We take police, schools, fire houses and embezzlement, you take taxes, roads, property zoning and bribery.”

Sometimes one place seems to show up under two names. On one hand there’s Malaysia (36) and on the other hand, there’s F.Y.R.O.M. (12), which reports under my StatCounter service as Malaysia. Do we really not have enough acronyms that we have to add them to countries too? (Not including the USA, of course.) I’ll see your FYROM and raise you a CDROM.

Every time I see Colombia (18) come up, I pretend it’s a hit from Sofia Vergara. [Squeee!]

It gets most interesting at the bottom of the list and I just start riffing with mental associations… and also wonder how in the hell they got here!

(28) Pakistan: I’m pretty sure this is all either spam or searches for South Indian Aunties.

(13) Slovenia: They should get together with Slovakia… they’re only 2 letters apart.

(8) Latvia: Dr. Doom’s country.

(7) Estonia: Where Pauly Shore said the caveman they found was from in “Ensino Man.”

(7) Malta: Sounds like what you get a an Italian soda counter.

(4) Sudan: Holy shit, someone has time to spare from starving and being beaten to death to look up Steelers jersey mojo?

(4) Isle of Man: Sounds like a hippie commune. What are women called on the Isle of Man, 'Manwomen?' 'Mannettes?' 'Manatees?' It's all so confusing.

(3) Qatar: Hero, the new Arabian music video game. (Hey dudes, you forgot the ‘u’.)

(3) Mauritius: sounds like a disease. “I came down with a case of Mauritius but I got a shot from the clinic and it cleared it right up.”

(3) Yemen: Skeeves me out. It’s like semen that carries only the Y chromosome.

(2) Azerbaijan: The President of Iran is now his own country?

(2) Moldova: Sounds like a damp, fungusy place. Wait...it's where green eggs come from!

(1) Mongolia: Home of the clusterfucks.

(1) Andorra: Home of the big blue avatars.

(1) Oman: Man Oman Oman.

(1) Brunei Darossalam: I think that’s the French First Lady’s maiden name.

(1) New Caldonia: New Caldonia, what makes your big head so hard?

(1) Cayman Islands: Aw, isn’t that nice? Some robber baron stopped stashing his shell corporation profits long enough to come say hi!

(1) Haiti: This had to have come from a cell phone. I don’t think they have electricity yet. Isn’t there an earthquake or hurricane blowing shit up there every other month?

(1) Nepal: Looking for hot Yeti Aunties…

(1) Ghana: Rhea… you know, the big birds? I’m just glad I haven’t seen a country called “Dia.”

(1) Liechtenstein: Isn’t that the Rent-a-Country? But I always think of Dr. Liechtenstein and his assistant Ayegor.

OK, that’s enuff’a that.

The Mojo Boogie

Today is Steelers playoff Sunday, against the Broncos at 4:30. You’d think I’d be frothing at the mouth over this but so far, I just can’t summon sufficient froth. (Sufficient Froth would make a good punk band name.) The Steelers are so banged up… Even if they win this afternoon, I don’t see them then going up to New England and beating the Patriots. I mean, I know they already beat them this season, but the Steelers were at full strength then.

Their QB is hobbled, starting safety can’t play at the high altitude (or he may DIE), starting center is out, one rushing linebacker has been gimpy for 2 months with a bad hammy, starting running back is out, 2 backup cornerbacks are out, and that’s just the major stuff.

So I’ll be rooting hard; I’m just keeping my expectations low. My primary concern with this year’s playoffs is that someone has to beat the Ratbirds, preferably without them getting to the Super Bowl. I can’t live with the crowing that comes with a Ratbird Super Bowl run. I lived through it in 2000 and it was excruciating.

Today I’ll wear some gear that worked previously when the Steelers were away and I watched from home, only with a tweak to the tee shirt.

#56 Lamarr Woodley jersey, throwback long-sleeved tee, with white Steelers sweat pants and Steelers socks.

The Stinger

Now, as a reward for going through all this nonsense today, I’ve got a treat for you. Way back in The Day, I came across this blues CD by Rod Piazza and the Flyers. It was all good stuff, but there was one track that just killed. It was a cut called The Stinger and it was the most wicked boogie-woogie piano solo you’ll ever want to hear. Accompanied by the drummer, Rod Piazza’s wife, Honey, just tears up the keyboard.

I don’t know why it took me this long to look for it on YouTube but I wasn’t disappointed when I did. There were several versions, including one that looked professionally shot, but I liked this one because is focused on what I most wanted to see: her hands. Her left hand working on the low keys looked almost possessed.

Do yourself a favor and check this out. You won’t be sorry. This is what serious talent sounds like.

As Rod said on the CD after this was played, “If ‘at wuddn’t a boogie, you aint’ goan hear it heah tonight!”

Director’s DVD Commentary: If you like The Stinger, click here for a video from the same gig, where Honey shares her keyboard with a young girl I take to be her daughter. They both tear it up together!

Six Questions

2012-01-05T18:43:00.001-05:00

As I was rolling through my regular blog haunts, I stopped at one of my favorites, A Beer for the Shower. I saw that they were featuring a couple of blogs that had participated in their contest to support the release of their new book, The Missing Link. (I had seriously meant to do something, but then I saw something shiny and the thought never surfaced again.)

Intrigued, I checked out the winning bloggers and finding them both extremely engaging and funny, I added them to my own blog roll. One of them is A Tale of Two Continents, written by Ashley and Stephanie, two sisters who are, well, you can tell by the title. Ashley is in Scotland and Stephanie is in the US. These made a hilarious video for their Beer for the Shower submission.

The other is Anne’s Attic, written by an Irish lass living here in the US. My visiting Anne’s Attic drew her to visit me here, thus demonstrating again that the best blog networking is blog reading. (As if to prove my point, the same thing happened with Ashley from Two Continents, literally as I was writing this post.)

A couple days later on Anne’s site, I saw that she had won a bloggers award and was answering some questions as part of the deal. She then posed her own questions to several other favored blogs to answer.

Mine was not one of them, no doubt owing to the newness of our acquaintance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ~~steal~~ pay homage to them by answering them myself. Anything for a cheap post.

Geez, I should just put that saying on the business cards.

1. What celebrity would you most like to shag and why?

Man, that goes right to the Laminated List, which I’ve been meaning to update and turn into a post.

Director’s DVD Commentary: “The Laminated List” is based on the “Friends” episode where they could come up with a list of any 5 people in the world that, even if they were in a relationship themselves, they would be allowed to sleep with. Ross laminated his and carried it in his wallet. We were discussing this one day at lunch, circa 2002, and I decided to create my own, which ran to a Top 10, and about 20 more that I discussed as runners up. In almost 10 years, there have been a lot of changes that I will one day discuss in full.

Right now I can think of a top 3 immediately: Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara from “Modern Family,” and Tina Fey from SNL and “30 Rock.”

Sofia Vergara at the Golden Globes, which she certainly has.

Sophia Vergara looks like an obvious pick with her Columbian bombshell build. But what I like about her has nothing to do with the curves. I love her hair, her smile, and her spirit. When I’ve seen her on talk shows, she just lights the place up, much like she does in every scene she’s in on “Modern Family.”

Julie Bowen at the SAG Awards, which she totally doesn't.

Julie Bowen, I just find to be knockout beautiful. I know she’s all high-strung as Claire on “Modern Family,” but even as a fussy mom, she’s still fiiiiiine. And when I saw her interviewed on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” she was hilarious in her own right.

Tina Fey from her Vanity Fair shoot.

But my winner has to be Tina Fey. I’m sorry; I just think she’s indescribably yummy and far too attractive to be as considered as ‘unattractive’ as her character Liz Lemon is supposed to be. But most importantly, she’s smart, clever, insightful and witty. The other two are great at delivering funny lines from a funny script, but Tina Fey writes the lines and delivers them. Also she may have the best eye-roll in the business. I could do a whole post just about her. (And I may, one day.)

2. In the event of a zombie attack, what politician would you be willing to use as a human shield?

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann come to mind, but I don’t think they have enough brain matter to sufficiently lure a zombie. I give the nod to Rick Santorum, who is the antithesis of everything I value in a public servant. He’s a guy that pushes his narrow religious ideology into government, which effectively persecutes anyone that’s not an evangelical Christian, but then tows the Republican Party line regarding propping up the richest of the rich at the expense of the poor. (In other words, the opposite of what the Lord he claims to revere, would do.)

3. Rate the survivability of at least 3 fellow bloggers if they are attacked by zombies.

Cassie from Sisters From Different Misters: would survive by outrunning any zombie in the vicinity and failing that, would just kick their ass.

Bryan and Brandon from the aforementioned A Beer for the Shower: Hard to avoid the zombies when you’re drinking that much beer. Plus, writers are notorious for poor cardio capability. But armed with heavy beer mugs, I see them knocking zombies the eff out, solely from the irritation of having Happy Hour interrupted.

Mrs. Bachelor Girl: With baby in one hand and spike-heeled shoe in the other, coursing with mother-bear protectiveness, she would stab her way past any horde of zombies that came her way. Same goes for Jessica of Leelafish, only I don’t see the spike heels; just blunt-force trauma. Don’t mess with Louisiana chicks; they’ll feed you to the alligators.

Ginny of That’s Church would use her cute little fists to place a tweet, if under zombie attack. 10,000 Pittsburghers, displaced or otherwise, would rush to her defense.

Kernut from Kernut the Blonde: She’d survive because she knows more about zombies than anyone else I know. Plus she lives in an RV, so she can get out of Dodge at a moments notice, to seek a more zombie-free terrain. And I bet she’s got a wicked shotgun in there too.

Cher and Rich from AskCherlock and Carpetbagger: Sorry, you guys, I don’t see you making it. Much like Congressional Republicans, you can’t sit down and politely reason with zombies. They’ll just eat your brains.

4. If you could reanimate just one dead person from history, who would it be?

Despite the zombie tilt to these questions, I’m answering as if the reanimated would be normal and not trying to eat my brains.

There are many things to consider… family, leaders, celebrities… But it says “history,” so to me that means there has to be historical significance. So as much as I’d like to hang out with my late grandparents, or a young cousin, my best friend, or my old dog, the first person that came to mind for me under the specified criteria is Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was far too young when he passed and released too few albums. I would love to hear what he would have put out over the last 20-odd years. Who knows how many other budding blues guitarists might he have inspired?

5. Would you take this person out to pub?

Hell yes, I’d take him to the pub. Maybe I could get him to play a set.

6. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, would you be willing to eat cockroaches to survive?

Cockroaches, yes. Broccoli, no. I have my standards.

Odd Bits - 2012 Kickoff Edition

2012-01-03T20:50:00.001-05:00

Welcome to my first post of 2012 and the first one for which I’ve actually had to write new stuff since Christmas Eve. But don’t kid yourself… this one will propped up by pictures too.

The Holidaze

If I did anything in the last two weeks except eat, drink, compute or watch TV, I must have missed it. Major calorie input; zero calorie expenditure. I feel like a walrus right now. Time to dry out and eat better. I thought I was going to be OK at work now, what with the holiday goodies season coming to an end, but dammit, there were cookies out on the table today. Gah! No escaping. Such is the curse of diminishing will power.

So Christmas was nice. My parents were up from Florida, staying with my brother, so I got to go over there and hang out with them and my nephews.

They’re a real couple of bookends, aren’t they? Sammy (6) already had the Brown jersey. Uncle Bluz gifted Daniel (13) with the Wallace.

I did pretty well for my Christmas loot. Pinky and I opened presents in front of the TV fire.

The clock is for Bowling Green, my alma mater. The bottle is Crown Royal Reserve (which is gone now.) The thing to the left is a hat box-like container of delectable chocolates (which is almost gone now.)

Aside from all that, I had occasion to order myself some new tee shirts. I love tee shirts almost as much as I love hats. One of the best things about my online blog travels is that I’ve come across so many small businesses that offer cool tee shirts. For example, there’s this one from Compress Merch, that blends my love of hard rock and Pittsburgh football:

Then I got an email from Café Press listing a big sale, so being just about over all the seasonal Christmassy Jesus stuff, I went completely the other way.

Only problem is that they sent me a boys XL instead of my requested Walrus-sized XL. But that’ll be a fun one to wear to WalMart. I don't know why it has a Viking helmet on it... I'll have to ask Cassie.

I don’t know why I bought this next one because I’ll probably never wear it outside… not because I don’t want people to see it; it’s that I don’t want to have to stand there and wait while they read it. This is one of those that I’m content just to know that I own.

Lastly, I couldn’t make a stop at Café Press without trawling the Monty Python section. I was not disappointed.

OK, enuff with the stuff!

Happy New… um… whatever it’s called

Pinky and I often spend New Year’s Eve at a nice hotel down on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It’s the one extravagance we share because it’s nice to get all dressed up and go to a fancy hotel and eat a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant. Last year we went to a new Hilton by Camden Yards, but felt we were too far away from the NYE festivities.

This year I chose the Marriott Renaissance, right on the Inner Harbor, smack-dab in the middle of things. Pinky had to work that day and got home right around the time the Penguins finished losing to the New Jersey Devils. I’d already packed my bag and gotten my suit out; I just needed to change out of my jammies and into my jeans. We got right on the road and in no time, we were walking into our room. I open up the closet door and that’s when the cursing started.

I forgot to bring my fucking suit.

Words cannot describe how pissed off I was at myself. My suit was still at home, hanging on my closet door. Of course, I wasn’t so pissed off that I wanted to un-park my car and drive back home to get it, but I was still pretty pissed.

So there was Pinky, looking all good in her nice dress and then there was me, a putz in jeans, sneakers and a long-sleeved pullover. I suppose I could have worn my dress shoes anyway, but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing jeans and black dress shoes.

Anyway, we still had quite a feast and the restaurant wasn’t really that dressy. No harm done. But I still felt like a dolt for forgetting something so obvious.

I didn’t pony up the really big bucks for a harbor-facing view, but I spent some intermediate bucks for a room to the side of the building, rather than the back. That meant that at midnight, we could press our faces to the glass and look sideways, and still see the fireworks. This year, they set them off from two different places, which was new.

One side was near the East Harbor, beside the Hard Rock Café and Barnes & Noble.

They also shot them off from a barge right in the middle of the harbor.

Unfortunately, right between the two sites was a big 32-story tower, Baltimore’s World Trade Center. So we had to keep looking back and forth between the two sites. I caught some of the finale though, that the tower didn’t cut off.

Here in the clear light of morning, you can see what I was dealing with.

Not the Usual New Year’s Day Football Games

New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, so that meant there would be NFL games on instead of the college bowls. Both the Steelers and the Ravens were playing at the same time, so I’d have to go out to a sports bar if I wanted to see my Steelers. That is not really a big deal. I like going to my local bar for the game. I always have a good time.

The problem was the starting time. Both games started at 4:15. Now if I tried to go in there at 4, the place would still be full of people watching their teams playing the 1:00 games. Maybe they’d leave when the games were over and maybe they wouldn’t. I figured the only way to make sure I was in my preferred seating area (at the bar) was to get there before the 1:00 games started and ride them out. So that’s how it came to be that I was at the sports bar from 12:15 until 7:30 that night. Boy, did I ever get a case of barstool-ass from that day.

But like I said, I always have fun there. There’s an interesting group of regulars that I always see. And since they found they can’t scare me away with their Ratbird bullshit, they seem to have accepted me. On Sunday, I ended up sitting beside a young Jewish guy wearing a Jets jersey and a yarmulke. Even though his game WAS on local TV, he wanted to be there to watch the other games that affected the Jets’ playoff hopes.

So I’m sitting there and the bartender, an older, British lady, comes over and asks if I can open a bottle of grenadine for her. I gave it a try as best I could, but had to be careful because that’s the sort of thing that will give me a huge hive on my hand. The Jets guy sees me not getting it and says, “Here, let me try this…”

He whips off his yarmulke and uses it like one of those rubber, gripping disks you use to open jars. I cracked the hell up and said, “So THAT’S why you guys wear those things.”

All this time I thought there was a theological reason behind them but it seems to be the Jewish equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. It’s certainly the handiest religious icon I’ve come across. Oy!

A little later, as the regulars filled in, one of them wanted to get up a game of “Hillbilly Keno.” You’ve seen the bar room Keno games, right? There are 80 numbers on a video screen and a series of numbers pop up and you bet on numbers that you picked. In this version, it’s played “off the books” and everyone picks one number. You bet a buck a game and the object is to have your number be the only one that appears, from among the players. So if no one’s numbers come up, the bet rides and the pot builds for the next game. Same thing if more than one person’s number comes up.

Anyway, I was game, as were 6 others, so that occupied my time pretty well as I burned though all the cash I had on hand ($26). I eventually won a round, but it was immediately after a big pot was won, so I only won $7, which I promptly burned though too. I’m still not sure it wasn’t all just a plot to rob the Steeler fan of all his cash…

It was good timing for me that my dough ran out right around the time the Steelers game started. I wanted to concentrate on the game anyhow.

So is it too late to foreswear gambling as a New Year’s resolution?

The Mojo Boogie

I wore the same Steelers polo shirt and hat that I wore for the prior 5 Steeler games I’ve watched at the bar, so I’m not going to run the picture yet again. (I saw the Christmas Eve game at the bar too.) But it must have been powerful mojo… my boys won all 6 games I saw wearing that shirt. It was almost disappointing, because I hate to be seen wearing the same shit every time I’m there. But you don’t want to break a mojo streak this late in the season.

It’s just another cross I have to bear, to ensure a successful season.

The Year in Bluz - 2011

2011-12-31T14:00:00.001-05:00

I almost didn't do a year-in-review this year. As I’ve been reading all my favorite blogs, it seems like everyone is doing one. But then I figured, “hell, I did one last year; I’ve got a stake in the ground. So why not?”

Also, I would otherwise have to come up with something fresh, which this week’s life of sloth has prevented from even considering.

I felt really good about my work here this year, but it’s odd because I’ve actually posted less. In 2010 I had 201 posts. This will be my 164^th of the year, so unless I post another 37 between now and midnight, I’m not going to make that level. Maybe I can do a separate post for each paragraph. (Naah, too much work.)

Anyway, the reason for the decline in posting is that I finally figured out a workable schedule. This year I’ve pretty much stuck to posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus one over the weekend. Three posts a week times 52 weeks caps off at 156. I can live with that.

So lets see what I’ve been yapping about all year…

January

Shortly after writing about Pinky’s and my New Year’s Eve adventures in downtown Baltimore, I wrote about my life-long experiences with the dental profession, from breaking my teeth at 17 to getting a bunch of permanent caps at 47. I told the story about how in 1996, I was thiiiiiiis close to filming a porno movie. On the occasion of my catching a cold, I wrote this ode to Kleenex, which I had been deprived of during my childhood. I so love to tell old stories, so when I trotted out the one about how my Dad conned his friends into thinking he was some kind of math genius, it went over so well I told a whole series of stories about the goofy shit my dad used to do. The end of January also meant the Pittsburgh Steelers were deep in a playoff run. Here’s how I tortured my office mates when the Steelers beat the hometown Ratbirds. I warmed up for the AFC Championship game here, and celebrated the Steelers making it to their 8^th Super Bowl, here.

February

SBXLV was pretty much all I could think about in early February, as shown in this post full of Steelers tidbits and photoshops, and this one where I complain about how long it was taking for the Big Game to get here. Obviously, the game didn’t work out the way I wanted, so I found closure by enacting Operation Comfort Food, where I dissected the game, the coverage and the commercials. Then I washed the legendary Steelers Socks. The bulk of February was taken up by my time on Jury Duty, where I was Alternate Juror #3. It was a sad case of child abuse. I only wish I got to deliver this opinion to my fellow jurors. Later in the month, I told some stories about things that went Bump in the night, and pled with the citizens of Maryland to finally get this gay marriage thing right.

March

I started March off by getting good and pissed off at some idiot’s letter in the paper condemning the idea gay marriage so I fired off a scathing rebuttal. It ran online but never made the print paper. This was a good month for storytelling, so I started off with some stories about my Grandpa, about his amazing garden, and how he left my dad to stay the night in jail, when he was a kid. What started out as a story about my first apartment turned into some other lurid tales to heat up a cold month. First there was the time I almost found myself in a 3-way, then how I ended up in some hot monkey-lovin’ with my roommate, culminating with the stories of how we carried out some additional hot monkey lovin’ all over town that summer. To end the month, I posted about my all-time favorite rock singer, what I’d do if I hit a mega-millions jackpot, and a photo-illustrated documentation of my friend Sitcom Kelly, stalking her favorite Pittsburgh Penguins, live and in person.

April

April showers usually bring May flowers, but this time it brought out a post about the glory of Rain-X, complete with my own video accompaniment. I didn’t do a lot of political posts this year, but when I did, I felt that they were pretty forceful; none more so than this one taking on those politicians that purposefully misrepresent common facts (aka “lying) to smear organizations like Planned Parenthood. On a much lighter note, I had fun with some vanity license plates, which led to a hugely embarrassing email FAIL with my Blog Sister Cassie. At the end of the month I began a 3-part series that told the story of Whatsername, I girl I dated in my mid-20s that kept breaking up with me and calling me back. It was cool… there was a happy ending after all... it just took 27 years to get there.

May

May was dominated by medical stories. First there was the torn rotator cuff in my shoulder and then a post about the weird-ass case of hives I’ve had for the last 10 years. From there was a 2-part story about the heart surgeries I’ve undergone. Trust me, heart surgery has never been this funny. Highlight of the month was my Guys Trip to Pittsburgh with my buddy Rik and his son, to see a couple of Pirates games. Then the very next week we held the Darwinfish Fry 2 (Bag’o Fish) at the Carpetbagger residence in Lawrenceville PA. Meeting up for the 2^nd time were the Cherlocks, Cassie, Mr and Mrs Carpetbagger, and Hot Mama & CC from Bitchburgh. First time attendees were the Red Pen Mama and Angie from Ranting in Pittsburgh. Also, my parents showed up! Good times!

June

That same weekend, my cousin got married. This post goes from the story of what happens when a 4-year old girl decides that you’re fascinating right up to the point that she gets married. I did 2 tributes to lifelong favorites this month… to the best rock and roll party band ever, and the greatest right fielder of all time. In other news, I got half of my Darwinfish plaque ripped off my car in a WalMart parking lot, apparently because the best way to demonstrate your piousness and faith is to destroy someone else’s property. In sports, I prepared an in-depth compare and contrast between Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and Baltimore’s Camden Yards. Now, I’m not saying that my screed against the Orioles putting up statues of their players numbers did anything, but they did announce that this year they will be putting up statues of the players themselves. More on that when the time comes. You’re welcome.

July

Early on I posted my reaction to the Casey Anthony verdict and the national hysteria that occurs when everyone in the country thinks they’re experts on the judiciary because they watch Law and Order. To erase that ugly taste, I followed it up with a post about those songs that you love in the very first seconds that you hear them. Perhaps my favorite post of the year was this one, reading as a letter to my 16-year old “niece,” (best friend’s daughter) offering heartfelt advice on how to be as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. In politics, I offered my take on the debt-ceiling fiasco and the Republicans’ negotiating strategy: “You scratch my back and I get my back scratched.” (Steven Colbert)

August

August was dominated by my vacation trip back to my NW Ohio roots, where we held a Jamboree and Hootenanny to celebrate my buddies and I all turning 50 this year. I also got to see a Toledo Mudhens game with blog friend Sherry, revisit the best college pizza joint ever, and drive by the place where the Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow story took place. Yet another yutz (this time, a Virgina state assemblyman) took to the newspaper to condemn any change to Maryland’s marriage laws so I once again took up for the other side. This time, I didn’t even make the online edition. I think they’re getting tired of me. In a pair of drippy, sappy stories, I told of the circumstances surrounding how I lost my virginity, and the saga of the college girlfriend that did me that favor. To close out the month, I created a video of me, telling my favorite joke.

September

I had a rough opening week, so I posted about how an earthquake and a hurricane conspired to make me re-injure my shoulder, undoing 3 months of physical therapy. Because I could still lift a tablet with my left hand, I did a post excerpting some of the crazy shit I wrote in my old journals (from my roaring 20s). Going back to that era whetted my appetite to write about my long-ago history with strip clubs, from first discovering them in Cleveland, to what I’d learned about strip club culture, to the time I actually dated a stripper, to closing out my strip clubbing days.

October

Right out of the gate, I turned 50. Yahoo. So this was the rundown of my birthday activities. I then told the story about my dad’s surprise 50^th birthday party, not being able to believe that I am now the same age that he was when we pulled that off. I posted about my first and only experience with hunting. Bring a tissue for this one. My post, “Marching on Whitehouse” had nothing to do with the Occupy movement… only my high school marching band, from Whitehouse OH. Damn, they were good and the video proves it. Just when you thought my friend Sitcom Kelly was nothing but a wine-drinking Penguin stalker, she goes and becomes an incredible Foster Mother for a special little girl. Then moving back to stories of drunkenness and degradation, I wrote about this trip I took to NYC and a very special bar.

November

Lots of good stories in November… There was the time I made that Super-8 slasher movie for film class, my thoughts on hot female teachers sleeping with their male students, and my own Mrs. Robinson experience. I mourned the loss of Smokin’ Joe Frazier, wrote some guidelines spelling out how you know if you’re being treated right, and told the story about how sometimes you have to keep your big yap shut. I wound up the month by telling the horrifying story of being humiliated in church.

December

Seriously, just scroll down. The shit’s still fresh.

In Conclusion

We have big plans for New Year’s Eve tonight. Pinky and I have a reservation at a nice waterfront hotel by the Inner Harbor. We’ll dress up, have a nice meal and enjoy some fireworks. (You can take that however you wish.) I’ll have a post about it up on Monday, if anything blog-worthy happens.

Until then, let me thank you for spending 2011 with me. I can never fully express how much I appreciate the gift of your attention. Whether you agree with me or not, (and seriously, how could you not?), I’m thankful that you visit and am especially thankful when you leave me your thoughts. For that, I am truly blessed.

If we have actually met, trust me when I say that I treasure the day that it happened and anxiously await the next time we can get together.

If we have only corresponded, via this blog or Facebook, I look forward to the day that we can meet face to face.

May 2012 bring you good health, happiness and good times. Happy New Year, my friend.

Downtown Baltimore, New Year’s Eve, 2007.

Calendar Boy 2012

2011-12-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I my 2012 calendars were delivered. As I wrote about last year in “Calendar Boy,” I’ve been using my nature photography to make wall calendars since 2008. I got a late start this year, but luckily they were delivered before my parents left town, so I could hand deliver one. Geez, I should probably start signing them, shouldn’t I?

I was really looking forward to doing this year’s version because A) I got a new camera late last year and B) I received some great photoshopping advice from Jessica R and Katie Ett after my last calendar post. Over the course of the year, I put their tips into practice so that this year’s calendar would really ‘pop.’ This time, I considered adding captions to the shots, either through photoshop or with the calendar-making tool, to describe or at least name the shots. I decided against it because I thought it would distract from the overall presentation of the picture. All in all, I am quite happy with the finished product. So let’s take a look…

Note: Keep in mind that you may have seen some of these before, because I posted them right after shooting.

Cover

The cover is always tough for me because it has to be a good shot, but it doesn’t make sense to use one of my best, because it practically never gets seen. The cover ends up being my 13^th best shot of the year. In this case, it’s the fading-light shot I got after I raced across town to get to the park before sunset and only had about 10 minutes in which to shoot.

January

You’ve seen this one too… a close-up of the water beading on the roof of my car, after a fresh waxing.

February

A look over the top of the dam on Lake Roland in Robert E. Lee Park, Baltimore. There’s actually about a 30-foot drop-off there, between the smooth part at the bottom of the shot, and the splashing below. (BTW: Heads up! We have a Leap Year this year.)

March

Tulips from Sherwood Gardens, Baltimore. Every year they have an incredible array of tulips and daffodils blossoming.

April

A single tulip from Sherwood Gardens. I think this shot is from last year, though.

May

More tulips from Sherwood Gardens, this time in front of an incredible flowering bush.

June

This is the outflow creek just down from the dam at RE Lee Park.

July

This is from a couple years back… a beach ramp at a park in Pensacola, Florida, that Pinky and I visited with my folks.

August

This is a tree-lined dirt road out at one of Pinky’s friends’ house, about an hour west of Baltimore. I thought it looked spooky, yet inviting… the light at the end of the tunnel.

September

Fall on Roland Lake, in all its glory. This was the kind of shot I wanted to get when I tried to outrace the sunlight a week earlier (which resulted in the cover shot).

October

This is my favorite of the lot. I shot it on the same trip to RE Lee Park as the previous shot. The water was choppy all over the lake, except for this one spot up close to shore. I found this nice reflection under a stand of trees. The yellow streak at the top is reflected sun (not an oil slick) and wasn't nearly as pronounced until I upped the saturation with Photoshop. I LOVE reflection shots.

November

Also from the same RE Lee Park excursion.

December

I got this shot in the last minute of sunlight before they closed the park. I had other shots of the fading sun but when the jet flew by, I thought I’d try to get one with the contrail. Upping the saturation really brought out the light through the trees.

And that’s it… another year in pictures. Again, should you decide that you don’t have enough overpriced calendars in your house, ($16.19) these are available for sale through Qoop. You can click the pic below, and I’ll also have a link up on the right side until the end of February.

Supplies Aren’t Limited in Any Way, so Take Your Time! But Not Too Much Time or Else You Won’t Get Your Money’s Worth!!

OK, so maybe I wasn’t meant to write ad copy…

Not Feelin' It

2011-12-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

But not today.

Yule Blog

2011-12-24T21:59:00.000-05:00

Here we are… Christmas Eve… the lull before tomorrow’s frenzy. Not a creature is stirring, let alone reading any blogs.

We just got home from Pinky’s brother’s house, where her family exchanged gifts. One of her brothers received an assortment of candy dispensers, all shaped like the Lord of the Rings characters. Know what I said?

“YOU SHALL NOT PEZ!!!”

It killed.

My parents came into town this evening and are at my brother’s place, which is where we’ll be going tomorrow for Christmas. There will be good food, good booze, good boys and much merry-making. I’m looking forward to it.

So now, let me take the opportunity to wish you and your family a happy Christmas, and thank you for stopping by, not only now but all throughout the previous year. Your coming here means more to me than you can ever know.

As my gift to you, may I present my favorite Christmas carol of all time (which is totally NSFW).

(Yeah, I know I posted it in 2009… so I re-gifted…)

Where Do You Stand?

2011-12-22T18:21:00.000-05:00

I StumbledUpon another interesting site, today, where you can take and 11-question survey and it will identify where you fall on the political grid, marked with the following labels and traits:

Liberal/Conservative

Libertarian/Authoritarian

Centrist

More Personal Freedom/More Social Control

More Property Rights/More Economic Regulation

I’m always up for using hard data to determine your own personal “brand” so I was up for taking the survey.

Right off, I was concerned about the weighting, because there were a couple of issues where I was kind of “meh” about them and would hate for that to affect my results more that the issues about which I really cared. Turned out that there was a final grid where you weight the importance of each issue to you, so my worries were abated a bit.

When it comes right down to it, your values are the biggest indicator of them all. I don’t know anyone that sucks up every single tenet of their chosen political party. There’s usually something in the party platform where people either don’t agree or just don’t care that much about. And then there are the issues that drive who we are and what we think. The party or philosophy that agrees with you there will be the ones with whom you identify long term.

I was also leery about the limited number of questions. While only having to answer 11 of them does speed things along, there were some areas that went unaddressed. For example, there was no mention of reproductive freedoms... birth control, Plan B, stem cell research, freedom of choice, etc. The closest issue to that was more along the lines of what may be done in the bedroom and with whom, which is fine, but not really the same issue. (As I’m sure you can tell; I came down squarely in the “Do whatever you want and it’s no one’s goddamn business” category.)

The last time I took anything resembling a test like this, I was in 10^th grade US Government class, (circa 1977), where the teacher gave us a test that would similarly determine our political associations and link us to the sitting congressman to whom we were the most closely aligned.

I ended up scoring as the most liberal kid in the class and was assigned Rep. Morris Udall of AZ. (I presume that Judie, the Hot Arizona Auntie would approve.)

So how did I turn out 30-some years later?

That’s me, the Social Liberal, although first thing in the morning, before I’ve had my Diet Coke, I could be considered the Anti-Social Liberal.

Looks like I moved at least a little bit toward the center, but I think that comes with learning more about the big picture. I’d probably be an even bigger Centrist, except that the Right has moved so much further to the right it’s almost off the chart. Today the Right would consider someone emulating President Reagan a Liberal if he followed Reagan’s actual steps (as opposed to his rhetoric or the mythology that’s sprouted up around him).

I definitely trend toward Personal Freedom, but only insofar that the rich and powerful don’t trample on the less so, just because they can. I think that people should be able to basically do as they please, but only as long as it doesn’t adversely affect anyone else.

A perfect example is how there are some that are trying to liken cell and texting laws with seatbelt or motorcycle helmet laws. The difference is the effect on others. While I may support your right to have your hair fly in the breeze on a bike, it’s going to be your melon they’re mopping up off the road after you wreck. But if you’re texting or yapping on your cell phone, you’re endangering me and everyone else on the road when you can’t stop in time, or drift into another lane of traffic.

It’s the same with the fight against the upcoming health care reform laws. The Teabaggers are flipping out because they’re forced to buy health insurance. The way I look at it is that we’re already forced to buy car insurance and nobody says “boo.” You drive the car, you buy the insurance.

They try to say, “But buying a car is optional. Everyone would have to buy health insurance.”

To this, I say, “Exactly, because everybody can get sick or injured.” I understand you don’t like being told what to do. But how is the answer to “preventing the tyranny of Big Government,” “making everyone else pay for your medical bills?” Doesn’t that go against your position if favor of self-reliance? Or is that just for everyone else, once you’ve gotten ‘yours?’

Anyway, so I’m a Social Liberal. Now you take the survey and tell us where you land.

Note: In case you missed it, please be sure to check out my post from 12/18, which features an audio clip of my Dad telling a hilarious, true story about a wild train trip with his buddy, The Lob. Totally worth it.

Odd Bits - The Ronery Edition

2011-12-20T17:23:00.000-05:00

What was your reaction when you first heard that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il died? If you’re like me, or anyone else in the world that has ever seen “Team America – World Police,” you immediately started the song “I’m So Ronery” running through your head.

“I’m so ronery, so ronery, so ronery and sadry arone…”

I certainly wasn’t the only one… Twitter blew up with the Team America references as well. The only one, it seems, who didn’t chime in was Hans Brix… I mean, Hans Blix, but last I saw, he was indisposed.

“You’re breakin’ mah barrs, Hans, you’re breakin’ mah barrs.”

Even Entertainment Weekly ran a post listing the favorite Kim Jong-Il pop culture references, including those from Team America, Mad-TV and 30 Rock.

Director’s DVD Commentary: If you’re unfamiliar with Team America, it’s an ‘action movie’ spoof by the guys that make South Park, only it’s done completely with marionettes. It is pants-peeing funny. It makes fun of the “Destroy Everything in Your Path War Hawks” as well as the “Mush-Headed, Weenie Liberals” that oppose them. You can get a taste of it by clicking the link above, which has a video with all the good Kim Jong-Il scenes, but be warned that it’s completely Unsafe for Work. The video below, however, is safe.

No one knows what’s going to become of North Korea now, under the leadership of Il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-Un. He hasn’t had much of a track record in his own right, although unlike every ordinary North Korean, you can see by his dough-faced visage that he hasn’t missed any meals.

My guess is that one of the top generals will toss the pampered prince into a dungeon and install himself as the new Imperial Leader. Business will continue as usual.

And Kim Jong-Il will no longer be “ronery” as he joins the Pantheon of Evil Dictators, in hell.

Run Away! Run Away!

In the last two months, I’ve received email from 2 different progressive organizations, asking me to run for office. They came from MoveOn.org and People for the American Way.

Now, I don’t have any illusions that they singled me out in particular; they were just mass emailings to their members. I find the idea interesting, but there is zero chance of my ever doing anything like that. It would seriously cut into my blogging and TV-watching time.

The only way I could ever run for any kind of office would be as kind of a prank. My goal would be to run the most memorable, vulgar and off-the-wall campaign in recent memory. I would need it to be completely funded independently, (Hey, maybe that’s something else I could do with any prospective Powerball winnings!) so I could forget about fund raising focus on making speeches and participating in debates.

While that may sound traditional, I’d really be looking at those appearances as more stand-up comedy than asking for votes. First, I’d find an office to run for where I’d be up against some uptight, sanctimonious, evangelical Family Values candidate. Picture Rick Santorum. On the campaign trail, I’d swear like a sailor. I’d call my opponent a lying sack of shit. You know how politicians try not to say their opponent’s name? I’d do that, but I’d only refer to him as That Asshole.

I’d wear Hawaiian shirts and sandals. My commercials would be utterly ridiculous. I’d tell people that if they call my campaign headquarters, I’d personally deliver them a pizza. (Naturally I’d list my opponent’s office phone number.)

Perhaps, through the comedy, I’d throw a couple of valid points in there, just to confuse everyone. People would show up to the rallies just to see what this idiot is going to say next.

As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that this sounds a lot like the shit we used to do in college. The group I hung out with in our “Commuter Center” had applied for a Fraternity charter, for no other reason than to screw with the Greeks from inside the system. They realized the best way to mock the frat guys (aka ‘white, anglo-saxon, protestant, alcoholic business majors’) and sorority girls (aka ‘sluts’) was to join them and subvert all the stupid traditions they held dear. My campaign would essentially do the same thing to the election process.

Yeah, it all sounds like fun on paper, but I have to keep in mind that the hockey season is a long one. If the Penguins make the playoffs, I won’t be able to concentrate on the issues of the day. I could just see one of my speeches:

“And I promise, if you elect me instead of That Asshole, I will go in there and [reacting to the game feed in my earpiece] WOOOOOOOOO HOOO! Sid just scored! Fuck yeah! Take that, you Philly goons! Um…where was I again?”

The only way I could ever deal with public office is if I had absolute rule. I don’t have the patience to deal with people that aren’t smart enough to agree with me. The heck with this “Council” stuff and that “Congress” crap. I know what’s best for everybody.

Hey, wait… now that I think about it, I might just be a closeted Republican.

The Mojo Boogie

Last night’s Steelers game against the 49ers was not kind to me, although it was not a surprise. While I may have gotten killed with my weekly picks, I did get this one right in picking the Niners. The Steelers don’t play well in San Francisco, as far as I’ve seen.

My family and I have been out there twice since 1999 when the Steelers played them and they lost both times. One time it was during a torrential downpour. I was so soaked that even the money in my wallet, in my pocket, was wet. Not a fun time.

I certainly made the right call in taking today off. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the MNF games run late, they had 2 power outages at the stadium that resulted in 36 minutes worth of delays. It certainly helped to be able to sleep until 9:30 this morning.

For my game gear, I consulted some prior games. I found that in the prior Sunday Night games this year when the Steelers were visiting, and the Monday Night game last year, I’d worn my white Polamalu jersey and they won, so that’s what I went with last night. I probably should have changed up on the pants.

#43 Troy Polamalu jersey, throwback long-sleeved tee, flannel Steelers jammie pants and Steelers socks.

Back to the drawing board.

The Legend of The Ratt-ler

2011-12-18T13:47:00.002-05:00

This is a post that is going to serve twin purposes. I like to multi-task that way.

First of all, remember my post from a couple weeks ago that featured the famed “bahjhonk” warmer/Christmas ornament, given to my dad from his friend The Lob?

It reminded me of some of the goofy stories that my dad has about his buddy and their escapades together. I vowed to myself that I’d tell some of them, but first I was going to need a refresher course. Most of that shit happened so long ago that I’m fuzzy on the details. I had one particular story in mind, but rather than ask Dad to go over it again, I’d rather surprise him when he sees the story here. Then I realized that I had another alternative.

Here’s where the second purpose comes in.

Back in the early 90’s my mom got a couple of mysterious cassette tapes from her brother. The note was cryptic, something along the lines of “Just put it in and press ‘play.’”

The tapes turned out to be recordings he transferred from reel-to-reel, of his and Mom’s family around the dining room table after dinner. There always seemed to be a whole lot of people over for dinner whenever we visited… if it wasn’t the rest of the family, it was assorted friends and cronies. My Grandpa, (the storyteller) would often get out his guitar and everyone would sing; usually standards or old Italian songs. He also had a reel-to-reel tape recorder so sometimes they recorded their shenanigans.

My Uncle Joe had gotten his hands on some of these tapes and dubbed them off onto cassettes. So while I was visiting my folks over one Christmas, I put on some headphones and listened to the tapes.

I swear it was like a sock in the gut. It was a real-life time capsule. Instantly I was transported to the days of my childhood, sitting around the table, guarding my ice cream (which Grandpa loved to steal by the spoonful) and listening to the music. Just hearing my Grandpa’s voice again, after he’d passed about 15 years earlier, packed an emotional wallop.

And the songs… I recognized every one of them, even though they were in Italian. At one point, I could hear little Bluztoddler asking for a sip of someone’s coffee. And there was my Grandma, asking them to “sing a happy song.”

Not to long after that experience, Uncle Joe decided to interview his father’s remaining siblings, Aunt Stella and Uncle Ants. (Last year I wrote about Uncle Ants’ storytelling in the post about my wedding day snafu.) He asked them questions about their family, their upbringing and about their brother. He was able to get some of Uncle’s best and most hilarious stories on tape.

With these two experiences fresh in my mind, I decided that I wanted to do the same thing with my parents. I wanted to get their real, live voices on tape, discussing our family stories. I knew that one day, far in the future, I’d want to be able to hear their voices again. And at the time I figured it would be valuable to any future kids I might have, as well.

No dice on that angle, but one day I’m sure my nephews will appreciate it, especially the stories about their daddy.

So in March of 1992, we sat down to record our stories. This was before I met Future-Ex… I believe they came to visit me in my apartment in Schenectady. I remember hanging a hand-mic from the chandelier over my dining room table, so that it could pick us all up. I had a list of questions and issues I wanted to discuss, and some favorite stories I wanted told.

One of those stories is the reason I’m bringing this whole thing up. I wanted Dad to tell the famous story of the time he and The Lob took a train trip from Toledo to Worcester Mass. The Lob hated to fly, so he would take the train whenever he could.

First, I was going to listen to the tape, just to brush up on the details. But as I was listening, it dawned on me that I needn’t write the story at all. I have that fancy-ass turntable/CD player/tape player thing that hooks up to my computer. So why not pull off the Lob story and let Dad tell it to you himself? Plus, I figured that it would take much less work for me to do the post than if I wrote the whole thing out.

Of course it didn’t quite work out that way. By the time I found the clip on the cassette, recorded it to the PC, edited out the superfluous stuff and trimmed it for time, laid it into Movie Maker, added title cards and uploaded it, I could have written the story and been watching football for a half hour already.

But then that would have deprived you of all this deep meaning and insight.

Long story short, if you have loved ones that are still around, you should take every advantage you can with their presence and get some stuff on tape (or digital) whether it’s audio, video, or shadow puppets. I guarantee that one day you will be glad you did. I sure am.

Funny thing: perspective. In 1992, Mom and Dad were only 4 years older than I am right now, with their 31-year old son interviewing them. I don’t know whether to feel foolish that I thought they were old back then, or to feel very, very old right now.

And with that, I now present to you, The Legend of the Ratt-ler. (4:40 and completely safe for work.)

Stumbling Upon Goofy Shit

2011-12-15T20:10:00.001-05:00

Last week, for no apparent reason, I saw the hits via my StatCounter explode. Well, there was actually a reason. Somehow, I started getting all these hits referred from StumbleUpon.

Not knowing much about it or what it does, I asked Cher, renowned knower of such things from AskCherlock, what the deal was. Cher explained that StumbleUpon is a service that sends you to random sites that fall within your proscribed interests. Then when you see something you “like” you click a button and it records that site, to which others can then stumble onto.

Even better, the hits were all her fault, because she “liked” one of my posts. She further said that I should join StumbleUpon myself and then I can “like” my posts as I write them, thus submitting them to the general Stumbling internet.

It sounded like a good idea to me, so as you may have noticed, there is now a StumbleUpon button on my right margin. If you’re a Stumbler, feel free to give it a click now and then.

One thing I did learn is that Cher “liking” something carries a hell of a lot more juice than me “liking” something. When I “liked” a post, it would get me maybe 2 or 3 hits. Cher’s “like” got me a couple hundred. (Which counts as “exploding” in my world.) We may think alike but we don’t “like” alike.

Anyway, the only reason I bring any of this Stumbling crap up is that I’ve been able to Stumble onto some pretty funny stuff in the last week, some of which ~~I’ve stolen~~ I’d like to share with you here.

All of these things came from OMGhumor.com. I must have gone through hundreds of pages and laughed my head off for an hour. These were my favorites.

First of all, I found one to share with Bluz Sister. Seems she’s a Twi-hard and had seen the most recent Twilight film on opening day. She’s solidly on Team Edward. I, being solidly on Team Harry Potter, think that’s an endless source of amusement. So when I saw this, I had to email her immediately.

I have no idea what that first thing is all about. Not sure I want to know, either.

The next one tickled me no end, because it’s not only brilliant, but it serves absolutely no purpose. Also, it would have been much more effective in 1985.

I love how all the chorus lyrics appear on the tear-away slips. Such attention to detail.

The only flaw is that technically, they used the picture from the wrong album. That’s the cover of Lionel Richie’s first solo album. “Hello” was on his second. But why quibble with such pointless brilliance.

The next two remind me of shit my dad would have done, if Smartphone technology had existed in the 1980s. He would have totally done something like this if my sister mis-texted him as such:

When emoticons go too far…

He also would have written something like this to me, if I every texted him such a dumbassed question. The problem starts with the typical texting “auto-correct” error. (Although Dad probably would have responded this way for real.)

Stay tuned for more Stumbled gems, as I trip over them.

(A bluz original.)

Bluz News Reviews

2011-12-13T18:40:00.001-05:00

It’s hard to determine what is actually “news” any more. In the past, it was pretty easy. You watched TV at 6:00 and someone told you what happened that day, then you ate dinner. Maybe you read the newspaper in the morning to see what happened overnight. It was pretty straightforward.

It’s much more complicated today. We have unlimited access to stuff that happens every day, but we seem to know and understand much less. A lot of it has to do with modern media. Where the TV news used to primarily present reports of stuff that happened, now we have to consider what the TV news broadcaster is trying to tell us about the stuff that happened. It’s a sad state that on TV news, what is reported is molded to make you think a certain way about the issue at hand.

Always in the back of our minds, we have to consider, “What is the newscaster’s angle? Do they have a philosophical dog in the fight? Is there something they’re leaving out of the story? Are they using emotionally loaded words or images?”

It’s a lot of work to apply all those filters. So it’s no surprise that Americans pay so much attention to the fluffier stories. It follows, then, that the newscarriers seek to provide us with more of what we really want: news as ‘empty calories.’

“What happened with Kim Kardashian’s marriage? How is Lindsey Lohan doing with her community service? When will her Playboy spread come out? What’s going on with that ‘Real Housewife of Upper Sandusky’? Didn’t her husband shoot up a school or something? Which congressman has his willie out this week?”

Internet news is no better. There are eleventy-hillion jillion sites that carry “news” and they’re even more fractioned and factioned than TV, with zero oversight. Gossip and rumor are reported as fact. Opinions and ruminations are reported as fact. Questions are designed to lead you to concluding that the answer you come up with is a fact. Other sites research and verify the facts and are called partisan hacks, for their trouble.

So much news, yet no one knows what’s going on.

It is under these murky circumstances that I jumped on an email my mother sent me, which contained the Pew Research Center News Quiz. It was a simple 13-question survey designed to poll how much we know about current events and newsmakers.

In a nutshell, as a country we don’t know diddley-squat. Only 8% of all test takers got all 13 questions correct. Now I’m far too modest to list my score, so you’ll just have to

Oops… how’d that get in there? OK, I admit it: I aced it. So now let’s see how YOU do. Here’s the link. It took me about 5 minutes to do the test. Take it yourself and then you’ll know how you stack up. Put your score in Comments, if you dare. I want to see how many of you can join me in lording our wisdom over everyone else.

If you take the test, you’ll see that they also give you a statistical breakdown by demographic. One thing that really surprised me was that on every question, men got the answer right more often than women. (And remember, it’s by percentage, not raw numbers, because you’d figure that more men took the test.)

Perhaps women just have too many more things to keep track of than men do. If you think about it, men have a lot more free space in their heads to store things if they don’t have to worry about crafts, home décor, recipes, horoscopes or their kids’ schedules. Of course men would have to subtract the room taken up by fantasy football stats, batting averages and golf swing mechanics.

I happen to think that you, as one of my readers, are pretty much on top of things. I’m sure you’re only visiting me here after you’ve done your day’s trawling for the news of the day. Believe me; I’m pleased to be your dessert; the cherry on top of your sundae, if you will!

Aw, crap, now I’m all hungry.

Anyway, let’s see what you’ve got… if you dare. And should you miss any questions, and we ever disagree on something later, I promise not to hold it over you. Much…

Note: If you’re going to take the test, please do so before reading comments, because there’s some discussion going on about the answers. No fair cheating!

Illegal Procedures

2011-12-10T12:20:00.002-05:00

In a prior job with my current company, my primary mission was to write procedures to document our operations. For this, I went to some training sessions to learn to use the format that our company preferred.

Once there were a number of us trained, part of the ongoing process was to meet on weekly conference calls and present our procedures to the group, for review. Not only could the group help tighten up our presentations; they could look for areas where the described procedure might conflict with those of another department.

I always looked forward to these calls, not only as an asset to enhance my writing skills, but as an audience for my unusual sense of humor. See, I didn’t have a blog yet, so I had to take advantage of any captive audience I could find.

One of my favorite things to do was to slip little jokes into my procedures. Stuff like this, (and I’m paraphrasing the details):

If the review is approved within 3 days:

It’s a miracle.
Proceed to step 4.

I liked to see who was paying attention and actually reading my stuff. Another favorite thing was to produce interesting acronyms for procedures or recurring documents. My influence paid off later when someone else wrote to the group about wanting to use the acronym BARF for a form. (I don’t remember what it stood for, but it was completely accurate.) The email said something like, “Please let me use BARF… Bluz would do it…”

I was so honored. I wrote back that indeed I would do it; if for no other reason that I could hear people say things like:

“Would you please hand me the BARF?”

“Have you seen my BARF?”

“Who left that BARF on my desk?”

My finest moment bubbled up organically, like the best ones do. I was presenting a very detailed procedure to the group and my bit ended with filing the paperwork in the appropriate file cabinet. One of the (other) wise guys on the call piped up, “And then what do you do?”

I responded, “I don’t know, I haven’t written the ‘Returning to Your Seat’ procedure yet.”

[Ding!]

The entire plan occurred to me right then. I would write a “Returning to Your Seat” procedure and quietly slip it into the queue for review. I’d write it with the exact specifications and attention to detail that we used for all our procedures, right down to the hyperlinks and references to other procedures. I’d let it go through the entire approval routine, just to see who was paying attention.

Unfortunately, our group leader was paying attention. The two of us had always gotten along well and she totally understood me. In fact, she said she was using some of my work as examples in subsequent training sessions, even the goofy stuff. But with this one, she felt duty-bound to fish it out of the queue so to not waste anyone’s time. She did, however, forward it to a number of others in the group whom she felt would appreciate the joke.

So without further ado, may I present my very own: Returning to Your Seat procedure!

Returning To Your Seat

Shortcuts	Related Documentation
· Scenario · Important Things to Remember · Business Risk · Assumptions · System Requirements · Other Required Items · Returning To Your Seat	· Floor Plan · Procedure: Relieving One’s Self

Scenario	You find yourself at a file cabinet and having completed your filing, need to return to your desk.
Important Things to Remember	No matter what distractions you encounter along the way, you must remember to return to your desk in order to avoid any awkward questions from your boss. When the boss is out of the office, the timeline to execute this procedure expands proportionately to the distance between your boss and your office.
Business Risk	Failure to follow proper procedure may result in your getting lost, and the risk will be that the next time your co-workers see you; it will be on a milk carton.
Assumptions	Because it is prior to happy hour, you are still independently ambulatory.
System Requirements	Legs Feet Sufficient will to go back to work
Other Required Items	Spare Change.
Returning To Your Seat	Complete the following steps to return to your seat.
		Step	Action
		1	Turn your back to the file cabinet, and aim in the direction from which you arrived there. Note: You may need an alternate route back to your seat. Consult your Floor Plan if necessary. Example: Someone disagreeable may be lodged in your most direct path back to your seat. It may be a known windbag, it may be someone you’re ducking, or it may be your boss looking for some weekend “volunteers.”
		2	Take a step with your right leg.
		3	Take a step with your left leg.
		4	Decide on destination:
			If…	Then…
			You feel the need to “go”…	Adjust direction toward the restroom, and continue toward your new destination. See Procedure: Relieving Ones Self. Go to Step 5.
			You desire some gossip…	Adjust direction toward the department blabbermouth. Note: You may want to stay below the top of the cube walls, as not to be detected by your boss from Step 1. Go to Step 5.
			You are hungry…	Adjust direction toward the snack machines. Deposit your Spare Change. Withdraw yummy treat. Go to Step 5.
			None of the above…	Go to Step 5.
		5	Take a step with your right leg.
		6	Take a step with your left leg.
			If you are…	Then…
			Not yet at your desk…	Repeat Steps 5-6.
			At your desk…	Locate your chair. Maneuver your backside until it is centered above the horizontal plane of your chair. Note: Refrain from too much maneuvering, lest your boss think you’re dancing. Bend at knees until your backside meets the horizontal plane of your chair. Continue moving papers from one side of your desk to the other. (End Of Procedure)

The Mojo Boogie

The Steelers played this week’s game last Thursday night, which presented a dilemma for me. The game was scheduled directly opposite the Penguins game against their mortal enemies, the Philadelphia Flyers. The game times were staggered, with the Pens coming on at 7 and the Steelers kicking off at 8:30.

I decided to DVR the Steelers game. The Pens game would be half over before the Steelers even started, so I figured I could check in during the 2^nd period break and during commercials, and bail completely in case of a blowout. Then I could zap the commercials during the football game and eventually catch up to the live action.

My viewing plan worked out well, even thought the Pens game went down to the wire. My real problem was with mojo apparel. Do I wear the hockey jersey or the football ensemble?

My solution was to do both. I wore my Steelers jersey underneath the Pens jersey and whenever I flipped over to watch the football, I pulled up the Pens jersey. I didn’t have the energy to remove it completely but figured that just exposing the numbers would suffice.

The Steelers were wearing their throwback uniforms so I went with one of mine. The previous time they wore the throwbacks, I wore my James Harrison throwback and they lost. So this time I opted for my Heath Miller version. Here is the complete array:

90’s era Mario Lemieux jersey, over Heath Miller throwback, over “Stillers” tee, with Steelers socks. Not pictured: AC/DC flannel pants. I needed something neutral for my bottom half. If I owned any Penguins socks, I’d have worn one of each.

The Steelers won, 14-3, in a game that seemed closer. My boys had a couple of injuries though… Both QB Ben Roethlisberger and Center Maurkice Pouncey suffered high ankle sprains, although Big Ben gutted it out and hobbled through the 2^nd half on one foot. Also, both Heath Miller and Hines Ward had crucial fumbles in the red zone, which killed drives. I'm not sure whether my wearing the Miller jersey affected the fumble (bad) or saw that we pulled the game out at the wire (good). Next game is a Monday Night affair in San Francisco so I'll have to pull out some MNF research.

A Win Against Voter Suppression

2011-12-08T18:00:00.001-05:00

Finally… some good news on this subject. On Monday, a Baltimore jury found Robert Schurick, a gubernatorial candidate’s campaign manager, guilty of election fraud, for authorizing a series of misleading election night robocalls.

The Situation

In last year’s race for governor, incumbent Martin O’Malley (D) ran against the man he unseated four years prior, Robert Ehrlich (R). Maryland is a true blue overwhelmingly Democratic state so for any Republican candidate to win statewide office, a perfect storm is needed. Ehrlich was able to win his initial run for governor, I believe, due to the weakness of the Democratic candidate, former lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, who was seen as a rather “empty suit” and completely uninspiring speaker.

His bid for re-election was squashed by O’Malley, the energetic former Baltimore mayor, councilman and leader of an Irish rock band. Polls had O’Malley picked by a landslide to win re-election, which he did.

O’Malley, onstage with his band, O’Malley’s March.

What Happened

The only chance the Republicans had to win here was to severely suppress the voter turnout. In fact, it came out during the trial that a campaign consultant developed a document called “The Schurick Doctrine,” which was designed to “promote confusion, emotionalism and frustration among African-American Democrats.”

These efforts came to the surface in the previous election, where the Ehrlich campaign bussed in homeless people from Philadelphia, hired to hand out misleading fliers that indicated that Baltimore’s black political leaders were backing the Republican ticket.

On this election night, far behind in the polls, Schurick approved a robocall targeted at Democrats in general and black Democrats in particular, telling them that the results were in and to stay home. I received one of these calls at my house, so I can vouch for this.

The call said that O’Malley and President Barack Obama (who was not on the ballot) were “successful,” and that “our goals have been met. The polls are correct and we took it back. We’re OK. Relax. Everything’s fine. The only thing left to do is to watch it on TV tonight.”

Because I voted first thing in the morning, I didn’t give it another thought, except to think, “geez, that’s a waste of time, calling people just to tell them to do nothing.” I had no inkling that the call came from the Republicans. There was no “authorized-by” tagline or any other accreditation.

The defense tried out several arguments. They said that it was approved during the fog of the campaign and that Schurick didn’t realize what he was approving. Not finding any traction there, they then said that they were attempting “reverse psychology,” and trying to impel voters to the polls.

That, of course, was a pretty tough sell, in that they only sent the calls to Democrats. To account for that, the defense got the person that programmed the calls to testify that she meant to send the calls to Republicans too, but she “didn’t want to do the work and was lazy.”

The thing that amazes me is that they actually made these claims to the jury, with a straight face. They’re just so ridiculous that it strains comprehension. The jury apparently agreed because they only deliberated for 5 hours before coming back with a guilty verdict. Republicans are preparing to appeal on the grounds of infringement upon their First Amendment rights.

My Analysis

I say it’s about freakin’ time that the authorities get serious with this stuff. I mean, I know that dirty tricks go on all the time and the robocall seems to be the blunt instrument of choice. Across the country there have been calls (usually targeting minorities) telling people to get out and vote on the wrong day, that they have to bring their voter registration card, home ownership documents, or photo IDs, or that their registration has expired.

Luckily Maryland has some pretty strict verbiage on the books, relating to election laws. It says that you can’t “willingly and knowingly… influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote through use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward or offer of reward.”

There is no way that this robocall didn’t rise to that level of illegality. And it was such a pitiful, stupid gambit, which which surprised to me. The Republicans have been effectively maneuvering to suppress voter turnout among minorities and the young for the last couple years. Of course, it’s under the guise of preventing “voter fraud,” which they claim is rampant.

They’ve spent the last 5 or so years busily “solving” this problem by passing laws that require various IDs and eliminating EZ-registration programs. According to Justice Dept studies, the number of fraudulent votes cast because of these kinds of issues number in the hundreds, nationwide.

Contrast that to the thousands upon thousands of people targeted by fraudulent robocalls made by Republicans bent on keeping people that are likely to vote against them, from going to the polls.

Also you can throw in the institutionalized voter suppression found in states like Ohio, where the election officials are also high-ranking Republican party officials. (As is the CEO of the Diebold, maker of the voting machine used there.) They have the ability to ensure that the polling places in urban areas are woefully under-equipped, thus ensuring long lines and numerous walk-outs. That’s exactly what happened in the last several Presidential elections.

The Republicans realize that if registered Democrats ever get off their collective asses and vote against the Republicans, and especially if Independents join in as well, they’ll never win another general election. There are too many people that are not well served by their top-down economic positions or evangelical moralizing. Their only recourse is to reduce the number of voters likely to vote against, which include minorities and our idealistic young.

Once again, the Republicans, posing as the paragons of American virtue and wholesome values, working feverishly behind the scenes to circumvent the very Constitution they claim to revere.

I want to see a stiff jail term here. Imagine the chill that will send down the spines of these political hacks that are so cavalier with our Constitutional voting rights. I want that message out there… If you engage in dirty tricks to keep people from voting, you can look forward to getting ass-fucked in prison for the next 3-5 years.

Yeah, I know they’ll actually end up in a cushy white-collar joint where their biggest complaint will be that the TVs aren’t in HD, but I can dream, can’t I?

Enjoying the Fruits of One's Labor

2011-12-06T19:56:00.001-05:00

I usually talk on the phone with my parents every weekend or two. As you may recall, they retired to Florida just over 5 years ago. We haven’t lived in the same town since 1986 so the calling habit is pretty ingrained.

When we spoke on Sunday, I received some very happy news. My dad had finally been able to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams: to walk outside and pick an orange from his very own orange tree. Seriously, I think that was the main reason they moved to Florida… that and the fact that no one has invented a tree that grows giant fish sandwiches.

OK, I make room for the fact that living with Green Bay’s 76,000 feet of snow every year might get a bit tiresome in one’s Golden Years.

It took quite a while to get to this point. There were some false starts with tree plantings, and trees that never yielded anything but hard, green little nuggets. (Remember, this was the guy that used his golf clubs as tomato stakes, just to amuse his next-door neighbor.) And as I recall, he also has pear and fig trees planted, but I don’t think those efforts have borne fruit yet.

Finally, the day was at hand when Dad could begin the harvest of his crops!

How cool is it to be able to pick fresh oranges in December? Unfortunately it may be a while until he has enough for juice. I predict that pretty soon, he’s not going to have a back yard at all; he’ll have a grove. I don’t know what he’s going to do, though, once the trees get bigger than him. (Which won’t take much!)

But the back yard wasn’t the only area of improvement. I also learned about a new story.

Aside from orange trees, Dad always wanted palm trees too. They house they bought came with 2 big sega palms, which were along the driveway. Right beside the palms appeared this other plant. Dad didn’t know what it was but it grew like crazy. In fact, they took to decorating it with twinkle lights for Christmas. Because it grew so quickly, Dad took to trying to shape it like a pine tree, to make it more Christmas tree-ish. At one point, it grew to 12 feet tall.

The arrow marks the plant in question, during its early days. I’m approximating the 12’ mark to which it grew.

Eventually they asked a neighbor what the plant was and were shocked to find out that it was basically a weed. And thus it became known as The Christmas Weed. The neighbors (once again) must have thought they were nuts… Crazy Yanks.

Well, you can call it the Temporary Christmas Weed now, because Dad yanked it out of there last week and replaced it with something more traditional.

I don’t know what it is, but it’s conical and came from a nursery, so it must be an official plant.

While we were talking about the Christmas decorations, I asked if they’d put up my favorite of their ornaments this year.

I’ve mentioned in the past that our family’s ornaments tend to be a series of one-of-a-kind things, as opposed to boxes of the same bulbs. We put up crazy quilt Christmas trees, not thematic statements. And we tend to have some pretty weird stuff up there, like mini Jack Daniels bottles and lots of kid-art. But one item takes the cake.

It was a gift from my dad’s friend Frank, aka “Frank the Lob.” Dad and The Lob have a long history of gag-gifting each other, each more ridiculous than the next. One year, The Lob sent Dad this:

I present: the “B’jhonk” Warmer, thoughtfully knitted in Steelers colors. It’s not stuffed or anything. It’s made to “encase.”

I have no idea how to spell “bajhonk,” so I’m making an approximation. That’s what Dad usually calls it. It sounds like “ba-zhonk,” which is another term for… well… I think you can tell from looking at it. It’s another word for “lob,” if you will.

Dad described it this way: “The Steeler Salami Warmer was a present to me from The Lob when we moved to Green Bay. He thought it would help keep me warm, but it was way too small. He said he thought it was the perfect size but that was a guess. Anyway, from 1990 on, we have been putting it on our Christmas Tree and is “One of Our Favorite Things.”

If I know my parents, Dad probably puts it right up front on the tree, and once he goes back to watch football, Mom moves it around to the side. Here’s a shot of it up on the tree:

I’m not sure if they hang it there (snicker), or just slip it over one of the branches. Talk about a little prick… (Woooo!)

Dad has a bunch of crazy-assed stories about The Lob; at some point, I’m going to have to tell them. It’s not like he’d mind… Who do you think sent me all the pictures to post?

Think Before You Speak: A Cautionary Tale

2011-12-04T07:00:00.001-05:00

When I was babysitting my nephews last weekend, I spent a lot of time talking with my older nephew, Daniel. We talked about all kinds of stuff, from music to pro sports, to all the sports with which he’s been involved. He especially enjoys hearing stories about his father’s childhood as well as my own stories.

As we were talking about his burgeoning floor hockey career, I told him this cautionary tale.

I’ve written before about the 4 years I played in a co-ed pick-up hockey league, back in the 90s. There were about 20 of us in the “league” (mostly hockey parents) and we would divide up into teams each week.

Sometimes we would be short on numbers and some of the parents’ kids would join in. It was especially important that we had two goalies. Not just anyone can throw on the pads and try to stop pucks, without hurting themselves. Such was the case one night when Ellen, one of our usual goalies and founder of the group, couldn’t make it. In her place, she sent a boy that played goalie on her kids’ team. The boy was 15 or 16, I’d say.

It’s often said that goalies are the “characters” of the team and that certainly held true with this kid. He came in the locker room and as we were changing into our gear, proclaimed loudly how he was going to slam the door on us old people and pitch a shutout.

“No way you geezers are scoring on me,” he said. “I’m younger and faster; this ought to be an easy night.”

Robert, our other goalie and an attorney in real life, tried to advise the kid that he probably shouldn’t be running his mouth, lest he provoke an unpleasant response. But the kid wouldn’t stop. He continued to crow about how we wouldn’t be able to score on him.

The kid should have listened to Robert, because all of us that ended up on the kid’s opposing team vowed that we were going to provide a little educational opportunity.

We went out there and won the game 8-0. Everyone that scored took the opportunity to emphasize the lesson to the kid. I scored two goals myself, and after each one, screamed at him, “Shutout, huh? Shutting the door on us, huh? How’s that for a buncha old people? Try shutting your yap next time.”

It’s hard to be subtle when you’re teaching a life lesson.

Later, back in the locker room, I saw Robert talking to the boy again. He had his arm around him, saying, “Repeat after me.

“I’m just going to come out and do my best.

“I’m glad to be here and hope I can give everyone a good game.

“I’m grateful to have the opportunity to skate with everyone here tonight.”

It was like that scene in Bull Durham where Crash Davis teaches Nuke LaLoosh all the classic interview clichés.

This time, the boy was soaking it up like a sponge. I hope my nephew did as well.

Bluz, after a hard night on the ice. (OK, it was a Halloween get-up, but I had my real gear on…)

The Mojo Boogie

The Steelers game is not on TV here this week, so it’s another day at the sports bar for me. The last 3 times I went to the bar, I wore the same thing and we won, so I won’t be breaking the streak today.

Black Steelers polo w/ white piping, yellow-fronted hat with Steelers socks.

My Questionable Taste

2011-12-01T19:31:00.000-05:00

I want to bang out something quick tonight because the Penguins/Capitals game comes on at 7:00 and it’s already 6:45. This is when the DVR pays off. Anyway, I’m going into the archives and pulling out one of those email questionnaires that went around on email about 5 years ago and unearthing some nuggets from there. I made a few updates to reflect the passage of 5-years time.

Sorry, not every post can be a sepia-toned memory about getting humiliated in church while wearing expensive boots.

Note: you GOTTA check out the prior post and look at the comment from Bryan (of A Beer for the Shower). He has the all-time best church horror-show story, ever.

The Meme (which has been edited for brevity and levity):

What time did you get up this morning? Six AM. OK, that was when I woke up. When I got up was 6:50.

Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds. I don’t have anything that goes with pearls.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2. Bloody brilliant.

What’s your favorite TV show? Modern Family and 30 Rock.

What did you have for breakfast? Diet Coke and a breakfast bar.

What is your middle name? I don’t have one, but I always say that modesty is my middle name, and don’t think that didn’t get me teased on the playground.

What’s your favorite meal? Mom’s pasta or my pork chops.

What foods do you dislike? Broccoli or any other multi-syllabic, double-lettered, vowel-ending vegetable.

What is your favorite CD? Meatloaf, “Bat Out of Hell.” (Still.)

What kind of car do you drive? 2002 Chrysler Concorde… my first Big Boy car.

What’s your favorite word or phase? “Don’t mess with the Big Dog… The Big Dog is always right.” (Thank you to Tommy Lee Jones.) Runner up: “Because Daddy knows things…” (Something I tell Pinky after something I’ve said turns out to be balls-on accurate.)

What characteristics do you despise? Inconsideration, egotism, aggressive ignorance, lack of awareness of anyone but ‘self.’ (In other words, most Maryland drivers.)

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Australia, just to hear them speak.

What color is your bathroom? Mold.

Favorite brand of clothing? Don’t care… anything with a Steelers or Penguins logo on it.

To where would you like to retire? A cruise ship. I hear it’s cheaper than assisted living. Short of that, Pittsburgh. I’d save big on my cable bill. All the sports packages I pay extra for are considered “local TV” there.

What type of detergent do you use? I wash in Tide (because it’s too damn cold out’tide.)

Are you a morning person or a night owl? I’m a lunch person.

What size shoe do you wear? Size 12, which is really handy when I’m measuring rooms and stuff.

Do you have pets? No, I live vicariously through the pets of others.

What did you want to be when you were younger? Bigger and cooler, and see? I’m half way there.

Best childhood memory? Playing outside in the neighborhood or at the local pool every day during the summer.

Piercing? Just my gaze.

Ever been Toilet Papered? Sure, but I usually do it myself.

Ever love someone so much it made you cry? Yes, but then she rolled off my schlong and I felt much better.

Croutons or bacon bits? Everything’s better with bacon.

Favorite day of the week? Saturday.

Favorite restaurant? Mom’s dining room table.

Favorite ice cream? Butter Pecan. Got that from my dad.

Favorite flower? Torrenia. I have a knack for growing them.

Also know as Clown Violets.

Disney or Warner Bros.? Warner Brothers! Bugs rocks!

Favorite fast food restaurant? Wendy’s.

How many times did you fail your driver’s test? Never; I didn’t dare. Besides, they have GOOD driver’s ed in Ohio.

At which store would you max out your credit card? I would NEVER max out my credit card. (Or else I wouldn’t be able to afford my cruise ship retirement.) But if I had to, probably Best Buy.

What are you listening to right now. The Sound of Silence. Not the Simon and Garfunkel song, just silence. (Obviously, Pinky isn’t here right now.)

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The Egg, because the Chicken needed too much foreplay.

Boot Scootin' Bungle

2011-11-29T18:44:00.001-05:00

Since my last couple posts have been kind of unfocused, I figured I’d break out a story from The Archives. Actually, I’ll have to tell you two stories and surprisingly, one of them has to do with shoes.

[Watches female eyes light up across the blogosphere…]

It all starts with the boots.

One day back when I was living in Albany, Future-Ex and I were cruising through the mall, just her and I. This was before we were married, but after we’d bought the house together. As we passed in front of this exotic boot store, I stopped at the window to look at the snakeskin boots. I’d always thought they looked really sharp.

So in passing, I said, “Man, if I ever had a couple hundred bucks to toss down the toilet, I’d get a pair of snakeskin boots.” We continued on our way and I never mentioned it again.

Cut to my birthday later that year and lo and behold, she got me a pair of snakeskins! I was overjoyed! I had no idea she remembered that comment and was thrilled to have such an extravagant wife.

My snakeskin boots. I’m sure they could use a good clean and shine.

The thing I learned about wearing the snakes was that while the tops were soft and pliable, there was nothing to the soles. Between the steel bar in the arch and the forward edge of the boot heel that cuts into my heel, it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to wear these things for any long stretch of time. (And this was before the Delayed Pressure Urticaria. These things kill me now.)

But boy, they looked good. With the big heels, I looked like I was about 8 feet tall and with every stride you heard that distinctive boot-click, letting everyone around know that a badass was approaching.

Side note: I wore them to work here in Baltimore one time. I figured that since I sat down most of the day, I’d be OK. On the contrary, my feet were throbbing by the time I got home. But on the way in, as I was walking up out of the subway, I heard someone say, “Love the boots!”

I turned around and saw that it was a young black girl, who just so happened to be wearing skin-tight snakeskin pants. It was probably a stripper, on the way to the day shift at one of the clubs on The Block.

OK, so back to Albany…

We spent the next spring in a whirlwind of wedding planning. First and foremost, we had to find a place that would marry us. Both of us were recovering Catholics, but while it was my first time, she’d already been married twice before, so a Catholic Church wedding was out of the question. That suited me just fine. I didn’t much care who married us; I knew that the only praying I was going to do on Sundays was going to be on the behalf of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So we checked around and found a Unitarian church nearby, conveniently located right down the street from where we wanted to have the reception. The Unitarians take pretty much everyone so I wasn’t too worried about getting turned down. The minister (or whatever) only asked that we come in one time for a counseling session. I was fine with that, as I wanted to get a handle on him too.

We managed to act like we were a good match and convinced him to take the gig. Obviously, one of the reasons churches like this will marry people that are unaffiliated with them is to try to change that fact and get them attending services. Naturally, he asked Future-Ex, her kid and I to come to the following Sunday’s service and we agreed. I figured that it would be a good idea to go and make sure they weren’t into anything too weird, you know, like fires or dragons or rolling on the floor and speaking in tongues. I thought we’d just slip in and sit in the back, observe like flies on the wall and make sure we weren’t making a terrible mistake. We’d slip in and slip back out, without drawing any undue attention.

I was feeling particularly jaunty that morning so I decided I’d wear my snakeskins to the service. I mean, why not? If we were sitting in the back, it’s not like I’d be blocking anyone’s view? Why not go in stylin’?

I’ll tell you why. Because things rarely turn out as you plan. You’d have thought I’d learned that by that point in my life.

As we walked in the back doors, we were greeted immediately by an overly cheerful usher, who after introducing himself to us newcomers, briskly led us straight down past all the shiny, happy Unitarians right to front fucking row. There I was, clomp-clomping down the aisle like a Clydesdale, 8-feet tall and as awkward looking as a kid holding up the side wall of an 8^th grade dance.

Not seeing any graceful way out of it, I just went with it and tried to sit down as low as I could. Just one more in the crowd, right?

Wrong. This service, while relatively pleasant, had a lot of call and response throughout the service. We didn’t know any of it and that really shouldn’t have mattered. Even when I did know all the responses, like with the Catholic mass, I never actually participated. I never saw the point of group responses; they’re a little too much like mass-hypnosis for me.

But then they got to this one part; geez it still gives me a nervous stomach to think about it to this day. There was this song to be sung and unlike how you usually just sit there and move your lips and pretend to sing, everyone had to stand up in circles of 6 or 7, hold hands facing each other and sing together in little groups.

So there we are, way up in front, me with my 8-feet tall snakeskin boots and deer-in-headlights eyes, holding hands with the scripture reader and people in the row behind us. Everyone is singing except us, because obviously we don’t know enough of the words to even fake it. I can’t even look at anybody; all I can do is look at the floor and fidget on my feet.

Have you ever had that dream where you’re in front of an audience to give a big speech and you don’t know what to say? Or are pushed out onto a stage with a guitar in your hand, but you don’t know how to play a single thing? And you hope that you can just start doing something with the strings and some notes would pour out, but still you just stand there because you don’t even know where to start? That was me, living out my personal nightmares in front of a bunch of shiny, happy Unitarians, swaying and sweating high up above the congregation in my stack-heeled snakeskin boots.

What I wouldn’t have given for Scotty to beam me the hell out of there in that instant. I felt like a complete and utter 8-foot dork. While the minister may have known our plight, nobody else around us did. We just looked like a nice family of dipshits. I could not WAIT to get out of Dodge.

I wonder if that was a Unitarian initiation prank. I bet they only do that to punish the heathens that come to use the Unitarians strictly for marriage services.

“They think they can just waltz in here and use our church? We’ll fix their asses… Here, we’ll sit’em right up front, so we can all laugh. It’ll be like a bonding exercise.”

“Dude, did you see the look on that big one? I thought he was going to throw up right there in the pew. Good thing we didn’t go through with part two.”

“What, where we make them do The Lord’s Special Dance? Ten bucks says Tallboy would have tripped over the kneeler and busted his lip on the railing.”

And you wonder why I haven’t found religion…

Odd Bits - The Thankful Edition

2011-11-27T12:19:00.001-05:00

So far, it’s been a successful holiday weekend. I worked on Black Friday, and am taking Monday off instead. It was weird working on Friday. There were only a couple of us there on my floor for most of the day. By leaving time, I was the only one left. It was like I was a marble, rolling around an empty boxcar. In fact, all of downtown was a ghost town, which is a huge improvement, in my book.

Uncle Bluz

I went to my brother’s house for the Thanksgiving feast and had a wonderful time. But even better was getting to come back on Friday night and baby-sit. My brother and his wife were going to dinner and then to see Bob Seger, (who still rocks, according to Bluz Brother).

So I packed a bag and went directly from work. I had to pack a bag because the Penguins were playing and I had to be dressed in the appropriate game jersey for the occasion. Even “on the job,” I still have my mojo responsibilities.

Once we settled in, we had some time before the game started so we watched the AC/DC concert movie, “Let There Be Rock.” (I wrote about it a while back.) Because you can’t seem to buy a decent Blue Ray package anymore that doesn’t also include the DVD, I figured I’d give my DVD copy to my nephew. I made up some cover art, provided a jewel box and produced a nice little package for him. (I did the same with the latest Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean movies too. When are the movie studios going to realize that they might be able to gouge us out of an extra $5 for the bigger package, but they lose on a whole other sale? Because who really needs both movie versions to use for themselves?)

As I’ve mentioned before, my nephew Daniel (12) is an AC/DC freak now, so I felt I owed it to him to show him the band at their performing prime. It was cool. Sammy (6) was unimpressed though, and rolled over on the floor and had a nap.

I had to take Daniel to his basketball practice at 7:30, so we paused the game and ran the errand. When we got back, Sammy perched up on my lap and we watched the game together. I tell you, the kid is pretty observant for a 6-year old. He knew all the players and everything they’d done lately. It was some really nice Uncle/Nephew bonding time. We get very little time for the two of us because when Daniel is home, he tends to dominate the conversation.

We paused the game again to go pick up Daniel and them came back to watch the end. (Pens crushed Ottawa, 6-3, in a game that wasn’t really as close as the score indicates.)

Then, because my brother’s TV setup is different than mine and had a jillion different channels, we just scanned around to the other hockey games in progress. It was really just background noise though, because we mostly just yapped the rest of the night.

Daniel and I tend to get into very detailed music conversations. He tells me what he likes and then I tell him what I know about the artist. Sometimes we have to go to the YouTube to provide examples. God, what I wouldn’t have given for that kind of technology when I was a kid.

I’ve had this other idea kicking around in my head for a while now: a way to help guide Daniel in his musical journey… to steer him toward high-quality rock and roll, and away from the noise that passes for music today.

I pitched the idea to my brother first, that I could set the boy up with an email account, to which I would maintain access. (That way, I could monitor use and dump the inevitable inappropriate spam.) Once a week, I would email Daniel a song of choice, along with any relevant information. For example, I’d tell him why I like the song, what the cool parts of it are, what to listen for, and most importantly, seek his feedback on what HE thinks of it.

My brother told me not to bother setting up a separate email. He would just add an account onto his current email, for Daniel’s use. Fine by me… whatever works. I was just trying to minimize what anyone else would have to do.

I pitched the idea to Daniel on Friday and he was all over it. I don’t get to see the boys as often as I’d like, so I figured he was old enough now to take advantage of the tech we have available. (Yes, I know we could be doing Skype… one step at a time!) He’s into texting, too, so we traded cell numbers.

My goal is to teach the boy HOW to listen to music… how to seek out the bass line; how to appreciate a solid opening build; how to pick out the guitar riffs on multiple guitars; and mostly how to appreciate real people playing real instruments that do NOT include the abomination that is auto-tune.

I’ll let you know how it goes, once we get going and the email account is set up.

Buckeye Bluz

ESPN has been hyping the Ohio State/Michigan game as “The Game.” While I may be all “Pittsburgh” for pro sports, in college sports my family rolls with the Buckeyes. We lived in Columbus for 5 years, my mom taught and got her Masters there, and my brother graduated from there later. He and I saw our first college football games there, and it stuck. So the OSU/Michigan game has been a big deal for us since we were kids.

While I was at my brother’s place on Friday, it reminded me of a story, which I then told to the boys.

When I first moved to Baltimore and was staying with my brother and his wife, on the morning of the OSU/Michigan game I was awakened by the sound of the Ohio State Marching Band, aka The Best Damn Band in the Land. My brother was playing the CD on the house stereo.

When I cleared my head, I stumbled downstairs and saw my sister-in-law in the living room. I asked where my brother was.

She said that he was outside putting up the Buckeye flag. Then she added, “At least this year, he’s not running up and down the street with it.”

That was the funniest thing I ever heard her say. The “visual” just slayed me.

Alas, we lost the game yesterday, thus breaking a 7-game winning streak against That Team Up North. Oh well… 7 out of 8 ain’t bad. Yinz kin look it up.

The Mojo Boogie

The Steelers play the KC Chiefs tonight on Sunday Night Football, at Kansas City. For the Steelers to win the division they need to win out the rest of the season AND have the Ratbirds lose one, otherwise, it’s Wild Card City. So we need this one.

I decided to wear the same gear I wore the last time I watched at home while the Steelers were “away.” I could have gone with what I wore the last times they were on SNF, but the results were inconclusive. So for tonight:

White Polamalu jersey, gold-sleeved throwback tee, flannel Steelers jammy pants with the Hot Arizona Auntie-approved Steelers socks.

As I have the day off tomorrow, staying up late will not be an issue.

The Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

2011-11-24T11:46:00.000-05:00

Whoo Hoo! Day off!

I actually have to work tomorrow, so this day off will have to stand alone. Friday should be an easy day though. It’ll be a ghost town at work. I only know of one other person in my department that’s going to be there. I’m taking Monday off, so I’ll get my long weekend on the back end.

I’m going to my brother’s for Thanksgiving dinner, so that means I’ll get to play with my nephews and watch some higher than usual-quality football for a Thanksgiving Day. Even better, they need me to baby-sit for them on Friday night, so I’m sure I’ll have some adventures to chronicle for you this weekend.

As I sit here today, I easily realize how good I have things now. I have a good job, a secure place to live and some dough in the bank. I have family, friends and a Pinky that love me.

Also, I have you, who stops by regularly or occasionally, to see what I have to say. The gift of your attention is something for which I can never adequately express my thanks. Thank you for your visits, your comments and in many occasions, your friendship.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Mangia!"

It's All Greek to Me

2011-11-22T21:25:00.000-05:00

Can you be nostalgic when you’re only in 3^rd grade?

I remember back when we lived in the Chicago suburbs and I was but a wee lad of 7 or 8, my parents got this Greatest Hits album by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. This was the late sixties and even then, Herb and the TJB weren’t exactly “hip.” But their brassy instrumentals were catchy and fun, for a household with 3 little kids.

I mean, we couldn’t play the soundtrack to “Hair” all the time, could we?

Tell me these guys don’t look like they should be playing in a crappy Holiday Inn lounge somewhere… And I could swear that the 2^nd standing guy from the left was Dick Martin from Laugh In.

Every so often, mom or dad would put on the Herb Alpert and we would carry on and dance around the dining room table. I remember at the time, feeling nostalgic about those tunes, because I remembered them from when I was an even younger boy.

When we still lived in Pittsburgh, we had this big basement with a bar. My folks would have the occasional New Years Eve party back then, which obviously set the precedent for the NYE parties we had out in The Barn, 15 years later.

I still remember the ritual of Dad sweeping out the concrete basement floor and wiping off the bar. I used to love those parties because of all the fun… the soft drinks that we were allowed to have, the snacks, and the music. My brother and I were allowed to stay up for a little later than usual and enjoy the first hours of the party.

“That’s enough root beer for this one.” 5-year old Bluz and almost 3-year old Bluz Brother, New Years Eve, 1966.

My parents would fire up the record player down there and play 45’s, Herb Alpert’s among them. I used to be fascinated by the sight of the records spinning round and round.

OK, I was a very easily amused kid. We didn’t have Playstations, we had radio stations… AM radio stations at that. But I just always thought that records were cool to play with, from the time I was, like, 3. Anyway, I’m drifting…

The thing is; I could remember those songs from the time I was a very small boy, so that even hearing them in elementary school made me wax nostalgic.

My favorite of the lot, hands down, was “Zorba the Greek.” It was one tune that was nothing like any of the others, most of which had a Latin vibe. “Zorba” was anarchy! It was fast-paced, featuring a bouzouki player, Herb’s lightning-lipped trumpet, and lots of hooting and hollering and “Ayiiiiiii-yip-yip-yip!” It was a four and a half minute party!

A Greek "bouzouki."

Even as a kid, I could picture a loud, wild affair with sunshine, brilliant colors and lots of people dancing around with their arms in the air. Check this out; you’ll see what I mean.

You needn’t even pay attention to the visuals; (some album stills, some dancing video), the music says it all. You can skip the slow part in the middle, but be sure to catch where it starts to speed up again at the 2:45 mark.

My brother used to have his special moves for this song as well, (again, when he was very young.) During the slow part, he’d lay face-down on the couch, and then as the music gradually picked up speed, he’d shake his butt from side to side in time with the beat, faster and faster until he’s practically throw himself off the couch. Used to make me laugh myself silly.

When we finally got around to growing up and throwing our own parties out in The Barn, especially in our first, small, neighborhood Barn Parties, we found a home for Zorba there too. None of our friends had heard any of this kind of things before but they caught the same vibe as we did. In fact, we invented our own dance to it. Granted, it wasn’t nearly as good as the people you see in the video… Ours was more like a long Conga Line, only with more hormones… three ass-shakes, then a pelvic thrust on every kettle-drum beat. Call it a Bunny Hop for prospective pole dancers.

You know, maybe if the Greeks didn’t make such catchy music, their economy wouldn’t be in the toilet. It’s hard to hold down a steady job when you’re always dancing around with your arms in the air. And how could you ever hold a business meeting?

“And now, Cristos will talk about our 4^th quarter projections.”

“Thanks, Stavros.”

[Climbs up on table, begins dancing…] “Ayiiiiiii-yip-yip-yip!”

[Everyone links arms and dances around the boardroom table…] “Woooooooo!”

Marginally-related thought: If I were Greek, I think I’d like to be named “Cheerios,” or if I was having a bad day, “Belicos.”

I have Zorba on my MP3 player, so it comes up occasionally on my way to or from work. It’s kind of a “WTF” moment when it follows something like AC/DC or Metallica. Or Abba. Such is the peril of “shuffle mode.”

But it never fails to make me smile and look for the party. And want to shake my butt and put my arms in the air. It’s impossible to have a bad day with this tune running through your head.

Ayiiiiiii-yip-yip-yip!

Odd Bits - The Bye-Week Edition

2011-11-20T13:06:00.000-05:00

The Steelers are on their “bye” this week, so there is no game for me to dress for or obsess over. So what to do, what to do?

Make do, that’s what to do.

Ratbird Whine

Earlier this week, I spotted a story about the Ratbirds coach John Harbaugh complaining about some of the music that was played when his team was at Heinz Field, two Sundays ago.

Seems he was incensed that the scoreboard operator was displaying the game stats comparing the two quarterbacks, the Ratbirds’ Joe Flacco and the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger. At the same time, the PA was playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “What’s Your Name (Little Girl). He was presuming that it was a shot at his guy, but hell, that could have been Big Ben’s own personal theme song, up until last year’s great Operation Reputation Rehabilitation.

I don’t even know that it was done on purpose… that’s the kind of song that you might hear at a Steelers game anyway. But even assuming that it was on purpose, wouldn't you think that an NFL coach has more important things to worry about? Just goes to show how badly the Steelers are in the Ratbirds’ heads.

John, just take your win and shut the fuck up. What happened the next week when your guys ate it in Seattle, did they play The Bitch is Back in your honor? Considering all the scoreboard bullshit (like never replaying any play that doesn’t favor your team) and public address insults directed at the Steelers (like never announcing who made the tackle against your offense) in your stadium, you just look like a hypocrite.

Towel Mania

I saw this clip on That’s Church last week and had to ~~steal it~~ run it myself because it’s just that cool.

Earlier this year, ESPN had solicited fans to submit photos or video of themselves waving their Terrible Towel in interesting places. At the time, I considered sending something in, but I really hadn’t been anywhere noteworthy, with Towel in hand.

Nothing I could have done would have made the cut, because the commercial is on YouTube now and is just amazing. It goes to show how widespread the Steeler Nation is across the world. Check this out…

Baltimore hates us because they will never be able to do something that it this cool.

Twi-Lights Out

I hear the new Twilight movie is out this weekend. I am on neither Team Edward nor Team Jacob. I am on Team Who Gives a Shit about Sullen Sparkly Vampires That Take Three Movies to Finally Bang the Hot Chick.

And what’s up with all the grown-ass women that love these movies?

Now, leave me alone… I can’t be bothered with this weak-ass bullshit… I’ve got the last Harry Potter movie to watch on DVD.

What? Hermione’s smokin’ hot.

The No-Mojo Boogie

Since I don’t have a game to dress for, I thought this would be a good time to show you what I’m NOT wearing.

I have a couple articles of Steelers apparel that I no longer wear during any Steelers game. I figured that with the Steelers not playing, it was a good time to drag these out for a picture.

(Note: I am NOT wearing either one today, either, I’m just showing you the picture.)

Steelers boxer shorts and Loud Steelers Zubaz pants.

The last time I wore either of these was Super Bowl XXX in 1995, which the Steelers lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Cowboys.

They hadn’t done me any good in previous games, but I was not yet experienced enough to correctly read the tealeaves. I just figured, ‘the louder and uglier, the better.’ It worked insomuch as it was a loud, ugly game.

To tell the truth, I don’t think I can squeeze my big ass into anything I wore in 1995 ever again, so I have a built in insurance policy against any future lack of judgment.

Code of Silence

2011-11-17T18:53:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about this story from my ‘old life’ the other day and thought I might like to talk about it.

As you may remember, back in the early 90s, I managed to make the leap from managing record stores to working in our company’s home office. My boss, Dave, who I’ve mentioned in my previous “Music Years” series, was the VP of Merchandising. In other words, his department was in charge of all the merchandise that our store sold, from music to video to accessories. It was definitely the ‘cool’ department to work in. I loved working there and I loved working for Dave.

There was this one time that he needed me to send a request out to the field. I don’t remember the details at all, but there was something we needed the stores to do. He told me to run it by our Operations Manager first, and then send it out.

When I talked to the Ops Guy, he totally kiboshed it. I forget why, but he was emphatic that it wasn’t a good time. I reported this back to Dave and asked what to do. With a twinkle in his eye, Dave said to send the message anyway. I did, happy to be included in the conspiracy.

The next day, the Ops Guy came by my cube and he was most unhappy. He told me to get into Dave’s office, immediately.

I went in and sat down, while the Ops Guy proceeded to tear me a new asshole.

“Damn it Bluz, I told you not to send that out! Why would you do that? I won’t tolerate such blatant disregard for what I thought was a crystal-clear direction.”

I was feeling a bit shell shocked… I mean, why wasn’t Dave setting the guy straight? Direct disobedience was definitely unusual for me and I didn’t like anyone thinking otherwise. But then I had a thought…

What if Dave was testing me? Maybe he was checking my character… maybe he wanted to see if I would crack or if I would roll over on him to get myself out of trouble. Or maybe this was something that could hurt Dave politically within the company.

Right then, I decided to say nothing. If Dave wanted to see if I could take the heat, I’d take it all. I figured; he must have his reasons. And after all, Dave was my boss, not the Ops Guy. My annual review and my paycheck were in Dave’s care, so if he needed me to take the fall for this, he could just call me Fallzdude. I understood the Code of Silence, or as the Italians call it, “Omertá.”

The Ops Guy continued his tirade. I don’t remember what he actually said but he was being very harsh and very critical of my character. I just lowered my head and took it, saying nothing.

Then after another minute or so, (which seemed like an eternity), Dave just said, “Oh, calm down, I told Bluz to do it.”

Thank you Jesus! It was over, and if it was a test, I figured I passed. Dave told me I could go back to my desk. I fairly dashed out of the office, while the two of them hashed it all out. I never heard any more about it.

So as I was pondering this story earlier this week, I thought I might like to provide a better ending for you. Dave and I had been Facebook friends since last year so I thought I’d write to him and see if he could provide any insight for the story. Was he really testing me? Or just screwing around with the Ops Guy?

Good idea, right?

Wrong. Dave had no recollection of the event I described. I admit that it was a long shot. Not only did it take place about 18 years ago, I bet he had dozens, if not hundreds of dicey office issues he’d addressed over the years. I just had the one there, so it was easy for me to remember.

History does repeat itself though; you know that.

About 5 years ago, when I was with my current company but in a previous department, I got into deep doo-doo with a Department Manager from one of our facilities in another state. His unit had to research files on retailers that we were trying to set up with our finance program and they often had quite a backlog.

When checking into a particular file, I emailed a good friend of mine in that department who used to work closely with me here. She told me that the file I was looking for, along with a stack of others, was languishing on a desk somewhere until someone could get to them.

This pissed me off, because this particular Department Manager had been agitating for some time to take on more of the retailer set-up process, (which would take it away from my team!) So not only did he want OUR job, in my opinion, they were likely to do it poorly. Dude was “empire-building,” plain and simple.

Director’s DVD Commentary: That did indeed happen. The day my boss gave up the fight to keep Retail Setup in our house was the day I began posting out for other jobs. When they did take over Setup, they promptly ran it into the ground with time delays and errors. They didn't have nearly enough people allotted to do the job properly.

Sometimes it sucks being right all the time.

So I called my friend to confirm what she emailed me. The files were not being actively worked, despite the fact that my team was being pressured daily regarding the completion status.

As luck would have it, some of the sales guys that had submitted these files happened to be in the building. I went over to where they were and mentioned what I’d learned, and that they might want to call up and “shake the tree.”

Oh, that tree got the living shit shaken out of it. The Department Manager went absolutely ballistic when he found out that I’d told the sales guys that his group wasn’t actively toiling over their files. He had one of the sales people bring me over to her cube and over a speakerphone, called me out and threatened my job. He was dropping F-bombs all over the place that could be heard from several cubes away. He was like, “Do anything like that again and I’ll have your fuckin’ job.”

He wanted to know how I got off saying these things about his department. I could have told him right off that one of his own people told me, but I knew that he was a vindictive SOB and he would have initiated Witchhunt 2006. So once again, I clammed up and gave nothing but 1-word non-answers. I didn’t mention anything about my inside intel.

After we hung up, I went straight to my boss and told him what had just taken place. I told him everything except for the identity of my source. I said I’d have to keep that part to myself because I wouldn’t risk my friend’s livelihood. But I guaranteed him that I had not gone off half-cocked and I was not throwing around unsubstantiated charges.

My boss just thanked me for dropping this giant turd in his lap and sent me on my way. OK, he didn’t really say that, but I’m pretty sure he was thinking it. Anyway, he hashed it out with the Dept. Manager and unfortunately it had to come out that I did indeed get my info from his team.

The aftermath dragged on for months. The Dept. Manager conducted his witch-hunt after all, but it never turned up anything.

“She turned me into a newt!" (I got better.)

Neither my friend nor I ever said anything further to anyone. We stopped emailing each other at work, for fear that he had IT set up a net to catch all my correspondence. Instead, we spoke on the phone from home, where I assured her that my lips were sealed. I had other friends in the unit that kept me up on the goings on too. The dude held a big staff meeting where he tried to coerce the information out of people. It ended with his forbidding anyone on his staff from talking to me.

That was truly laughable. I mean, my department and his department had to work hand in hand. Luckily, no one listened to him about that and business went on. And when the Dept. Manager’s boss found out about it all, (via complaints from the other employees there), he became most displeased. He and the Dept. Manager had a long talk about effective managing. I got the last laugh when he was canned a couple months afterwards, during a widespread reorganization.

I felt like, “No, I’ll have YOUR job, motherfucker.”

No, it’s not like he got axed because of me. The guy ran his team like a tyrant and a bully long before this incident. This thing just brought it to a head. He made his own bed.

But once again, keeping my yap shut paid off, not only for me but also for my friend.

Such is the value of Office Omertá.

How to Know if You're Being Treated Right

2011-11-15T19:32:00.002-05:00

Remember the Whatsername Saga? That was the trio of stories I posted about how back about 20 years ago, I got together with a girl who then tore my heart to shreds by breaking up with me 4 separate times. What prompted my writing at the time was that she had just contacted me via Facebook, where after a few exchanged emails, we talked about the whole sordid affair and then buried the hatchet.

There was one interesting offshoot to the story, which I’ve been sitting on to post later. It just so happens that “later” is today.

In the course of our email exchange, after hearing about the bumpy path she’d been on since we parted, I mentioned that I thought that going forward, she needed to stick up for herself more and stop being such a goddamned doormat. I phrased it much more delicately than that, of course, but the point was that she needed to find herself a good guy that treated her right.

She responded by asking me “what my definition of that was and what are the signs that you know that a man is treating you right.” She went on to say that in her experience, “men will reel you in and then change.” That prompted me to come up with this list of rules to help guide the screening process.

Director’s DVD Commentary: You may see some similarities to the guidelines I wrote for my buddy’s daughter Kyrie, in my Letter to a 16-Year Old. When it comes to finding a good guy, there is very little difference between 16 and 60, when determining how one wants to be treated. Some things are timeless. So here is what I wrote to Whatsername.

You are correct; it is often the case that a man (or woman) puts on their best face early on. One always tries to present their better selves at the onset of a relationship. The trick is to determine what's for show and what's the real person. It's key to remember that a guy will not change his true nature. He may be able to mask some rough edges for a while, especially early on, but his own nature will reappear. You cannot change him, no matter what you do. So you need to look for clues as to what his true nature is, especially after the "new" wears off.

These are some things that I think entail “a man treating a woman right.”

* A man should always see that the woman is comfortable. Too hot? Too cold? (Also, the woman needs to make a good-faith effort not to skyrocket the utility bill, like walking around in shorts and a tee shirt, complaining that the room is too cold. It's tough because men and women are rarely comfortable at the same temperature.)

* He should thank her for the things she does... whether it’s bringing home a paycheck, making meals, cleaning up... Her work should not be taken for granted.

* And it doesn't hurt to take on some of it himself.

* He should say things that add to her confidence and make her happy, never detract from it.

* He should be proud that she's his woman and act like he's happy to be seen with her.

* He should pick up the check, almost always. I say "almost" because there's nothing wrong with a woman treating her man once in a while, when she can. But it should be the exception.

* He should listen to her and not just wait until her lips stop moving so that he can talk. And she should try not to talk his ears off as soon as he walks in the door. Guys like quiet time. And don't try to start heavy conversations at the very moment that his favorite show, or a big game, comes on TV.

* When arguing, (which is inevitable) it should never devolve into name-calling or insults. It should stay on point and stay away from old grievances, IE everything the person ever did wrong since the beginning of time. (This goes both ways!) An argument should never sink to violence, hostile actions or threats. Ever.

* He should be loyal, physically and emotionally. While he may have female friends, they should not replace his own woman in any role that should belong to her.

* He should involve her on big decisions, not make them unilaterally.

* He should not keep big secrets, nor snoop through her things looking for hers.

* He should not make fun of her or belittle her in front of his friends.

* He should protect her from harm; from others and from anything else. (But not to the extent of boxing her in. See the next 2.)

* He should not attempt to cut off her access to family or friends.

* While it's good to know where his woman is and when she's coming home, he should not hound her by cell phone every 20 minutes to check up. He has to trust that she's not messing around. (And she has to keep that trust.)

* He should be physically affectionate as a matter of practice, (so long as the woman likes that) not just when he wants sex.

As I'm writing these, I'm noticing that almost all of them apply both ways. (In fact, all of them except the one about picking up the check, and maybe the protection one.) A woman should treat her guy the exact same way.

I realize that real life can interfere with a lot of these things. I mean; I know I violate some of these ideals my own self and I need to do better. However there are a few that should be deal-breakers and prompt a woman to ask hard questions of herself about why she’s still with a guy.

* She should never accept being hit, shoved or treated violently. Even if he claims it was just the booze or drugs, it doesn't matter. If it happens once it can (and will) happen again.

* She should never be verbally abused or called names.

* She should never be exposed to danger... like being kicked out of a car, far from home, or left places when she’s out.

* She should never feel like she’s being "kept" or "owned."

* She should never feel threatened for expressing a differing opinion or be bullied into changing it. Persuasion, yes. Force, no. And sometimes people just have to agree to disagree.

* If he makes her feel cowed, pressured, afraid to express an opinion, unsafe, unappreciated, unattractive or unloved, she should get out. She’s not in a constructive relationship. The only question is how long she’s going to be unhappy before she acts.

After saying she wanted to think on it for a day before responding, she later told me that she read it twice and asked to include it in her memoir. She said that what she found so attractive about it was “that none of the men that I have ever been married to would have spent the time to put that into words like you did. No one ever taught me this. I am not sure I ever asked anyone, ‘how do I know if this relationship is right for me.”

She said some other things that I won’t include here, just because it would have been too completely self-serving, but you get the point. I was just kind of shocked that she, or anyone wouldn’t know all this.

So now we know.

The Mojo Boogie - The Rebound Edition

2011-11-13T10:21:00.002-05:00

Last week’s game was a tough one for me, with the Steelers losing late against the Ratbirds, on Sunday Night Football. The Steelers gave up a game-winning 92-yard touchdown drive with about two and a half minutes to go in the game.

That sure makes the old asshole sting a bit.

Luckily, I was off work on the following Monday and Tuesday, so I didn’t have to take too much shit at work.

While I was off, I saw a blurb in the paper about the ratings for the game. They were huge, nationally, but even bigger in the home markets. In Baltimore, the game earned a 45 rating and 63 share. (That means the game was on in 45% of the homes that have a TV, and in 63% of homes that were watching TV at the time.)

In Pittsburgh, however, the ratings were even bigger, with a 53 rating and 71 share. The article bemoaned the fact that Pittsburgh produced higher ratings for the game than did Baltimore. (Hah! We win the ratings war! Woo hoo!) The headline asked, “Where were Raven viewers?

Here’s the thing that they don’t understand here. These things take time. You don’t just plop a team here (all of 15 years ago) and expect immediate devotion. The Steelers have always had a decent local following, but the team didn’t become any good until 1972. So the Pittsburgh market has had almost 40 years to hone their fanatical following.

Baltimore so much wants to be like Pittsburgh… to have what Pittsburgh has, it’s palpable. That’s a lot of the reason why they hate Pittsburgh so much. The two cities have a lot of similarities, yet one is perennially successful in sports. (OK, in hockey and football. Baseball? Well, it’s been a while.)

Baltimore denigrates the Terrible Towel, because they have no such thing. Plus, they’re sick of seeing them waved in their own stadium.

They hate the team, but of course, they have to as division rivals. And the Steelers have knocked the Rats out of the playoffs on three separate occasions, including in 2 of the last 3 years.

They mock our fanaticism because they have yet to reach our level of commitment. I’ve walked around the downtown of both places and the difference can be seen immediately. In Pittsburgh, the streets are jammed with people wearing Steeler jerseys or other apparel. Yes, there are some that do in Baltimore but it’s a mere fraction of what you see in The Burgh. And you can’t walk down the street in Pittsburgh without going by a window full of Steelers merchandise for sale. Whether it’s an apparel store, or a Walgreens, it’s packed with game gear. Here? Nada. You’d barely knew there was a team here, from storefront appearances.

So if Baltimoreans want to compare themselves to Pittsburghers in terms of team loyalty and identity, they have a long way to go. They have to put in the time. There are no shortcuts.

The Mojo Boogie

The Steelers play the Bengals this afternoon and it won’t be on local TV, so I’m off to Jilly’s, my local sports bar/restaurant. The last two times I went there this season, I wore a black Steelers polo, and we won. But I noticed that both games the Steelers were at home and wore black. This time, they play in Cincy and will be wearing white. I considered wearing a white polo, but in looking back to last year, I often wore black polos while the Steelers wore white, and we won then too. So for the sake of the streak, I’m continuing with the same outfit.

Black Steelers polo with white piping, yellow-fronted hat, with the Hot Arizona Auntie-approved Steelers socks.

I’ll probably have to take some grief at the bar, but whattya gonna do? You got to take the good with the bad. No matter what anyone says, we still have the ultimate trump card:

Late Update
Although the Bengals gave them a scare, the Steelers won today 24-17. It was a good day for me at the old sports bar. Met 3 new Steelers fans there, with whom I expect to watch some future games. And now during the late game, the Seahawks are giving the Ratbirds all they can handle. I'd feel better if they were scoring TDs instead of FGs, but beggars can't be choosers.