The Holmes

Public Transit

2012-01-25T17:56:00.000-06:00

This is about as deep as it gets around here until I finish the first draft of my book. Which, ya know, I'm okay with. We have so many Legos floating around this place.

Also, I almost misspelled "Kryptonite." My wife caught the typo for me. "Some nerd you are!" she declared. Some nerd indeed.

I Like Most Pixar Films, But There Is One Glaring Exception

2012-01-12T22:09:00.000-06:00

This Is What Happens When The Boys Get Star Wars Toys For Christmas And I Get Star Trek Figures For My Birthday

2012-01-10T20:35:00.000-06:00

The Stage Is Littered With Fragments of Shattered Expectations

2012-01-08T17:00:00.000-06:00

There’s a whole set of expectations that accompany you, as an audience member, when you step into a theater. You’ll keep quiet during the performance. You won’t attempt to engage the actors in conversation unless they ask you to. You will not ask the people on stage if it’s over yet. And though plenty may come to mind, you most certainly won’t offer suggestions as to how the performance might be improved - at least not in the moment.

These are pretty reasonable expectations, so much so that you might not even think about them most of the time. Except, that is, when you get handed a permission slip to ignore them.

The Ash and I were brewing beer on New Year’s Day, along with the generous assistance from our friends Bill and Brandon. The boys were thoroughly uninterested in what we were doing, having taken the measure of it and determined that it stood to benefit them in no way at all. And then their friend, Neighbor Kid, came over, and the three of them went off and got lost in Little Boy Imagination Land, a place which, if I remember correct, is populated by dragons, tanks, and mermaids with snakes for hair and flamethrowers in their boobs. Among others.

So there we are, four adults standing outside around the brew pot, each of us with a brew in our hand. One of us was probably stirring. Neighbor Kid sticks his head out the back door and tells us that we need to come in and see their play. I misunderstand for a second, think I’m hearing him tell us we need to come in and watch them play, which, what? Why do we want to...? OH, play noun, not verb. Though, now that I mention it, there are plenty of philosophical discussions to be had regarding the relationship between play the noun and play the verb, what amount of the verb goes into the noun, what the noun actually is. I’ve watched them happen, read the treatises. Or was it a manifesto? Right now, as I type this, as you read this, someone somewhere is declaring, "it's a play, not a show!" It’s sort of like “Stairway to Heaven” - it’s never not happening somewhere.

We adults file into the house and into the living room where Neighbor Kid and our boys are waiting, their excitement to reveal their creation to us causing their skin to bristle with energy and their hair to stand on end. Neighbor Kid, because he is the oldest, gives the signal, and the play begins.

It starts with my oldest rolling a bowling ball and knocking over a row of pins. Then a remote control truck races onstage and knocks him over, then zips around the playing area. My youngest bounces in on a horse and attacks the truck. People are falling over. Dialogue is minimal. It’s all very performance art. And through it all, we in the audience are speaking, not only to one another in unhushed tones, but also to the three players. We’re asking aloud what it is that we are seeing. We're cracking wise. We’re offering our learned assessments. We’re pleading with them to stop bashing the truck into the piano. At one point, someone asks, “Okay, is that it?” Can you imagine? But the kids seem not to mind our jibber-jabber one bit. Though they would have been perfectly entitled to do so, not a single one of them turns to us and snarls “Respect the fourth wall!” We applaud them from a standing position and they bow.

Children. Expectations. Explosions.

New Year's Day IPA

2012-01-04T21:07:00.000-06:00

I spent New Year’s Day brewing beer.

The equipment

I hadn’t planned to spend New Year’s Day brewing beer. It all came about when a long-standing wish of mine met up with an early birthday present from my Mom, a generous gift certificate to the Austin Homebrew Supply store. Wifearrific and I ran down there, picked out our equipment and the ingredients for our first batch, then came home and were all “OKAY! WHEN ARE WE DOING THIS THING?!” To which the calendar responded, “Uh, well, looks like you’re free on New Year’s Day, assuming you’re not too hungover.”

Amazingly enough, some of our brewing friends (that’s right, I’m lucky enough to have brewing friends - plural) agreed to spend their New Year’s Day brewing beer with us. I thought for sure the requisite hangover would have everyone down for the count, but such was not the case.

Not hungover, as far as I can tell

Which is great, because frankly, the process involves a lot of standing around, waiting on things to happen, waiting on the timer to tell you it’s time to do the next step. And what a better way to stand around waiting on stuff than with your friends, all of whom brought beer along with them, because really? You’re going to not drink beer while you brew? Pshaw.

At one point, the kids called us inside the house to show us a play they’d created and had been rehearsing. I doubt that happens at most breweries. That's a whole 'nother rabbit hole I'll have to jump down later.

After an afternoon of rich smells and thick concoctions, we closed up the whole works and shoved it into the pantry where it’ll ferment for the next couple of weeks or so, after which, it gets to age in its bottles for a while, and only then do we get to find out if we did it right...or right enough anyway.

And now it just sits, in the closet, next to the dogfood

It’s odd, you know? Doing all this work to create the perfect environment just to let nature take its course, then sitting back and taking a mostly passive role, like some sort of non-interventionist God that just pokes his head in every now and then, “Everything going okay in here?” then pops back out. Sure, there’s more work to come, but our part in the actual making of the liquid is all but done.

I was talking to one of my oldest friends about our plans to brew on New Year’s Day, and he said it sounded like the start of a great tradition, an idea that I liked right away. I like traditions. Or no, scratch that. I actually kind of hate traditions, but that’s because when I think “tradition,” I think of some tired old ritual whose inconvenience has come to vastly outweigh its purpose, whose original meaning is long forgotten, and that only gets repeated because that’s the way it’s been done since before anybody can remember. No, I don’t need that. I like traditions I can be part of. And as is the case here, I like traditions that I can be in on at the start.

Mark your calendars now, because January 1, 2013 will be the second annual New Year’s Day Holmes-brew.

Wifearrific with beerarriffic

The Water Must Flow

2011-12-06T21:59:00.001-06:00

So there we are. Last weekend. My wife’s birthday bash at our house. We’re all full of food, full of drink, full of the joy of each other’s company. Were you to walk through this gathering, you’d hear snippets of witty conversation and astute observations about any number of topics. But then somewhere in there, you’d hear something else.

“Uh, dude, our sump pump’s making a fucked up sound.”

Yes, it’s true. Right at the tail end of my wife’s birthday party, our house belched up the best gift of all: no more indoor plumbing.

The long and the short of it is that it’s fixed now and we can once again allow water to flow out through its various exits, along with all the wonderful things that water sweeps away with it, only a small amount of which backed itself up into one of our bathrooms. Really, it could have been so much worse.

The plumber that came to our rescue labored outside for several cold drizzly hours, and when he was done, I thought to myself, never again will I take our waste-water system for granted. But then I thought, wait, of course I will. I take stuff like that for granted all the time.

Sure, in that moment, and now as I’m sitting here thinking about it, I’m quite aware of all the mechanisms in place that allow us to send water and its baggage on its merry way. And then last night, when somebody smashed their car into a utility pole and knocked out the electricity in our hood, I was very aware of it, too (that’s right, we lost water and power in one weekend. It was Little House On the Prairie up in here). But gratitude for everyday conveniences is a fleeting thing, am I right? We only think about them when we’re forced to do without them. And I know I’m not the only one here. I’ve seen your Facebook statuses. I’ve read your tweets.

Truth is, though, I tend not to be as grateful of a person as I’d like to be. I’m aware, in a theoretical sense, of the power of gratitude to increase one’s happiness, but I’m not often so great at making the leap into actually being grateful. At least not on a regular basis. I have a shitty way of focusing on the things I don’t have instead of the things I do, even though I try to instill gratitude in my kids all the time. Be grateful, dammit! Honestly, on the list of things about myself that I wish I could just change with a snap of my fingers, this is probably in the top 3, right up there with the ability to draw and having a sixth finger on each hand.

Maybe it’s the issue of it being a thing of being, of being a certain way, as opposed to doing something. Perhaps the doing leads to the being. Do the gratitude, be the gratitude, or some such snippet of wisdom.

So how’s this for some doing? A look back over this past weekend’s adventures with my gratitude goggles on. I present to you a list of things I’m thankful for, in spite of the shit.

That we only had to do without indoor plumbing for about a day and a half.
That my in-laws live just a few minutes away and let us use their facilities.
That the sump pump broke near the end of the party rather than the start, because dude? We went through some beer.
Speaking of beer, I’m very grateful that my friends all have such good taste in the stuff. Nobody shows up with piss.
That I’m married to this wonderful woman and was able to celebrate her birthday with her:

So cute

That so many of my friends are such fantastic cooks. Seriously, when we do a potluck, we eat well.
That getting our plumbing fixed cost us far less than we were fearing, because bullets: we were sweating them.
That it’s still possible to write even if you can’t flush the toilet in the other room, as evidenced by the fact that I still got in lots of writing. Yeah, that novel? Still writing it. Maybe one day I’ll even finish it.
That we all remained civil, even cheerful through the whole thing.
That the plumbing outage and the power outage did not occur simultaneously.

I might be back to not thinking about the portal opened by the little handle on the toilet as soon as tomorrow, but for this moment at least, I’m pretty stoked that the damn thing works.

And Speaking of Ninjas...

2011-12-05T11:54:00.001-06:00

The following story originally appeared on The Badgers of Uncertain Fortune where some friends and I endeavored to all write one short story a week. It was one of my favorites to emerge from my fingertips during that exercise. The writing prompt that started this one was "My Imaginary Friend."

YOSHONGA

“Lie back on your mat and close your eyes.”

The instructor’s voice lilts across the room and the class gladly obeys. It has been an exhausting hour of stretching, posing, balancing, inverting. A bead of sweat races down my brow, but like everything else that vies for my attention during these rare moments of stillness, I do my best to ignore it. The instructor walks between us, talking us through the savasana, guiding our awareness from one end of our bodies to the other and out to its farthest reaches, urging us to release any tension that we encounter along the way.

A tile in the ceiling above me slides away and a shadow appears in the opening, the blackness punctuated only by a pair of eyes. Ninja. The shadow looks down at the prone forms on the floor beneath it, at the instructor with her back turned, looking out the window. “Relax your toes, relax the space between your toes…” It then looks straight down at me, lying still on my mat with my eyes closed, trying - without trying to try - to be aware of as little as possible.

The shadow drops out of the ceiling. Falling faster than gravity, he pulls a saber from a sheath strapped to his back and pivots so that the point of the blade is aimed at my throat. The sunlight streaming through the window strikes the sword, only to be absorbed by the ninja magic that imbues the metal.

Barely the length of a baby cobra fang lies between the tip of the blade and the flesh of my throat when an arm clad in silks of green, pink, and yellow reaches down out of the hole through which the ninja just emerged and grasps the shadow warrior by the ankle, halting his descent. As he is pulled back into the ceiling, the ninja looks up into the blackness between the third and fourth floors and sees the face of his undoing. A whisper escapes his lips, the first word he has uttered since beheading his former master and entering the service of the shadow.

Yoshonga.

And then he is gone. No sound reaches my ears, nor those of my classmates. Our eyes see only the insides of our eyelids. The instructor thinks that perhaps she hears an insect flying through the room, but ignores it.

“Slowly bring awareness back.”

The instructor’s voice reaches me as if from the other side of a dream and I wonder, as I always do, if I have fallen asleep. I wiggle my fingers, wiggle my toes. I open my eyes and think nothing of the unremarkable ceiling above me.

Good Day To You, Sir!

2011-12-01T20:33:00.001-06:00

Here's how we in the Holmes household feel about the end of Movember's impact upon my face:

Subtle, no?

Both of those lightsaberish instruments you see me using there came absolutely free from the nice people at Philips Norelco, but rest assured that the opinions you see below are mine. I call them nice folks because they donated an extra $15,000 to our team, effectively doubling our team's Movember contribution, and all they asked was that we use their stuff and put it on video. Why, that's just downright friendly.

The Vacuum Stubble and Beard Trimmer rules if for no other reason than it vacuums all the hair up as you slice it off of your face. NO MORE CLEANING UP STUBBLE OUT OF THE SINK! You can't imagine how happy this makes me. As for the SensoTouch 3D, I like the fact that it looks like a hydra, but doesn't yank the hair out of your face. Electric razor technology has clearly advanced since last I used one, many moons ago.

Okay Movember, that was fun. Now, on to writing about things other than facial hair.

Watch For The Stache Signal

2011-11-21T20:30:00.001-06:00

So, Holmes...how's Movember going?

Glad you asked, friend. Tell you the truth, between the new glasses I got a while back and my latest facial hair configuration, I'm feeling a bit Detective Gordon these days.

Thanks to everyone who's tossed some 'stache cash our way. If you'd still like to contribute to the cause, just swing on over and clicky-clicky-typey-typey. Because cancer fucking sucks.

My Name Isn't, But Could Be, Earl

2011-11-16T20:41:00.001-06:00

Now lookie here, y'all. I ain't claimin' to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know a good cause when I see one. And a bunch of fellows growin' out their mustaches in the name of fightin' cancer? Well now if that don't beat all, then I don't know what. So if you would please, take a few minutes and clicky-click your computer on over to the Movember internet page and drop a few dollars in the jar, why that'd be mighty kind of you.

Thanks y'all!

Keys

2011-11-12T16:04:00.001-06:00

I can barely convey to you with words how well these two simple phone-snapped pictures capture the wonderful differences between my two boys. So I'll hush and let the pictures talk.

Do The Ninjitsu

2011-11-09T17:08:00.000-06:00

I was looking at a bunch of pictures of my kids from this past Halloween. They both wanted to dress like ninjas, to which my wife and I were like SCORE! because 1) cheap-ass costumes and 2) NINJAS. Everybody wins.

So I was looking at these pictures and it occurred to me that parenting is kind of like being a ninja in that it involves a lot of hard work with very little recognition. Nobody thanks the ninja for pulling off a flawless assassination, no matter that he or she left not a trace of their presence. There are no attaboys for the shadow warrior who successfully infiltrates the enemy compound and defeats scores of attackers. There are no ninja company meetings where the ninja CEO recognizes Bob and Steve for Excellence in Disappearing Into Clouds of Smoke.

I was gonna write about all that, but then I got distracted thinking about how there’s really not much of a place for ninjas in a democracy, not in an official capacity anyway, but I guess ninjas typically don’t function in an official capacity anyway, but I guess what I mean is that assassination -- covert and otherwise -- isn’t really a key driver of change in our country, which I would call a very good thing, none of which is to say that there are not shadowy figures doing shadowy things in the halls of power and perception, they just don’t typically carry throwing stars on their person...as far as I know. Then I remembered that I hate writing about politics because it’s not as much fun as writing about ninjas. All of which is to say, holy shit, ninjas.

Shadow Warriors

Dear Me, I Seem To Have Misplaced My Beard

2011-11-03T20:34:00.001-05:00

No, actually, I washed it down the drain. Much to my wife's chagrin, I'm taking part in Movember again this year. For those of you not familiar, Movember is this thing where a bunch of dudes take November and we run the N out of town and replace it with an M. Kind of like October and Rocktober. Then we continue the party for the rest of the month by growing out our mustaches, and everybody gives us money in hopes that we'll stop it with the mustache action. About three weeks into it, we all sit down to a big-ass turkey dinner. It's called Thanksgiving because we give thanks for our beautiful mustaches that, by that point, are in full glorious bloom. Or maybe because people are thankful that it's almost over. Either way, when December arrives, we give all the money that everybody gave us to groups that fight cancer, but we don't give them the turkey dinner because we already ate that.

In order to do Movember right, you're supposed to start things off with a clean palate, which, for me, meant parting with my beard. True, my beard is not as epic as that of my friend Bill (pictured below), but I was used to it. I like my beard. And yes, so does my wife.

Bill is a pirate

So in order to do this, I had to go from being this adorable sweetheart...

Wouldn't hurt a fly

To this fucking psychopath:

Obviously hacks people to pieces while humming along to Katy Perry

So yeah, Movember. Mustaches good, cancer bad, GIVE US YOUR MONEY!!!

I Am The 26th Best DadBlogger In The DadBlogospheriverse

2011-10-31T19:35:00.000-05:00

Or, put another way, there are only 25 motherfuckers in the whole of existence that can top me in this dadblogging business. Thus sayeth Babble:

I have no words, other than these ones here of course. Truly, I'm speechless, other than this babble (ha!) that's dribbling outta my keyboard. It's cool to be on a best-of list, but I'm not really sure how I did it, seeing as how I hardly post in this space anymore. Looking through the most popular searches that bring people to my blog, I'm guessing that somebody over at Babble must like posts about Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor, werewolf zombies, Burt Reynolds, ninjas, militant Buddhism, atheists, and going to your happy place. Only possible explanation.

If I sound snarky, it's only because I'm confused, or maybe you are. Confused or not, I just want to say that I appreciate those of you who take the time to come by here. It's nice to have somebody picking up what you're laying down, you know what I mean? So yeah. Thanks y'all.

Far, Then Near, Then Far

2011-10-20T21:09:00.000-05:00

A Lot Can Happen In 24 Hours - part 8

2011-10-09T15:55:00.000-05:00

Once again, this year, I signed on to be part of the something-like-annual 24-hour theater event known as Slapdash Flimflammery. By 24-hour, I mean that a series of short plays are written, rehearsed, and staged for an audience inside that amount of time. This is the 8th year that Loaded Gun Theory Productions has put this on, and if memory serves, I've participated in all but one, maybe two, of them in some capacity - usually writing, sometimes acting, and a couple of times, both.

Yeah, those days of "both" are long over.

This year, the theme of the event was Time. When I got to the theater Friday night, the following things happened:

I wrote down a line of dialogue on a note card. This was to be the last line of my play. The other six writers did the same and we threw them all in a hat.
We passed the hat around and drew. Whatever line you drew was your first line.
We threw twenty-one note cards into yet another hat (or was it the same hat?), one card for each actor with only their gender written on it. Each writer then drew three cards to know what they had to work with sex-wise, though since we're all adults, that's really the kind of thing we should know already.
Since the theme was Time, there was yet another collection of notecards on which the members of Loaded Gun Theory had written various dates, some future, some past, one present. Each of us drew one. This date was to be used somehow in the play we wrote.
We all sat down around the table and made with the playwrightering. Our deadline? 6:00 AM.

Coffee station

I don't think we quite killed the coffeepot, but we definitely made a dent.

I'm 35 years old, so staying up all night is not the cakewalk that it once was. I had taken the day off from work and attempted a nap, but I've never been able to sleep during the day. I yawned on my way to the theater, then yelled at myself. "There'll be none'o that, Holmes!"

By the time the directors arrived at 7:00 AM, we were all plenty zombiefied. After conversing briefly with the director that drew my script, I went home to make a futile attempt at a nap while she went off to rehearse with her actors. They had just under half a day to get the thing on its feet.

As always, it was a great time, the plays all came off really well, and everybody - as far as I could tell - had a blast, made all the more blasteriffic by the keg that followed the show. Have you ever stayed up all night and then the whole next day and then downed a beer? Your shit gets loopy, my friends. No joke.

This year's crew of writers

Anyway, below is the script that I came up with over the course of Friday night - Saturday morning. The date I drew was October 31st, 2364. I could have kicked myself for the last line that I came up with, but it worked out, I guess. Your brain goes weird places in the middle of the night.

Hollow Steve

Melba is seated cross-legged on the ground picking her nose. Downstage from her, off to one side, is a gargoyle up on a pedestal of some kind. Gozz enters from behind her. She is carrying a large futuristic-looking gun. She stands behind Melba and points the gun at the back of her head.

GOZZ

What about the pterodactyl?

Melba looks up at the gargoyle.

MELBA

That’s a gargoyle, gorgeous.

GOZZ

No, stupid. I mean for Hollow Steve.

MELBA

Oh. A pterodactyl? Like a flying dinosaur?

GOZZ

Yeah!

Gozz shrieks and flaps her arms in flying dinosaur fashion. She’s very into it. No really, don’t puss out. Get Mesozoic on this shit.

MELBA

That’s impressive.

GOZZ

Fucking ptero-ma-dactyl, bitch! Great idea, huh?

MELBA

I don’t know.

GOZZ

What’s not to know? Need me to do it again?

MELBA

No. I mean, you can if you want. I just mean, dinosaurs? What are we, five?

GOZZ

No. I’m eleven.

MELBA

Yeah, and I’m going to be twelve next month.

GOZZ

So?

MELBA

So, don’t you think maybe we’re getting to be too old for this Hollow Steve stuff?

GOZZ

What? No way.

MELBA

Look, Gozz, gorgeous, I’m not saying we can’t mutate this year. I’m just saying, let’s be cool about it.

GOZZ

Pterodactyls are cool.

MELBA

No. They’re not. They’re really not. They put dinosaurs on little kid tee-shirts and in little kid read-books and on little kid table-mats for gross little kids to spill their dinosaur-shaped mac-and-cheese product all over. Face it. Dinosaur equals little kid equals not cool.

GOZZ

A dinosaur would tear your head off.

MELBA

Maybe if they didn’t go extinct thousands of years ago.

GOZZ

Millions.

MELBA

What?

GOZZ

Dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago, not thousands.

MELBA

Congratulations.

GOZZ

A pterodactyl’s wingspan could reach up to twelve meters. Or as my great great great

Counts the “greats” on her fingers

great great grandpa would say, forty feet.

MELBA

Look, if you’re so hung up on going out for Hollow Steve mutated like a pre-schooler, be my guest.

GOZZ

But the three of us always mutate as the same thing.

MELBA

Well maybe things change this year.

GOZZ

Well, what do you think we should go as?

Before Melba can answer, Comet streaks in with all the energy of a preteen who has downed five too many energy drinks.

COMET

AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW!

And so on and so forth as you see fit.

MELBA

Comet!

GOZZ

Comet!

Melba and Gozz both yell at Comet, trying to catch her attention while she runs around screaming in full-on freakout mode, seemingly unable to control herself. When shouting at her fails, they resort to physical restraint.

MELBA

Comet, gorgeous. Use your words.

COMET

You’ll never guess what Ethyl and them are going as for Hollow Steve.

GOZZ

What?

COMET

Robots.

GOZZ

Robots?!

COMET

Fifteen meter robots.

GOZZ

What?! That’s like fifty feet!

MELBA

Rolling eyes

Ahm gaw.

COMET

With flames.

GOZZ

Flames?!

COMET

And lasers.

GOZZ

Lasers?!?!!

COMET

I know, right!?

MELBA

What the ever.

GOZZ

Examining gun

I don’t even think my mutator does robots. Oh yeah it does. But they’re only six meters. No flames or lasers either.

COMET

Takes gun from Gozz and examines it

I think you have to pop in a Moleculo upgrade clip.

GOZZ

Ahm gaw. Those are like three-million dollars.

COMET

I already spent my allowance.

GOZZ

Okay, you know what? That’s fine, because I know what we’re going to mutate as this year and it’s going to fly circles around Ethyl and her stupid robots. Li-tuh-ruh-lee.

COMET

What what what? Tell me tell me tell me.

MELBA

Dinosaurs.

COMETS

Dinosaurs?

GOZZ

Hey, I wanted to say it!

MELBA

Flying dinosaurs.

COMET

Flying dinosaurs?! YOU MEAN PTERODACTYLS?!?!!

GOZZ

I KNOW, RIGHT!!!

Gozz and Comet both do the shrieking arm-flapping routine that Gozz did earlier. Seriously, go nuts, y’all. They take to snapping at each other, as one could imagine real pterodactyls might do with those long sharp beaks of theirs. Comet makes the mistake of snapping at Melba.

MELBA

Would you two stop it?

COMET

You don’t want to be a pterodactyl, Melby?

GOZZ

Melba thinks flying dinosaurs with wingspans of up to twelve meters and talons that could slice through steel are lame.

COMET

They could slice through steel?

GOZZ

Probably, sure, yeah, totally.

MELBA

They are lame. This whole Hollow Steve thing is lame. Who was this Hollow Steve guy anyway? And why do we mutate into things because of him?

COMET

I think Steve was the name of the guy that invented the mutator gun. I don’t know why they call him hollow, though.

GOZZ

My great great great great

counts on her fingers

great great grandma said it used to be called something else. Like Hollow Eve or something.

MELBA

So who was Eve?

GOZZ

I don’t know. But supposedly, the way it used to work was, kids would go around to people’s houses and knock on their doors and ask for stuff.

COMET

Like money?

GOZZ

Yeah! Or food.

MELBA

Wow, that actually sounds kind of fun.

COMET

I want to go to people’s houses and ask for food and money.

GOZZ

But how would you do that if you were a pterodactyl? Or a fifteen meter robot?

COMET

Or even last year when we all went as horses. I guess you could put the money in your saddlebags.

GOZZ

But pterodactyls don’t wear saddlebags.

COMET

But they could. We could make special pterodactyl bags. OH! Or we could carry baskets in our steel-shredding talons!

GOZZ

Totally!

They do the pterodactyl routine again, this time holding bags and baskets.

COMET

I’m a pterodactyl! Give me your fucking money!

GOZZ

Or I’ll tear the roof off of your car!

COMET

And give me some ice cream while you’re at it!

GOZZ

Or I’ll stab you with my beak!

Beak-stabbing motions!

COMET

Chocolate ice cream!

GOZZ

Chocolate, bitches!

More pterodactylling.

MELBA

STOP IIIIIIIIIT!

Silence. Comet and Gozz freeze mid-flap and look at Melba in shock. Comet lets out an inquisitive pterodactyl caw.

MELBA (cont’d)

I don’t want to be a pterodactyl.

GOZZ

I think you’re outvoted.

MELBA

But I, I...

She breaks down sobbing.

GOZZ

You’re still outvoted.

COMET

Hey, Melby, don’t cry. It’s okay.

Comet puts her finger in Melba’s nose in a gesture that is meant to be comforting.

Are you crying because you don’t want to mutate as a pterodactyl for Hollow Steve?

Melba nods.

GOZZ

Picking her own nose

This from the person who was going on about maturity.

COMET

Melba, is there something else you want to be for Hollow Steve?

Melba nods again.

COMET (cont’d)

Yeah? What is it?

GOZZ

If it’s anything less than a pterodactyl, you can forget it.

COMET

What is it, Melby?

MELBA

Through the sniffles

A unicorn.

COMET

A unicorn?

GOZZ

No. We went as horses last year.

MELBA

They’re not horses, they’re unicorns.

GOZZ

Whatever. I’m not going as one.

COMET

But we always go together. As the same thing.

GOZZ

And she always picks it! Every year! Who decided we should be horses last year? Melba. Who decided we should be giant balls of yarn the year before that? Melba. And when we were in kindergarten, who decided that we should be giant hamsters in giant hamster wheels.

MELBA

Hey, we won the school mutation contest, didn’t we?

GOZZ

I’m not going as a stupid unicorn.

MELBA

Unicorns and beautiful and magical.

COMET

Puts her finger in both of their noses

Okay, you guys, wait, hold on. Maybe we don’t have to go as the same thing this year. Maybe we could just do like, you know, a theme.

MELBA

What do you mean?

COMET

Well like, we could all go as things that fly. Gozz, you could be a pterodactyl. Melba, you could -- wait, unicorns have wings, right?

MELBA

No.

COMET

Oh. Well, could yours have wings?

MELBA

Uh --

COMET

And I could be, uh, uh, a comet! Since that’s my name!

MELBA

Unicorns don’t have wings.

COMET

Could you just work with me here, Melba? I’m just trying to--

Gozz grabs the mutator gun and points it at them both. During this exchange, Melba backs away while Comet inches, er, centimeters closer to Gozz.

GOZZ

No. No unicorns. No comets. No real comets I mean. People named Comet are okay.

COMET

Gozz, what are you doing?

GOZZ

Get away from me. Put your finger in your own nose.

COMET

Gozz--

GOZZ

I’m setting the mutator gun to pterodactyl--

COMET

Gozz, put it down.

GOZZ

And I’m turning all three of us into motherfucking pterodactyls.

Aims at Melba

COMET

Gozz!

Comet jumps, but she is too late. The mutator fires and Melba is hit. The force of the blast knocks her back. Offstage, in fact. From backstage, there is a furious roar. The walls shake with terrifying violence. Melba emerges back on stage in the process of mutating into a pterodactyl. She flaps her mighty wings and advances on Gozz and Comet, who are both now screaming their fool heads off.

COMET

You turned her into an angry pterodactyl!

GOZZ

This thing doesn’t specify emotional state!

COMET

Hurry! Change her back before she takes flight!

Gozz fiddles with the dial and fires again. Melba stops shrieking, drops her wings, halts her advance, and speaks in an even, if not somewhat condescending tone.

MELBA

So you admit that you have sexual feelings for your mother?

COMET

Gah wha?!

GOZZ

Dammit! I set it to psychoanalyst.

COMET

What?

GOZZ

It’s the next thing down from pterodactyl in alphabetical order!

MELBA

How does that make you feel?

COMET

Yanking the mutator away

Give me that! You have to set it to undo.

Comet fiddles with the mutator and fires at Melba again. Melba reverts back into dinosaur rage, picks up her wings, etc.

GOZZ

Undo it again! Undo it again!

Comet fires again. This time, Melba’s transformation back into herself is slower, as if she is resisting it. Comet keeps hitting her though. At the end of it, Melba is down on the floor, motionless. Gozz and Comet look at Melba’s prone form in shock for a moment, then snap out of it and run to her side.

GOZZ

Melba!

Gozz and Comet kneel next to their friend and roll her onto her back. They help her sit up, but her head dangles. Gozz is crying.

GOZZ (cont’d)

This is all my fault! I’m so sorry! We can be unicorns for Hollow Steve, Melba, I don’t care!

Melba looks up at Gozz.

MELBA

No. We will be pterodactyls.

GOZZ

We will?

MELBA

Yes. We will all be pterodactyls.

COMET

Oh good! I’m glad that’s settled.

MELBA

I can’t even describe to you...I’ve never felt anything like it. The cells of my body weren’t simply jostled into the form of some other creature. I was taken somewhere, somewhen. I became something else. I saw the world through whole new eyes. I felt so much power...the power to fly, to rip, tear, destroy, kill. I didn’t want to come back.

COMET

So you don’t want to be a unicorn anymore?

GOZZ

Because we can if you want. I’m so sorry.

MELBA

No. I don’t want to be some stupid unicorn. I want to find a unicorn, swoop down on it from on high, grab it in my talons, and tear its magical hide to shreds.

GOZZ

But there’s no such thing as unicorns.

MELBA

A horse will work. The point is, we’ll all do it together.

COMET

Together! Yay!

MELBA

And then, we’ll set our sights on Ethyl and her stupid giant robots.

COMET

Robots are made of steel.

GOZZ

So you’re not mad at me?

MELBA

Mad?

Laughs, puts her finger in Gozz’s nose.

Go ahead, gorgeous. Stick your finger up my nose. See what happens.

The Clock Goes Tock-Tick-Tock-Tick

2011-09-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a skill I admire in a person: the ability to take a normal situation and add a creepy twist to it. I think my five-year-old made his first attempt at this the other night. And he did a pretty nice job of it.

In the ongoing battle to get our three-year-old to eat (see, perfectly normal situation, right?), we have of course resorted to the age-old strategy of pointing out to him that if he doesn't eat, he won't get bigger, stronger, faster, smarter i.e. he'll never become the Six Million Dollar Man. However, as social scientists have proven time and time again, the simple presentation of facts does little to sway most people or cause them to change their behavior. As such, it becomes necessary to employ a measure of propaganda.

"If you don't eat, you're going to start getting smaller."

I don't remember who said it first, me or my wife, but big brother totally ran with it. Every meal, if little brother wasn't eating, big brother was there to remind him that it was his very size, strength, and speed that he was putting at risk. And then he added another element to it: age. If he didn't eat the food that had been placed in front of him, not only would he get smaller, but he would start to age backwards.

Then the other night at dinner, he put this all together in a way that I can only describe as masterful. We were all eating, all of us but youngest, who sat just picking at his food and babbling.

"You're never gonna turn four if you don't eat," said eldest.

"But my birthday's coming!" said his brother. It's true, but then again, when isn't a person's birthday coming?

"That's right," said big brother, eyes growing wide. "And we're gonna have a party-"

"A party!?"

"Yeah. And there's gonna be a cake-"

"A cake!"

"Mmm-hmmm." He spoke in a low voice now. "And mama's gonna bring it out, and everybody's gonna sing 'Happy Birthday' and on top of the cake, there's gonna be a candle on it for how many you're gonna be, and it's gonna be a two."

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo....

And Then One Day I Killed A Chicken

2011-07-24T11:20:00.000-05:00

The little boy peered into the bucket. Above it, a chicken hung by its feet, bleeding out from the openings in its neck.

“That is so cool.”

I had driven about an hour to be here, the last two miles of it unpaved, making only one wrong turn the whole way. I was greeted by a friendly woman named Joanne and a big black dog whose name I didn’t catch. With me, I’d brought a cooler with ice, some plastic freezer bags, and a cardboard box with holes cut in it to allow the chicken inside to get some air.

The place was Eden’s Cove Farm, a family-owned joint down in Cedar Creek, Texas, about an hour Southeast of Austin.

“Eden’s Cove, huh?” said a friend of mine. “Sounds like a, like a -”

“Like a place you’d go for a pretty righteous orgy, huh?”

There were no orgies in process when I rolled through the gate, though given the place’s remote location, you could probably get downright Roman with it were you so inclined.

But folks weren’t here for bacchanalia. My wife and I have been raising chickens in our backyard for about a year now, and it’s mostly been a success. Yes, they made the backyard look like a dustbowl and we ended up replacing all our grass, but we also have more eggs than we know what to do with, and it gives us a way to show the boys that food, you know, comes from somewhere, not just the grocery store. And that was really as far as we ever thought we would take it.

Except we would occasionally titter around the subject - that’s right, I said titter - the subject of turning our birds into meat. Where does one learn such a skill? Would we even be able to do it? Personally, I’ve never had much doubt about the latter concern. The thought of actually doing it myself just never made me all that squeamish. Make of that what you will. But the how? That was a different mater. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you want to learn from a book or off the internet. Imagine trying to scroll down a webpage with your hands covered in chicken insides.

And that’s where the good people at Eden’s Cove came in. They offer these processing days where you can bring out your birds and they let you use their facilities, and if you’ve never done it before, they’ll teach you how.

“You wanna do it?” asked my wife.

"Sign me up.”

Aside from the people that worked at the farm, I think just about everybody there was from Austin. Some were there just to use the equipment, others, like me, were there to learn, while some were there just to observe, to see if it looked like a task to which they might be up. And then, of course, some of them were kids whose parents dragged them along. Some of the kids seemed interested in the proceedings, others seemed more interested in following around the flock of turkeys that was hanging out nearby.

You’ll notice this post isn’t heavy on the pictures. I had intended to snap a few, but once they started in on the demo, it seemed like the kind of thing that I should pay real attention to rather than watching it through the screen of my phone. And then once I started in on my own bird, my hands got kinda gunky, and who needs gunk on their phone? The only pictures I snapped were of that dog that greeted me.

And this old rusty tractor that I passed by on the dirt road on the way to the farm that caught my eye. Look, see? This should provide you with a bit of what they call “a sense of place.”

The processing area was covered by a roof and open on three sides. There was equipment storage in the back, a counter with a sink, and a series of tables. It was all immaculately clean. Off to one side, strung between two of the wooden support beams was a thick clothesline, from which hung several thin ropes with loops at their ends.

A guy named Kevin did the demo. He had long red hair pulled into a pony tail and looked like he could be an extra on Game of Thrones or the like. He started with a hen so massive, it reminds you that, yes, indeed, these squawking clucking creatures are descended from dinosaurs, and who are we to say they’ve forgotten their lineage? He put her legs in one of the loops and pulled it tight, then placed a bucket beneath her. Us cityfolk circled in close, kids up front, as he showed us where to make the cut, then proceeded to place knife to neck.

Kevin held her still while she shook through a few death throes. Once she settled, he did a couple more the same way, then took them all down and plunged them, one by one, into large pots of hot water to loosen up the feathers. Then it was time for the plucker. No, the plucker is not a person who sits in the corner pulling feathers and moaning “aw, why do I always gotta pluck the chickens?” It’s a big metal cylinder that’s lined on the inside with what can only be described as rubber fingers. You toss the birds in, flip a switch, and it swirls them around like a washing machine. A minute later, plucked birds come out. Efficiency.

“I got chicken blood on my finger!” It was the same kid from earlier. He was holding up his finger for me to see.

After observing a bit longer, I decided I was ready. I got my bird out of her traveling box. I put her feet through the loops of one of the lines and tightened it, at which point she stopped squawking and hung still. Most of the birds did that. Kevin showed me one more time where to make the cut...and then I did.

I only got a drop or two of blood on my hands, just enough to bring some Macbeth jokes to mind, though I kept them to myself. The bird’s flapping lasted a few seconds before she settled and I took her down. Water, plucker, then over to the processing table where Joanne walked me through it. No need to go into the details, but to sum it up, it’s basically, “cut here and here, reach in, pull this stuff out, don’t break that green thing.”

“Are those lungs?”

“Those are lungs. Good job.”

While I was pulling out the guts, I noticed something that looked egg yolk mixed in. I felt around and, sure enough, there was an egg, along with a couple of yolks that were going to be eggs. Giving right up until the end.

Following the removal of the legs and a bit of clean-up, I bagged up the bird and put her on ice. I cleaned up my utensils and my work area and washed up. I was done.

That wasn’t so hard.

And it really wasn’t, which is one of the things that struck me most, that when it was all said and done, the whole experience both was and wasn’t that big of a deal. On the one hand, the process was pretty simple and straightforward, I didn’t have a problem with any of it, and I would definitely do it again. On the other hand, I took a being’s life, and even if that being was just a chicken, such a thing should not be taken lightly. Of course, I’ve done just that millions of times over the course of my life, horking down food with barely a thought to where it came from and all the things that had to happen for it to reach me. Putting myself right there at the start of the process and doing the work on my own made it impossible to do that.

Now then, who’s hungry?

The Berserker Squirrel Rap Which Was Requested Via Social Media Commentary

2011-07-14T22:59:00.000-05:00

First, there was this:

Which was followed by this:

Which brings us to this:

Other night, bedtime for the shorties
I’m in my boy’s room reading up some stories.
Sitting on the bed with the Spiderman steelo.
With a libro ‘bout wizarding heroes
When my wife runs in with a scream and a shout
Babbling something about rodents falling down from the clouds
“What’s up, lady? We’re tryna read Harry P here”
But she was trembling all kinds of afeared
“It came from the sky! A squirrel on the attack!”
“Where was it?” I asked, she said “Out in the back!”
“It plopped just a few feet away on the deck
Now it’s twitching all over like it’s almost dead.
You gotta go out there, put it out of its misery”
I’m all, “I gotta kill a squirrel? Are you seriously?
Fine, just don’t let the boys be spectators.
They don’t need to see Daddy doin’ squirrel euthanasia.”
Stepped out the back door and sure as hell
It was like somebody’d hooked a car battery to his tail.
Picked up a shovel feelin’ murder in my veins
Said, “I don’t wanna do this, but it looks like you’re in pain.
I’m sorry, furry friend, this sucks for us both.”
I stepped to him, ready to make a ghost.
Gave him a poke, and oh! What a relief!
That squirrel stopped twitching and jumped to his feet.
He ran across the yard and bolted up a tree.
In two seconds flat, he’d departed the scene.
No blood on my hands, nope, not today.
No murder for me. I call that a good day.

The Ideas of Forgotten Meaning: A Writing Challenge

2011-06-29T12:17:00.000-05:00

So you remember how I told you a while back about how I'm writing a book?

“Oh my GAWD, Holmes, is this the post where you tearfully admit that you’ve given up on your novel and then offer up a series of lame excuses for your lameness?”

Hell naw. The book’s still bumping along, slower’n I’d like, but steady, punctuated by just a few creative freak-outs, a few moments of lost perspective, of feeling like I’ve trapped myself in a maze from which there is no escape. But it’s going, and for the most part I’m finding it...not enjoyable, exactly. Let’s go with rewarding. In summary, It Will Happen.

But this post isn’t about the novel. This is about competing creative interests that emerge while in the midst of such a long-term project. And in the end, it’s a challenge for any of you who care to take it.

You see, just because I’ve got my creative energies focused on one thing doesn’t mean that the ideas stop coming. If anything, they come faster and in greater number. Where once I might find just a few mushrooms rising up out of the soil, I now find a whole freaking village of them bursting from the earth’s surface.

Of course, they don’t all taste so great, no matter how you saute ‘em. Most of them wither and die and fall right out of memory. But some capture my notice so well that I actually pluck them up and place them in my basket to be put to use later. That is, I write them down in a list. Ideas for later.

One such idea occurred to me the other day, so I pulled up the list and added it. I realized that it had been a while since I’d read through my past ideas, so I took a few minutes to scroll through it, and I found...

“What the ffff...?”

Most of the items in the list contained enough description to make sense. In some cases, I’d even added some notes to remind my future self what past self had meant. But there were a few where I had absolutely no idea what I was thinking. Was I drunk at the time? Sleepwriting? No idea. But just because their original meaning is lost, it doesn’t mean they’re useless.

So this is the challenge part of the post. I’m going to list several of these ideas below. The challenge is to pick one or two, or hell, pick all of them, whatever you like. Take it and run with it. Write something with it. A story, a poem, a script, a comic, a Grammy-winning country song, the next club hit. When it’s done, put it out there somewhere. And if you happen to think about it, hit me with a link to it in the comments section so I can go check it out.

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for: The Ideas of Forgotten Meaning:

Beer: put a crazy straw in it.
Strawberry: you wouldn't eat a head.
The view out the window during some afternoon doggy-style.
The Fat Fuck and his sidekick Stab Face.

Youston

2011-05-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

Memory’s tricky, you know? Even with only thirty-five years behind me, there are things in there that are plenty hazy. Half-remembered. Uncertain of their position in The Timeline, which often seems like a garden hose that’s been drug all over the yard until it’s not at all straight or linear, but instead full of loops and kinks and aw shit it’s caught on something. Sometimes I even think tiny shards of fiction have gotten themselves worked in there, like Memory and Imagination have been leaving stuff at each other’s houses. There’s the Truth of the Matter, the What Happened, and then there’s the Memory of the thing. I guess that’s why we point cameras at stuff. Why we write things down.

I don’t trust you, Memory. But like anybody else, I cling to you.

We were coming back from a place we’d been for a few days, a place that is not our home, a place with an ocean, or if you want to get all technical about it, a great big-ole Gulf. It belongs to Mexico, but they let us use it. It was Mother’s Day when we were coming back from this place, and the path from it to our home goes right through the place where my mother lives. So we made a plan for a little visit on the way back.

“Can you look at googlemaps and figure out how to get there from 45?” my wife asked.
“I can get us there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh, yeah.”

So Memory’s not all bad. Driving directions. Not so awful at those. Not yet anyway.

On the way in, we pass through the city’s core, a mass of serious towers wrapped up in ribbons of highway that bring people in from all corners to put in their hours and take home their cut. I point it out to the boys, and in their impressed silence, I can hear the gears turning, the comparisons being made to the downtown of our home city, the only other one they’ve ever seen which, by comparison, is quite meager. In this moment, I suspect, it’s occurring to them just how big things can be.

I spot the building where my mom worked for so many years. At least I think that’s it, the mid-sized white one with the insets of windows creating a stair-step effect up the side. Some architect’s contribution. When my mom worked on weekends, she would take me along with her, me with my bag of toys and, later, homework, her with her bags of...stuff. Thirty-plus floors up, there was a great view, machines that would give me all the soda I could drink, and plenty of desks to sit behind.

There’s something tugging at me as we pass through the core, then beyond it through the tangle of intersecting highways and on into the the northern half of the city. I can’t put a finger or any other body parts on it. The car’s speakers are churning out songs by a band that sounds, to my ears, like they have something to say about what it is to be a person from a place. Some of the band’s members are from this city - one of its many suburbs anyway. I know this, but I can’t help but feel that even if I didn’t, their notes and words would still be perfect accompaniment to this inexplicable churn I feel going on inside. There is no particular memory I can bring to the fore, no specific image, no other bit of sensory remembrance I can grab a hold of, but for a few seconds, I feel like I’m going to burst into tears, an urge I push back because I have zero explanation for it, and bursting into tears isn’t like sneezing or cracking your knuckles where you can just do it and then not explain.

“It’s like everything’s been relabelled,” I say at some point. I’m not sure I’m explaining it right, but my wife gets it anyway. She usually does.

The place where my mom lives is the place where I grew up. The same house in the same neighborhood - a word that some shorten to its last syllable when applying it to this area - on the city’s edge, but outside of it in name only, the kind of edge that seems to extend forever. Saturn’s fattest ring, visible from thousands of miles up.

“That’s the street where Bryan and Wade lived. Wade played guitar, too. We hung out. That’s Robert’s street. He was into Morrissey, did the whole Mexican pompadour thing.”

The main through street is a narrow two lanes lined by ditches so deep they seem to have their own gravitational pull. I saw plenty of vehicles go grill-first into those ditches over the years, plenty of tow-trucks called out to give them a lift. I once ran my truck into a cow to avoid running it into one of those ditches. The cow was fine.

“That’s the trailer park where my friend Craig lived.”

This small patch of land is an odd conglomeration of urban, rural, residential, and industrial whose oddness didn’t occur to me until I was outside of it. But that’s the way, isn’t it? You live in your box and the box is The Way Things Are until one day you poke your head outside of your box and realize that not all boxes are like your box. Some of them aren’t boxes at all.

We arrive at the place that used to be My House, but is now My Mom’s House. I don’t remember exactly when this transition took place, but I suspect it was gradual. We’ve spent the last two days going between a beach and a tent, so my wife and I want to shower, but the boys want to see these old Star Wars toys of mine that they’ve heard so much about. My Mom locates the box among her storage, catching a wasp sting for her troubles. We open the box and show the boys a few pieces of their old man’s past. Various action figures. A snow speeder. A T.I.E. fighter. A blaster, which is always good to have at your side. And the crown jewel, the Millennium Falcon, which is faster than she looks. This will all be theirs one day soon, but not today.

“I thought you had a lightsaber, Daddy.”
“I did, but it got pretty beat up in all those lightsaber battles.” It’s the truth. It’s something I remember.

The visit and lunch and everything are wonderful. I usually send flowers or something, so us being here, children in tow, is an extra treat.

The route out of town carries us through more of the sprawl. Memory flares up here and there, at this corner or that, but offers nothing really solid. It’s all just vague familiarity. Maybe something happened over there one time. Maybe we went there back when it used to be. Is that the street where...? Or maybe not. It’s all different, it’s all the same. It looks like everywhere else. My wife uses a term she read in article somewhere, “secondhand suburbs.” It’s perfect.

The tears have gone back down into their ducts to wait until they are needed again. But I still wonder what it was that called them up in this instance. There’s nothing at all remarkable about these stretches of city, but they were pieces of my everyday back in a life that seems forever ago, though really it’s been less than two decades. The blink of an eye. Not even that much. The start of the eyelid’s downward sweep, the lashes still pointed upwards, not having received word yet that a blink is in progress. Maybe my Memory is mourning the stuff I’ve already forgotten.

After we get home and the car is unloaded, I upload the pictures on my camera from the trip we’ve just finished. Most of them are of my boys on the beach, headed into or out of the water lapping up on the sand. Their joy is clear and unbridled. I stood in the water with them, the camera around my neck, and captured a few moments of it. Years from now, I’ll look at these pictures and smile as tears fall down my face, and I suspect that the question of why won’t even occur to me.

Guitar Lessons

2011-04-24T21:32:00.001-05:00

Guitar playing has been making more regular appearances in my life recently. Time was I played for hours every day, not because I was trying to master the instrument, but because playing the guitar is about a billion times more awesome than not playing the guitar. Simple fact.

But over the last few years, my guitars and all the stuff that went with them got shoved further and further back in various closets. At one point, I even sold my amp, the very amp with which I once stood in front of a room full of people and played a series of several of the more recognizable segments from the music of “Star Wars.” Have you ever heard The Force Theme through heavy distortion, chorus, and just a subtle, dare I say, sublime hint of wah pedal? Yeaaaah.

Probably my most rock star moment.

But aside from pulling the old girl out of the closet every now and then to blow through a few verses of “Daddy Farted,” there wasn’t a whole lot of music getting made around here other than the kind originating with magical fruit. Is there anything sadder than a neglected musical instrument? Well I guess there’s beached whales and war orphans and cancer and...so yes, lots of things are sadder than a neglected musical instrument. But still, I always let out a sigh at the sight all the dust gathered on the headstock. Dust shows up really well on black.

Nobody ever said, “I wish I’d played less music” on their deathbed.

So like George Michael, my guitar’s now out of the closet and has no plans to go back in. Next to it sits a single-speaker Marshall practice amp that, in my opinion, sounds an assload better than the old Fender I used to use. This is becoming a regular thing. As in daily. And it feels nice.

A funny thing happened while I was playing earlier. My five-year-old came down, watched me for a minute, then went and found the case with my ancient acoustic. The thing is tiny. As in, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a large ukulele. It’s still a bit large for his little hands, but the way he’s growing, that won’t be the case for long. He sat down on the bed next to me and asked me to show him how to play the guitar.

Stop and consider that: my son asked me to teach him how to play the guitar.

The first and I guess only guitar teacher I ever had was a guy named Robert that was the spitting image of David Lee Roth’s hair and smoked cigarettes in the little room at the back of H&H Music where he taught classes. He spent the first five to ten minutes of every lesson noodling around on his guitar, presumably to show me how awesome I, too, could be if I kept practicing. The first song he taught me was “Wanted Dead Or Alive” by Bon Jovi. I wasn't what you'd call a Bon Jovi fan, but I practiced the shit out of that opening bit. Props, Richie Sambora. Props.

All the same, I won’t be teaching my kid any Bon Jovi.

So I showed him a few basics and then it was time for dinner and then we did some other stuff and then later we were all over the house all doing our own thing, my thing being playing my guitar again, and the little dude came back in, sat the acoustic on his lap, and declared:

“I almost forgot, it’s time for my guitar lesson.”

Time for your....? Oh, okay, um, yeah, we can do that. So here, let’s do....

So I showed him a few more things. He struggled, mostly because he’s still a little dude and his fingers just aren’t quite strong enough. But struggle he did.

“When do I get a guitar like that one?” he asked, pointing at my electric. It’s not anything fancy, an Epiphone (i.e. budget Gibson brand) version of the SG. But it does look cool, and it sounds nice.

“Before you can get one like this, you need to practice on this one,” I told him, indicating the acoustic sitting in his lap.

“But I like yours,” he said.

“I like mine too. But this one,” I said, placing my hand on the curve of the acoustic’s wooden body, “is the very first guitar I ever played. It’s the one I learned on. I told my mom I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, so she pulled this one down out of the attic and took it to the guitar store. They fixed it up for her, put new strings on it, and then she took me take guitar lessons.”

I don’t mind telling you, I got a bit misty recounting that memory to my son. My mom did that for me. She didn’t know the first thing about guitars other than that her kid wanted to know how to play one. She could have put me off, maybe I’d have found a way on my own, or maybe I’d be walking around all these years later with a guitar shaped hole in my soul. And wouldn’t that suck? But she didn’t. She found a way to make it happen.

“Can I get guitar lessons?” he asked.

“Yes, with me," I said, feeling like I should grab a fly out of the air with my chopsticks as I said it. "And I’ll make you a deal.”

Here’s the part where I make a deal.

“If you’ll do some lessons with me and practice and keep it up over the next year or so, then we’ll see about getting you something that’s a little nicer. In your size, of course. What do you think of that?”

“Good.”

So who knows where it’ll go. He might forget all about the stupid guitar tomorrow, or he might decide after a few lessons that guitars are for chumps.

But not before he learns how to play a power chord.

It Was So Nice Of Me To Make This Mix For You

2011-04-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

When you put headphones in your ears and hit play, you're basically saying, "This is my bubble, and I am going to be alone in it for a while, just me and this music." Sometimes when I make this bubble, I like to be extra alone. That is, I don't want any other voices in there with me. Particularly when I'm writing and trying to make something happen with words, I just want a little soundtrack, nobody else's words rattling around in my head. When I'm in this mood, I turn to this mix that I made in my iTunes that has several days worth of instrumental music of all kinds. Super mega nice person that I am, I thought it would be fun to make a randomish mix of it for you....just me shuffling through until I picked out a nice dozen. Go listen if you want to. Below is the track list along with tweet sized, er, not sure what you'd call these....responses? that I came up with for each of them while listening. Enjoy. Or don't, whatever.

Tipsy - "Nude on the Moon" from the album Trip Tease

You can either look up at the moon and be entranced or ignore it altogether, kind of like this song.

Blockhead - "Tricky Turtle" from the album The Music Scene

Sidewalk strolling, sun rising over rooftops, casting the city in blinding shades of beautiful. Everybody wake up.

Madvillain - "Do Not Fire!" from the album Madvillainy

Long hallway, narrow, lit only by blinking fluorescents. Unlocked rooms on either side housing the insane. The exit is chained.

Holy Fuck - "SHT MTN" from the album Latin

Awake. Up. Move. No time for mistakes. Go time, motherfuckuuuurk SKRONK! urk urk SKRONK SKRONK!

Curtis Mayfield - "Think" (Instrumental) from the Superfly soundtrack

"Everything's gonna be all right" is a lie, but there are brief periods where all is right with your little world.

Tom Waits - "Knife Chase" from the album Blood Money

Our people are everywhere, friend. Hide at the bottom of the ocean, we got a shark with our logo on his fin ready to eat you right up.

Medeski, Martin, & Wood - "Bloody Oil" from the album End of the World Party (Just in Case)

This desert's never going to let us out alive.

The RZA - "Afro's Father Fight" from the Afro Samurai Soundtrack

*Looks up at ceiling* "Did you hear that?"

The Gaslamp Killer - "Ruskie Electric" from the album My Troubled Mind

We are at the bottom of the ocean in enemy waters and it would appear that the entire crew has been dosed with LSD. Your orders, captain?

RJD2 - "I Really Like Your Def Jux Baby Tee" from the Definitive Jux Presents II compilation

At the start of each day, she held a tiny funeral for the previous one.

El-P - "Jump Fence, Run, Live" from the album Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3

You were allotted three badass moments for this life. You’ve used none. You have ten minutes to live. Care to set up a combo?

Explosions In The Sky - “Catastrophe And The Cure” from the album All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone

My favorite thing about this band is the fact that they attempt to recreate their name in every song.

Let It Be Known That From This Day Forth, I Am A Fan Of Kanye West

2011-04-03T20:50:00.000-05:00

I've never been a huge Kanye West fan. Nothing against the guy, it's just not my preferred brand of hip-hop. I tend to like things a bit, I don't know...grimier. But I'm a fan now because last South by Southwest, he did this:

That band behind him is from Austin's very own Reagan High School, the Soul Raider Marching Band. Reagan, by many standards, is considered to be one of the worst high schools in the city, and hilariously enough, it's where our kids are zoned to go based on where we currently live (hint: not exactly the best area of town). My wife and I are all over the map as to the question of whether we're willing to send the boys there when the time comes. The school's got plenty of problems, the stats don't lie. But that's the thing about statistics: as honest as they may be, as much of a story as they may tell, they don't quite manage to tell the whole story. It's so cool to see these kids get an opportunity like this.

So I'm Writing A Book

2011-03-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

So like the title says, a book, I am writing one. A novel. Fiction. There, I said it. It's on the blog, so it's official. I started it about ten months ago and have carried on with it with increasing levels of seriousness ever since then. It started out as the thing I dabbled with here and there and gradually -- wait, back that shit up. It actually started out as a play, a thing to put on a stage with lines for actors to speak, mangle, forget, or ask me to cut, and stage directions for them to interpret, ignore, rewrite, or ask me to cut. But it seemed like every time I sat down and tried to make something happen on paper, it was like I was trying to walk through a brick wall. I'd try taking a run at it, only to be knocked back on my ass with maybe a few pages of crap to show for it.

"I don't remember this being so hard," I kept mumbling to myself.

"You should write it as a book," my wife kept telling me.

"Yeah! A book! Make it a book!" my gut said, echoing my wife.

"Don't you dare write a book! It'll be terrible! A huge disgusting failure! They're all going to laugh at you!" said that mean little voice in my head. Yeah, you know the one. He's a dick.

Why does it feel weird to be writing a post about this particular project? I post about plenty of the other shit I do, so why should this be any different? I don't know why, but it does, like it'll come across as bragging, which is silly since I hardly have anything to brag about. But anyway, there it is. Weirdness acknowledged. Moving on...

So I started this novel about ten months ago, and I've now reached the point where I write more days than I don't. I lay awake nights thinking about it, trying to fit the pieces together, to understand the connections that aren't immediately apparent. Which is kind of cool. Here are a few more cool things about it:

Seeing faith pay off. The idea for this book started with just a few words. Three words, in fact. Sure, I churned on it a lot before I started, but I hardly knew where it was going to lead. Even now, while I can say with certainty that I know what the last moment of the book will be and I know a few of the big milestones between here and there, I hardly know every twist and turn. But I'm growing increasingly comfortable with that feeling of not-knowing. Coming to relish it in fact, because without that feeling, I couldn't experience the moments of epiphany when things become clear, the next few yards of the path are revealed, and I get a glimpse of another pixel in the big picture.
Research! The idea of doing research to write fiction used to make me bristle. "I'm an artist! I make things up!" But what is fiction but fact with the names changed, a few details rearranged and, in some cases, the rules bent a wee bit? So it became clear pretty early on that some research would be in order if I was to get certain elements of this book right. This meant reading a lot about slavery, researching the nuts and bolts of dogfighting, listening to a lot of hip-hop (gosh, how awful), reading up on Austin history, etc. My knowledge: it has increased.
Writing a lot is a good way to learn about writing.
Werewolves. Motherfucking werewolves.

And here are a few things that are not so cool about writing a book:

It brings out the asshole in me. I'm a busy guy, so my writing time is sacred. But there are times when something else has to take priority over it and it just can't be helped. And when that happens, Captain Dickhead emerges.
It kind of cuts into the blogging time.

You know, I had a few more bullet points to add to that second list, but they all sounded like whiney bullshit, so I'm gonna leave it at that. Two lovely complaints. Ah ha ha ha.

So that's what I've been up to, aside from the work and the family and the chickens and the beer consumption. Provided that I don't die in the next couple of years, I have a pretty good feeling I'll finish the damn thing. Then y'all can read it. Sound good? Cool.

Me At Indie Ink

2011-03-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

My wife had surgery on her poor shoulder back in the first week of January. And since she was somewhat down for the count in the weeks to follow, and since we provide shelter and care-taking for the two hellions that we conspired to bring into this world, I spent a couple of weeks or so working from home. The thing is, I ran into a few technical difficulties, and I was unable to get either my MacBook or my Windows laptop to connect to my work machine. To do that, I had to bring the old dinosaur desktop out of retirement. Though it be slow and clunky and in great need of updates, it still manages to handle the job of connecting to my office's network and allowing me to remote desktop in relatively well.

If any of you IT folks care to give me an assist so that I don't have to do that again, that'd be awesome.

Anyway, while I was puttering around on the old beast, I ran across some of my old files, particularly, some old pieces of writing that I had forgotten about. Most were scripts, some of which dated back as far as 1999. But aside from pieces meant for the stage, there were also a few short stories, one of which I had completely forgotten about. If I remember right, it came about because of a writing prompt that asked you to start a story with "Where Were You Last Night?" Or something like that. I fixed a couple of typos and was about to pop it up here when I remembered something about the Indie Ink folks looking for submissions. I sent it their way and they were kind enough to put it up. So pop on over, if you would, and give it a read. Hope you enjoy it.

Interview With A Werewolf

2011-02-15T20:59:00.001-06:00

Preventative Measures

2011-02-03T21:06:00.002-06:00

The best part of having a little brother is that he’s slower than me because I’m faster than him because I’m bigger because I’m five and he’s only three. I was born before he was. He came out of my mommy’s tummy after I did, when I was three, and then I turned four, but now I’m five. Simie is three.

I can run faster than him because I’m bigger and I have superfast shoes. Simie has Spider Man on his shoes, but mine are still faster. They’re superfast.

When Daddy chases us, he can catch Simie easier than he can catch me because Simie is slower than me, so Daddy can catch him first. Sometimes Daddy does The Monster and he chases us. When I’m big, I’m going to be faster than Daddy and he won’t be able to pick me up anymore and I’ll be able to pick him up because I’ll be bigger than him. I’ll be able to pick up Simie too.

Ack-shoo-uh-lee, I can already pick up Simie. The other day I picked him up and put him on the potty so he could go poop but then Daddy had to come wipe him because I can’t do that yet.

Sometimes people that are not as old as you can be bigger than you and that’s okay. Like my friend Bella. She was born after I was, so she’s not as many as me yet. She was born in April. She’s four. But she’s a little bit bigger than me, but I’m faster because I’m superfast.

I used to be four, but now I’m five.

I’m really good at Legos. For Christmas, Santa Claus brought me a whole bunch of Legos that were still in their boxes and they came with restructions. I got a castle and a spaceship from Star Wars. It’s Luke’s spaceship with R2-D2. He says bee-boop bop-boo-beep flurp!

Luke Skywalker has a lightsaber. It goes ggzzzzhhhh.

When I was little I used to drink milk out of bottles like a baby but now I drink milk out of a mug because I’m a big boy. Mommy and Daddy use mugs to drink coffee but I drink milk.

Luke is a Jedi. Obi-wan Kenobi is his daddy.

Sometimes I help Mommy in the garden. I like to do that. We grew tomatoes and broccoli. And kale. And we grew a watermelon in the summer but the chickens ate the other watermelon and we ate, uh, we ate the big watermelon. It was like the ones you buy in the store except we grew it in our yard.

The other day when we were working in the garden, um, Simie hit me in the head with a shovel and it made me drop my shovel and I was crying. I thew a rake at him but it missed so I threw a rock and it hit him in the face and he started crying and then we were both crying so Mommy took us inside and gave us a snack and we watched a Spongebob.

We had to put a fence around the garden so the chickens wouldn’t eat it all. Some of the chickens lay blue eggs but they taste the same.

I made the Luke Skywalker spaceship all by myself with my Daddy’s help. He helps me find the pieces and I put them together like it says in the restructions. We made the wings and then put them all together so they looked like a X. That’s why it’s called a X-wing.

The wings shoot lasers at the bad guys. The Death Star shoots big lasers.

We didn’t have a garden at our old house. Simie was born when we were living in our new house so he came from that garden and then he was in Mommy’s belly and then he came out, but I must have been in another garden, and then I was in Mommy’s belly because I was teeny-tiny. But now I’m big.

The castle is big too! My Mommy helped me make it. And Daddy, but first it was Mommy, but then Mommy had to go run some errands so it was me and Daddy and Simie. Simie was playing with his trains in his room while me and Daddy made the castle. He was in his underwear because he took his pants off. Simie sometimes pees his pants and runs around with his pee-pee out. And his butt! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Simie broke the train track that we made in our room. Me and Daddy made it together and Simie helped but then while we were making the castle, Simie broke the train tracks and we could hear him throwing the pieces in the box and if he breaks them there won’t be anymore and we won’t have them to play with because they cost a lot of pennies.

I think there were some babies in the garden by where the watermelon used to be. Mommy said that babies come from gardens like the garden we have, so first they’re in the garden and then they’re in their Mommy’s tummies. So I had to get rid of them.

Simie came downstairs and he picked up my Luke Skywalker spaceship and he went zhhooom zhhoom! And then he threw it and it hit the floor and broke into a hundred million pieces. They went everywhere. Daddy yelled and Simie ran back upstairs. Daddy said Simie probably thought the spaceship could really fly.

If I had a spaceship, I would shoot lasers at the bad guys. They’d go pee-ew pee-ew pee-ew! Darth Vader is a bad guy. He lives at the Death Star. He says hhhhoooohhh hhhhaaaaahhh. The Death Star is his house.

Daddy mostly fixed the spaceship, but there was a piece we couldn’t find, but it’ll probably turn up because it has to be around here somewhere. It didn’t just walk off by itself.

Then Simie came downstairs and he took a piece off of my castle and I told him to stop but he wouldn’t stop because he wasn’t listening.

Aren’t you listening, Simie? How is that helping? Do you hear me?

Spongebob has a snail named Gary. He says meow because he thinks he’s a cat.

Sometimes the chickens get in the garden and Mommy and Daddy have to get them out before they eat all of our food. They’ll eat all of it because they like everything. I like broccoli. It’s good for you. It gives you muscles and makes you superfast. Like me.

I always eat all my dinner. You have to eat a good dinner or you’ll shrink and turn back into a baby. Sometimes Simie doesn’t eat a good dinner and Mommy and Daddy tell him that he needs to eat his dinner or he’ll turn back into a baby and have to go back into Mommy’s tummy. Or maybe he’ll have to go back to the garden.

Simie likes to pick up the chickens and Mommy always yells at him because she says he’s going to break their little chicken necks and then they won’t be able to lay eggs for us anymore because they’ll be dead.

Put the chicken down, Simie. Put it down. Aren’t you listening?

I don’t know if any of the chickens ate any of the babies in the garden. If a chicken ate a baby, then it would have the baby in its tummy. And then it would have a baby in an egg.

Simie broke my favorite mug. It had a picture of an owl on it and I used it to drink my milk out of before bed. He threw it from the top of the stairs and it hit the ground and broke into a million pieces and Mommy said we couldn’t fix it because it was broken into too many pieces. Simie said he was sorry but I’m not sorry. Mommy said they would get me another one but that one was my favorite so I’m not sorry.

Mommy and Daddy were still asleep this morning when I came downstairs and Simie was at the Lego table and he had broken my castle because he breaks everything. Mommy and Daddy told him not to mess with the castle but he did anyway so I went outside to the garden and pulled up all the plants so there wouldn’t be anymore babies because babies break everything.

There were keys in the door so I just turned it like Mommy and Daddy do and it unlocked the door so I could go outside. The gate to the garden was already open but I know how to open it. I’m not sure which plants were the babies so I just pulled them all up and threw them on the ground for the chickens. Mommy said the ones by the fence were tomatoes, but tomatoes are red and these had green balls on them, so I pulled them up out of the ground because they might be babies.

I pulled up the ones that Mommy said were broccoli because I didn’t see any broccoli on them because we have broccoli in the freezer so I know what it looks like.

I let the chickens out of their coop so they could come into the garden and eat it up. They came in and started eating it aaaall up.

Then Mommy came outside and she saw me and she yelled at me to stop, but there was another plant that I needed to pull up so I pulled it up and threw it to the chickens and she yelled at me to stop again and then she ran after me and I ran out the gate. The other gate that goes to the front yard. I’m big enough to open it now. She yelled at me to stop, but I kept running because I’m fast.

I’m superfast.

Badass Ice Chest of Badassery

2011-01-16T16:17:00.001-06:00

Normally when I think about a badass ice chest, I think of the one that my friends Bill and Aaron bring with them to parties. These guys are serious beer drinkers. They don't like to worry about the selection and quantity of beer that will be at the party or whether there will be enough room in the fridge to store their stash, so they just take care of both problems themselves. Whenever these guys come rolling in, you can be sure that one of them will be pulling their badass ice chest along behind them (it's got wheels, yo) and that it will be packed with an ice cold assortment. Theirs is a badass ice chest indeed.

But that's not the badass ice chest I'm talking about here.

My wife started out the new year by letting some doctor cut open her shoulder and saw on her bones. Her shoulder had been hurting her for well over a year or something, and it's still hurting her now, except now it's hurting because it's recovering from surgery and not because her shit's all fucked up. At least that's the hope. That's what we're paying you for, Dr. Shoulder Scraper.

To help manage the pain of her recovery, our insurance was kind enough to pay for this neat little ice chest contraption that, while not wheeled or filled with beer or even very large, is pretty badass in its own way. Its sole purpose is to pump ice cold water into a pad that can be placed atop an injured area of a person's body. Check it out in action:

"The fuck are you doing?" was the question I had to answer of my wife right before I took this picture. "Don't worry, I won't include your head," I assured her. It's not that my wife is not beautiful because she is, but a period of surgery recovery is not a person's most attractive time. You're all tired and drugged and worn-out and slow-moving. An attitude of "fuck it" pervades all but the most essential hygiene-oriented tasks. You're doing good to get a shower. Flannel becomes like, the most wonderful fabric ever.

As you can see, this ice chest would not hold a lot of beer, but it does hold significant powers of pain relief. For the first few days after surgery, I was filling it and refilling it with a fresh load of ice and water several times a day, along with fetching pills, keeping everybody fed, reasonably clean, clothed, entertained. Oh, and trying to get some work-work done. Yay for working from home. Lucky for us, we've gotten a lot of help from family. Somewhere in there I turned 35. I had a brief episode of depression inspired by feeling like I haven't accomplished enough with my life, got mostly over it, then went and made dinner.

Here's hoping this is the most pain we suffer all year.

Simie Likes It

2011-01-11T17:09:00.000-06:00

This morning, I caught my youngest at the tail-end of a waffle, and I realized that he needs to play the central role in the remake of a classic commercial.

Chicken Business

2011-01-03T21:26:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year everybody! Hey, let's skip the part about how I've barely touched this blog thing here lately and jump right into a discussion of chicken business! Exclamation points!

What is chicken business, you ask? Well for starters, it's fun as fuck to say. Go ahead, give it a shot. Say it out loud. If anyone in earshot of you asks what you're doing, just look them in the eye and say it again.

Chicken business.

Chicken business.

Chickennnnn. Bizzznessss.

That's nice, isn't it? Perhaps it evoked certain images in your head, hmmm? Chickens exchanging currency for goods or services? Little chickens in little business suits squawking over their little deals? A rooster in a limo pulling up to a corner where stands a fake-fur-clear-heel-clad hen of the night?

Well, you're wrong, dirty and wrong. Chicken business is nothing of the sort. Except, I suppose, when it is.

Here be a picture of a hen:

This is one of our hens. She is of the breed known as Barred Rocks, and she sits at the top of the pecking order among our little flock. She doesn't have a name, but an apt one for her would probably be Busy since she conducts the aforementioned but as yet undefined chicken business.

Here is a picture of a backyard playset:

Ignore the snow. It never snows in Austin except for this one time last winter when it did, so I went around taking pictures of everything with snow all over it. Otherwise I would never just take a picture of a kid's playset, which is why I don't have any non-snow pictures of our playset, which is why you have to look at this one with snow all over it. AHEM!

So every now and then, the Barred Rock hen pictured above, who may be named Busy or Business Time or some such, likes to flap her little wings and transport herself up, up, up into the clubhouse section of the playset. It's amazing, really, the way she navigates herself through the little doorway. None of the other chickens do this trick. It's hers and hers alone. Perhaps it's this kind of initiative that propelled her to the top of the pecking order in the first place.

The boys took note of this little feat one day and asked their mom why the chicken was getting into their clubhouse.

"Oh, she's just doing her chicken business," my wife told them.

But wait, that's not all of it. There's more to chicken business than just that. Because you see, whenever Busy flaps up into the clubhouse and the boys are around to see it, they sound the alarm with a cry of "CHICKEN BUSINESS!" and spring into action. They race up to the clubhouse where one of them scoops the poor girl up in their arms and then, well, from there she meets one of two fates. Either she's thrown out the door that she originally flew in through and has to flap her wings furiously in order to prevent an unpleasant reunion with the ground, or else she gets to take a ride down the slide in the lap of whichever boy picked her up.

And that's what Chicken Business is all about, Charlie Brown.

Happy Holidays, Internets!

2010-12-22T20:28:00.001-06:00

So we sort of neglected to do holidays cards this year. Maybe we were intimidated at the prospect of trying to top the picture we used on last year's cards. Or maybe we're just lazy.

Anyway, season's greetings y'all. Hope they treat you right.

Hit Single

2010-12-03T18:30:00.001-06:00

On the way home from visiting Mall Santa, we drove past an old lady that was struggling to pull a loaded trash cart up the steep driveway in front of her house. Ashley stopped the car and I hopped out, ran back to where the lady was, and pulled the cart up to her house for her. Back in the car, Ash says to me, " you're a regular boy scout." I was inspired to write a song about it. Goes a li'l something like this:

I'm a Boy Scout,
In a Subaru I ride.
I do a good deed,
(a goooood deed!)
Eh-vuh-ry dayyyy.

Feel free to wave your lighters in the air.

--Posted from phone, so forgive typos or formatting weirdness. Thanks, you're the best.

Movember: Please Come To A Merciful End

2010-11-29T22:25:00.000-06:00

Allright, Mr. Mustache, you've got one day left. Hope you enjoy it because my face and I are quite ready to be rid of you. I'm tired of looking like a junior high basketball coach.

Now then folks, let not this mustache have been grown in vain. Toss some of your sweet American dollars at us to help fight the bastard whore's child that is cancer. As of this evening, team DadCentric looks to be a bit over $1100. Help push us even farther!

Movember Week 4

2010-11-23T20:42:00.000-06:00

I was all set up to snap a picture or two to document the mustache's state here in the last quarter of Movember, but then a certain little Hamster came along and, well, we just ended up fooling around with Photo Booth. But where I go, the stache goes, so this counts:

We should take this act on the road. "Stache and Son" they'll call us. Remember folks, just seven more days to chip in to help us raise money to fight the evil dirty hateful bastard cancer. It's the handsome thing to do!

My Brush With Literary Celebrity

2010-11-21T14:55:00.000-06:00

After I tweeted my last blog post, something kind of cool happened:

What a nice guy.

A Spot Of Encouragement

2010-11-19T19:01:00.000-06:00

We recently moved our bookcases from upstairs down to the office where we situated them on the wall behind my desk. The day after making this move, I was sitting at my desk, diligently working away on one masterpiece or another when I heard the call of nature. I swiveled around in my chair to stand and was met with quite a start. You see, I had grown used to meeting a blank wall when I turned, but instead, I came face to face with this:

That black and white face looming over those poor frightened paperbacks is Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors and famous English people, seen here peering out at the world from the back cover of his wonderful novel, American Gods. Well, that particular copy is mine because I paid for it, but he wrote it, so I guess it's really more his. That serious expression he's wearing caught me rather off-guard.

"Oh," I laughed, "hi Neil." And then he really surprised me.

Er? This is not the kind of interaction I'm used to having with a book, I thought.

"Oh!" I said. "Uh, I was just, uh, going to the bathroom."

"Yeah," I said. "Is that okay?"

"Well no, but I--"

"Okay, I get it. You've written a lot of books. I just need to pee, okay?"

"I just need to pee, Neil. I've been sitting here for over an hour."

"Oh that's enough out of you."

I got up and went to the bathroom, grumbling under my breath the whole time. I checked my email on my phone where he couldn't see me, got a cup of coffee, and looked in on the boys. When I sat back down at my desk, I had every intention of ignoring him, but I could feel those unblinking two-dimensional eyeballs of his looking at me. At least it's not Stephen King.

Unable to concentrate, I turned back to Neil.

"I do, actually. Thanks for asking."

And so I did.

Movember Week 3: The Mustache Gets A Pep Talk

2010-11-15T20:54:00.002-06:00

Oh, mustache. It's not your fault. It's just that we happen to live in this particular era which was preceded by particular other eras, the fashions and fads of which we now can't help but find to be uproariously funny, just as the people of the future will no doubt find this current era to be so hilarious. I mean, check out Burt Reynolds:

Dude was the man back then, right? The fucking Bandit! And that stache? Well it was all part of the appeal. I mean, who the hell is this?

You see? Without the mustache, it's just not the same Burt.

But you see, my little mustache, we live in a post-Burt-Reynolds-is-the-man world. Sure, he's still great. I got nothing against him. But living in a post-Burt-Reynolds-is-the-man world, a post-Magnum P.I. world, it means that things from those worlds are considered kind of corny. And you, my friend, are one of those things. As the rest of my face has probably noticed, I can't seem to look in the mirror these days without making some goofy-ass cheesedick expression, and I hate to tell you this, but it's because of you. The eyes know it, the nose knows it, the mouth, the brows, everybody. Hell, even my feet are talking about you. Word travels fast around here.

But rest assured, my caterpillarly little friend, just because you're not currently considered to be the height of fashion, it doesn't mean that you're unworthy. In fact, you've got a whole month devoted to you: Movember. And you're doing a lot of good, too. Because throughout Movember, you and others like you are prompting people to donate some of their hard-earned dollars to help fight the dirty evil cancer. Tell that to the eyeballs next time they snicker at you.

Also, my wonderful friend Erin not only donated some cashola to the cause, she also sent me this mustache-themed video. It did give me some LOLs. Have a sense of humor about yourself, stache. It's going to be okay.

Movember Week 2: Banish All Doubt

2010-11-08T20:30:00.000-06:00

As you can see, we have moved beyond the realm of the ambiguous. It's there:

It's going to be quite a month. Remember, as much as I love entertaining people with goofy pictures of myself, this here 'stache growth is also for a cause. I know, huge sacrifice on my part. Hop over to my Movember page, check out the rest of the team, and give us your money. Which is to say, give the people who are fighting cancer your money. In 2010 more than 32,000 dudes, mustached and otherwise, will die as a direct result of prostate cancer. That just blows.

High-Fives Across The Dinner Table Are Totally Acceptable In Our House

2010-11-03T13:32:00.002-05:00

With apologies to those of you not familiar with Dr. Who.

Last night at dinner, while reflecting upon my freshly-debearded face, my wife offered up an observation. “You know, if we found the right suit, you could maybe pull off the David Tennant Dr. Who next Halloween.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. I kind of love David Tennant, so I take this as something of a compliment, albeit perhaps an inaccurate one.

“Yeah,” she said. “And since all his companions dress pretty normal, I guess I could just go as any of them. I could be, uh, uh--”

“Nah, you don’t need to be one of his companions,” I said. Being one of the companions from the Dr. Who series, at least the modern version, would make for a pretty boring costume since they mostly dress in modern clothing, the only exception being when they choose to dress in accordance with the time and place in which they’ve landed, which they don’t always. I’m not sure what rule they follow to decide whether or not they should suit up. But I digress.

“You could be, uh, uh....” I continued, floundering for an idea for an appropriate match that would make a good costume.

“Oh, I know!” she shouted. “I could be the TARDIS!”

“Brilliant!”

“Which is perfect, you know, since you get to be inside me!”

Big guffaws. High-fives across the table. The boys seemed amused, if not a bit confused.

“Oh my god!” I said. “It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside! How is that possible?!”

More high-fives. Giggles all the way to bedtime.

Remember, Remember, Grow a 'Stache In Movember

2010-11-01T20:50:00.000-05:00

Ah, Movember. The time when men everywhere offer their upper lips as canvasses upon which to paint that most questionable bit of facial hair, the moustache. Why in the name of Freddie Mercury would we do such a silly thing?

Movember is all about raising funds and awareness about cancer, specifically the kind that affect men. 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in his lifetime. 1 in 6 of those dudes will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. A man is 35% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than a woman is to be diagnosed with breast cancer. That is simply not cool.

Now normally I wear a beard upon this face of mine. It wasn’t the gnarliest beard in the city of Austin. That honor goes to my buddy, Bill. No really, he got a trophy and everything. Here’s a picture of bill and I with our beards and our beers.

Gnarly, no?

This year, Team DadCentric is throwing its weight behind Movember, and we’re asking for your help. Here’s the ways that you can:

Give us money! Pop on over to my Movember page and click the Donate To Me or Donate To My Team button to give us a few bucks. I don’t really care which, either one is awesome. The funds raised will benefit the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG.

Dudes! Wanna grow your own ‘stache? Join the DadCentricians by signing up as a Mo Bro. Shave up and start to growing.

Ladies! I know your upper lips are facially challenged, but you can sign up to be a Mo Sista and join the cause.

So here’s me day one, clean shaven, beard-free.

Watch this space for updates on this face. And fear not, my friends. Handsomeness prevails.

Hamster 0-5

2010-10-21T10:15:00.002-05:00

Looking Down, originally uploaded by the holmes.

There's something about 5 that seems huge. It's all thresholdy and stuff. There's kindergarten next year. The kid seems more excited about this one than he has any other birthday past. It's crazy and I love every bit of it.

More thoughts on five to be found over at ye olde DadCentric.

None Of This Would Be Possible Without Hats

2010-10-04T10:00:00.011-05:00

So you folks that are familiar with this Slapdash Flimflammery thing I was tweeting and Facebooking about last weekend can ignore this post, but several of you non-Austin peoples out there expressed some interest in what this was all about, so here goes.

Back in 2002, Loaded Gun Theory Productions decided to try something a little nuts: writing, rehearsing, and performing a series of short plays in the span of 24 hours. And when I say performing, I mean up on stage, lines memorized, the whole deal. 10:00 on a Friday night, the playwrights lock themselves in the theater. Or they get locked in, depending on your perception. Each writer writes down a single line of dialogue on a note card. This will ultimately be the last line of the play they write. The cards are dropped in a hat and each writer picks, and whichever line they pick is the first line of their play. Picking of one's own card is not allowed. Then, for each actor that is signed up, a note card is placed in a hat, each of which simply says "M" or "F" for the actor's gender. Each writer draws three cards to see what genders they are writing for. So each writer has a first line, a last line, and three gender-identified actors to work with.

With this year being the seventh SDFF, a new element was tossed into the mix: the 7 deadly sins. Each of the deadlies was written on a note card and tossed into, you guessed it, a hat. Each writer chose one, which they were to use as a theme or whatever for their play.

From there, writers write all night, directors show up at 7 AM and draw a writer's name out of a hat to see which script they're directing. We won't even get into all the randomness involved in how they select actors. Actors show up at 8 AM and they rehearse all day, and it all hits the stage that night at 8 PM. Does it work? Let me just say that terms like "magic of the theater" were coined to describe experiences such as this. And this year was one of the best ever. Below is the play that I wrote between 10 PM Friday, September 24th and 6 AM Saturday, September 25th while seated among six other very talented writers. The sin I pulled out of that hat probably won't be hard to guess.

Pecking Order

Eleanor Goldenbelt stands on one side of the stage, prepping, primping, generally obsessing over her appearance. She is readying for her match, and she has a reputation to maintain as both the most beautiful and feared fighter ever to set talon in the ring. Every hair must be in place, every feather glossed and sheened to perfection. She stares at herself in the mirror with a predator’s intensity, turning this way and that, eyefucking her reflection for all it can take.

On the other side of the stage stands Nancy Ray-Ray and her manager, Red-Bo. Red is holding up pads and Nancy is going after them in a series of combinations. When Eleanor speaks in this first sequence, it is towards her reflection. She trembles with fury.

ELEANOR

I....

NANCY

Stops punching, sniffs herself
Should have showered today!

RED

A shower? Is that what you want, a shower?

Red pops her in the head.

NANCY

Ow!

ELEANOR

I am so...

NANCY

I thought I was fighting a chick tonight, you old cock!

ELEANOR

...incredibly....

RED

This ain’t no chick you’re fighting, babydoll.

ELEANOR

...fucking...

NANCY

I’m just saying I stink is all.

RED

Yeah you do. You stink something awful. You’re nasty. Grimy. Disgusting.

ELEANOR

...beautiful!

RED

You got something rotten deep down in your breast that ain’t no shower gonna wash off, you hear me you cheap little bottom-of-the-pecking-order piece of garbage?

NANCY

I hear you, you old capon.

RED

Been hearing that since day one, ain’t that right?

NANCY

You know it.

RED

This bird you’re battling tonight--

ELEANOR

I am....

NANCY

Goldenbelt.

ELEANOR

Eleanor Goldenbelt.

RED

The Ten Gallon Talon.

ELEANOR

Undisputed...

RED

Fryer-weight champion...

ELEANOR

...of the galaxy.

Eleanor does some shadow boxing.

RED

...of the Intergalactic Battle Circuit.

NANCY

Formerly undisputed, Red. There now exists dispute thanks to me.

RED

That fight was a draw, hence this rematch. Don’t get cocky.

NANCY

I knocked that egg-squatting whore down once, Red. I’m going to do it again.

ELEANOR

I’m going to pick your bones clean, Nancy.

NANCY

I’m gonna shove that bitch’s tail feathers so far up her twat, her next dozen eggs are gonna feel it.

ELEANOR

You hear me, you little McNugget? I am going to roast your ass on a spit.

Attention shifts to center-stage where a little boxing ring is setup, perhaps created out of folding tables laid on their sides....you know, just a suggestion. Two birds are in their opposite corners of the ring, eagerly awaiting the bell. It’s Nancy and Eleanor, but their parts are played by birds now. Not real birds, but prop birds, the ones in that pile over there. No there. Look where I’m pointing. Red is in Nancy’s corner with her.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

In the western corner, weighing in at an even six pounds, the current reigning champion of the galaxy, Eleanor “The Ten Gallon Talon” Goldenbelt!

Cheers and boos from the crowd. The Eleanor bird plays to the crowd like an old pro.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

And in the eastern corner, weighing in at five pounds, twelve ounces, the challenger, all the way from the bottom of the pecking order, Nancy “Free Range” Ray-Ray!

More cheers and boos.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

Ladies, to your corners.

The birds return to their corners.

RED

Remember, she comes out hard, but don’t let that fool you! She ain’t reckless!

NANCY

I got it, Red!

RED

And keep that beak tucked!

The bell sounds and the birds go after each other at full speed. The feathers fly and the ring fills with the sound of blows landing and angry squawks. Red watches anxiously from the corner, his fists balled up, calling out the occasional encouragement or admonishment.

The fight slows down until it’s moving in slow motion. At the same time, Red’s posture relaxes until he’s standing with his hands at his side and his face relaxed. He watches the fight for a moment, but without excitement. It’s like he’s watching something from the past, something to which he knows the ending.

RED

That night, I saw the future. I knew what was coming. Oh, she won the fight. Decisively. But with that KO, she lost everything.

In the ring, Nancy delivers a knockout punch and Eleanor goes down with a pained slow-motion “Ba-goooook!” The crowd roars its approval as Nancy, the human, holds the victory belt over her head and parades around the ring.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the new intergalactic fryer-weight champion of the Battle Circuit, Nancy “Freerange” Ray-Ray!

NANCY

Throwing her arms around Red.
I did it, Red! I beat the ever-loving snot outta that old biddy!

Eleanor limps by, very injured, very beaten, very angry.

ELEANOR

This ain’t over, little egg.

NANCY

Hey Elly, your pants are falling down. Lose your belt?

ELEANOR

Keep talking.

NANCY

And you keep walking.

ELEANOR

I’m gonna roll you in batter and fry your ass up, Ray-Ray. Just you wait.

Eleanor exits.

NANCY

You know where to find me, bitch! Up top of the pecking order!

RED

Kid, listen--

NANCY

Smile for the cameras, Red!

Nancy smiles big for the cameras. Red gives a weak grin, but then ignores it. Nancy continues posing with the belt, flexing, etc., totally playing to the camera.

RED

Yeah, yeah, kid, listen to me. We gotta get back in the gym, we gotta start training, we gotta--

NANCY

Talking to invisible reporters
It was a tough fight, you know, she tried to overpower me with her size, but I just kept coming at her, kept wearing her down, you know? Just like pow pow pow! You know?

RED

Kid, you even listening to me?

NANCY

It’s time to celebrate! We’re partying all the way back home!

Nancy exits.

RED

And party she did, all the way back home to Earth. But there was another hen on that ship.

Eleanor appears. She’s training hard, getting ready for the inevitable rematch. Eleanor and Red give each other the stink-eye.

ELEANOR

Looking at something, old man?

RED

Just an ugly piece of poultry.

ELEANOR

Hope your little hatchling’s ready for the rematch when we get back to Earth.

RED

Looking extra meaty there, Goldy. Getting a little help on the side?

ELEANOR

Next time I meet your girl in the ring, I’m gonna rip her beak off and feed herself to...her...I mean--

RED

You’re gonna what?

ELEANOR

I’M GONNA KNOCK HER EGGS RIGHT OUT OF HER AND SWALLOW ‘EM WHOLE!

Eleanor exits. Nancy appears, still in full-on party mode.

NANCY

Red-bo! This is the guy. Taught me everything I know.

RED

Well let me teach you this, kid. We don’t start training now, and I mean right now this very instant in time, then you don’t stand an egg’s chance in an omelette of holding on to that belt.

NANCY

Were you not watching that fight, Red? I destroyed that old feather factory and barely broke a sweat.

RED

You think she’s not getting ready right now, as we speak? The bird you meet in that ring is gonna be bigger, stronger, angrier--

NANCY

Oh Red, shut your fucking beak.

Smacks her.

RED

Don’t you ever--!

She punches him, taking him completely by surprise. It takes him a second to recover.

RED

Okay kid, if that’s how you wanna play it.

Attention directs back to the ring at center.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

In this corner, weighing in at nine pounds, three and one-half ounces, the former-champion of the galaxy, Eleanor “The Angry Egg” Goldenbelt.

The Eleanor bird appears, but it’s bigger this time. Roar from the crowd.

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE

And in this corner, weighing in at six pounds, two ounces, Nancy “The Deadly Drumstick” Ray-Ray!

RED

The Deadly Drumstick?

NANCY

I liked the sound of it.

The bell dings. The hens go after each other, the crowd roars, we hear the sounds of the fight.

RED

Eleanor had nearly doubled in size since that last fight. Nancy had put on some weight too, all of it fat. It was a slaughter.

Nancy goes down. The bell dings. Eleanor the human appears holding the belt high over her head for all to see. She walks as if her legs are having a hard time supporting her weight. Nancy the human stumbles towards Red, severely beaten. She falls into his arms and he catches her.

RED (cont’d)

Come on kid.

NANCY

Red.

RED

Let’s go home.

NANCY

She grabs his face to make him pay attention and struggles to get the words out.
Red. Must. Beat. Her.

RED

You did beat her, sweetie. And then she beat you. It’s over.

NANCY

Rematch. Must. Kill. Must.

ELEANOR

Posing for cameras and talking to invisible reporters.
Who I really feel for are the fans who wanted to see a good fight. I do this for them, you know. My opponent just wasn’t able to hold up her end.

NANCY

Must! Destroy! Belt!

ELEANOR

It’s obvious I must have been under the weather during our last match. There’s no way that little pheasant could beat me in a fair fight.

RED

That should have been it. Nancy should have gone back to Texas and bid her boxing career adieu. But there was just too much money at stake.

Nancy and Eleanor start training on their own sides of the stage. Pushups, running in place, jump-roping, shadow-boxing, whatever. In all their motions, it is clear that their legs are struggling to hold up their weight. Could we get some good workout music going here? That’d be awesome.

RED

The next match was scheduled for three months out, and the venue of choice was Patton Station, a civilian space terminal situated just outside the jurisdiction of any of the Earth system’s gaming regulatory bodies. Nancy trained like a chicken with her head cut off. She grew strong, freakishly, impossibly strong.

Red holds up pads for Nancy to punch. She punches them in a series of combinations until she finally hits one so hard that it knocks Red to the ground.

NANCY

BA-GOK! I’m gonna eat her eyes right out of her head! You hear me, Red?

RED

What are you up to now, Nance? Fifteen? Twenty pounds?

NANCY

Twenty-one pounds, two-and-three-quarter ounces.

RED

So what is it? Corn supplements? Liquid soy? Straight up ‘roids?

NANCY

What do you care, as long as I’m bringing home the belt?

RED

What happened to free-range, Nancy? Grass-fed? All-natural? Look at you. You’re industrialized.

NANCY

Industrialized to win.

RED

You can barely stand.

NANCY

I stand just fine, cockface!

RED

Have a good fight, kid.

Attention back to the ring. The birds are ridiculously-huge now. The crowd roars. The bell dings, but the birds are so big, they can barely move to fight. They peck at each other weakly. The crowd jeers and boos, egging them on to fight. The birds try to fight, but then just fall over. The human actors appear and fall to the floor. They lay next to each other, still trying desperately to stand and fight, to get at each other somehow, but it’s futile. Red watches for a bit, but then turns and exits.

NANCY

As soon as I--ba-gok!--get my feet under me, I’m going to--

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! This fight is over and the crowd is pissed! Lots of booing, lots of hissing.

NANCY

Bok?!

ELEANOR

Oh god. Oh god!

She clucks madly.

NANCY

What’s the matter with you?

ELEANOR

You and me just fought our last fight.

NANCY

What are you talking about?

Red reappears with various chicken processing implements.

NANCY (cont’d)

Red, you gotta help me!

He hefts Nancy and Eleanor into position to be processed and begins plucking their feathers.

NANCY (cont’d)

Red, what are you doing?

RED

I’m sorry sweetheart, but it’s my duty as your trainer.

NANCY

But I’m a fighting hen!

RED

You done got yourself too big to brawl.

Red places her head on a chopping block and holds a large blade over her head.

NANCY

What are you doing?!

RED

I’m real sorry about this Nancy. Now down you go my little hen, down, down, down into the abyss with the rest of us sinners.

Red brings down the blade. Blackout.

The Last Prayer

2010-09-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

I don’t pray anymore.

I used to, though. From the time I was a little boy and was first taught about this God person entity being, I was taught the proper ways to address him. Er, Him. Head bowed, eyes closed. On your knees is good but not necessary. Out loud or to yourself, depending on the setting. Start with a nice greeting. “Dear...” followed by your title of choice. Lord. Heavenly Father. Or just plain old God. Give praise and thanks before you go asking for things so as not to seem like you’re mistaking God for Santa Claus. But definitely ask for things because everything comes from God, provided it’s His will. Just don’t go wasting God’s time asking for frivolous things, okay?

Among your entreaties don’t forget to ask for forgiveness for the sins you’ve committed. Even if you’ve been good, there’s something in there that needs forgiving, and the only one who can really forgive you in the saved-from-eternal-damnation sense is God Almighty.

Which brings us to salvation. How many hundreds of times must I have asked The Lord Above to save my soul? I was never 100% clear on the process. So I just ask Jesus to come into my heart? Like (gestures to chest) in here? Does he stay there or does he just clean me up and then go? And does this only cover sins committed to-date or am I covered for future sins as well? Do I have to keep doing this? I was never sure that I had done it right, so I repeated it, time and again. Salvation anxiety: it is real.

Once you’ve made it through all of your praises and givings of thanks and requests and your nine-thousand-four-hundred-and-seventy-third plea to be saved from burning in hell forever and ever and ever, bring it all to a close by stating in whose name you dare come before God (that would be Jesus’s), and then hang it up with a firm “Amen.”

I haven’t prayed in....a while. The short answer to the question of why I don’t pray anymore is that I don’t believe in God anymore. But even before I stopped believing, I had grown tired of that feeling that I was just talking to myself. I had grown so weary of never getting anything in the way of a response. A lot of people say that God and His answers to our prayers are all around us, even if we don’t recognize them, and that perhaps I should pray for eyes to see. A lot of people say that unanswered prayers are some of God’s greatest gifts. Well, I’m not a lot of people.

Some people want to define prayer a bit more loosely than the process I described above, which made sense. It’s just me and God, right? No need for all this ceremony. Some people want to talk about prayer like it’s meditation. Sitting still, quieting your mind, freeing your awareness to listen for God’s voice. But still, it all comes back to an attempt at communicating with an entity that is invisible, inaudible, odorless, flavorless, untouchable -- basically, a completely undetectable being whose entire presence is suspect.

“But God is all around us. God is in you and me and those kids and those old people and that tree and that dirt and that grass and that rock and that pitbull and, and....”

And what, Straw Man that I created and put words into the mouth of so I could get all huffy at it and it couldn’t respond? In what sense is God in those things? What reason do we have to believe that? And beyond that, if we’re busy trying to see God in everything, aren’t we sort of missing the thing itself in all its glory and wonder? Are those things only amazing and special and capable of taking our breaths away when we stop to really think about the fact of their existence if they’re somehow infused with this God of which you speak?

My answer is no.

Not praying has an interesting consequence, though. When confronted with a crappy situation about which I can do basically nothing, I’m left with little in the way of options. In the past, I could offer up a little prayer for the Lord above to intervene, somehow. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Now I don’t have that option. It would seem to do as much good as “sending good vibes” or whatever, a phrase I’ve been guilty of using, but which ultimately doesn’t do anything other than let the person on the other end know that I’m thinking about them and that I care. Which, I suppose, prayer does as well. If somebody says they’re praying for your situation, it’s just another way of saying that they care, and the fact that we believe differently in matters of God and religion becomes, in that moment anyway, tertiary.

So I don’t believe in God anymore and I don’t try to talk to him. Two connected facts of my person. I don’t remember what I said in my last prayer, but I sort of wish I could. It probably wasn’t anything special. But perhaps it should have gone something like this:

Dear God,

I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t even know...you’re not even listening, are you? You’re not even there to listen. I am literally talking to myself here, aren’t I? But I’m doing it anyway, so, I guess I’m saying this mostly for myself, and if by some chance you are there and you’re listening, then you’ll get the message too. Though that seems unlikely. I just want to say...look, I can’t do this anymore. I’m done. I feel like I’m fooling myself here, trying to talk to you, trying to listen, trying to discern your voice in everything. So, I’m not going to do this anymore, okay? If you’re there and you want to reach me for some reason, well, you’re God so you should know where to find me. Um, thanks, I guess.

Amen

Oh Yes, Mistakes Got Made

2010-09-17T13:01:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week during my internet travels, I ran across a rather entertaining article about a 1995 Newsweek article wherein the author editorialized on the many reasons why the internet was doomed to go the way of Betamax. In a nutshell, his case boiled down to a belief that the state of the internet at that time was about as good as it was ever going to get, and its state, as you may recall, was not so great.

Obviously, things have improved, and pretty much everything in the article turned out to be wrong. Even the author himself, an astronomer and writer by the name of Clifford Stoll, has commented on how very incorrect his predictions were.

I feel for this guy, I really do. I seriously doubt he was the only one back then who was too preoccupied with the internet’s wackness to stop and think about its potential dopeness. He just happened to be one of the ones ballsy enough to put his thoughts into print. And then the internet got all big and amazing and his thoughts went from print to digital and got spread all over the very medium that he predicted would have been long gone by now. I don’t know Clifford Stoll personally, but I’m going to guess that this article presents one of the most inaccurate declarations of his lifetime. And there it is one the internet for the whole world to see and pass on. Shit, I put it on Facebook myself, along with who-knows-how-many other people. But hey, if you’re going to go playing Nostradamus, it probably helps to have a taste for crow, huh?

Stoll’s blunder may be more public than most, but he’s hardly alone in having made big mistakes. So in that spirit, I thought I would share some of the things that I myself have been wrong about, right here on the internet. And I’m limiting this to mistakes that occurred in my adult life because everybody’s stupid when they’re a kid.

Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor is good drinkin'!
Holy hornet balls, could I ever put that shit back. I fucking loved it. I drank it from the widemouth grenade bottles and I drank it from the 40 ounce bottles and I loved every drop. Now? I’d have to say it qualifies as swill. Plus it’s made by Miller, a brewer I'd rather not support any longer. Please note, however, that this admission of error with regards to the quality of Mickey’s is not a statement of regret with regards to my tattoo of the Mickey’s hornet on my calf. I’m still pretty good with that.

Vaccines are scary and bad!
When we were pregnant with our first kid, we started running across all these articles about the link between vaccines and autism. Mercury in a needle! Being injected into our precious baby! I’ll admit it, we got ourselves good and freaked out. But then we learned a bit more and realized just how ridiculous the whole facts vs. nonfacts controversy surrounding vaccines really is.

My 1st marriage will last forever!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! Whew! All right then, moving on.

I want to become a counselor and help people!
When I enrolled in a master’s program with the goal in mind of becoming a licensed professional counselor, I really thought I had found what I wanted to be when I grew up. I learned a lot, but after a few semesters, I figured out that mental health was not the profession for me.

I will never be an atheist!
And yet here I sit, an unbeliever.

I will never put a LOLCat on my blog!
Doh! Actually, I think I've probably already messed this one up.

Blogging is dumb!
This isn’t really too far off from Mr. Stoll’s statement about the internet as a whole. I remember when I first started to run across people’s online journals, many of which were anonymous. I perused a few here and there and found it to be the whiniest bullshit I had ever read. I got it in my head that a bunch of people just writing about whatever the fuck they want to and putting it on the internet was a stupid idea. Then not too too long after that, my friend Tim created the individual blogs on the Loaded Gun Theory site, and lo and behold, I became a blogger.

So there's just a few of my mistakes for y'all to chew on. I wracked my brain trying to think of some more, but these are honestly the only halfway-interesting ones I could come up with, and that's stretching the definition of "interesting." For those mistakes that I'm unable to recall at the moment, hopefully I at least learned a lesson from them.

Bingorilla

2010-08-30T12:48:00.000-05:00

John Williams Ruins Everything

2010-08-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

At some point in your life, you’ve been some place where one or more persons sang or hummed or otherwise recreated the theme to “Sanford and Son.” If you try to tell me that this has never happened to you, I won’t believe you. You’re a liar. Shut up. No, YOU shut up.

I remember one such occasion in my own life when I was hanging out with my friends Lucas and Tim. Somebody, I don’t remember who, started singing the theme to “Sanford and Son.” Now that I think about it, I think it was me. I like singing the theme to “Sanford and Son.” There’s a relaxing quality to it. My friends, Lucas and Tim, told me that John Williams had written the theme to “Sanford and Son.” This is the John Williams who wrote the theme to “Star Wars.” Oh wait, you know what? We might have been singing the theme to “Star Wars” when this happened. Whatever theme it was, Lucas and Tim told me that John Williams of “Star Wars” theme fame had also written the theme to “Sanford and Son” and because I am sometimes gullible, I believed them. “Really? Really?” I asked. And not in a skeptical tone, but a really excited one. I was so happy to hear that John Williams, the guy who had written duuuuun DUUUUUN dun dun dun DUUUUUUUUN dun, dun dun dun DUUUUUUUUN dun DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUN had also written bowm bowm bownowm. bowm bowm bownowm bowmown bowm.

So you can imagine how upset I was when I saw the smiles on Lucas and Tim’s faces that told me that they were just pulling my stupid leg. I wasn’t upset that I had been tricked. I was upset that this vision they had set before me was not reality. I really wanted John Williams to have written the theme song to “Sanford and Son.” Wouldn't that be a wonderful world to live in?

Goddammit, John Williams. You ruin everything.

Enter The Ninja

2010-08-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

The other day, I needed to talk to my friend about this dream I had about him, this dream in which he was wrongly accused of murder because the dead person’s DNA was all over the couch in his living room, and nobody, neither the cops nor the courts would listen to him or his wife when they told them that they just bought this couch off of craigslist, that they didn’t even know the victim, and because their pleas did nothing but disappear into a bureaucratic vortex of deaf ears, my friend’s wife put on her P.I. hat and took it upon herself to solve the case. Yes, she had a hat. Then the dream went cinematic on me, cutting suddenly to my friend and I, months later after his ordeal, standing at a meat counter in a brightly-lit grocery store, and everything is quiet save the sound of his voice. “They hurt me, Travis” he tells me. “They hurt me bad.” And it’s only then as he’s looking me in the face that I realize his eyes have dimmed just a bit. I have no response for him, nothing worthwhile to say. I wanted to cry for my friend.

I was off-kilter for a good half hour after waking, sorting out the details of the dream from reality, assuring myself that my friend had not, in actuality, been accused of murder, had not been subjected to good cop/bad cop questioning or the violence of incarceration. I had an overwhelming need to tell him about this dream in which he figured so prominently, and finally did when I saw his name pop up in my IM list. We started talking about what a great story it would be, the kind of thing you might put on a stage in front of people for them to enjoy. We’ve been talking about it via email, IM, and text since then. And as so often happens when people come together to tease the details of a story out of the ether, a ninja has appeared among the cast of characters.

This is not over.

A Bad Morning's Tweets

2010-07-28T16:58:00.000-05:00