Post-Apocalyptic Chess

My friendosauruses in Loaded Gun Theory wrote a new play, Our Apocalyptic Dream, which is going up in just a couple of weeks. They asked me to take a few scenes and comicify them as I am wont to do. This is the first one, featuring my friends Bill and Ian, having a friendly chat over chess.

This Time I Hit A Cow

My friend Daniel put up a story on Facebook the other day about how he almost drove his car into a cow. I left a comment saying that I actually did hit a cow once, to which Daniel responded asking for me to clarify just what I meant by that statement. I responded with the whole story, exactly how it went down, and afterwards realized that it was actually a pretty good little tale that I thought would be worth sharing. So here it is:


It was night time and I was driving down the long narrow two-lane road that leads into the neighborhood where I grew up on the outskirts of Houston. It's a semi-rural semi-urban area with a bit of industrial thrown in for good measure. You can find livestock, heavy-machinery manufacturing, a trailer park, and houses all within a few square miles. There are no street lights on this stretch of road, so it's just you and your headlights and whatever assistance the night sky might have to offer. Way up ahead of me, I saw the tail lights of another vehicle swerve, brake, but then continue. It made me think I should give my brakes a tap. I'm glad I did because a second later, a cow stepped right up out of the ditch on the side of the road and walked right out in front of me. I slammed on my brakes. I would have swerved, but the ditches on either side of this road are quite deep, the kind you don't get out of without a tow truck. My tires were still screeching when I broadsided the beef, though I dont' think I was going too fast at that point. It was enough to knock the cow over, but it got right back up again and continued on across the road without so much as a moo. My truck's hood had a nice dent in it. So if anyone ever asks you, "Why did the cow cross the road?" you can look them in the eye and say, "To fuck with a man's truck."

Trying To Change The World

Adam Yauch aka MCA died today. He was 47 years old. I was sitting in Starbuck's when I read the news. It was all I could do to keep from crying in front of the whole damn shop. I loved the Beastie Boys as a kid and still love them as an adult, and not just nostalgically. They just kept on making great music. And "Egg Man" is one of my eldests's favorite songs.

There's that saying about the unexamined life being not worth living. I'd have to say that anybody who goes from

Roses are red, sky is blue,
I got my barrel attcha neck so what the fuck you gonna do?

to

Well on the tough guy style I'm not too keen,
To try to change the world, I'm'a plot and scheme


inside the span of their lifetime was doing some pretty powerful self-examination. And the fact that he did it in a public setting in a genre of music that's, rightly or not, not often known for evolving towards kindness, is incredibly admirable. Rap, music, art, hell, the world could use more of that.

Rest in peace, MCA. And thanks for everything.

Because Noone Cheered Him Up

So I don't mean to turn this blog into "Yo, Peep My Kid's Artwork" dot com or anything - though that would undoubtedly make for a pretty good blog with tons of submissions - but this one really caught my attention.

Apparently, it's hanging outside the library at his school. One of our friends texted it to my wife, who then texted it to me, who then placed it here, surrounded by text. I love texting. 

Penny The Androgynous Robot

I found this sitting on the kitchen table one day when I came home from work. It's startled me how much I've been enjoying the art that my kids make, but this one in particular grabbed my attention. I asked the artist, my 6-year-old, if I could have it.

"Sure." I thought I detected a twinge of excitement in his answer, though it was heavily diluted with nonchalance. 

"What's its name?" I asked him. He didn't have a name for it. I told him that as the artist, he had to give it a name. 

"Well you could name it since I gave it to you," he said. 

"How about Sergio?" I suggested. He didn't like that. That got the disapproving look and the shake of the head. 

"Okay, how about....Goldie? Since his head is gold."

He looked at the picture for a moment as if considering it again for the first time since signing his name to it and setting it aside. "Penny, since his body is colored like a penny." It was not a suggestion. It was a christening. Penny was its name and its name was Penny. I liked it and I told him so. 

"So does that mean he's a girl, since Penny is a girl's name? Oh, or since he's a robot, maybe he's not a boy or a girl. Maybe he's androgynous." And then I asked a 6-year-old if he knows what androgynous means, halfway expecting him to tell me that yes he did. But he didn't. I told him it was kind of like being both a boy and a girl or neither at all. Wait, is that right? I thought to myself. Is that the word I'm looking for? 

As I type this, Penny hangs on the wall to my right. She has a great view of the clutter that is my desk. 

Things I Won't Be Able To Do Forever, Episode 2387

The smaller kid rides on my back as I run through the yard. My oldest kid is hot on our tail. I can still outrun him, but he's gaining on me a little every day, plus I've got this shrieking leprechaun on my back. He chases me around the yard a few times and almost catches me, but I manage to make it back to the deck AKA base where I plunk down on my ass, sucking wind.

Then they switch.

The youngest is not as fast as his older brother, but now I'm carrying the larger of the two kids on my back, and the extra pounds don't go unnoticed. Our yard slopes, and on the way back up I notice a burning sensation in my calves. Really? I think. I'm working that hard?
I make it back to base, still untagged. My eldest hops down and I sit with a heavy thud. Inhale, exhale....

And then they switch.

What I Hear In My Head Every Time I Look At This Picture

We took los boyos to the Sherwood Forest Faire a while back...kind of a Renaissance Fair kind of thing. All I'm saying is, if you ever have the chance to enroll your kids in sword-fighting classes taught by a guy named Oskar Hasselhoff, by all means, sign them up.