Give My Love To The Ghanains

A friend of mine works for a large software company. He received this email from a customer. As he says "totally out of the blue, no explanation".

It reads:
People bad. Sun go away. I swear -- the day turned to night. Stars came out. Birds flew around in terror. The sun had turned to a black disk in the sky with feint aureola around the margins. I was panic-stricken. Didn't know if the Devil's wings were covering the Earth. Fortunately, the Ghanaians were with me. They told me it was only a total eclipse of the sun and not to worry -- the sun would come back to the sky in a moment. It was a phenomenon of the moon passing between us and the sun. Can you believe that? Scientists are full of crazyshit. I am going to wear a chicken's left foot around my neck, just in case. Whew!

You know what I love? (I am talking the love of a man for a fine Cuban cigar, not the love of a man for a woman)

I love playing badminton with one hand, while holding a Budweiser tall boy (in a cooly that says "Do it today, because tomorrow it might be illegal") in the other hand... Barefoot on a mildly plush lawn under a hot noonday sun.

And of course all the repetitive jokes that go along with the shuttle cock.

Today...

I came to understand the age old adage: "don't leave your thumbs in the sun".

Looking Ahead

Here's what we hope to see more of this summer:

aggravated dance floor left turns
syrupy telephonic communicades
rollicking death cart rides
thick black ribbons of highway
needle perforated night-time sky
vitamins for the deaf
sonic hammer-to-ear applications
jargonized graham cracker expeditions
wild dogs devouring jell-o beneath a quartet of crickets
superfluous super-fluidity
rusty paper cut
noodle wallpaper
external combustion engines
de-solidified biscuits

Keep your eyes peeled

Today...

I got caught in a hailstorm. I recommend it.

Stairway To Heaven Beat Me At Checkers

If I'm remembered for anything I hope that it is for my cerebral approach to blogging. Today's Hollywood bloggers, like Denzel Washington for instance, take a far too direct approach. Denzel would probably envision himself in an after dinner checkers match with Robert Plant. A match in which Plant screams "And as we wind on down the road", distracts Denzel, and pulls the Plant Family secret fake double-jump to a "King Me!". The two would argue, of course. But Robert is British and wears leather pants. King him Denzel.

Up with the ramp!

I too am weary of the staircase. I fully support all efforts to promote the gradual ascent. I have been pro-ramp for several years now.

Below you will find a log of all the times I have fallen down the stairs since I turned 30. I fully expect this list to be an important document in the effort to transform America into a ramped nation. I encourage others to start their own stair mishap journal and for god's sake, slow down on the stairs!

A log of times I have fallen down the stairs since age 30.

12-17-05
The Cain house (3108 Woodslee Dr., Royal Oak, MI)

I had just got to cain’s house for the annual Christmas party/ meatball eating competition. He has some stairs at his back door leading into the basement, I took 2 steps down the stairs and it happened. My feet flew out from under me and I rode my ass down the stairs. Luckily this time I had on a backpack and was carrying two guitars. One guitar I gracefully saved by calmly placing on a top stair. The other guitar bore the brunt of the crash, but was no worse for the wear. The backpack saved my ass, literally. It absorbed most of the tumble. Leaving me with little more than some stinging fingertips and a bruised ego. As with most falls down stairs I was completely thrown into a state of disbelief and confusion. I survived and that very night witnessed the most intense display of meatball eating I have yet to see.

Pain Factor: 3 (out of a possible 10)
Embarrassment Factor: 1
Overall Fall: 4

03-04-06
My house (1434 N. Greenview, Chicago, IL)

I was rushing to leave town for the weekend. I was carrying (once again) my guitar in one hand and some books in the other and I had my backpack on. The stairs in our house going from the first floor to the second curve around in a “J” as some stairs do. The way they are set up the inside of these stairs get very narrow. In my hurrying, I misjudged the width of the stairs and down I came, about 8 stairs from the bottom. Again the backpack absorbed most of the damage. This time books went flying and my elbow was smashed. Again, the whole event threw me for a loop, and made me really uncomfortable, mentally. It is kinda like a reboot of your whole system. This episode has me convinced that I will more than likely meet my end as a result of an untimely stair falling. It’s only a matter of time.

Pain Factor: 4.5
Embarrassment Factor: 2
Overall Fall: 5.5

The ASPRR

I realized something this afternoon while trying to light a cigarette…I don’t like stairs. I’m just not a fan of them. And I feel completely confident saying that they don’t like me either. On a side note, stairs really aren’t a good place to try to light a cigarette. Best case scenario, you don’t fall down the stairs but you die of lung cancer anyway.

I don’t know what it is about them. Perhaps it’s the elevation change that plays tricks with my mind, or the confusing way the lines go from horizontal to vertical and back again. And as of late I’ve found going up is really just as challenging as going down. On a regular basis the muscle memory in my leg forgets the required amount of lift needed is 8 inches and supplies me with only six instead. It’s happened to you to.

Aside from the embarrassment factor and the physical trauma, the worst part is just knowing that those blasted stairs bested you again. Sitting there with that smug look upon their face, you can feel their laughter with every aching muscle in your newly bruised body, snickering through their sharp corners. They are just goading me to hurry again and “see what happens.” I hate those fucking stairs.

I don’t like escalators either. As if the stationary kind aren’t difficult enough, now you’ve got me doing brain surgery on the deck of a moving ship…no thanks. I’m a ramp man myself. If you fall going up a ramp, you’ve gotten what you deserve. And going down a ramp is simply a good time, especially if you’re in a wheelchair.

So I encourage you to join me in my anti-stair/pro-ramp revolution the ASPRR, and support the happiness of the wheelchair-bound everywhere!

Potato Salad & Scrabble

My life was semi-normal, until April 15 in this the year of our lord 2006. The day before Easter as a mayo mixture of fate and happenstance would have it. Up until that day, I had never known the enormous pleasures of the divine summertime nectar that is potato salad. Somehow I had made it 30 years without enjoying its goodness, and I now realize, without truly enjoying life.

The next day I was still reeling with a mayo/celery/potato/mustard body buzz when a true Easter miracle shown it's face in the form of vocabularic one-upmanship. Perhaps this was a door opened to me by my new friend potato salad, perhaps just a coincidence, but that faithful Easter day was the first time I played scrabble.

"Sweet Jesus!" you say.

"it's true." I say.

All I do anymore is eat potato salad and play scrabble!

Before that wonderful day of wonderousness, I had never known the joy of placing the letters Z-I-O-N on the board (The Z on a triple letter score, of course). Just one day earlier, I had found a new mistress for my mouth, and here mere hours later I find another for my mind (How many mistresses can one man have for his head, you ask?*) This has to be the biggest thing to happen on Easter since the Easter bunny found Jesus in that cave still alive.

Now, I am not going to get into the whole thing of "how could I have gone so long without, both potato salad and scrabble." I prefer not to think of it like that. I prefer to eat as much potato salad as I can while I play as much scrabble as I can. I am still so giddy to do either one, and both whenever possible, that I have not yet begun to ponder the possible connection between the two. I have a hunch that it will blow my mind, but right now and for the foreseeable future, I don't need my mind blown. I just need to eat as much potato salad and play as many games of scrabble as I can.

And just so you know, "zit" is not in our house rules dictionary, but delicious is.



* the answer is 7.