The Deck Is Always Stacked Against You

          After spending what I believe to be the appropriate amount of time to mourn the loss of the wonderful Christopher Lee, I have decided much to the appreciative chagrin of my semi-adoring public to return to write yet another irreverent and scattershot post.  Before I get started however, I just wanted to reiterate what a loss not having Christopher Lee around is to this world.  He was such a delight onscreen in any number of roles.  My only hope is that his passing is only temporary and that at some time in some vague European nation some weary travelers will make the mistake of staying at the wrong castle and a devoted servant will use them as the bloody means to resurrect Lee from the grave.  Of course then Peter Cushing will have to be resurrected to kill him all over again, but what a ride that would be!

 

          Thank you for indulging my initial digression and let me get to the meat of what I wanted to write about today.  At some point in your life, you may find yourself living in a house that you are attempting to own despite voluminous mortgage bills and property tax payments.  This house may be blessed with a deck somewhere on it.  The previous owner might have been just great and slathered on a layer of dirt cheap paint to make everything look good enough to sell but not to last beyond 2 days after the house sale closed.  This might be good enough for a time, but then if you’re extremely blessed, you might have a wife that continually says, “Wouldn’t it be great if the deck were repainted!”  You might even reply with an agreement as I did that went along these lines: “Yep, Honeybunch!  That sure would be nice if that deck were repainted!”  You then might be dealt a stare that would drive all the warmth from your body due to the day of reckoning atmosphere that accompanies it.  You then might think: “Oh, no.”

 

            Well, if you happen to be the poor sod that is stuck with such a dilemma, fear not!  For I am a survivor of such an ordeal and am living just long enough to give all of you some tips and tricks on how to get out of staining your deck.  Whoops!  Please replace “out of” in the previous sentence and replace it with “started on”.  I forgot my wife sometimes reads these posts and she’s probably reading this sentence right now.  Hi, dear!  Doesn’t the deck look great?  Whew, I think she’s gone now, so here we go!

 

·        When I asked a friend of mine who owns a painting company what would be the best way to attack repainting/staining a deck, his first response was “Get rid of the deck.”  He did have a point.  After all, I live in Wisconsin, which does get to experience the effects of a season known as winter some six months out of a year.  If we’re lucky, sometimes even more!  Why in the name of Cthulhu would one own a deck in the Dairyland?  However my wife wouldn’t buy my “accidentally” destroying the deck even with my vast technological ineptitudeness at my disposal.  The chances of a tornado just taking the deck out are slim and a fire would be hard to control with such precision, but never say die.  Perhaps if I hired some guys to dismantle it while my wife was out and when she asked about it, I would reply bravely, “What deck?  This house never had one!  Why do you think we got such a deal?!”  But that would never work as the kids would rat me out in a heartbeat, the little punks!

·        Realize that the people that suggest the deck needs repainting are never the ones eager to grab a brush or slosh a roller down.  Just understand that!  You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache and anger by avoiding the clever retort, “Oh yeah, well why don’t you do it!”  Not that I can speak from experience, but I bet my grandmother would have grabbed that brush and would have done a better job than me.  Hmmm…come to think of it, let me revise this thought.  Challenge anyone that you think could do a better job than you at painting a deck.  You’ve got a 50/50 shot of getting out of doing it yourself.

·        Speaking of not doing it yourself, don’t let yourself be talked out of hiring someone else to do this task.  Although I did find it odd that when I mentioned the deck painting to the painting company friend, he didn’t violently leap at the idea of getting paid to do it for me.  Quite the contrary in fact.  However, there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction that comes from a job well done…by someone you’ve hired.

·        If you dare your wife that you’ll paint the deck but only if she picks up the paint in the color she wants, you will have that brush in your hand quicker than you can say “Sherwin Williams”.  You won’t get to the “Williams”.  Even with having to drag 3 children under the age of 5 into a Home Depot, she’ll have 9 gallons of paint waiting for you when you get home from work that very day.  Again, this is purely hypothetical and has nothing per se to do with my individual set of circumstances of course.

·        Delay tactics are a must at this point.  Even if there is a hint of rain coming from two states over, bring it up and say something along the lines of “Oh, shoot!  Sweetie, I just don’t want to waste the paint and have it all wash away!”  This will work a surprising amount of times.  Unless of course your wife gets a smartphone, links up to three different weather sites, and calls up the local weatherman every 6 minutes to get her personal “Weather on the sixes, because the eights take too long” reports.  At this point, you are defeated.  The only available out is if you can come up with a plausible arm break.  Inevitably failing that train of thought, prepare for paint day!

·        You might think that you have supplies for the forthcoming day of painting and you probably do, but they won’t be enough.  Oh no.  The cost of the paint was cheap compared to the brushes, rollers, roller brushes, brusher rollers, stirring sticks, brush extension poles, brushes, paint trays, paint tray liners, knee pads, brushes, handheld paint cup, handheld paint cup liners, brushes, paint remover, and of course brushes you’ll need.  Also, be sure that your paint is far too thick to make the use of a sprayer effective in any way, shape, or form. 

·        Also if you think something would be great to be covered with a roller, grab the hand brush because the roller will work like garbage.  If you think something would be best covered with a brush, you’re right.  Who would have thought that after all this time, the paintbrush would be the best application for getting paint on things?  So why’d you buy all that other stuff?  You fool!  Take it back to the store and get a refun…oh, wait.  You say that everything’s covered in paint because you tried to use it?  Oh, well, that’s different.  You’re screwed.  Never mind.

·        Examine your deck.  Did the builder make simple railings that were easily accessible from all angles?  No, of course they didn’t.  Never in a bazillion years would they ever think to do that!  I happened to have some sort of double decker railing with little 2 X 2 supports in-between them that were not only impossible to effectively paint, but they were also impossible to paint effectively too.  I think if they had the option, they would have hired those carvers that make ornate sculptures out of elephant tusks to work on the wood as well. 

·        Given your concern over the weather being a factor in your painting experience, have you ensured that the day will be breathtakingly scorchingly hot?  Please do so.  If you start to feel sick while out there for hours on end, don’t worry.  You’re just experiencing the effects of heatstroke combined with inhaling paint fumes from 8 AM until 5:30 PM.  Other than that, you are fine!  Keep pushing that brush, slacker!

·        If your wife gives you a tasty sandwich and a nice cool beverage as a pit stop after your hours of painting and you then immediately hear a loud thunderclap, please be sure to laugh uncontrollably.  You’ve earned that release, partner!  If you are extremely fortunate, the rain will come down in drenching sheets and you will laugh even louder.  Let the laughter heal you.  Doing so will prevent you from strangling the first person that asks you, “Hey, how’s the painting going?”

·        Now if you’re like me and I know I am, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve covered all bits of the old paint job so that nothing shows through.  At this point, be assured that you’ll discover that you definitely have a form of OCD!  I never even knew I had it this badly despite my need to alphabetize and chronologicalize everything I own.  Even my children cannot be addressed out of order.  I never thought that I could get nightmares about having to touch up a deck, but I just kept on learning new things through this experience!  A good way to battle this problem is to have plenty of ice cold beer around!  Sure, the paint won’t be spread as evenly but you’ll start to care less and less.  Also alcohol is a scientifically proven thirst quencher.  Science: The Stuff You Think You Know!

·        After the end of the third day spent painting, when you’ve used the last bit of your current gallon after a rationing effort that mirrors how you’d dole out the remaining fresh water while stuck in a lifeboat, definitely take a moment to sit back now.  You’re done!  Take a well-deserved break.  Sit in the shade and just admire your handiwork.  I bet you never thought you had it in you!  I bet you never thought that it would never turn out looking that good!  Better yet, call your wife over to share in this moment.  Perhaps you’ll be fortunate enough to have her bring up certain areas that still need touching up.  Take a well-deserved moment to cry.  Start blubbering like a toddler that was told that Thomas the Tank Engine was killed in a horrible derailment accident.  If you don’t have kids and/or that Thomas illustration won’t suffice, try crying like Howard Dean. 

·        I suggest using nothing short of an industrial belt sander to help you remove the paint that now covers 86.9% of your body.  Those cute antibacterial soaps that smell like woodland fairy flatulence are nice and all, but they cannot remove paint whatsoever.  If you cannot find a soap that works for you, simply shave the skin away.  At least the scar tissue will be clean of paint and you’ll have a physical memory of your deck painting adventure!

 

          Well, I do hope that these tips and tactics will assist you in making the right decision for your deck adventure.  Remember the best tip is to not have a deck in the first place.  However if you’ve been saddled with a deck that needs repainting and certain members of your household won’t stop bringing this up, do the responsible thing.  Get your supplies, starting with the beer, and go watch Sir Christopher Lee in something, anything.  Did you know he was a bad guy in a Chuck Norris movie?  It was called An Eye For An Eye and Chuck is great!  You might catch a little grief, but all the better to waste even more time in the hopes that a twister will take that deck right off the house.

Roll 'Em Up or The How-Not-To Survive Wild Animals Survival Guide

            Hello and welcome back to the most pleasant blog in the whole wonderful world wide webnet!  After taking the majority of May off to pursue other interests, such as getting caught up on reading the instruction manual to my car stereo and killing moles in my lawn with the ruthless efficiency of Stalin’s NKVD, there was a story that came up that was so compelling, I believe it needs addressing.

 

            This story was a feature during the broadcast of the most objective, reliable and thorough morning news show in the country, let alone the Milky Way: Good Morning America or GMA as their many tens of fans call it for short.  I mean how could there be any kind of conflict of interest whatsoever when George Stephanopoulos has to report on anything revolving around the Clinton family?  I’m sure he’s as unbiased as they come!  (Kids, check out Wikipedia or *shudder* an actual book regarding those wacky Clintons to see why my sarcasm is cascading over the top of the cup at this moment.)  Aside from bushel baskets full of money, I don’t see how ABC got Robin Roberts over to this AM dog and pony show.  I mean with the flimsy and sometimes laughable façade of journalistic integrity at ESPN, Roberts always was a head above the rest over there.  Why would she leave that?  Aside from being offered the boatloads of cash, I mean.

 

            Anyway, this titan among the morning broadcast journalism shows, which my wife can stand for some goshawful reason that I know I never saw coming when I married her, had reported about a woman from the U.S. who was killed by a lion at an animal park in South Africa.  While I in no way want to belittle this tragedy (even though I am with good reason going to do so before my post is over), it appears that the woman was killed because in order to take a better picture, she had rolled her car window down all the way and a lion lunged and attacked her.  Ahem.  Let that sink in for a moment: “she had rolled her car window down all the way and a lion lunged and attacked her.”  I think right there the moment has arrived where Darwin’s theories get the juice of proof from the fruit of actions like these.

 

Aside from blaming the lion, which is the obvious oblivious reaction to be sure, let us reconsider while I take the admittedly revolutionary tack of blaming the victim.  Oh sure, I can hear some of you saying now, “WHAT?!?  All victims are pure and blameless creatures of bad luck and horrible timing, right?  How dare you, you hater! #lionvictimsrightsnow (Insert Random Emoticon of Disapproval Here).”  Okay, I know none of you really said that, but I’ll play devil’s advocate anyways.  This was not an infant or a child or a mentally challenged individual, all of whom know nothing about lions aside from fuzzy cubs and cuddly toys, that was killed.  This was presumably a full grown adult female that went to South Africa, now that it is all nice and joyous there, in order to witness full grown wild animals in a park.  She had to have some idea that lions were dangerous no matter how many times she saw The Wizard of Oz, right?  Right?

 

Of course since this was a U.S. citizen, the question was immediately raised about the safety of the park.  Because no one cares if some random Belgian takes a header into a bear pit, but heaven forbid an apple pie eating American doesn’t know how car windows work.  The South African park officials said that their rules for visitors actually had to include the heretofore unneeded edict: “Don’t Roll Your Windows Down”.  Amazingly, this actually had to be told to tourists with a straight face conceivably along with the similar edicts of “Don’t Pet The Rhinos” and “Don’t Ride The Cheetahs”.

 

The bottom line is that nature is trying to kill human beings.  No matter how you slice it, nature wants to maul you and leave your carcass hanging in a tree, ripping your skull out to keep as a trophy while camouflaging itself in the jungle to hunt down Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura.  Perhaps this isn’t how nature works at all now that I think about it.  At least it wouldn’t have that good of a soundtrack.  Hmm.  Mayhap I should rethink some of the ground rules when dealing with our soulless friends of nature.  And no, I don’t just mean PETA.  And as always, you are welcome!

 

1.     Don’t roll down your car window when near large cats that can kill you.  This includes lions, tigers, pumas, mountain lions, cheetahs, any cast member of the show Cats, leopards, panthers, Garfield, lynxes, Persian cats, saber-toothed tigers, bobcats, wildcats, any sports team that had to change from their Native American mascots over to a random cat icon instead, Snagglepuss, and rabid feral kittens.  I know what you’re going to say because I’m writing words into your fictional mouths, but as werewolves are canines, they do not apply to this rule. 

2.     Orcas are just plain old killer whales that got a better PR firm to handle them.  They are still killers no matter how they want to soften their image.  Now they want to say that they are just big dolphins?  Sure, sure.  Whatever you say.  I still remember that you’re the real reason Richard Harris died.

3.     As long as we’re in the ocean, don’t open your shark cage for any reason, unless of course you want to get a clearer picture.  What, too soon?

4.     Don’t flush your still living crocodile/alligator/caiman into the toilet.  I don’t want to get my wedding tackle bitten off one day by a sewer-bred goliath that is seeking revenge on little Billy who once went to Orlando on vacation.  Gently eliminate your reptile baby by seeking out a blender and going all Gremlins on its scaly rear.  Then flush it.

5.     How close exactly do you want to get to a bison in the wild?  Every year there seems to be some buffoon that is looking to get up close, seemingly trying to ride one of these things.  Did you notice the horns?  Did you ever see Dances With Wolves?  Oh, you did?  Sorry to hear that.  Well, enjoy the time you have left by not grabbing a tatonka selfie.

6.     Ah, bears.  Remember point number 1?  Okay, well then ibid the hell out of it because the same applies here.  Do yourself a favor and see the 1997 movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins.  Realize these facts:

a.     Elle Macpherson was actually in a David Mamet-penned movie.

b.     No one would say dialogue like this when stuck in an actual bear attack or an actual bear attack movie.  I’ve seen Grizzly and no one is pontificating that much onscreen.

c.      Did you see fact #a?  It is true!  And she plays a supermodel!  No, really!

d.     If you happen to be the third wheel along with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins in a disaster movie, regardless of skin color although it helps, you are a meal.  If the bear doesn’t eat you, the scenery will be too chewed up for you to have a meaningful life anyway.  Embrace your fate.

e.     Bart the Bear did not get an Academy Award for “Best Bear In A Bear Attack Movie” that year.  Oddly enough Alec Baldwin won but it was a close race in the voting.   

f.       I just can’t get over that first fact!

7.     When driving through an animal park that has baboons roaming wild, don’t take your demon-spawned child through there.  The screaming alone isn’t worth the trip.  Same goes for mysterious black dogs that show up unannounced at the house.  I know I’m going out on a limb, but it might be the child.  Gregory Peck realized this a bit too late, David Warner even later than that.

8.     Speaking of dogs, when a bunch of Norwegians are shooting at a husky from a helicopter whilst in the Polar Regions, let them go ahead and do it.  You’ll thank me later.  If you choose to stop Bjørn, I hope you’ve got plenty of flamethrowers lying around. 

 

There are of course many other points to consider when dealing with our friends of nature.  I know that I didn’t even touch on sasquatches and dinosaurs, but I should hope the ways to interact with those creatures would be rather obvious.  I mean would you roll your window down to get a better picture of a yeti?  I hope the abominable snowman park has good safety standards with signs available telling me to leave my windows up.  Oh, still too soon for this thought?  Well it is too late for at least one person that visited a South African park.    

The Best Bygone Era

It has finally dawned on me: I am old.  Not “getting on in years” or “aging gracefully” or any of those other “euphemisms designed to not blatantly call someone a geezer”, I am just flat out old.  Now the random stranger on the street could run up to me, readjust his homemade tinfoil helmet and breathlessly exclaim, “But you’re only in your mid-thirties!” and then scamper off back into the alley that presumably spawned him.  This obviously aware yet rather insane derelict would be technically correct.  However, I’m not talking about age in years actually lived, or not lived in my case.  (This is also different than cutting me in half to examine the rings of aging that I’ve acquired.  After all, my contents would be far messier than any oak or maple tree so I wouldn’t recommend this method as a first choice in determining my age.)

 

Did this thought about aging come upon me due to the fact that I am steadily approaching 40?  Or is it because I’m married, have three kids, a mortgage, life insurance policies, a steady 40 hour a week job, a lawn to maintain, a broken snowblower, and/or anything else that falls into that getting older cliché?  Is it because I’ve lost a step or two compared to when I was a mere stripling?  Nah, I wasn’t that athletic or agile or even minimally coordinated in the first place.  Maybe it was a different story when I was around 6 or 8 years old, but for the majority of us it was all downhill after reaching double digits.

No, for me this revelation came thundering down while I was in Best Buy, looking at CDs.  I realized then and there that this action was the equivalent of hiking my pants up to my chin all the while demanding a senior discount for awful coffee that I wanted as hot as lava.  I was a doddering old fart and it was irreversible.  “Why then and there?” you might ask if you were still reading this.  Allow me to answer that with a question: have you been in a Best Buy recently?  And a follow up question: were you ever in a Best Buy 5-10 years ago?  Have you noticed quite a difference between then and now?  The CD and movie aisles of the past were titans, taking up floor space like Stalin “liberating” Eastern Europe.  They also filled their acreage with variety as well.  I remember the days when the music area had a jazz section, a comedy album section, and even an actual box set section!  Now the CDs are thrown haphazardly onto whatever dingy gray racks were available.  The only tenuous attachment to categorization is the alphabet, but even that is barely followed.  Unless of course Alice Cooper was in Pink Floyd and that would explain why his greatest hits album is jammed in-between the apparently bottomless supply of Dark Side of the Moons. 

 

Beyond that the selection is disastrous.  Any band with a large back catalogue such as The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath all get the shaft in the wide variety department. The same is also true for the Beatles.  Wait a minute, the Beatles?!  I’m definitely used to the Who not getting the love at Best Buy, or anywhere for that matter, but the emmer-effing Beatles?  That is a rather telling barometer.  (However, this barometer might be due to some cosmic karmic justice being served so the remaining Beatles can experience how Pete Best must have felt back in 1962.)  I just never thought that I’d see the day that Barnes & Noble would have a wide and varied assortment of albums and Best Buy would begrudgingly still keep a few of those pathetic CDs around just in case someone wanted to browse something that wasn’t a purple vacuum cleaner or a different purple vacuum cleaner.

 

There isn’t even a real attempt to keep DVD/blu-rays around.  Sure, they devote some space to them, but once again these red-headed media stepchildren are treated like their CD brethren if not worse.  The only movies or TV shows available are the ones that purchasers must have bought at least a decade ago and have been rereleased at least twice in the meantime.  However, stranger things have happened and I won’t begrudge anyone getting their favorite Breaking Bad/The Walking Dead/The Sopranos/Sons of Anarchy/Whatever the Hell is a Supposedly Hip TV Show Now DVD sets.  I just find it hard to believe at this point in time that someone will come barreling in because they finally realized that Billy Madison is on DVD and they just have to have it NOW!  (Of course, the movies that Best Buy overstocks would be Adam Sandler related.  Perhaps Sandler bought a majority of Best Buy stock and demanded that from now on 1) Push those clothes washer-dryer combos that no one really likes, 2) make sure that we hire more tattooed clerks in an effort to look sort of relevant to the fickle times we live in, and 3) only The Waterboy and maybe Little Nicky will be prominently displayed all year.  Eight Crazy Nights will be out in force around Christmas, ironically.)

 

While in the CD area, I took a look at everyone else that was in the media sections and guessed that the median age was about 36 years old.  This was an easy deduction on my part because besides myself standing there, there was only me, so a head count was not difficult.  I also double checked my age with my driver’s license and then called my wife to verify.  So there I was amongst some lonely copies of poorly recorded live Molly Hatchet CDs (for only $4.99!), and more blue polo-shirted Best Buy employees milling around not selling anything than I could record in just one sitting.  To add to my ever-increasing discernment that I was most definitely a duffer in that store: I was also the only person in there sans piercings, not wearing tight hipster-douchebag sperm-killing pants, and not concerned about my tablet/HD TV/iPod/iPad/iDon’tCareAnymore.  Then to make matters worse, my eyes then fell upon a lone copy of the 20^th anniversary edition of Nirvana’s In Utero album.  I recognized then that I am aging faster than milk left in the trunk of a car in Arizona in July that was now being driven to Death Valley in order to be abandoned there after being set on fire. 

 

I guess my generation would be one of the last that still enjoyed handling media, whether it came in the form of VHS tapes, music cassettes or CDs, DVDs or even blu-rays.  On the other hand, I think ours was also the first generation that wanted everything downloadable and right now and why is it taking so long?!  We wanted movies to stream, music to upload, and books that involve batteries and not pages.  Come to think of it, is there anything sadder than a Barnes & Noble employee hocking downloaded books?  Could their fake sales smile be any more forced?  Do they realize they are being paid to make themselves obsolete?  Remember what happened to Blockbuster video stores that were pushing for mailing DVDs and downloads instead of pushing brick and mortar stores?  I guess all the Blockbusters moved next door to the Hollywood Videos, Sam Goodys, and Borders stores…in hell apparently because they sure ain’t around here anymore.

 

These up and coming uncombed whippersnappers really truly won’t experience the thrill of discovering an album that you were hunting for with the raw passion of a U.S. marshal going after a suspect that claims a one-armed man killed his wife.  They will not realize that the real fun actually begins after you’ve purchased that disc.  Now you get to deal with the host of security devices that were incorporated to obviously prevent the mass theft of Metallica’s Load and Reload albums.  First, you have a go at attempting to unwrap the plastic that clings to the CD with all the passion of a lonely aunt at a family reunion.  Then you attempt to remove the sticker on top with a switchblade, then a chainsaw, then a bigger chainsaw, and then you finally succeed by melting it with a barbecue lighter.  Then you try to get past that holographic sticker that looked like the satellite from Mystery Science Theater that has welded the case shut.  In the end you would get it opened just long enough to quickly notice that the disc was loose in the jewel case from the get go. This of course resulted in the disc getting horrendous scratches that look like they came from a rabid bobcat that was attacking a reflection of itself in the backside of Green Day’s Dookie album.  And this was a brand new album you just bought.  Ah, memories!

 

I realized in that Best Buy that I was a dinosaur and the meteor that destroyed my way of thinking was already digitally uploaded into the world.  Apparently, I just ignored it and moved on, thinking that the status quo would remain.  I’m sure that fans of Super 8 film and 8-track players thought the same way back in the day.  (Although c’mon 8-track guys…did you really dig listening to Stairway to Heaven and hearing that “chunka-chunk-whirr-chunka-wrank-chunk” sound about 2/3rds of the way through as it switched tracks to finish?  You didn’t, did you?  You can be honest with me.  We’re all here to grow together.  And you’re welcome.) 

 

The fact is I like owning stuff.  Perhaps that is the capitalist American way of thinking which some buffoonish radicals think is an outright evil attitude, but I like holding the album I’m going to listen to, grasping the movie I’m going to watch, and perusing shelves of books to read.  Everything is right there in front of me, at my fingertips whenever I want to use it.  I don’t feel that way about uploaded streaming nonsense.  I think I’m buying nothing but air if I’m buying from the cloud.  It isn’t tangible or tactile; it is an illusion of ownership, a theory that you actually “possess” something. 

This misconception can come crashing down suddenly and without warning; especially if the company decides that they don’t want you to have their media anymore.  For instance look at the following scenario and think if it looks out of the ordinary: Universal Pictures might think that they haven’t earned enough revenue from Jaws (which is impossible to contemplate but bear with me here).  So they yank the availability away, while eliminating it from streaming and also deleting it from clouds.  Universal could then wait to release it later to earn more on a product that they created the demand for in the first place.  Sounds ridiculous, right?  Yet Disney does this very thing every year with their “Cinderella IV: Citizens on Patrol is going back into the Disney vault, so get it now before it is gone!” nonsense.  Why wouldn’t the other studios follow suit?  Perhaps with a movie or TV show or album you happen to love/like/not mind/tolerate?

 

Books aren’t safe either.  Look at the debacle that occurred when Amazon.com simply removed George Orwell’s 1984 from Kindle owners.  They were able to log right in and take it away from people that had rightfully purchased and downloaded it.  How’s that for Big Brother ironical irony?  That little digital event cannot happen with someone that owns a physical copy of 1984 or any book for that matter that is comprised of bound paper pages.  Besides, unlike owning a Nook/Kindle, books on your shelves at least give you the appearance of intelligence even if you haven’t read them. 

Did you know that paper books do not require those “hurtful to the environment” batteries, if that’s a motivation for you, you supposed eco-lovers?  Also as you will have a broken Nook/Kindle at some point: they aren’t very biodegradable either, unlike those seemingly nasty and terrible paper books.  Real books are also safer to take along for air travel.  After all, I don’t mind a terrorist reading a real book because odds are I can survive a paper cut attack, but I get a little twitchy when they come on board with something electronic-y with lots of buttons.  Besides if you survive your plane crashing and end up on an island, books can be used as a ready supply of fuel for your signal fires.  You can’t get that from a Nook.  (You also can’t dogear a Nook.  Well, let me clarify: you can’t dogear a Nook easily.)   

 

Speaking of crashes: What if your computer crashes and your downloaded copies of Laverne & Shirley are all gone?  Now you have to rebuy something intangible again and pray that it stays on your computer, unless you get malware that destroys those shows and replaces them all with episodes of Joanie Loves Chachi instead.  Now you’re even more screwed.  You could just have these shows on your shelf and never have your wallet experience more than the initial purchase price.  Furthermore you would not have to worry about being inundated with a different but still crappy Happy Days spin-off to boot. 

I’ve heard the argument that storage can be an issue when it comes to physical media and that shelves need to be cleared of all this nonsense.  So you download everything you listen to on an iPod and life is good, right?  But now what are you putting on those bare shelves?  Do you have that many photos of wonderful moments to stick around here, there, and everywhere?  Are your friends and relatives attractive enough to warrant spraying your home with images of them?  Are you just going to have a Spartan lifestyle that consists of your iPod, a bedroll, a dish, a bowl, a spoon, and ramen noodles?  Gosh, that does sound fun!        

 

I do realize that this all makes me sound like the crotchety old geezer in my raccoon coat wagging his finger at those teenyboppers and bobbysoxers, knowing that someday they’ll pay for not listening to my sky-is-falling rhetoric.  Meanwhile I’ll be still shuffling around with my cane in the Best Buys of the world, accumulating media that my wife just shakes her head at.  One day perhaps all those uploads and downloads and sidewaysloads will come crashing one day and everything will be irretrievable.  This will be a sad day for the world due to the loss of technology that can provide easy pablum entertainment.

 

It won’t be sad for me however.  I’ll be cackling away in my bunker with my discs and books having a grand old time.  Now that’s how I’m going to get nice and comfy with getting older!  You just wait and you’ll see.  Flocks of entertainment starved peons with amazingly clear shelves are going to be just begging me for a peek at something from the third season of The Dukes of Hazzard.  At that point I will be completely magnanimous and state unequivocally, “Sorry, but those good ol’ boys are back in the vault.”  I would then yell at them to get off of my lawn and scream passionately “Stream THAT, you tight-panted wankers!” 
 

Ah, that felt good to get off my chest!  You know, I think I’m going to like getting older…      

    

The Corpse Of Discovery

Please take the time to enjoy something that has been a labor of love for me and for my entire fictional writing staff here at BlatherCo Headquarters Inc.  This has been painstakingly reedited, flambéed, and then placed aloft on a high shelf and forgotten about until this very moment.  Savor every word like you would savor a lollipop, an aluminum pop top from a soda can, or those paint chips that you're pretty sure weren't lead.  And you're welcome as always.

Due to the uproarious clamor and urging from legions of people, especially my legal team, the prosecution’s legal team, and random high school mock trial organizers, I have decided to finally come clean and tell what might pass for the truth.  I shall reveal the details of an event from my life that at best I had hoped to forget about, at worst I would be reminded of it by whoever happened to recognize my name at the DMV when I would be erroneously trying to renew a CDL license that I never possessed in the first place. 
 

As I recall these events, a foggy flood of memories and varying reactions occur.  I start to feel rather embarrassed and then quite impish and spritely.  Finally I have a unreasonable feeling of dread, getting rather damp right around the ankles.  (For like all great people in history, I sweat the most around the ankles when frightened and/or intimidated.  For instance, Winston Churchill would have to wring out his pant cuffs every few minutes during the conference at Yalta.)  Now with this entire interminable introduction aside, I shall talk about the one and, to date, only time that I had ever killed someone.
 
Immediately I know what you're thinking, "Hey just wait one gosh durned minute!  He's definitely killed more than one person!  Who’s he trying to kid?"  Well that’s as maybe, however I should clarify.  I meant to talk about the only person I killed accidentally, not those that I had perish either by willful intent or by willful negligence or by the willful hiring of a professional assassin.  Because if I had to go over a list of all the souls that I have had a hand in exterminating, believe you me there are not enough bytes in the whole Wonderful World Wide Web ™ on the planet to contain that cornucopia of information.  If one had the time, resources, and gullibility, one could then make a family tree that could conceivably incorporate everyone that has died. 

 

Now if one goes back to trace the cause of several of those deaths, one could see that I had a hand in eliminating not only James Dean, but also General Charles DeGaulle, Helen Hayes, former tennis star Bill Tilden, and of course, Bing Crosby.  (But as I should think that last one is rather obvious, I am rather embarrassed I even had to mention it.)
 
Few people know of my past as a bouncer in Nebraska, and the less that do the better.  I mean once you bounce one cornhusker, you've bounced them all, right?  Those who have bounced a cornhusker know exactly what I'm talking about.  And all you tarheel and hoosier bouncers can just line right up and kiss my rear because you have no idea what kind of hell cornhusker bouncing is in the first place!  (Sorry by my brusque tone, but I cannot recall the volume of times that I have had to take a stand because I get sick and tired of all you other bouncers trying to hog the spotlight with your stories. These tall tales, which by the by pale in comparison to my well-crafted epics, prove that real cornhusker bouncing will blow you all out of the water.)
 
What was I talking about again?  Oh yeah, the dead guy.
 
Anyways, fortune had smiled upon me and with only 7 and ¾ cents to my name, I found myself near a tavern on the outskirts of Oxandplow, Nebraska.  You know the kind of town: small, two liquor stores for every church, several outdated strip clubs, an outdoor Jiffy Lube, an indoor Pep Boys, a couple of condemned massage parlors, an underground Meineke, and the world's oldest slice of Virginia ham on display in a pavilion near Lake Omigawdiamdrowninghere.
 
The tavern was called "Le Dijon Prix Mousse", which in Spanish-French means "You are standing upon my doorknob, fresher lawns".  Not the best phrase or even a concept understood by mankind, but the owners, The Turkmenistans, a couple of unquestionably dysfunctional people, thought the tavern's handle was catchy enough for Oxandplow.  Apparently they thought just calling it “Bar” would bring in a hoity-toity clientele that would demand upper class trappings such as clean glasses, clean ice to go into the glasses, clean bathrooms, and free popcorn that didn’t have abnormal levels of discarded peanut shells and animal hair mixed in with it. 

Without prompting whatsoever on my part, I was told later by the local drunken bishop that the Turkmenistans had married each other initially for tax purposes, then for rather nauseating sexual intercourse, then for tax purposes again, then because of the full moon, and finally because they realized a deep yearning betwixt them that caused recognition of the firmest foundation of all: they didn't want to spring for removing their monogrammed initials from the finest bidet drying cloths that money could buy.
 
I was blissfully oblivious to all of the claptrap contained within the previous two paragraphs when I waltzed into their tavern during the summer of '95, seeking nothing more than a tall flagon of putrid ale and an overflowing spittoon that doubled as a urinal.  Fortuitously, the tavern sported both of these grand items in spades.  Bobby Jo-Jo Turkmenistan, who if I squinted I could probably describe as the male owner of the tavern, took one look at me and then immediately proceeded to look at me again, this time with his glasses on.  As the lenses had no glass in them to speak of whatsoever, it got rather uncomfortable and whilst downing a glass of what one man would call bile and yet another would call spoiled bile, Bobby Jo-Jo offered me a job.  And then he clarified what he meant by “job” by offering me employment when he barely noticed my mentioning that I did not indeed swing that way.
 
"I need a bouncer…" Bobby Jo-Jo said.  Postulating that he was going the way of the aforementioned "job" again, I was about to turn him down outright. "…For watching the place and kicking the scruffy troublemakers out", he continued.  I inwardly said, "Whew!" and then I said it outwardly as well; I felt that confident in doing so.  Noticing my sigh, Bobby Jo-Jo said, "Great, you're hired!”  Apparently in the Turkmenistan clan or perhaps in the whole of Nebraska, sighs are definitive affirmative confirmations when given in response to questions regarding employment.

This of course presented a myriad of problems.  First off, I was fairly certain that there was no dental plan involved with this job.  I mean a dental plan beyond the rusty pair of pliers and the well-bitten and rather dingy leather strop that was obviously used many times prior to my walking into what passed for a tavern door in Oxandplow.  Also given the slovenly surroundings coupled with this rather corpulent owner of ill-defined hygiene, exactly which patrons would Bobby Jo-Jo Turkmenistan consider “scruffy”?  Or for that matter, how would this place define “troublemakers”?        
 
However, all of these questions would have to wait for what I hoped would be a future barrage of never-ending redundant management team meetings at this tavern because Bobby Jo-Jo Turkmenistan's wife, Draconia, appeared at the top of the stairs which I hadn't noticed before.  During her descent down the gilded gaudy balustrade that had mysteriously escaped my attention previously, I wondered if my attention might be better spent on this lady.  That notion soon left my head as I peered at what some would call a woman, yet what others would more than likely call not a woman, but rather a grizzled veteran goaltender from the 1925 Montreal Canadiens dressed in a gown that only a horse could make reasonably beautiful.  If pressed I would go with probably a Palomino, but not an Arabian for that would be too much to ask of the breed.
 
Our eyes locked and fortunately I had the key, a crowbar, and an acetylene torch to free myself so the look did not last as long as she would have liked.  Taking the hint that I wasn’t interested, she lustfully sauntered up to me and hoarsely whispered in my left ear, "Hey, there.  You wanna go get some Now 'N' Plentys?"  I wittily retorted with what some would call a shoulder roll over the bar, but I prefer to think of it being my interpretive way of saying, "No thank you, my little plumber's helper."
 
Oh and when I rolled over the bar, I stepped on the throat of a hitherto unnoticed bartender, killing him instantly.  He must have come down on the stairs that I hadn’t noticed beforehand.  And unfortunately that was the story of how I killed someone.  Turns out that the bartender’s name was Jack Turnester and he was married with three beautiful children.   
 
But if his wife or the authorities ever found out about that, he would have been locked up...but that's another story.

 

Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear Every Time I Want To Catch Snowflakes On My Tongue?

While I waste even more time in getting back to obviously engrossing tales of my past life, I thought I would take a moment and address some questions that my extremely loyal readers might have been asking of me.  These questions are completely fabricated but I’m sure that my ever-increasing fanbase will be asking them in the far future.  In any case, I thought I would head the bull off at the pass before the posse comes around the mountain when she comes before the pre-hatched eggs are counted when the cows come home, if you don’t mind me mixing my metaphors, and answer these pre-asked questions.

 

Q: “Who in the hell do you think you are?”

 

A: This is a valid question and I’m glad you brought this salient point up.  First off, I have never been to hell per se, if I may use that Latin phrase to impress you, but I have been to New Ulm, Minnesota.  Residents of New Ulm will realize that this town is not like hell, but closer to a purgatorial limbo of inertness that is also devoid of joy.  However as I am not from there, I hope this evades your question.  Beyond that I believe that I am a reincarnated David Soul, whenever he passes away of course.

 

Q:“Why do you think you deserve the accolades that you’ve manufactured for yourself?”

 

A:  I believe that it is every single person’s right to achieve the goals that they made up for themselves no matter how vapid they or the goals may be.  For instance, if your goal is to wake up in the morning and see how many times you can spell the word “confluctuate” correctly, despite the fictional nature of the word itself, then Godspeed.  I think you should be getting an award of some sort for this achievement.  A plaque or a banner or even a trophy that depicts a banner on a plaque would all be wonderful examples that show off your notoriety.

 

Q: “Do you think anyone actually cares about whatever it is you write?”

 

A:  Well, of course not.  I don’t think anyone truly cares.  Sure, they might love every single syllable or adore every minor thought or concept.  They might even want to elope with some unfinished thought of mine, run to Mexico, and get hitched in Puerto Vallarta, but I think this is all beyond caring.  Also let’s get one thing perfectly clear: my team of writers comes from every corner of the globe.  Of course as globes do not have corners, I don’t know where they actually came from.

 

A: “What is the Marianas Trench?”

 

Q:  Oh, I see what you did there, pretending you’re on Jeopardy! and thinking I wouldn’t notice.  For shame!  Okay, I’ll bite and question in the form of an answer: The only place on earth that plummets farther and deeper than Al Gore’s credibility is this place.  Actually you could pick anything and put it in that space between “than” and “is” in that last sentence.  Here are some selections: “Macaulay Culkin’s career”, “Justin Bieber’s sobriety”, and “the Chicago Cubs”.  But hey, have some fun with it on your own!  And you’re welcome!

 

Q: “If you were trapped in an elevator with Pee Wee Herman, Herman Munster, Ethel Merman, and Hermann Göring, who would you consider eating first in order to survive?”

 

A:  If I had a quarter for every single time this question has arisen over the course of my lifetime, I’d have at least 22½ cents.  I should think the answer is pretty obvious: Pee Wee Herman.  The other three have been dead for quite some time and I shouldn’t think there would be many edible parts left to choose from.  Still this is a fantastic question and I’m extremely glad that you asked it yet again.

 

Q: “Do you have a favorite song from the Eagles?”

 

A:  My first answer would be “Hey buddy, go **** yourself” but that comes off sounding rather harsh and inappropriate for such a family friendly blog such as this.  No, I don’t have a favorite song from the Eagles.  You see I like rock music and the Eagles are a rock band for people that don’t actually like rock music.  Oh, they think they do.  But even the presence of just one of the many Eagles greatest hits albums will denote that they hate rock music with an ever-burning passion that they are unaware of as of yet.  Pray for them.

 

Oddly enough, I like Don Henley’s solo stuff more.  I think Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh are very listenable as well.  It’s just when they come together with the other guy that no one remembers and charge $300 a ticket in order for some sad schlub losers to gather together to pretend to enjoy “Witchy Woman” more than they actually do, a part of my soul withers and dies.  But hey, you go and cry during “Desperado” all you want.  Don’t mind me.  I’ll be just fine, you heartless bastards.

 

Q: “How do you think you can recover from the previous two paragraphs?  Don’t you think you’ve ruined any attempt at goodwill by taking such a harsh irrational stance against something as trivial as the Eagles?”

 

A: Such prescient questions!  And I have decided to answer both of them by taking the rather obvious tack of denial combined with more denial with a hint of delusion.

 

 

With that being said, or rather that being not said, I shall bid all of you adieu.  Thank you for your questions.  Also thank you for allowing me to answer them in my own incomprehensible fashion.  I know that you’ve enjoyed it and I’ve enjoyed you enjoying this experience as well.  Remember that if you’ve enjoyed this half as much as I have, I have enjoyed this twice as much as you!  And once again, you’re welcome!

The Anniversary Of Commemorations Of Remembrances Past

What a difference a year makes!  I’ve heard others use that turn of a phrase and decided that I would use it to open up this first blog post of January of 2015.  Another year of promise, of failure, of hope, of hopes dashed.  For instance I never thought that my 4.5 year old daughter would ever use the phrase “Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?”  Yet she said it today and kept repeating it.  My bride and I never use that lyric in any way, shape, or form even in our uncommon parlance about the house, so naturally we were confused as to how she heard it.  She confessed that she heard it from her best friend at preschool.  Even at this early age, one can see the damage that friends can do to someone.  We might never get our daughter back to the innocent she was before ever hearing that phrase.  This is how a new year starts?  Barely two weeks in and I’ve been given an old pop cultural middle finger.  God only knows what February will bring.  Perhaps Right Said Fred is getting warmed up in the on deck circle.

With the passing into a new year often one takes stock of life, seeing what they could have done different, what they should do the same.  Resolutions are made with the best of intentions and are usually dashed by Valentine’s Day at the very latest.  My personal resolution consisted of continuing my hatred of tomatoes, thinking about pondering in wonder that I might actually consider reading War and Peace, and of course avoiding as many tiring duties as possible.  I enjoyed the moments that I rested in 2014, so I think resting even more in 2015 will definitely make my outlook brighter.  In fact this whole paragraph has gotten rather tiring, so I shall rest a bit before continuing with yet another malformed thought.

Ah, welcome back!  That was refreshing!  Anyway as we enter into another year, let us look back fondly on the milestones mankind achieved and commemorate them accordingly.  It has been 70 years since Hitler decided that he was bored of bunker living.  It has been 150 years since General Lee surrendered in Hazzard County.  It has been 200 years since the War of 1812 ended.  The War of 1812.  In 1815.  Ahem.  Anyway, despite misnomered conflicts, there are many wonderful anniversaries that occur this year.  And as I can’t pass up yet another opportunity to make myself and others feel old, I shall mention just a few of these wonderful commemorations.

(Also as these are all film related, any DVD/BluRay producing companies can feel free to wire me a cut of the profits engendered from your re-re-re-releasing these flicks in special super-duper, double or triple dipped anniversary editions.  And you're welcome!) 

Can you believe it has been 10 years since George Lucas gave us the opus of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith?  A decade has passed since my being angry in a theater for having been suckered into a movie theater again, watching yet another ravaging of my childhood by this Happy Meal-friendly franchise.  Oh sure Batman Began this year as well, but that managed to eventually result in an even maddeninglier franchise.

Can you believe it has been 20 years since Pierce Brosnan was the “new” Bond in GoldenEye?  I always liked Pierce, but always felt that his Bonds were “eh” compared to those that came before.  Granted he began with a good one, but every one after that just diminished the good will returns more and more.  He started with fighting Sean Bean and ended with an invisible car.  Yeah, that's not good.  Still the year 1995 also gave us Apollo 13, Casino, The Usual Suspects, and Nixon which were all excellent films across the board.  Of course we also got the opportunity to see Val Kilmer in a rubber bat suit.  This almost negates everything else.

Can you believe it has been 25 years since The Hunt For Red October, Miller’s Crossing, and Goodfellas?  Arnold exploded his eyeballs in Total Recall.  Francis Ford Coppola decided to cash out in making a third chapter in The Godfather saga.  Coppola’s daughter’s acting definitely showed us that it is just grand she became a director instead.  Of course we would be remiss in not mentioning the other sequels of 1990: Die Hard 2, Gremlins 2, Highlander 2, and of course the biggest blockbuster of them all, aside from the fact that it wasn’t, Predator 2.

Can you believe it has been 30 years since…wow.  This list is impressive.  I wish I could be snarkier and less fanboyish, but I shall just list the list: Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Fletch, Clue, Weird Science, The Goonies, and Brazil.  And Spies Like Us?  Unreal!  Quite a year for sequels too: Rambo: Frist Blood Part II, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Friday the 13^th Part V: A New Beginning, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge, George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead, Rocky IV, and the Bond movie that makes me cringe to this day, A View To A Kill.  I think Roger Moore is a lovely person and not that bad of an actor.  But that last Bond movie of his just makes me uncomfortable and when I hear the Beach Boys I just want to hit George Lazenby for deciding to leave the series as early as he did.

Can you believe that is has been 35 years since the last truly great Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back?  How about Airplane! or The Blues Brothers or Caddyshack?  How about the first movie where you actually sympathize with the killer and you can completely understand his motivation for violence?  You’ve heard of The Shining, right?  Who wouldn’t have turned to attempt to murder Shelley Duvall?  Picture yourself trapped in a snowbound hotel with her for a winter.  Yeah, Jack becomes almost the hero of the piece in that context, doesn’t he?

Can you believe that Steven Spielberg has now spent 40 years trying to recapture the greatness of Jaws?

Now for the next chunks of time there are a bunch of films that I know I’ve seen but chances are you haven’t.  Hey, it is okay, I understand.  Not that it makes you a bad person, just not as great as you could be.  And while I love a great Hitchcock joke as much as you don’t, I’ll pass my retreading of comments and just do a random list of movies.  After all, this is why the Internet was invented due to the public’s insatiable need to list things in order of something or other.

Commemorating 45 years: Patton, M*A*S*H, Kelly’s Heroes, and Tora! Tora! Tora!  There were other non-war-related movies made, I'm sure, but nothing springs to mind.

Commemorating 50 years: For A Few Dollars More, Thunderball, Doctor Zhivago, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.  Clint, Sean, Omar, and Jesus: Now THERE’S a cast list!

Commemorating 60 years: Rebel Without A Cause, To Catch A Thief, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Conqueror.  That last one is notable for being made downwind of nuclear testing which resulted in many bombs making this bomb.  (I am now the 756th person to call this film a bomb in this week alone.  And it isn't even Thursday yet.)

Commemorating 75 years: His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Rebecca, and The Great Dictator, where Chaplin mocks Hitler and in doing so makes his last great comedy involving little mustaches.

Commemorating 80 years: A Night At The Opera and The Bride Of Frankenstein.  You’re still reading?  I’m amazing at your love of film or your lack of life.  Both usually go hand in hand.

Commemorating 90 years: Battleship Potemkin, The Gold Rush, The Freshman, and The Phantom of the Opera.  Why don’t they make them like this anymore, eh?  Well, chances are it is because Eisenstein, Chaplin, Lloyd, and Chaney are all dead. 

And finally commemorating an entire century since it first came upon cinema screens: The Birth Of A Nation.  Woodrow Wilson according to legend said that the film was like writing history with lightning.  I personally don’t believe that Bic makes refills like that for their pen lines.  Of course Wilson, a progressive racist hero, would love how the Ku Klux Klan comes off like the cavalry in this epic tome.  Granted for modern audiences that truly love film…it still is a bit of a slog to get through.  You eventually refrain from giving up hope because you know in your heart that DVDs can only hold so much storage and it has to end sometime.

So I hope that this walk down the memory lane of film accomplished my one main thought about film.  Film is timeless as long as there are eyes to watch it long after your eyes are decomposing in the ground.  Or something to that effect.  Happy New Year!