9/11

            Since it is now de rigueur to begin every blog post with a long and desperate explanation of the unforgivable amount of time since I (or Clayton) last wrote, allow me to fulfill this stereotype. I like writing, I really do. I used to love it, but writing and I decided we were moving a bit too fast and decided to cool the jets for a little while, date other people, and see where we stand. There are times when I feel, "the inspiration" and I feel like a water pipe full of pressure, just needing the right shower head with which to blast forth. Other times I feel the pressure, but that the shower head is in desperate need of a good cleaning in order to stop blocking what I'm trying to get out. There are other times still, when I feel no inspiration. When I sit down to write and can't even think of a subject, much less a clever sentence. I feel almost an anti-inspiration - as if thoughts and ideas are being sucked from my brain before they can even formulate. I don't want to write anything, not even a grocery list.

             I suppose that writing, like love, is part inspiration and part commitment. I suppose. The other side of the argument is that I don't have to write. Why should I? Why force myself to do something that has no perceptible benefit to myself if I don't feel like doing it? This seems like a pretty winning argument, but it never is quite enough for me so I can only presume there is some sort of germ deep down inside of me that feels the need to express itself in front of other people. I actually have four different blogs bouncing around in my (otherwise empty) head right now, but none are grabbing a hold of me and pulling me by the arm to the keyboard. So...picking at random, here we go.

              9/11. Obviously the 10 year anniversary was this past Sunday. The only reason the 10 year anniversary is a bigger deal than the 11 year anniversary, or the 9 year anniversary, is because human beings are (customarily) born with ten fingers. However, it's good to use the occasion to step back and take stock of where we are. Mag and I did the usual, "Where were you on 9/11?" story telling thing to one another. Our stories are practically exactly the same. She came into her living room and found her dad watching one of the towers burning. I came into my living room and found my mom watching one of the towers burning. She thought it was a movie or something. I thought it was a freak plane crash. I'm sure that I had heard the word, "terrorism" before 9/11, but I don't remember it. Everyone likes to say, "The world changed overnight!" and in a way I suppose it did, but not really. Perspective changed - the way we saw things changed, but really my every day life hasn't been affected in almost any way.

                There's a weird one-upsmanship when it comes to tragedy. If you sit down with a group of six people and ask, "Where were you on 9/11?" people seem to fall into some sort of competition for the title of, "Most Affected by the Event." If they were planning on flying that next week, you'll hear about it. If one of their cousins lived an hour outside of New York, you'll hear about it. If they had thought about going on vacation to NYC the year before but went to Disney World instead, you'll hear about it. I don't know why we're like this. I think that perhaps it is due to the fact that our emotions feel strongest to us, of course. I feel my sadness more strongly than I feel your own. Your story of the morning of 9/11, told with just mere facts, doesn't nearly do justice to the emotions you felt that day. You need to add some sort of detail to highlight the truth that you really felt something, and it was different than what those around you felt.

                   I do the same thing. The story of my morning of 9/11 is super boring. I saw it, was confused and scared, and watched the whole thing on TV all day. It was a weird, shocking, and numbing feeling. I never felt in fear for my actual life, as I didn't live in any place a terrorist would ever attack (the religious intolerance and technological backwardsness would probably just make him feel at home. Except the fact that we like girls in short shorts). Still, I feel the need to let you know that I once stood in the World Trade Center on December 30th (or 31st) of 1996. That doesn't make me any closer to the tragedy, but it is weird to know I stood in a place that would later be destroyed by a foreign attack. I feel the need to tell the story about how in November of 2001 my sister and I flew to Mexico on American Airlines. American Airlines, of course, was one of the airlines famously used in the September 11th attacks. While we were there American Airlines Flight 587 (AKA, the plane wreck no one remembers) crashed into Queens, New York City, killing 265 people. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility and for a second or two everyone thought it was a terrorist attack. I was out of the country by myself at age 17, flying American Airlines (I wasn't literally by myself, but it wasn't a situation where I could run to my parents and ask what to do. I felt responsible for myself and my sister). Alone in my hotel room, I really freaked out. My passport, ID, and all my money got locked into a safe that no one could remember the combination to, and my mind went into full on problem-solving panic mode. I actually got tools, took the safe out of the wall, broke open the back, and started trying to chip away at the cement that is evidently inside of safes. Knowing that the passcode was 4 numbers long, I calculated there were only a possible 10,000 combinations. I came up with a plan that involved stealing a master key off of the maid's cart, throwing the safe off the roof of the hotel, and all sorts of other wild and panic stricken ideas. I had two roommates and so I had us work in shifts -  one started with the code 0001 and worked his way up, and the other started with 9999 and worked his way down. I started in the middle. I decided that if we didn't get the safe open by morning then I was putting my plan into effect, and then getting out of the country as soon as possible. I lay in the bathtub that night (fully dressed, with a blanket and pillow. It was my bed that evening) praying as I'd never prayed before, telling God, "If you get me back to America I will kiss the ground and I promise to never leave that country again." The safe opened sometime during the night, to combination 9871 (I still remember, ten years later). I got my stuff, and stayed in Mexico another 6 days. I've been back twice since.

                      What does this story have to do with anything? Not much, to be honest. I just like telling stories. Truthfully, however, I'm a very calm, rational human being. Don't mistake that for the inability to feel emotion, for I am full of passion and joy and excitement and stupidity - I just have a pretty good reign on anger and panic and fear and depression and those sorts of things. The above scenario of mind numbing panic I don't think would have ever happened without 9/11. If I was in a different country and a plane wrecked I'd feel pretty glum, but not that it had any sort of effect on me. That was just the fear and strangeness I felt about the terrorist attacks manifesting itself. 9/11 didn't affect me more than it affected anyone else, but it felt so real to me that I need to heighten the stakes to communicate that. Also, I'm very clever and use a discussion on how people feel the need to give all the details of their own not-terribly-interesting stories to give you all the details of my not-terribly-interesting stories.

                   I'm not terribly good at (nor terribly concerned with) stringing disparate thoughts together into a cohesive whole so allow me to jump to a related, but entirely different, subject: Conspiracy Theories. There have been a few articles that have come out around this 9/11 anniversary that discuss all the insane theories that sprung up after the twin towers were destroyed. As I may have mentioned in the past (paragraph), I am a rational and calm human being. I don't really believe in any conspiracy theories. I think Timothy McVeigh was behind the Oklahoma City Bombing, that man has walked on the moon, that Elvis is dead, Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK, that old guy killed MLK, and that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK (this is the hardest one to believe, but I think that's only because we were taught  the theory conspiracies along with the facts). I also believe that we know the full story (or like 99% of the full story) about the WTC attacks. Al-Qaeda flew planes into the buildings and then they collapsed, killing thousands of people.

                  Conspiracy theories are so dumb. I think they're fun, in the, "let's be teenagers and smoke weed and sit around and talk about if aliens really built the Great Pyramid" type way, but they're super immature and they really piss me off. I get irrationally angry over conspiracy theories. Here's what I think - we don't want to believe that one man can change the course of the nation by shooting the President as he drives down the street. We don't want to think that two iconic skyscrapers can be brought down with little effort. These facts force us to realize that we live in a fragile world - that we live in a place where the only thing keeping someone from walking into IHOP and killing us over our pancakes is that we've all sort of agreed not to do such things. Our minds construct elaborate theories to convince ourselves that there has to be something greater pulling the strings - the faceless government actually killed all of these people to destroy some files they were trying to hide, it wasn't just a crazy man. A faceless god sent a hurricane to kill these sinners - it wasn't just a strong weather pattern that could kill any of us given the wrong circumstances.

                  A conspiracy theory, at the risk of sounding elitist, is the product of a weak mind. We've all known the guy or girl who, despite overwhelming evidence, refuses to believe that their significant other is cheating on them. It's obvious to everyone else - there's a reason that he isn't returning your calls during this certain time, or suddenly acting differently, or seems to be hanging out with a new girl but is, "only friends." Your mind doesn't want to believe it, so you construct a false reality, or believe his weak excuses, and then later after the relationship is over say, "How did I ever fall for that?" This is a small scale conspiracy theory. The problem with conspiracy theories is that the theory never comes near to matching up with the facts. You have to want to believe in the theory in order to believe in it. In the case of the Twin Towers, there are, let's say, five things that make one think perhaps there was something more going on. Why did WTC7 burn down? How did the building collapse? Was it a plane or a missile that hit the Pentagon? Blah blah blah. However, with any of the theories, there are a thousand unanswered questions that the theorist conveniently overlooks. That's called confirmation bias. You take the things that back up what you've already decided happened, and you ignore the rest.

                Most conspiracies seem to revolve around the case that our own government brought down the towers as an excuse to go to war, or to destroy something inside of them. They did this by conveniently hiding a thousand small explosives in the buildings' structures and then detonating them once they had a million news cameras recording everything (to make sure the conspiracy theorists would have some good footage to derive their theories from). Not only do the motivations not make any sense, but none of the facts line up. Theorists say things like, "There's no way a jet could bring down a sky scraper!" Really? Because every other time a jet has hit a skyscraper the buildings don't fall down? My favorite is the argument that a plane didn't hit the Pentagon, but that the government just said one did and really shot it with a missile. WHAT? So where is the missing plane? Why would the government even do that? They're obviously willing to kill thousands of Americans on a whim, but they couldn't afford one more plane to wreck into the Pentagon? They just had the genius idea, "Hey! Let's fire a missile at the building but tell everyone it was a plane and hope no one was looking!" Somehow our government is smart enough to pull off these giant conspiracies, but dumb enough that all the crackpot theorists can instantly figure them out.

               I really want to sit down face to face with one of these conspiracy theorists and debate them but they make me so angry it would just almost instantly devolve into me calling them names. They would say, "Jet fuel only burns at x degrees Fahrenheit and it takes y degrees Fahrenheit to melt steel - explain THAT to me." I would say, "SHUT! UP! I can't believe you are an adult who is allowed to drive a car and hold a job and raise children! Are you INSANE? Take a step back and look at how completely crazy you are!" Then I'd probably fly a plane into them. No, I can't explain how every single detail happened on 9/11 (though I can explain the temperature of steel thing) but I don't have to. I'm not the one coming up with insane theories that make no logical sense as a way to keep myself from believing that some poor guys from the Middle East could mount such an effective attack on our civilian population. The burden of proof is on you.

            Take a deep breath, Andrew. Now, the sensitive reaction to 9/11. Most right-wing people find me unforgivably liberal. Most left-wing people find me unforgivably conservative. I approach things issue by issue and try to use common sense and empathy in forming my opinions.  I would like to make one thing explicitly clear though - I love this country. I think we've done plenty of things wrong, and I think our militaristic reaction to 9/11 has been characterized by misstep after misstep and has played right into Osama bin Laden's hands (except the shooting him in the face part...or did we???), but that doesn't change the way I feel about this country as a whole. I feel about this country the way I feel about my family - they are genuinely good people who want to make the world a better place. They screw up, they do things wrong, they are at times angry or mean or dumb or self-centered (except for me of course, I'm known as, "The O'Dell Family Angel") but I love each and every one of them with a burning unquenchable love, and I would die for any of them in a second. I'm a mean old man, but I honestly get teary eyed almost every time I hear the national anthem. When man (and by man, I mean white man) discovered a new pristine world during the Age of Enlightenment (and named it America) they were given a chance that we'll probably never have again - a chance to start a new government and a new society and apply all the principles we learned through the trial and error of the past thousands of years while leaving behind all the baggage and tradition that we could. No one knew if this would work. It was a big risk, and a lot of people with a lot to lose put everything on the line. Our national anthem is a plea - tell me, is this experiment surviving? Is this new chance we've been given being wasted? Has it been destroyed? We will meet with adversity, we will face trial, we will have to deal with enemies - both the enemies without and the enemies of our own nature, but when the sun rises on the next day will the flag still be standing?

                  There is a ton to hate about America, and I dedicate a good deal of time to making fun of this country. I don't say, "This is the best nation in the world!" and I don't own a single American flag, and I don't take pride in how little I know about other countries or how little I identify with other nationalities. The fact remains, however, that I love my country. It's a marvelous place, for all it's inconsistencies and I am privileged to live in it and hope to, as my mother always taught me, to leave it in better condition than how I found it. I genuinely hope we're past the time when national man made tragedies such as 9/11 happen. I wish for a world where everyone progresses to 2011 and we don't have these weird first world versus third world conflicts. How has 9/11 changed me? It hasn't. I'm still alive. I'm still happy. I'm still foolish. I'm still free. I'm still irreverent. I'm still prone to bad judgment. I still laugh loudly. I still love. I still cry. I still work. I still want to make this world a better place. I still complain. I still make jokes in bad taste. I still offend.  I still believe.

          I'm still America.

Fatherhood the Blog - Week ??

What is Fatherhood? There once was a boy called Andrew. It may have taken him a score of years, and a ridiculous trial of easily avoidable experiences, but he figured our what, "Andrew" meant. What, "O'Dell" meant. Most importantly, what, "O'Dellicious" meant. It takes a series of revelations, disappointments, and self-important destructive tendencies to eventually come to the point where one is at peace with oneself. On my 22nd birthday, when I was still a wandering poet, I penned these lines:

I don't yet fit in
To my own skin
But I'm closer now than I've ever been

           It's been five years. I've figured out who I am, and who I want to be. I know how I want to die, what I want on my tombstone, the song I want played at my funeral, and the type of person I want to be between then and now. But guess what, contestants? It ends up that, "Who are you?" was never the final question. Remember the $25,000 Pyramid? That's small change now folks. The answer is bigger and further and harder to find. After I thought I had it all figured out, suddenly loomed the new question - Who is Andrew the Husband? This took me far longer to figure out than it should have, and caused an immense amount of growing pains and, let's face it, grief, before I had handle on it. Finally, I am at peace. Finally, this boy knows his exact position in the world, measured from any angle. JPLAY BOII. Now it's time to figure out who this new stranger is on the horizon - Andrew the Father.

           Last Sunday (which is our Saturday) Mag made bacon and eggs and bagels, and we began to tackle our, "Totally Arbitrary Honey-Do-Or-Do-Not List." A part of that list was to wash our cars, and we did that with both gusto and a totally inappropriate amount of wasted water spraying throughout the air. At one point I was over at my car, while Mag was at hers, and she stood up, clutching her stomach, and gasped out, "...my water..."  Panic shot through me and my brain tied itself in knots, not having any clue what to do. Her water was breaking this early in the pregnancy? It ends up her stomach was just cramping and she was asking me to get her bottle of water for her. My filthy mind started working in overtime during this process (you know, the Devil's Playground and all that) and I started fixating on the actual birth process. Admittedly, it probably didn't help that Knocked Up was playing on E! all weekend. I don't know what the birth process is like - I've never experienced it! I asked Mag, "When they say your, 'water' breaks, does that really mean there's a ton of blood and goo everywhere?" She didn't know - she's never experienced it either!

             So anyway, I started thinking about all of this. Number One, I've never been anywhere near some sort of medical procedure. Well, except: I had a cancerous mole on my back, and the doctors cut out the customary pound of flesh. Twice. I remember the first time, face down on some sort of table as the doc cut out a hunk of my back. I felt no pain, but I could feel the cold of the scissors cutting through my skin. My dad, present in the room, described the process to me: "Oh, they're cutting through a big hunk of your skin now," his medically trained ass told me. "Please stop talking," my non-medically trained ass replied. The second time  this happened Mag entered the room with me, and told the doctors she wanted to stay as long as she could. They eventually kicked her out, just before their shiny sharp cold blades pierced my skin, leaving a scar I'll carry until my body is worm eaten and buried in the dust below. I love both my wife and my father, but if they went in for a procedure I'd be in the waiting room, Jim Beam hidden in a satchel, tapping my foot wildly while reading Reader's Digest.

                  I started thinking about the actual birth process, and I got more and more scared. I'm going to be in the room as blood is expelled? As my wife hollers for reprieve? As medical professionals run around in some sort of semi-cute tizzy? Someone asked me the other day, "Do you want to cut the umbelical cord?" "HELL NO!" I exclaimed. I am paying a medical professional who spent 8 years in school to do what he/she was trained to do. Why in God's name would I do part of their job for them? If your answer has anything to do with symbolism, go right to sleep and don't bother with waking up. I'm not interested with taking some sort of symbolic step to show that I'm severing my child's connection with his (or hers, but in this case his) mother. I sat on the couch on Sunday afternoon trying to not have an anxiety attack (I've never had one before, but I assume this is how they start. A slow terror creeping throughout your body, your throat beginning to constrict, the only thought in your head is the mantra ican'tdothisican'tdothisican'tdothis) and trying to figure out a way to NOT be in the room when my son is born. I confessed my fears to sweet Maggie May and she bucked me up by appealing to my strongest character trait - my vanity. She began listing the skinny little dumb guys we know that have knocked their girls up, as well as every other father we've ever met. If they can make it through the birth process, she reasoned, how could I not? I'm keeping that in my back pocket to hold my fears at bay, but I still expect it to be quite terrifying. I will survive though - I have the easiest job in the room (besides Flipper).

My painting job.

                    Oh yes! Flipper! I guess I could talk about him some. Really though, what is there to say? This blog is called Fatherhood and it's about my experiences of being a father. It's not called Sonship and about the experience of swimming around in fluid in the pitch dark and kicking wildly in rage and jealousy whenever your father dares to have the gall to lay his hand upon the belly of your mother! Flipper just lives much as he has for the past while without any effect on me, asides from the psychological of course. He's developing rapidly, but I can't see it! I'm desperately wanting another ultrasound, but we have to wait another two weeks to see one. By then he'll be huge, staring straight at the camera, wearing a fedora, holding a suitcase, and tapping his watch impatiently. Margaret can't see him either, of course, but since he's inside of her she's much more attuned with him on a day to day basis. He's been getting hiccups, which is hilarious, and which Margaret can feel.

One of the pillows Mag covered.

                  We're trying to prepare every little thing we can for his impending arrival (well don't let me exaggerate here, we still have another ten and a half weeks, officially, but everyone knows time travels much faster during football season). I painted his dresser drawers with the colors Mag picked out and I'm quite content with the job that I did. Mag, having caught sewing fever from working on the window treatments in Flipper's nursery, has since made pillow covers for his room as well. After that she made a curtain for our bathroom, and then two more window treatments for our bedroom. We even have packs of diapers stacked on his changing table and in his closet. We're looking online for damned FAN CHAIN PULLS just to add the finishing touches to his nursery. Everyone says you just do this for the first child, and practically ignore the next one (trust me, as a second child, SOB, I know this to be exactly and precisely true) but even if that is the case, who cares? At least do it for the first kid!

The curtains Mag made. I didn't take the best picture so you
really see the clever little fold in the middle.

                    Today I started thinking, as I drove down the road - what if Flip was born with no eyes? This is ridiculous, and impossible, and we've already seen his eyes via ultrasound, but still that random thought popped into my head. I could picture a little baby with just smooth skin where his eyes should be and I thought, "What if I knew right now that that's how Flip would be born?" Without really having to think about it, the answers began pouring into my head - I thought about how I would describe sight to him, about seeing-eye dogs, about the type of life he could have and the type of life I would want to help build for him. Of course he has eyes - he's actually far enough along in development that he can open his (traditional beautiful O'Dell) eyes, is growing (the traditional beautiful O'Dell) eyelashes, and I know he is totally fine and healthy. It was a weird moment for me though. Not only the obvious weirdness of the thought, but the fact that my first reaction was solution, not panic or fear. I reckon that means I love the guy (for now, at least). Speaking of the way he's developing, did you know that he now has the capacity to breathe oxygen? There's no oxygen for him to breathe at the moment, of course, but if he decided to hop on out, or if Mag self induces labor by her violent jumping and screaming once college football starts, he'll get to experience that beautiful tasty thing we call air.

              Speaking of air, on Sunday Mag and I went hiking (and breathed air - that's the segue). I didn't think that it was possible for pregnant women to hike, but evidently it is. If you've never hiked (and a surprising amount of people haven't) it's like walking, but a lot harder. There are hills and trees and lizards and stuff. AND NO BATHROOMS. But anyway, we did 4.3 miles, which is a lot further than 4.3 miles on paved streets. If you exist (and the fact that you're reading this means you probably do) than I'm sure you realize there was a string of tornadoes throughout the southeastern United States this Spring. One of them skipped merrily along Pine Mountain and managed to take out approximately eighteen thousand trees. The trail we hiked we've hiked a dozen times already, but this time it looked totally different. There were huge swaths where there were no trees left standing and you could see far across the mountain and the sun beat down unmercifully upon our poor shorn heads. It was a sad and terrible sight but an unforgettable one, which it should be if it's BABY'S FIRST HIKE!

                   I lay my head on Mag's belly today and talked to Flip (as he repeatedly punched me in the face) and I threatened to pay him back punch for punch when he was born. Two more months little boy. It's going to be crazy.

Clayton's LV/ H8: The Commercial-Free Edition

 I will not take the initial paragraph of this blog to make amends or excuses for my absence. Instead I will rail and rant and rave at the very few readers of this blog even in its wonderful regular-posting days who have not only failed to note my absence but further have failed to repost and comment on Andrew's amazing blogs. I blame this all on you! I sat down last week and read the last fifteen or twenty of these blogs and was thoroughly astounded at the quality of the posts. Yes, they meander wildly and puff themselves up with self-important humdrum, and yes, I most likely connect with them because either I my big brother have written them, but there's a nugget of something very promising and fulfilling in these blogs. They make me laugh but think; roll my eyes, but only to cover the tears in them. This blog is a very good one, and I hope that even with periodic and erratic updates the quality continues to impress at least me.

 I have had sitting on my desktop for the past four or five months a glorious electronic sticky note. It lies pinned toward the upper right corner, only slightly blocking my current desktop image of the cast of America's Next Top Model: All-Stars, untouched and unrelenting. It has housed the list for my next LV/ H8 update, the one that is months in coming. The note reads as follows:
 H8:

 "Too cool" commercials
 Radio commercials
 Men are dumb commercials
 Gum commercials

 Local commercials
 Dragon Tattoo preview

wtf: reaction videos

 Inspiring, I know. If in a few hundred years poor yuppie college kids are reading through my dreary prose and taking copious notes only because I'll be on a mid-term, I hope they somehow discover this handtyped note and realize that there is nothing brilliant about me. And then I hope they fail their midterms.

 Without further ado, I present to you my LV/H8 post (of the week? month? season?), dedicated fully to Andrew's specific recent H8: commercials.

 Hate #3: Radio commercials.

 I have never owned an Ipod or even an MP3 player. The closest thing I ever had was my old Juke phone (a phone that I have once more), but I only used it when taking baths. I mostly listen to music only when driving, and for that I have about 20 or so of my particularly favorite CDs, and when I get bored with those, local radio stations. The radio is a very foreign world that does not seem to have grown or upgraded even slightly in the twenty years since I was a child, but in between all the odd screaming DJs and prank calls and contests and celebrity interviews is the thing least foreign and most comforting to us listeners: commercials! We all know the commercial drill and have learned to tune them out on TV, but there's something about radio commercials that I can never get over, or forgive.

 

 Most radio commercials don't seem to realize that they're on the radio. I've heard multiple commercials that sounded like exact copies of TV commercials, except without the visual supplement, resulting in a frenzy of sound effects and dialogue that makes zero sense unless you're either familiar with the brand or product, or have seen the TV commercial. It's pure laziness. Engaging a potential customer through audio only is an entirely different ballgame than engaging them through visual stimulation, but unfortunately it seems that most advertising agencies simply come up with one idea and tweak it only minimally to stick it on the radio. However, to supplement the audio-only approach, the strategy seems to be to come up with wild and crazy voices that are more grating than engaging. If I want to hear a shrill harpy, I'll go visit my mother - there's no need to unleash a cacophony of obnoxious voices just because I can't see the faces. There's absolutely nothing about radio commercials I like. They infuriate me. I H8 them.



 Hate #2: "Too cool" commercials.

 Blame it on Old Spice. There was an Old Spice ad campaign that began last year, if I'm not mistaken, in which a muscled gentleman randomly hops from scene to scene doing bizarrely manly and cool things because he uses Old Spice, or something along those lines. The original commercials were a bit odd and I wasn't a big fan of them, but they were original enough to be memorable at least. Unfortunately, this set of commercials has inspired some trend that only Dairy Queen is shameless enough to plagiarize blatantly; a trend I've dubbed "too cool" commercials.

 "Too cool" commercials showcase a narrator talking directly to the audience about how very cool and how very amazing they are, insinuating that the advertised product is what makes them so inimitably flawless. Even with Old Spice, the connection is ludicrous and everyone knows the product has nothing to do with how supercilious the narrators are. There's no drive to buy the product because the selling point is that if you do buy it you'll be as cool as these caricatures are, who we all know really aren't cool because we're laughing at them. It's as though we're being pushed to drive a product that will only make us a laughingstock who thinks they're better than they are... and why would I possibly need to buy something to be that way??? I don't understand the concept of these commercials, and the Dairy Queen ones especially make me want to go and pop young field mice on the head in an uncontrolled fit of rage.



 Hate #1: Gum commercials.

 I know it may be difficult, but in just a moment I'm going to ask you to stop reading this blog. I want you to take a moment and reflect upon why you do or do not like gum. What is it that makes you chew it (or not), what are some things you look for when you buy gum, where do you chew gum, why do you chew gum, etc, etc? Stop and think about that now.

 Okay, ready to go? I don't know for you exactly what you think about gum (but you do now!), but for me, I chew gum because I need to erase a flavor or smell from my mouth, because I want something minty or fruity, because it gives my mouth something to do when I can't be talking incessantly, or because I need to get revenge on someone by use of the classic Gum in the Hair method. There is nothing in my motivations for chewing gum that has to do with social acceptance, with the way I feel or perceive myself, or with how awesome I am. Yet gum commercials prey upon those motivations and I cannot for the poor little life of me UNDERSTAND WHY!!!!

 

 The Five brand of gum is the biggest offender in this category. Their commercials depict people in futuristic test labs doing amazing things like flying and floating and being generally modern and awe-inspiring. The commercials claim that chewing their gum is akin to these random Mission Impossible-esque scenes, a claim that is both nonsensical and obnoxious. When does gum make anyone feel this way? Why would anyone want to feel this way when chewing gum? What happened to the simple appeal of showcasing the gum's flavor, how long it lasts, or how impossible it is to get out of enemies' hair? I don't know anyone who chews gum because of how awesome chewing the gum is, or how awesome it will make them. But if you do find someone like this who these commercials would apparently work on, please let me know. So I can stick some gum in their hair.

  

 
  LOVE: Local commercials.

 It seems like it was a few years ago when local businesses discovered the empowering process of advertising their businesses on real cable channels. I won't pretend to know the simplicity of such technological advances that made this possible, but I will revel in it and doff my hat to those who came up with the plan. The only local anything that people watch is the local news, which is broadcast on major channels, whose commercial blocks are bought up by national companies. Local channels were an ineffective way of advertising, but when local providers got smart and offered up commercial space for local vendors on cable channels, the world as we knew changed.

 I had heretofore seen only the fewest of local commercials, if any at all, but now I have seen enough to convince me that the world of advertising is not dead. Most local businesses are small and have equally small advertising budgets, so the commercials are unable to showcase flashy graphics or popular music, or even use cameras with any form of quality. Likewise, actors are plucked from within the business or in the back alley, resulting in a hilarious combination of amateur production that is a welcome shock from the sleek and streamlined shows and commercials we've grown accustomed to. I love watching television and having random heart attacks when my senses are assaulted by local commercials: the horrific lighting, bad sound, and acting so terrible is has to be a parody, all are far cries from the national and money-fueled commercials, and that is why I love them so.

 And that, my friends, is my LV and H8: The Commercial-Free Edition. Read it, repost it, talk about it. Or I'll be coming over to your house... with a piece of gum.

H8/LV The Triumphant Return

              I used to work at a summer camp and one (horrible) job that took up much of the summer was filling up water balloons. This is tedious, soul-crushing work that involves sitting on a milk crate next to a faucet, filling up a balloon to the proper size, tying off the balloon, throwing it into a trash can full of water, and telling yourself, "Only 1,199 left to go." This is the epitome of mind-numbing and has recently been ruled as torture by the Obama administration. However, this was back in the heady fast and loose Bush years when unpaid menial labor was thought to build character and many an afternoon was spent in front of the faucets, theorizing on how hell had to be better than our current situation. When you place a handful of teenage males in proximity to that many water balloons for that long of a time, creativity is bound to occur. One source of near constant amusement was the competition to see who could fill up a water balloon the biggest size and still tie it off. This leads to constantly pushing the boundaries - seeing just how much water could fit inside of a balloon, just how far the skin of the balloon could stretch, and inevitably to the bursting of the balloon, splashing all nearby but thoroughly soaking the person trying to fill it.

              The balloon is my silence. The water is my hatred. This blog is the explosion. 

H8#1: Pepsi

             Pepsi tastes disgusting. It tastes like Coke, if you mixed Coke with Splenda and left it sitting open on a table for a few days. If I go to a restaurant and ask for Coke, and they say, "Is Pepsi okay?" I slowly unroll the silverware, select the salad fork, stab the server through the hand, and run out screaming, "OH MY GOD DOES THAT RAT UNDER THE TABLE HAVE HIV?" However, the taste of Pepsi is the least offensive thing about it. The worst thing about it is it's (and I'm anthropomorphisizing here, but bear with me) pathetic neediness and desperate attempts to be as good as Coca-Cola. Imagine a guy going through high school - he's handsome, popular, athletic, smart, extremely nice, generous, and tastes like Coke. His brother is a few years younger and in the same high school. The younger brother is hideously ugly, vandalizes the school, gets straight Fs, beats up mentally handicapped students, attempts to rape the teachers, and tastes like Pepsi. On top of all of this, the younger brother constantly claims that everyone really likes him, and that his older brother is trying to be like the younger brother. 

               Watch any Pepsi commercial. Pepsi's entire ad campaign is, "Man, Coke wishes they were Pepsi! No, like seriously. Coke just sits around all day and thinks about us and is like, jealous and stuff. Keep trying Coke! You'll never be as good as us!" Pepsi has a series of commercials where Coke and Pepsi vendors compete in weird ways. I remember when Pepsi Vanilla came out and Pepsi had a commercial where a Pepsi Vanilla truck and Vanilla Coke were parked next to one another at a red light, and Coke turned up his radio, trying to show off his speakers. Pepsi presses a button and the sides on his truck fall down, showing huge hidden speakers that start blasting and hydraulics that make his truck start lifting up and down. There's a recent commercial where Pepsi and Coke vendors are attempting to one up one another by setting up displays built from 12 packs of their product. Pepsi wins when he builds a stage that Snoop Dogg (and two skanky dancers) pop out of and Snoop Dogg does some horrible rap along the lines of, "I'm Snoop Doggy-D-O-double G and I drink Peps-I!" The commercial ends with the schlubby Coke vendor (having turned his hat backwards) drinking a Pepsi and dancing to the music. 

                This is so embarrassingly bad for Pepsi. Ask anyone - the guy who constantly talks about how well endowed he is obviously is over-compensating for his lack of goods. By focusing their commercials on how much better they are than Coke, Pepsi is admitting that Coke is better than they are. Not only that, but their idea of cool is big speakers, hydraulics, and Snoop Dogg? 

               Pepsi's latest super-creative marketing ploy is to co-opt Coca-Cola's marketing icons and show them switching to Pepsi because, "Summertime is Pepsi time!" There are billboards around my town that show a dorky Santa Claus wearing a floral pattern Hawaiian shirt and standing on the beach, Pepsi in hand. There's a commercial on TV where a yacht pulls up to an iceberg to pick up polar bears and ride off with them as they party and drink Pepsi. Coke has been using Santa in their ads for EIGHTY YEARS. It must be nice to work in the advertisement department at Pepsi. All you have to do is watch a Coke commercial, tweak it slightly, and end with, "We're better!" Boom. Paycheck. On top of how stupid the ad is, it's actually insulting to the drink that it's trying to sell! What is the message of the Coca-Cola Santa drawings? Coke is all-American, Coke is enjoyed by everyone, even Santa. What is the message of the Pepsi Santa ad? Well yeah, Santa drinks Coke in the winter but during the summer he likesto try a Pepsi. A multi-billion worldwide company uses this as their primary ad campaign? 

Assy

Classy

Pepsi I hate you so much.

Hate #2: Commercials

             This is dovetailing off of my hatred for Pepsi, but it deserves it's own laser focused beam of hatred. I understand the need for commercials, and I don't hate the fact that they exist. I get to listen to the radio for free, listen to podcasts for free, get tons of online content for free, and get to watch good television for a small cost. I expect ads, and people who create content need to get paid. I love the show Mad Men and it's interesting to see the advertising firm attempt to come up with new ways to sell products. Every now and then I'll see a commercial that's genuinely witty, or effective, or at least non-offensive. I appreciate these. You have a product to sell, my eyeballs are on the TV, so say your piece and go away. However, those who work in the creative side of these marketing departments often feel the need to try and be clever, or funny, or memorable - which more often than not results in abject failure. Most people tune out during commercials, but if you actually watch them and try to make sense of them or break them down and actually figure out the punchline, they're horrible. I saw one yesterday that has some woman drinking New 100% Natural Lipton Bottled Iced Tea. As she drinks it her body (clothes included) turns clear, filled with clear liquid that has leaves or something floating in it. This makes no sense (especially as tea isn't clear) but then she climbs onto the back of a moped, clutching her boyfriend and riding down the street, clear body, helmeted (of course) head, and a flesh colored smiling face. The extremely unpleasant visual is followed by the tag-line: "You are what you tea." What. The. Hell? 

                 Let's apply 20 quick seconds of logic to this tagline, which is far more than was used by the team that created it, the gatekeepers that approved it, and the crew that made the commercial. The original saying is, "You are what you eat." This could easily (and logically) be changed to, "You are what you drink." If you wanted to make a play on words, you could even go so far as (in some commercial about staying in school or something), "You are what you think." All of this makes sense. "You are what you tea," on the other hand, makes no sense whatsoever. "Tea" isn't a a verb, unless you're talking about teeing up a golf ball or telling your child to go tee-tee. Creepy visuals plus a retarded tag line? Sounds like a winner to me! I'd much rather just have a commercial that simply says, "Lipton's New Natural 100% Ice Tea" and show someone drinking some in a field or something. It's simple and plain and never going to win an award for Best Commercial Ever, but it communicates everything it needs to. Let's aim a little lower, people. The TV shows are for our entertainment, commercials are to inform us of products. 

Hate #3: Riots

                Obviously the London Riots have been in the news lately. Buildings that have existed for hundreds of years, even withstood the Blitz, have been burned down by rioters. There are many arguments to be had about the causes of the riots and some of them are quite compelling, but I'm not here to parse that out. I'm here to say that I hate rioters. Rioters are disgusting sackless animals who are too cowardly to show their faces and stand up for what the believe in, but instead use numbers and anonymity to cause chaos, steal things, and destroy property. I have much more respect for someone who walks into a bank, pulls out a gun, and robs the place than I do for a rioter. I'm sure it's very easy to get in a big group of people, knowing you outnumber law enforcement, and smash things, beat people, and do whatever you want. Is that what people would really be like if there were no laws? Whenever I'm watching one of those, "Word's Most Insanest Videos!" shows and they show a riot, I just want Police to go in with machine guns and bombs and kill everyone. The only reason rioters attack the Police is because they know the Police are better people than they are - the Police have guns, but the rioters know the cops will refuse to use them. Rioters are useless horrible people and they draw their strength from the fact that there are a ton of other people behind them and they can immediately run and hide. If you had one of these assholes by themselves they'd immediately cave and start begging for mercy. 

              Civilization is a construct. It isn't a real thing. Civilization is an agreement. It isn't a solid state. I went to a Braves game this past week. It was a Tuesday evening so there weren't a ton of people there, but even so we all out numbered the Police and Security at least 12 to 1. If we were all brainless animals we could rush the field, kill the players, steal everything in the stadium, and set it on fire. We literally could not be stopped. But we don't - because we are buying into this thing called civilization and trying to make it work. There are plenty of reasons people have to be angry, but we're trying to move to a point where we don't solve our problems with violence. We still have to sometimes, we're not to the ideal point yet, but there's using violence to bring down your government and install a new one, and then there's using violence to hurt those around you with no goal or purpose. What pisses me off the most about rioters is that they aren't awful people or habitual criminals. They are citizens that we interact with every day, who suddenly find themselves caught up in fervor and anonymity and allow their animal side to take over. It's terrifying and revolting and I think rioters should be punished harshly (and all made to cry). We're trying to move forward here people, we really don't need you.

Love: To Hate Glee

              I've been building up so much hatred that I need to continue to expunge it so I don't get an ulcer. I've been building up love as well (I'm a truly happy guy, that falls in love quickly, and falls out of love rarely, with any one and any thing) but I like to hold on to those feelings and get rid of these others. So, I love to hate Glee. Let me establish a pretty important fact: I've never seen a single episode of Glee. Last year, while sitting in a Washington D.C. hotel during a rainstorm, I saw the very end of one episode, but I remember literally nothing about it except people were singing a song. Glee could possibly be a fantastic show - I'll admit I sort of like the concept. There is a new Glee culture though, and that's what makes me hate the show. The mere term, "Gleek" sends steam (literally. I am in no way exaggerating) shooting from my ears, destroying the carefully manicured hair of the women around me. Glee is like Betty White - I kind of assumed everyone thought it was silly and stupid but harmless, but then realizing how much everyone loved it (and her) I had no choice but to hate, in order to try and balance out an unjust universe. I don't mind Glee's gay-accepting anti-bullying we're-all-in-this-together message (I'm assuming this is the message, though I've never seen the show) but there's something precocious about the show, and something deeply disturbing about the amount of passion with which it's fans adore it. Without exaggeration I can easily proclaim that there is nothing more downright creepy in culture today than anyone over the age of 16 who willfully calls themselves a "fan" of Glee. I feel without question that Glee has left a lasting stain of twee stupidity on all corners of our current society. I present to you, an article from the Parenting magazine I found in our mailbox yesterday:

     I hope my son isn't a bully, but if a kid comes to his school dressed like that on a normal school day I also hope that he bullies the hell out of him. No child would dress like that on their own but only because their mom decided to use him as a paper doll. The sooner he discovers that there is such a thing as shame, the sooner he can start building the decision making abilities that will aid him later in life. Glee, go away. Take your stupid failing 3D movie, your live tour, your soundtracks that are nothing but covers of far more talented people's music, and go far far away. If the world ends and we all turn into massive homophobes that are unable to dress our children for preschool or converse around a water cooler then, and only then, will you be allowed to return. 

          Glee. Good Lord, what has this country become?

Officially O'Dellicious Salsa. A How To.

          When Margaret and I first planted a garden a few months ago my major contribution (besides cheer leading) was to buy a small roma tomato plant and a jalepeno plant. The roma tomato has been by far our most successful plant and has yielded probably 15 tomatoes. We only got about 7 jalepenos, but a little jalepeno goes a long way. My original idea was to make my own salsa once these plants bore fruit and so last Sunday I decided it was time.

           In the interest of complete honesty, let me explain something here. I like to drink. I find life much more interesting when under the influence of alcohol. I know it isn't a healthy habit, nor a mature one, and it's something I've been attempting to curb. I drink far less than I used to, and set little markers to make dates to take the next step. A large part of it is vanity - I've seen what people who drink a lot look like when they get older. I've realized that my, "trigger" or whatever for drinking is that life is so damn boring. My mind runs a thousand miles a minute and I rarely find enough things to occupy it. As a step in my reduction of alcohol consumption I've been trying to fill my time with enough inane projects as possible. I rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned our carpet. I've watched Margaret work on the nursery. I find random things to clean or rearrange. I bought 10 history books and have been plowing through them. And I decided it was salsa making time.

         I reviewed many different recipes I found on the Internet and kind of pulled bits and pieces of each to make what I thought would be good. It was delicious. It really is a smashing success and therefore if you follow my exact steps you will be able to create what Mag (and she never compliments me about anything) termed, "The best salsa I've ever eaten." 

These are the ingredients I started with - roma tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, fresh cilantro, an onion, lime juice, and (not pictured) garlic (that comes in a jar, whatever that's called) and salt. I want to reiterate - those tomatoes and peppers came from our garden. 

Step One: I diced up the jalepenos. Cut off the tip, so they can stand up vertically, and then cut down each side to get the meat off, leaving a core of seeds. Dice up the meat. 

Step Two: I started some water boiling and put a bowl of ice water next to it. I'd drop the tomatoes in the boiling water for about a minute, and then take them out and put them in the ice water for another minute. When I pull them out of the ice water I just kind of dig in a fingernail to pierce the skin, and then I can peel the  skin right off. Most of the recipes I found just said to leave the skin on the tomatoes, but I found one or two that said it makes the salsa chewy, and besides I like making things more difficult. After peeling the tomatoes I cut the meat off and diced it up. 

Peeled tomatoes, sliced jalepenos.

Step Three: I cut up about a third of that big onion and got it all diced into small pieces.
Step Four: Time for the cilantro! Just go crazy on that leafy greenness! Hold the stalks in one hand and act like a wild heathen, ripping the leaves off with wild abandon. Then gather all the leaves together and chop them up and add them to the mix.

Tomato, onion, cilantro, and jalepeno. DICED.

Step Five: Add the lime juice and salt. I honestly can't remember how much I put in. I think I put in a tablespoon of lime juice and two teaspoons of salt. The salt was more than most recipes call for, but I like salt. 

Step Six: Mix it all together (with your filthy little mitts, like I did).

Step Seven: Enjoy. Your satisfaction at being a pretend Mexican will only be exceeded by the delicious taste of your very own homemade salsa. I suppose you can buy tomatoes (but they're never good) and jalapenos, but roma tomatoes are so easy to grow and basically take care of themselves so why not just plant some? 

            This salsa really is so delicious. As you can see by the picture it's not a paste based salsa, but it is Delicious. As. Hell. The only thing I'll do differently next time (and I'm planning to plant like three tomato and five jalapeno plants next year) is roast the peppers before I dice them. I put in like five jalapenos, and the salsa really isn't very spicy at all. (A Brief Rant on Spiciness: Men, since we have to make everything into a competition, have somehow set up spicy peppers to be a barometer of manliness. I used to hate spicy stuff, but I've grown to like it. However, I like it for the flavor it adds, not because it makes me awesome and strong to be able to stand it. If you want to have a spicy eating contest let's do it with just spices, let's not ruin other food with it. I had a Subway sandwich today with jalapenos on it and they overpowered the rest of the tastes. That's just stupid. A spice should complement the rest of the meal, not over power it. If guitar is your favorite instrument than you want to hear a song that showcases guitar, not a song where the guitar is just turned up three times as loud as all other instruments). Anyway, I hear that roasting peppers brings out some more spiciness so I'll try that. 

             Seriously though, this salsa is great. As an additional word to any guys out there that read this - being able to cook something, even it's just some weird thing that no one ever eats, immediately vaults you to amazing heights in the estimation of all females. It's great to buy a girl flowers or whatever, but the most important key to getting girls is to work on yourself - what makes you more attractive? It's a much better investment in the long term anyhow. 

             Advice on drinking, salsa making, and getting girls all in one post. O'Dellicious. 

 

Fatherhood the Blog - The Third Trimester

           We officially entered the third trimester (according to Margaret, who knows how to count) this past Thursday. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but it becomes one when you realize that trimester means there are THREE mesters. This is the third. This is the last. After this, the guy is here. You know when you go on vacation for a week and on Tuesday you're all, "Can you believe we still have FIVE days left? We've already done so much already! This is amazing!" Then, by Friday it's, "How is this week almost over already?" That's the stage where we are in this pregnancy.

Bumper pad and bed skirt.

             To celebrate Mag took her wonderful self in her wonderful car to her wonderful sister's house to do some sewing! Margaret knows a little about sewing, but hasn't done much in a long time, and her sister is a certified genius in the area (this is in no way an exaggeration. She actually has a, "Genius Level Certification in the Art of Seamstressship" framed and hanging on her wall, and also a small laminated key chain version of the certificate that she carries at all times in order to get discounts at craft stores and, strangely enough, Cracker Barrel). She had agreed to help Mag out and they planned to do about half the work Wednesday, with Mag finishing the rest at home on her own schedule. Well, Mag might have been gone from 7:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. on Wednesday, but they got it all completed. Of course we immediately put it all up in the nursery and, of course, it all looks fantastic. They made two curtains (I'm sure there's a more specific name, but you'll see in the picture) a bumper pad (including, somehow, piping), and a three piece bed skirt (that crib is dressed better than I have been since a wedding 4 years ago when I ripped my suit pants open while decorating the car) all in one day. Mag brought home some pillows and material and set up a little sewing station that she is planning to use to finish up a few more small projects.

Curtain, complete with my favorite stuffed animal from
my childhood (who has been sewn back together no fewer
than three times).

                 I, ever the industrious husband, searched for (using no fewer than three search engines), printed out, and re-sized stencils for the boy's dresser. I have a few cut out and hanging already, and have only to decide the colors I want to use and buy the paint. And, I suppose, actually paint them. I've also been notified that I have to clean out my closet (as it's in what has suddenly become the nursery) and move my stuff into our bedroom closet. I know Margaret spent one of her only days off viciously laboring over both needle and thread, but I printed stencils off the Internet people! When will my hard work and torture ever end?

                 In other news, Mag is starting to have the first physical complications of this pregnancy. Now, I know that just being pregnant is a physical complication in and of itself, but Mag has been pretty lucky in the way that she hasn't been sick once, hasn't had any cravings, and hasn't really experienced many of the symptoms that a lot of women suffer from. However, about two weeks ago she started experiencing a pain in her right side, sort of behind her lower ribs. We did some good old fashioned Internet research (by the way, this is an awful idea. Type in "[your symptom here] + pregnancy symptom" and the first ten results will be, "YOUR BABY IS DEAD!!!!!") and didn't really come up with much so Mag called the doctor. She went in and saw her and Doc said that sometimes there's pain as your womb grows since your ribs have to expand. However, since Mag's place was all right where her gallbladder is, she wanted her to go to a specialist and have a super duper ultrasound. Mag did, and the results showed that her gallbladder is, thankfully, fine. The second guess, or the next most likely probability, is something called hydronephrosis, or hypoplasia, or something like that. It's caused by the same thing (that fat baby taking up too much room) but this time it's the kidneys. One kidney drainage tube gets pinched, so doesn't drain as well and causes a lot of pain. There's no real solution, expect for putting in a stint or just staying medicated on pain pills for the rest of the pregnancy. It normally feels better when Mag lays down though, so she's been trying to do a lot of that after work. She goes to see another specialist (a urologist, I think) in a week and I guess we'll know more then.

                The worst thing about much of life, and pregnancy in particular, is seeing someone you care about in pain. I think most any husband, and of course myself, would much rather feel the pain than watch his wife feel the pain. I'm sure one day my son will have a fever and lay in bed feeling awful and I'll wish there was something I could do to somehow switch places - so I could be the one with the fever and he could be the one perched on my bedside. I can handle pain. I don't enjoy it, and I try to avoid it, but I'd much rather feel it myself than to watch Mag feel it. Also, since I'm so super manly my pain threshold is extremely high so what passed for pain to her would just feel like a mere tickle to me. Seriously though, there's a helplessness that comes along with watching someone you care for hurt, and I can only imagine this is going to be compounded a thousand fold when it comes to the actual delivery room and labor process. I know this sounds silly, like I'm complaining about how difficult labor is for the man, but I can only give you my perspective from my position.

                Lastly, we've been working on a name for our son. This. Is. Hard. I've written about it before, and I'll write about it again, but naming a child is really stressful. There are some things that are out of my control - the boy's genes, his health, his natural abilities, his (sure to be good) looks, and the like. I don't worry about these things because I can't change them. There are some things that are certainly within my control, and about which I feel very confident - my love for, and attention to, this child, the way he is raised, the opportunities he is provided, the things he is taught, the experiences he has. I don't worry about these things because I know I'll hit at least a triple, if not a home run (or maybe a standing double, but I ain't striking out). Then there's the name - this is something that is in my control, something that will identify him until the day he dies, and something that I just don't feel good enough to pull off. I know what I don't like, but I'm not sure what I do like. We actually do have a name we both are attracted to, and that, dollars to donuts, will probably end up belonging to him. I don't know though, it's just too big of a deal to keep me from constantly second guessing myself.

                     Anyway people, all is still well and good on the homefront (and by, "on the homefront" I mean, "in the womb"). We'll know more next week after Mag goes to the doctor and I'll have more to report and more pictures to share after we do even more in the nursery. I'll close with what has been my mantra throughout this pregnancy and what I'll hopefully still be saying after the young punk is hatched - so far, so good.  

The 27 Club

           I am 27 years old now. The age has been in the news the past few days as Amy Winehouse shockingly died of a drug overdose at age 27. Everyone's been talking about, "The 27 Club" which is the name affixed to a group of unrelated famous musicians who tragically died at age 27: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and now people are pretending that Amy Winehouse belongs in this group. Let me explain something here - I am not sad in any way whatsoever that Amy Winehouse is dead. I understand that addiction is a disease, but there are millions of people who have diseases and they wish they had the money and means to cure their disease. Amy Winehouse had both, but decided to be a punchline. I could go into detail but it would reveal me to be the stone-hearted cretin everyone already suspects I am, so I'll just leave it at this: tons of people die every single day, and almost every single death is more tragic than hers. As far as, "The 27 Club," goes, she doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those other folks. I'd argue that every single one of them changed the musical landscape in huge and long lasting ways. Amy Winehouse sang like a black woman, but not as good, and no one will be talking about her in twenty, or even ten, years unless it's about her drug addiction.

            Anyway, I'm 27. About ten years ago I declared, probably inspired by, "The 27 Club" (as I write this a broken clock featuring Kurt Cobain hangs on my wall - between a Kill Bill samurai sword, a toy basketball goal, and a string of Christmas lights covered in plastic fish bulb casings) that I would be perfectly okay with dying at age 27. I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish in life, and I figured I could easily accomplish them all by age 27 (I aim low). I have completed all of my goals, as of about three years ago, except for procreating, and my wife is pregnant now. I don't want to die of course, and 27 seems much younger now than it did when I was 17, but when we're young and dumb we say young and dumb things.

              My social life has sadly greatly diminished since marriage. I used to do something socially every single day of the week, and now I do only about once a week. It doesn't help that I moved to a new town where I know next to no one, and I do nothing in this town that would ever lead me to meet other people. So, to celebrate my birthday I did something that nearly all 27 year olds do - I went bowling.
             Chappelle has a bit where he talks about the differences in how white people and black people party.  White people, he says, when they recount a party to their friends have a mental list of everything they drank and go over it. Like all comedy, there's an immense amount of truth in that. I've greatly reduced my drinking habits, and plan to reduce them further still, but on the night before my birthday I decided to just get crazy. I had four shots before we left the house (over the course of a couple of hours), and then Mag, myself, Clayton, and a couple that we are good friends with headed to the restaurant/bar. While there I had another shot and one or two Long Island Iced Teas (my drink of choice), along with some delicious boneless chicken wings. After the restaurant we found some clever pretense to convince the ladies to return to the house and pick something up, which equaled Clayton and I taking a couple more shots. From there we went to the bowling alley, Margaret driving of course, and Clayton and I singing an amazing strange instrumental accompaniment to whatever trite pop song was on the radio.
                The bowling alley, oh my brothers. The bowling alley. We walk in and the very first person I see is my ex-girlfriend. Now, no one wants to run into their ex on their birthday, but this particular ex was accompanied by her entire family, and her entire family hates me (the feeling would be mutual, but I forget to feel quite often). The last thing her mother ever said to me (just before Margaret and I got married) was, "I hope you and Margaret get what you deserve." I have this theory about embarrassing and awkward moments - the only possible reaction is to just go for broke. I walked up to my ex-girlfriend, threw my arm around Clayton's shoulders, and said, "Well this sure is awkward isn't it?" After a few lines of forgotten conversation I beat a hasty retreat to the safest part of the bowling alley - the bar.
                The bartender happened to be a bartender I know from the Mexican restaurant Mag and I used to frequent and I slid onto one bar stool, Toph slid onto the other, and I struck up a conversation. She brought us a pitcher of beer and I started to pay in cash but then told her, "You know what? We're celebrating my birthday, I should probably just open a tab." She took my card and returned with a large shot of Jack Daniels (on the house of course) and I poured it's dank wooden goodness down my throat. The problem with bowling (even when I'm sober) is that I'm horrible at it. I was cursed with a medley of physical deformities (I may be slightly exaggerating here) at birth and as a result I've never been able to decide whether I'm left handed or right handed. You would think this would be obvious, but it's not, as I do some things with one hand some with another, but none of them well. Bowling is one of the areas that I still just cannot figure out. I know I play guitar right handed, and shoot a rifle right handed, and eat right handed, and I know that I bat left handed, and throw left handed, and wear my watch on my right wrist, but I don't know what to do when it comes to bowling. Every time I go I switch back and forth and I'm awful either way. Eventually we found ourselves in the parking lot, with two cups of beer that Clayton had smuggled out. We tilted our heads back in good humor and then climbed back into my truck. Ladies up front, men in the back - I'm a gentleman, after all.
         By the time we hit the last 2 miles of the drive (also known as the street I live on) I was ready for some magic. I leaned forward and hit the button on the dash that makes my truck complete it's one awesome feature - the back window (between cab and bed) rolls down. I (sitting firmly ensconced betwixt Clayton and Toph) reached out and grabbed the top of the cab, pulling myself backwards, and sat on the windowsill. My head and shoulders were above the vehicle, staring into the night breeze, and Clayton was worriedly clutching my right leg with both hands. In these two miles of night silence, alone with the wind and my thoughts, I experienced the best three minutes of my birthday celebration. As much as I love everyone I'm still a loner at heart. I still need me, and myself, and the night. Breathe deeply of the magic, I tell myself, as I'll one day tell my son. These are the moments that can never be mistaken, replicated, or replaced.

           Birthdays are terrible - they aren't so much a reminder of the one good thing I had no hand in (actually being born) as they are a terrible sounding of the gong that is counting down the days to your eventual death and, even worse, old age. I don't really like celebrating my birthday as I find no satisfaction or pleasure in it (Every day I'm glad that I was born. Trust me sister, in this house, every day is Andrew Day), but I do try and use my birthday as an arbitrary sort of marker to inspire and force me to make changes in my life. It's not all that arbitrary, if you really think about it. If I look at my driver's license, there's only one thing sure to change every year. My height, hair color, eye color, name, gender, and birth date all stay the same. My weight does, more or less. The only really basic personal question you could ask me that is sure to change each year is, "How old are you?" 

            I'm older than I was a few weeks ago. I'm younger than I hope to one day be. Years and ages tend to bleed together with a little bit of distance added to them, but not this one. I'll become at father at age 27. I will do a great and many mighty works which the vast majority of all humanity will never notice, but will resonate in my soul and echo far into my future. I will discover things about myself that I never before realized, and I will change things about myself I always thought unchangeable. I will do what I am determined to do each and every year for as long as I dare to occupy this Earth - become a better man.

       Happy birthday to me.

Adventures of Tomorrow Experienced Today

                  Things continue to happen each and every day - sometime without my permission, and sometimes in direct conflict with my explicit orders. You know nothing, Jon Snow - especially not that everything that I tell you is a lie.

                 So my morning begins much the way I'm certain your own began - with a mysterious phone call at 3:30 a.m. from a string of random numbers which I've never before seen. I wake up to a ringing and think, "What the hell? Did I dream about a phone ringing so loud that it woke me up?" Then my phone rang again. I leaped nimbly (an oft repeated theme in my daily life) from bed into the hallway without ever touching the ground and somehow taking my phone with me. "Hello?" I asked, more worried than perturbed. Silence. "Hello?" I asked again, more perturbed than worried. Complete silence. There is the type of silence wherein whoever is on the other line breathes, or rustles, or rips a gargantuan fart, and then there's the type of silence which sounds like a computer accidentally drunk dialed your phone while attempting to sext the iPad 2 down the street. I attempted to sleep again but my thoughts ran wild - "Is this some half-forgotten nemesis from the past who is attempting to wreak havoc on my idyllic life?" "Is this a friend or brother calling with an emergency who was cut off at an inopportune time?" "Is this a hodgepodge group of mercenaries who are even now lurking outside my house, watching my windows, calling to see if I'm home?" I Googled the numbers but the only information I was able to gather was that they belonged to a Sprint customer in Atlanta, Georgia. Everyone knows that those facts automatically equal drug dealer, so I lay in bed in a cold sweat.

              Some of that may be attributed to my recent movie viewing habits. When not watching sadistic and ultra-violent children's movies like The Plague Dogs, I like to broaden my horizons and subject myself to half-hearted horror movies. I'd heard semi good things about the recent effort, Insidious, and, as it cost but a dollar in Redbox, I decided to give it a try. My wife is a huge baby who hates everything even slightly scary (except for roller coasters, which is when she becomes supremely adventurous and I cower in fear) so I waited until my night off, when she has to go to bed early. I tucked her sexy little self beneath the covers, kissed her adieu, got a beer out of the refrigerator, and decided to watch a little bit of the Braves game before I started my movie. I woke up at 2:04 a.m., sitting on the couch, fully clothed, my beer still unopened. Some would look on such a circumstance as an unabashed failure of a night dedicated to The Fun. Not I. On the contrary I realized, as all good children must, that 2 a.m. is a much scarier time than 10:30 p.m. I poured myself a rum and coke, shoved a beer can in either pocket, and descended into the depths of my basement. It was time to get scared.

              I, growing up, was the type of child that one might affectionately refer to as, "an asshole." I don't know why I'm this way, but I am. Lady GaGa tells me I was born this way. I always wanted to push the boundaries, test the limits, and expose myself t things that I knew I was unprepared to handle (which explains my lifelong battle with HPV). When I was about 11 years old I stayed the night at my grandparents, who had HBO, and forced myself to stay up until 1 a.m. so I could watch whichever Friday the 13th movie it is that begins with Jason being blown up in a trap set by the military or police. Later a doctor eats his heart, becomes possessed, and things go haywire from there. I believe it's Jason Goes to Hell. That night I tossed and turned, and then finally fell asleep, only to have nightmares that I was being chased by Jason. I ran from home to home, herding my two younger brothers before me and trying to protect them. I'd rush them up into an attic and run back down to bar the front door only to find that everyone downstairs had been macheted to death. I awoke in a cold sweat and spent about four seconds in terror before I realized it was all a dream. I've chased that feeling ever since.

                  About five or six years ago my girlfriend (at the time) and I embarked on a month long journey to find the scariest movie of all time. We watched, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Alien, Phantasm, Hostel, Psycho, JAWS, and every other movie we could find on every SUPER SCARY list on the Internet. Let's face it - scary ain't real no more. It's 2011, baby, we know fact from fiction. Out of every movie we watched, only Halloween gave me the heebie-jeebies (and only because of that excellent scene when Michael Myers' mask comes into focus in the closet). Simply put, horror movies don't scare me. I get a thrill out of being frightened. I want to be terrified. They all fail.

                I gave Insidious the best of chances. I started the movie around 2:20 a.m., trapped in my dank, cinder blocked, bug infested basement with only my kitten for company. I drank heavily, leaning forward and staring at the screen. I didn't bring a laptop or my phone with me. Lady, I was focused. This movie is genuinely quite good, for exactly 96 minutes. I was honestly starting to get a bit creeped out, but then everything got over-the-top and scary. Listen movie-makers, a husband and father hearing strange noises, checking to make sure his front door is locked, checking the rest of the house, and then returning to the front door to find that it is wide open and the chain lock is swinging back and forth is far, far scarier than some zombie Indian ghost throwing people around a room. Anyway, I needed to pee or something so I ejected the DVD and headed back into the house to finish it. To leave my basement I have to crawl out a window/door and then cross 10 feet of dark early morning stillness to ascend the steps to my house. The night isn't nearly as quiet as we are lead to believe, as bugs and animals of every ilk sing their worship to the moon and screech their warning to we humans - You are creatures of the day they tell us. You are not welcome here. It got a tiny bit creepy, I'll admit.

             Fast forward, fast forwarders. I lay in bed this morning, after my phone call, thinking all sorts of things to keep me from going to sleep. Some of those things may have been inspired by Insidious. So anyway, like a good little boy I eventually get up and go to work this morning, only to spy a goddamn raccoon running across a rafter and somehow sliding through a crack in the sheet metal to hide in the ceiling tiles above our offices. Someone swore they saw a raccoon and chased him off last week but evidently the creature only retreated into our ceiling, where he's been stuck ever since. Today was a comedy of errors as my boss and another employee vainly attempted to coax or force the raccoon to ground level and chase him out of the building. I helped them for awhile, staring the 'coon straight in the eyes and attempting to speak with him in a language beyond mere words, but all to no avail. The real problem in this situation (and the problem in almost all areas of life) is that people refuse to do what I tell them to do. When I returned to work, 7 hours after first spotting the raccoon, I asked my boss, who was still watching him climb the rafters, "Do we not have a ladder here?" 

   "Oh yeah, we do." he told me.

   "Well get it out and let's get him down."
   "We have a trapper coming this afternoon to try and catch him," he said. The trapper charges $250.

   "Get out the ladder and I'll climb up to one end of the rafters, you force him towards me with the long pole, and we'll catch him."

    "He'll attack you. He'll go through you," he tells me.

    "I'll throw my shirt over him! I'll hit him with a broom and force him to jump!" 

     Finally the hidden creature showed his bandit face again and pranced along the rafter between his two hidey-holes. 

     "Take this long pole and block off the far end," I told my boss. I waited until the monster was far enough along and then raced to to the other end, leaping (nimbly, like I said before) from furniture to furniture until I found myself fifteen feet high and armed with a straw broom. The raccoon charged and I told him, "Oh no buddy, you turn around or jump down." He turned around. My boss, able to follow only partial directions, was waiting for him at the other end, but without the long pole. He watched helplessly as the raccoon escaped back into the office ceiling, ten feet overhead and out of reach. When I left work the foul fiend still pranced among the ceiling tiles, enjoying the air conditioning and looking for a way to escape. Why does everything have to be so difficult? 

             Listen to me boys, and we'll all sleep better at night.