Busted
I totally forgot that stash was up there.
I was driving with a friend of mine and he bumped the passenger visor and the ziplock baggie that was hidden up there fell in his lap. I was totally busted.
He looked over and said, "Why do you have a baggie of Cocoa Puffs stashed in your visor?"
"I swear to God it's not mine."
My Den Floor . . .
looks like the morning after a fraternity formal.
Attention Dads! Have a Song or Two
When my kid was really little, I would always sing "Can't take my eyes off of you" to her. Some of her first words were formed singing along with me,
"I love your BABY
and if it's quite alright
I need you BABY
To warm the lonely night . . ."
I forgot about it for a couple of years, but when I remembered, she still knew all the words.
I bought a CD called "Jazz for Kids" when she was two. We would listen to it in the car. The last song on it "Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. Every time that song came on, I would reach back and we would hold hands. I didn't play it for over a year, but when I put it back in, and that song came on, we automatically held hands again. Now, when we are getting near the end of a drive, she asks to hear "Wonderful World," and we hold hands.
Someday, when she is sixteen and has dyed her hair black and has a tatoo and mulitple piercings and she hates me, she will hear one of those songs and realize that she really doesn't hate me after all.
So to all new dads: Have a song or two. Start early. Stick with it. You may need it later.
I Hear Dead People
It is quite a commute for me and that little girl who calls me daddy when I take her to school. Sometimes she makes me put on certain music she likes, but usually we listen to sports talk. (Or, as she puts it, "All we listen to is football." She'll thank me later.) I absent mindedly flipped over to NPR yesterday morning during the drive. There was a piece on body counts and dead civilians and failed strategy and all that stuff. Nothing new, but interesting, so I listened for a while in silence. Then I looked over at my six-year-old and changed back to sports talk.
When I was six, I heard the exact same stuff. Dead Americans. Dead civilians. Failed strategy. And I remember it. With only three channels on TV and only AM radio in the car, we were exposed to the news of the day everyday. But, for my kid, I turned it off. Not that she was upset or anything, she understands life and death, but why bother with dead people when we can listen to Frank Wycheck speculate about the draft.
I remember from when I was six. And the folks that put us there are older than me. Didn't they learn anything?
Whistling past the graveyard
Going through a messy and painful divorce has an upside. Later, when faced with great personal, professional and financial stress, one can think back and know that yes, in fact, things
have been worse.
So I've heard.
Sunday Project
Here's a great Sunday project for you. Build a Koi pond. Then come to my house. And get the fish. I have way too many fish. Probably about 30 mature fish. And every year, they keep making more. There are dozens and dozens of baby fish who will be mature next year. I don't even like having the fish. They came with the house.
That's right, FREE FISH! Koi make for good eating, too. Come get them all. Then I can just fill that thing up with pool chemicals and have a nice, relaxing "water feature."
Robbed at gunpoint
I was a bartender at O'Charley's across from Vanderbilt, where the Starbucks is now. It was a random Tuesday night. It was about 11:30 at night. There were two customers in the building. A waitress was getting off work, and asked if I would walk her to her car. That neighborhood was a lot worse back then. I walked her the twenty steps out to her car and went back to the front door. I stood there and streched my arms and took in the cool night air. Literally, out of nowhere, a little guy in jeans, a workman's jacket and ski mask put a gun in my back, put his other hand on my shoulder and turned me around and said, "Let's go!" He led me inside, gun pressed to my spine and told me to lay down on the floor. I did as he said.
He rounded up the customers and took their jewlery and money. Then he went in the back. Waiters and kitchen staff were closing up for the night. I laid quietly on the floor, as he requested. After all, he had a gun. He went back to the office and pistol whipped the manager to open the safe. Eventually he came back out and said to the four of us out front, "Everyone come get in the freezer!" I got up and walked back into the kitchen. As I approched the walk-in, I looked at the padlock on the door. I was the first to enter the walk-in, so as the gunman was busy rounding the rest of the staff up, I picked up the padlock, walked in the cooler and dropped the lock into the thick mushroom gravy. He forced all of us, about 12, into the cooler and shut the door.
"Whew," I thought. "If I hadn't picked up that lock, we probably would have been huddled in here in the cold until six in the morning when the morning shift comes in." I was so proud of how clever I was to grab that lock.
Two minutes passed. The door opened back up. Dude in the ski mask cocked the gun, pointed it at us all huddled together and said, "WHERE'S THE FUCKING LOCK?!?!" Remove pride, insert regret.
The manager spoke up and said, "There is no lock!" Gunman said, "There was a lock, I saw it!" They argued back and forth, and finally he shut the door. As he shut it he said, "Don't anyone leave or my partner is going to shoot you!" We waited about 15 minutes before venturing out and calling the cops.
The cops came. The GM was called. He took me aside and said, "Couldn't you have grabbed a bottle or something and thrown it at him?"
I looked at him like he was the idiot that he was. Grab a bottle and throw it a a guy with a gun who is going to take O'Charley's money? It was a ridiculous question that didn't deserve an answer.
I have read things from people questioning the bravery of the victims at VT. Things like, "If three of them had rushed the gunman, maybe they could have save dozens of lives."
If you think that, you are a total fucking idiot.
I remember it like it was last week. I was laying on the floor in the dining room while the gunman was in the back. I could have gotten up and run out the door and gone next door and called the cops. But I didn't. Why? Because the motherfucker HAD A GUN. He could have come out as I was leaving and shot me in the back. Or come out after I left and said, "Where's the dude with all the hair?!?" and started shooting all my friends. What if I had saved my ass at the expense of my co-workers? Would that make me a hero? When someone has a gun, you don't act like a hero, you do what he says. I'm a big motherfucker. I'm a brave motherfucker. You know what? Little dude HAD A FUCKING GUN!
To think that I should have been packing heat on a random Tuesday at O'Charleys is ridiculous. To think that I should have attacked the gunman with a bottle of Absolut is laughable. To think that a professor or a student or an RA at Virginia Tech should have awakened on a random spring day expecting a gunfight is ridiculous. Blacksburg became Pearl Harbor that day. It was an ambush.
Motherfucker had a gun. Chained the doors, walked into class and started shooting. If you have ever been on the wrong end of a gun, you know the sheer terror and helplessness that those people were feeling. If you have never been on the wrong end of a gun, shut your fucking mouth.
Indecent Proposal
Tim
recounts the tale of the insanely creative and romantic way he proposed to his sweetie. Let me recount the tale of the insanely creative and romantic way I proposed to my last wife.
Woke up on New Year's morning with appropriate hangover.
Looked over at woman laying next to me.
Belched.
Said, "You wanna get married?"
Farted.
I wonder why it didn't last.
Chick singer joke
I heard Patsy Cline's "Crazy" tonight. Reminded me of a classic chick singer joke:
Q: How many chick singers in Nashville does it take to sing "Crazy?"
A: Every goddam one of them.
(Bonus!! If there is a knock on the door, how do you know if it is a chick singer? She can't find the key and she doesn't know when to come in.)
Guns
The subject of guns is big right now.
I'd like to have a gun. When I first moved into my house, I was here with my kid and someone came by at 2:30 in the morning and was pounding on the door and ringing my doorbell for a good fifteen minutes. My phone was in the kitchen and I couldn't get it to call the cops without being seen through the window of the front door. I would have gone to get the phone if I had a gun. I felt helpless in protecting my kid.
I've been robbed at gunpoint. I've had a gun pressed against my spine. I've been told to lay face down on the floor by a guy with a gun pressed to my back. It's no fun.
However, the thought of having a gun and having a six-year-old little girl running around the house is daunting. I know there are ways to make it safe, but it is still a worry.
I don't really have a house that lends itself to the reason I want a gun. I have a third acre in a 50-year-old suburb of Nashville.
But, the reason I want a gun is that guns are fun. If I had a bunch of land, I would like to have a gun to shoot beer cans off the fence. Target practice. Shooting a gun is fun. That's the main reason I want a gun. The problem is, there is no way I would shoot full beer cans off the fence. I would have to drink the beer first, before I started shooting. That's a bad recipe for responsible gun ownership.
I want beer and guns. I choose beer.
Underhanded Underwood
I just watched Carrie Underwood sing her song "Before he Cheats" in silver hot pants and
stiletto fuck-me pumps on the
CMT Awards show thing. This is a sample of the lyrics:
I dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats.
I took a Louisville Slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires.
maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
What kind of message does this send to our impressionable young people? Seriously! This is just ridiculous. That is a stupid reaction to a lover's spat. A grossly misguided account of property destruction over the loss of a boyfriend. Everyone knows that a scorned woman uses a Louisville Slugger on the windows, not just the headlights.
Plus, who in his right mind would cheat on Carrie Underwood.
Deep Throat
I've got a good friend who is a writer/editor at the City Paper. I alerted him to the Coble situation late last week. They
ran a story today.
I am the Deep Throat of the blogosphere.
Hurricane Katherine
There is a big stink going on over at Katherine Coble's place. In between her Libertarian political posts and Battlestar Gallactica updates, she
wrote a review about a bad encounter she had with a job placement firm. That company JL Kirk and Associates, is now
suing her for defamation or lible or liable or copyright infringement or name calling or something. Their boneheaded move has spread like wildfire around the internet.
Here's what I think. Some lady that worked there came on Kat's blog and wrote a long-winded, kooky response to her critical post. In said rebuttal she disclosed some private information about her husband's employment and salary history that even the sleaziest of headhunting firms know is confidential. I think they want that gone more than they want Coble's cirticism gone.
Also, the lawyer threatened to tattle on Kat to Comcast if she doesn't take it down. Just how completely uninformed are these people? The blog is on Wordpress. Taking away her home internet service won't make it go away.
As far as whether she should comply with the cease and desist? That's her choice. It could go to court and cost some money. I do know this: Bloggers love them some PayPal. I think the cost of defending a blogger's right to voice an opinion about a company could happen, ten dollar click by ten dollar click.
Sucker!
My kid sucks her thumb. She's six. I don't like it. The practice has lessened over the years, but there are two times I can count on it happening, in the car, and going to sleep.
Yesterday, we were driving slowly in rush hour traffic on the interstate, having a nice conversation. We finished talking, and all went quiet. I knew she had stuck her thumb in her mouth. I turned to look, because I was thinking about having another "discussion" about it. As I swiveled my head around, I noticed a woman in the next lane over, probably in her thirties, driving along with her right hand and sucking her left thumb.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Call For Class Action Suit
There is an
article in the Tennessean regarding the non-passage of the loosening of the liquor laws in Tennessee. Once again, "show me the money" seems to be the reasoning behind another ridiculous set of laws.
I know that alcohol is regulated by the states. I also know that this is a big issue in a lot of states. I also think that banning sales of a perfectly legal product on Sunday seems arbitrary and unconstitutional to me. I haven't done any research on the subject, does anyone know if lawsuits have ever been filed anywhere to challenge the legality of such laws? If not, let's get one going. If I am going to leave a legacy for my grandkids, I'd love for it to be the opportunity to buy a handle of Evan Williams on Sunday and get smashed in front of NASCAR on the TV.
