Shenanigregarious

Whelp. I pretty much don't blog anymore. So, here's a quick update working backwards.

Last night I did my second public access appearance on a local soccer show. My segment is basically three to five minutes of unscripted shenaniganery. The first appearance I had a slight buzz on and it was on Cristiano Ronaldo getting a pregame mani/pedi. It was pretty easy and discussed his penchant for Ferraris and diving.

Last night's was on the Beckham AC Milan debacle. It was a little more difficult and I was super sober (semi on the wagon right now). It's all green screen and the backgrounds are as public accessy as anyone could ever imagine, but I'm learning how to work with it and look into the camera rather than turning to talk to the guy asking me questions.

So, last night my prep consisted of a text that said "We're going to talk about Beckham tonight." I texted back, "What's our angle?" and received a response that said "B there at 8."

Sweet. We had nothing. So, dude goes through this youtube segment of soccer clips and it's going all wrong and his elephant soccer clip turns out to be just an elephant walking around not playing soccer like it was supposed to. Apparently, he had the wrong clip.

So, we go through our back and forth about Beckham's possible transfer to AC Milan which breaches his MLS contract in an obscene way. It moves on to what was Posh wearing and some other inane topics and scamboogery. At the end, the other dude asks, "Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?" I reply, "Yeah, I was watching that clip you had of that elephant and I was wondering do you think that Nike makes elephant balls? You know, like elephant balls for elephants to play soccer with?"

At this point, I start cracking up while everyone in the studio is just looking at me stunned because I said elephant balls. Of course, everyone in the studio consists of a dude in suspenders, a guy that looks like he owns a van with no windows for the sole reason of not clashing with his moustache, and two high school volunteers running the cameras. Also, this is more people than will ever watch the show when it airs.

So, I finished the show and took off. I think it may have been my last show. The preceeding show, I caught some guff for repeating the term "Meat Tube" rather than youtube over and over again. To be completely honest, though, it's kind of fun. Painful as hell to watch and I feel really bad for taking the spot of Chess Diva #6 on public access, but that's the business for ya.

Recommended things:
1) I was a huge fan of KEXP and listen to it on Flycast whenever I can at home. Truth is radio died, but is being slowly resurrected via the Interwebs. I listen to KCRW in the morning at work and also enjoy Indie Pop Rocks on SomaFM. I've got a new one out of LA that I listen to now. Apparently, it shutdown and moved to the Internet and it's really good. It's KDLD 103.1. I'd love to hear stuff like this on the radio rather than listen to preprogrammed crap that ClearChannel wants me to listen to. I'd also like to point out that I've never heard Linkin Park on any of the above stations and that is a good thing. They FUCKING suck. You know that you are either older or that radio is super crappy when you've got talk radio going on AM. That's a bad sign.

2) The 33 1/3 book series by Continuum is an excellent way to further enjoy some of the most classic albums ever made. I recommend ordering a few and spending a Sunday with the headphones on while you read one of these. I did the Paul's Boutique edition last week and was floored by how awesome it was. The first section opened up with a history of the origins of the album. The second section broke down the album song by song. It was like discovering a classic album all over again. Paul's Boutique, especially. I remember the first time I heard that album, I was like "What the fuck?" and it turned out to be probably comparable to when the generation before me heard Sgt. Pepper's. It changed everything and just got better with every listen. The album could definitely be described as rich. John Darnielle from the The Mountain Goats wrote the one on Master of Reality by Sabbath and Colin Meloy from the The Decemberists wrote one on The Replacements' Let It Be. I'm working on the Aja entry now and needless to say, there is a glossary.

3) Lastly, I'd like to recommend a wonderful concoction that I stumbled on. Cap'n Crunch (no crunchberries) and Breyer's natural vanilla ice cream. One word describes this: fuckingretarded.

Happy Hump Day. Enjoy yourself.

Shittibank vs. Mint

I recently began using mint.com to manage my finances after using Quicken forever. Quicken was cool and very well integrated online, but mint.com was just way easier to setup and maintain and over the last couple of months has proved to be an extremely positive experience.

So, I was checking out my accounts the other day because I love to watch my money whether it's expanding or failing miserably via my retirement account and I noticed that I had a 14.99% APR on my favorite card. It's black and awesome and used to have an APR of 4.52% which I really liked. I have never missed a payment and pay a lot on it every month as it's my primary bar tab card. I'll admit that it's been misplaced a few times and their customer service has been incredible on it.

The card was lifted in Vegas and they shut down the charges and killed the card swiftly and ably over the phone. I thought that the APR had to be a bug with mint and logged on to my account to check it out and sure enough it said 14.99%.

I checked out my past statements and November's had the 4.52% on it while December's had the 14.99%. I sent an e-mail off to their customer service asking if I had been a bad customer or something and they replied that it was due to the current condition of the financial markets and that I was sent the new terms and conditions and given the opportunity to opt-out if I wanted to. Now, in between convenience checks and bullshit that they send, I didn't read the 32 page fold out statement of terms and conditions, that's my bad. Who reads that?

To their credit, they gave me a second opportunity to opt-out, which to me, screamed that they tried to pull one over on their customers and got called on it. What kind of business outside of the oil business can you justify a 300% rate increase and get away with it? Furthermore, I live within my means. I haven't purchased a home because I can't afford it. I haven't bought a new car because I would rather pay my credit card bills down. Why should I be responsible for them or their customers' negligence?

So, I weighed out my options and decided to opt-out. The opt-out entails keeping my old APR until the expiration date on the card and then the account will close and remain until it is paid off. It will be paid off by that time, so I don't even get why I would choose to keep the 300% rate increase unless I never read the document. Honestly, there were no Pros to those Cons. That would be the best critique of prison writing that any prison writing program critic could ever write.

The question is how many others is this happening to or am I the only one that doesn't read all the mail that his credit card company sends him? Honestly, I've learned that if my bill isn't in the envelope, it's junk. Hmmm. Maybe if they quit sending convenience checks they could save that money that they need to provide their exceptional service and benefits. Then on top of all this, you have the bail out and their private jet they had to send back. Should I be feeling bad for them enough to say "Yeah, man, you've had a rough patch, so let me pick up the tab." They are not your mom-and-pop liquor store that you can justify paying more for convenience because they are a local business. They are not even your uncle with a drinking and gambling program that lost his rent in Reno one weekend.

Regardless, the whole thing kind of pissed me off and made feel a bit vulnerable. The moral? Read your goddamn mail or pay the price. Also, mint.com is pretty rad. I figured out my account had been messed with because they showed me cards that I could get that would be better than those existing.

So Rad

I need this for desk tchotke at work real bad. I just added it to my Amazon wish list. Ladies and gents. The Playmobil Airport Security Checkpoint playset.

Also, the Playmobil baby in an incubator is kinda tight.


OMG. Playmobil office equipment set is rad.

Won't You Sign In Stranger

It's been a month. I was accused of moving the blog and writing it under another fake name. In truth, I was just lazy and uninspired. Could be the TV. Could've been the weather. Could've been work. Could've been a variety of things, but it's not worth analyzing.

Here are some highlights. The coolest thing that happened was receiving nunchucks from my sister for Christmas. Scratch that. I actually almost received nunchucks. Instead, it was two pieces of wood and some chainlink. If they were connected it would be a felony unless used in a martial arts exhibition. Therefore, they are illegal if you suck at nunchucking and legal if you are good. Let's just say that if I did have nunchucks, I would probably have hit myself in the mouth with them about two weeks ago while chucking under the influence.

Now, in reference to their legality, how fucking stupid is that law? You break into my apartment to steal my TV that I love so much that I would write up a proposition to make it legal to marry it and you wake me up mid-theft. I come out in my underwear with my nunchucks. Pop-quiz, hotshot. Would you rather I had a gun or a pair of nunchucks? It's a no-brainer, but I don't have a large group of nunchuck enthusiasts in California that vote, so this is what we get. Watch for the NNA, though. I will start the National Nunchuck Association and make Mark Wahlberg our President due to the passing of Chuck Heston. I believe the rules are that the President must be the lead from Planet of the Apes and that's the best we've got.

Speaking of groups/associations, I've finished my community service for my Blottaux Pas. It wasn't that bad, but it was time consuming. The first weekend following it, I'll admit, I felt weird being at home on a Saturday morning. I'm not saying that I missed it, but it felt weird and I did have a small raking jones in the morning. So, after going through everything that I've gone through so far and still having a weekly meeting for the next five months and a zero tolerance for three years and a black smear on my record for ten, I'm starting to feel a little pissed at the California chapter of MADD (Motherrs Against Drunk Driving).

Yes, I empathize with people that have experienced loss due to people acting negligently, but I think in California they overdo it a bit. I mean fuck, okay, my bad. I've learned my lesson. Can we just move past this? I do feel lucky that I didn't hurt anyone or myself. I feel really fuckin' fortunate in fact, but get fucking over it. It's so typical of a woman and feels like a horrible marriage has been struck up with the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It's just no fun. Let it go. I'm sorry.

So, while I bear my scarlet three letters of D, U, and I, I'm getting myself a little divorce from this group that has just been riding my ass for making a mistake and refusing to accept my apology. I'm putting my own association together called DAMM (Drunks Against MADD Mothers).

It's not pro drunk driving, but it's pro forgiveness. It's pro let people get the fuck on with their lives. It's pro let people dig their own fuckin' graves and make their own fates possible without trying to control their behaviors through administrative bullshit. The best I can do at this point is to vote against anything they support in the form of propositions. I actually checked last November and did vote against anything they supported.

In fact, I think the BAC laws are completely relative. So, the legal limit is .08. That is whether I'm 6' 4" and 340 pounds or 4' 6" and 40 pounds. That is completely aside from the fact that people have different tolerances based on their familiarity with blottopia.

For instance, if I've had eight beers and am driving behind some soccer mom drinking a chai latte and talking on a cell phone while wiping up her kids fucking applesauce that's all over his face, I'm less of a danger to anyone on the road and she has a .00 and I've got a .10.

Actually, I'm extremely agile and resilient when under the influence. I would throw down the challenge of my inebriated agile self against Joe Grande Iced Mocha in a variety of tests like cabular impact absorption (absorbing impact from chartered transportation), long distance falling, and breaking and entering into secure objects (getting inside your house and into bed without keys).

So, anyway, say I perform a battery of tests at the DMV including monkey bars and running through tires on an obstacle course and as soon as I can do it without being awesome, that's my legal BAC. I think I could easily pull off a .18 while still remaining relatively awesome. Doesn't this seem a lot more fair, the idea of earning your BAC? Honestly, it just makes a lot more sense to me, but is definitely against the grain in a society of people that feel they are owed something just for being here.

Anyway, trying to write more and feliz ano nuevo.

Round and Round

So, we were on the bus. For those that have not been forced to give back to the community in lieu of serving jail time, there are wheels on the bus. They go round and round. Round and round. I kinda get where Ratt got the idea for the song now.

The bus cruises down the freeway. We still have no idea where we are going as I stare out the barred windows trying to get my bearings in case there is some type of riot and I have to find my way home. It's me. It could happen. It's a ragtag bunch of dudes. There are dudes with tattoos of stars behind their ears, the dudes who can't speak a lick of English with what looks like their kids' backpacks because they are obviously too small and feature cartoon characters, and the club kids who look like they just got on the bus from gettin' down up in da club. A dead give away to these dudes is the crooked army cap.

We are so South of San Jose by the time the bus pulls off the freeway that we could be in Fresno. Ahhh, Fuck. It's Fresno. We're not really in Fresno, but the only landmark that I can pick up is a Golfland about a quarter of a mile before we turn into the yard of the Santa Clara Valley Water Authority. We file off the bus and start milling about waiting for direction.

There are a couple of folding tables set up end-to-end that are employed as backpack storage. Kid backpack storage in some cases. Just backpacks full of bag lunches and in one case a Cup O' Noodles (sounds Irish). Brilliant planning in that guy's case. Expecting a microwave or tea kettle, dude?

This dude in coveralls who is a spitting image of Scatman Crothers in The Shining rolls up to and addresses the crowd as the prison bus dashes out of the yard amidst more milling about by a couple of bulldozers. He lets this group of Noway Laureates know that they will be bagging sand for the rest of the day. Global warming. Drought. This sounded like make work work, but whatever, it's something to do to kill time.

The rules: teams of four will be on the hoppers dispensing sand into the bags. The winners behind them will tie the bags. The winners behind them will place them on palettes. Easy enough, right? Also, we will be issued safety glasses, gloves and respirators. Glasses and vests will be worn at all times even during breaks. There will be no use of outhouses outside of allotted break times.

I took 25% of the hopper crew and started filling bags and passing them behind me. It's actually a really good lat exercise that is not too unlike working with a Swiss ball. So, it was what it was and I really didn't mind it.

After about an hour I kind of caught one of the club kids staring at me every time I passed a bag back. Whatever. Maybe he knew me. I had noticed him on the bus because I didn't think he was properly dressed for work. Also, remember that you are never fully dressed without a smile. Pro tip.

So, there was a period of time that I was waiting for a sand refill in my hopper and dude goes, "So, how do you like it so far?"

"Dude, I fuckin' hate it. Are we supposed to like this?" and I went back to filling bags.

As the day went on dude kept making small conversation during any opportunity. The third conversation set my gaydar off. Well, that and the fact that dude was staring at my ass the whole fucking time. Well, whatever.

Lunch came and went with the rule that you could do whatever you want outside of going horizontal. No laying down.

After lunch I saw these dudes using their keys to slash the bags before passing to the palette guys so that the sand would spill out in the name of entertainment. This would make sense if you didn't have to fuckin' clean it up. This sums up the mentality of these people that were never going to graduate weekend work and who may not have wanted to. This was a peer group to some.

Day ends (sorta) and we clean up our stations and wait for the bus. We jump on the bus and get back to the freezing cold garage at three. We stand there for forty five minutes doing NOTHING. Like fucking nothing unless freezing can be considered a hobby.

The asshole cops line everyone up and do another roll call. I guess they occasionally lose people. They call my name and I walk across the garage to the other side and freeze some more while we wait for them to call everyone's name. Somewhere deep in the annals of public service this is considered a system. It explains a lot.

I get out and go home and sleep with visions of sand in my head. Piles and piles of sand. I imagine that the next day we are going to have to go take all the bags that we filled up and empty them out for the dudes to use the next weekend. Losing faith in the system as the whole thing is a huge fucking waste of time and benefits no one. Perhaps they should let me set up a new system for them, but I have a feeling this is a culture that is adverse to efficiency. It's called my own personal kryptonite.

SPOILER ALERT: I got CalTrans the next morning. More to come.

I Write, You Left.

So. I had my criminal part of Project: Debt To Society last weekend. That now makes my week consist of four DUI related activities a week. There is the weekly group meeting for an hour and a half, a two hour education session that is straight propaganda, and then two days a week of the Weekend Work Furlough Program.

The weekend work is to replace the jail time. You can do three straight days in the hoosegow or nine weekend days from 8 to 4. I chose to knock it out the box and do Saturday and Sunday and it just happened to fall in December which blows donkey balls, however every time I find myself complaining about it I hear a school marmy voice say "You should have thought about that before you drank and drove."

Anyway, here is how it went down for the curious. We can evaluate the DUI education experience in its own episode.

For the first weekend, you have no assignment and are to show up at a parking lot across the street from the jail and the courthouse. You've just got to be there at eight. "We," the collective one, as in me, almost didn't make it. Drank with the soccer team the night before and it got fun as I found someone to call me on my shit and then explored tan bark theory for a little bit. It was fun. It caused me to get to bed too late. It caused me to sleep in past one alarm. It caused me to sleep past another alarm. Finally, a teammate who has saved my ass in countless games saved my ass again by giving me a wakeup call and telling me to get the fuck out of bed and get there.

I jumped up convinced I was fucked and threw a toque, jeans and a sweatshirt on and threw my lunch that I had made the night before into my backpack with my court papers and jammed out the door. I got in the car and realized at this point that I had left my water bottle at the bar (again) and pulled a Diet Coke out of my lunch to pound at 7:45 in the morning. There is something so white trash about morning soda. So, I hit the freeway with about twenty miles to go in fifteen minutes. I'm also painfully aware that if I get popped for speeding a) I'm not going to make it, which means court or a warrant and b)there is a chance of getting breathalyzed in a situation where .02 would get me another DUI as I have no tolerance. It was reckless, but here is a pro tip: There are few risks that are not worth taking when balanced against legal administration. They just cannot figure out how to do shit.

So, I'm in the 80s and my car is shaking furiously because I haven't gotten my tires rotated in forever because I rarely drive anymore and the cigarette perched out my window is shaking like crazy as I barrel down the freeway just asking for it, but I've been good lately and knew I deserved this, so there was a chance.

I got to the exit ramp right at 8:00. At this point, I'm hoping that the cops are not good at setting watches as everything else to do with this program is about extreme punctuality. You CANNOT be even a minute late for things. Luckily, this was not one of those things. I got my car parked and emptied my pockets of "contraband" and ran toward the parking garage where I mulled in with about 25 Mexican dudes. It felt like Christmas, kinda.

I'd like to point out right here that on the program contraband list there are things like knives, cell phones, and lighters, which make sense. There are also things like calculators that don't make a lot of sense. Remember that.

So, I stood in a freezing ass garage for about a half hour before anything happened. This would prove to be a theme for the program - standing with nothing happening. When something finally did happen, they lined us up to be checked in and searched for "contraband." It would be really funny to bring a copy of the supergroup Contraband's CD to this. Okay, that would be fuckin' lame. I got checked in by the most unpleasant man alive. Here's how it went.

"ID, Please."

"Here ya go"

"Empty your pockets and pull them out of your jeans."

"No problem"

"Is this your lighter?"

"Oh crap. I'm sorry about that. I missed it when I cleaned out my pockets in my car."

"Do you have cigarettes?"

"No."

"If I find some in your bag, I'm sending you back to court."

"Sorry, sir. There should be nothing in my bag except for my lunch."

Dude looks through my bag right here and finds a book, The Suitors by Ben Ehrenreich, and pen. He looks at me with a hard look and says, "What is this?! I could send you back to court for this. Didn't you read your list of contraband? Books are contraband."

At this point, I couldn't help it and said "That's very Bradburyian of you."

He looked at me like I was about to be fuckin' tased and I said to him quickly before I was made an example, "Dude, that's not a putdown it's a reference to an author" and to amuse myself just said in my head "Not a strong reader, huh?"

He told me that I could pick up my book at the end of the day which was hilarious. A big fucking clear trashbag full of cell phones, lighters and cigarettes and that one lonely fuckin' book. The woman in charge of the "contraband" asked me what my cellphone looked like at the end of the day and I told her I was there for the book and emphasized that it was the ONLY book. This was not a very literal crowd. I mean, no offense, but all most of them would be into reading would be books by Iceberg Slim.

So, I get checked in and the cop hands me a vest and tells me to go stand against the wall. A small group starts to collect around me like dirt would to a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe. Then, when it got about 40 deep, a dude came over and got us to line up and get on a bus. We were getting bussed somewhere with no idea where we were going. Honestly, I'm not even going to bother explaining what this imagery was comparable to. We get on the bus with two dudes in the cages to boot and the bus driver fires up the bus and the radio kicks on and what do you fuckin' hear? "I kissed a girl and I liked it. The taste of her cherry chapstick."

It was going to be that kind of day. I'll pick up on that later. Gotta work.

Real Work Conversation #45

Girl1: "Hey. You are never gonna guess who I saw last weekend."

Me: "Who?"

Girl1: "I saw Cheryl in the city."

Me: "Where were you, the Power Exchange(sex club)?"

Girl2: "Oh my god. That place is weird. I've been there once."

Girl1: "Uh, I think he was just kidding."

Me: "You are hella busted."

Home Is Where The Hard Is

We (the collective one) are bored. Life has taken on some form of undynamic, blah persona and just kind of sits there staring back, saying nothing. It's a really awkward silence. The silence is broken, however, by the sound of beer cans popping like balloons at a crying child's birthday and the lovely sounds of young country (shitty rock) emanating through the front door as of late.

Here are the topics discussed in front of my apartment:
1) High school football games and kickers.
2) "Mama and Randall"
3) Online dating, both match.com and Yahoo! personals

This is what I hear while I don sweatpants and worship my television. I don't know why I bother with my television when I have thirtysomething and Intervention going on right outside my door, but sweats feel safer and distance limits my interactivity in entertainment. It's better to watch sometimes than partake in the action. Actually, in recent moments, that's the rule of thumb. Let someone else put on the clown wig and party king crown and run their own court. I'd like to watch for a while.

One neighbor is definitely going through some shit and putting down some serious booze. Power to him, but when he came home with a thirty pack of Keystone Light, I got both nostalgic and empathetic. He has been finding solace in Internet dating and is more than happy to show me pictures of boobs and talk about his dates, though. The Internet dating and weeknight drinking are just reinforcers to avoidance. A nice meal and four hours on the xbox is way preferred. I don't see that a solution lies at the end of his path, but who knows. Life is not known for being just or predictable.

Other neighbor has a high school crush on the new neighbor from Alabama. She's got the weirdest accent one has ever heard and he's like 50 something and she is way out of her element, so I can see the motive. It's actually kind of cute to watch. Everyday after work they end up sitting on the stairs in front of my apartment and shootin' the shit, but everytime I see it, I can't help but picture bleachers and varsity jackets. The other weirdness is about how she made out with me the first night we met and went out whiskey drinking with the other neighbor. I'm not interested because I could fit into her jeans. She caught me whiskey drunk is all. I don't do that anymore and I was the out-of-elementee in that situation.

So, anyway, everyone of her stories that I hear ringing through my flimsy door is about "mama," Randall, or involves a pig and a quad. Dude, Alabama is no joke. They are stuck in a timequake, man. Imagine the worst you could about backwardness, ignorance and the and a hateful Jesus and you will come to about the third ring in that Dante's Inferno.

So, yeah, I'm finger pointing today, but I had to write and these things do affect me. I do nothing, but sleep anymore and have kind of introverted, which is very uncharacteristic. I just think this shit is getting old and it may be time to move somewhere a little more socially motivating. I've got to clean up my own backyard before I start venturing out of it, but I'm close. The rough spots are getting smaller and more isolated and it's been a while since I woke up with a penis drawn on my chest or a stranger in my house. These are good things. They are starting points. I just feel like there could be a more productive and fulfilling place where I could set up shop. I feel like I'm constantly in a hurry to get out of what I'm doing, but to go do nothing. It turns out I just don't want to be doing what I'm doing a lot.

Otherwise, everything is perfect.

F-U tility

Today is an exercise in repetitive futility not seen since one last stared at the stairs in an M.C. Escher drawing. Seriously, just circle and circle and circle of struggling while you drown in a puddle of shit that feels like quicksand. Some call it work. I think everyone has an e-mail filter on that auto-replys elaborate, over wordy versions of "Fuck You. Try again Fucktard." when they receive my e-mail address in their inbox.

Outside of that, everything is Jim Fuckin' Dandy. I'm finding solace in soulless searching of my innerworkings and trying to figure out how to unwind it all and not be so pissed off and frustrated. I've tried kicking a tree while I smoked a cigarette for ten minutes and it was just another action to put in the bin of futility to be incendiarily excited in order to be sacrificed to the Futility Goddess that rules my Charlie Brown-Dark Cloud work life at the moment. Just something else to throw on the fire.

Just like anything in life, however, it could be worse. Oh, so much worse. There are unexplained pee spots on the front of your pants, there are unexplained coffee outages, mirthless meetings that go nowhere for no reason and days that make you imagine that if you had a terminal disease you would want every day to last this long until the pain set in. Oh, so how could it be worse? Prison.

Recent events have had me reviewing work furlough programs because I really don't know what to expect from my criminal side of repaying my debt to society. I thought it was just an orange vest and get out there and pick up some garbage. Nope. There are other things and unfortuately none of them are prison librarian. Enacting a Dewey decimal system in a correctional facility has never sounded so good when compared to some stories that I'm hearing of what the program entails.

As a side effect of the research process, I decided to check out some prison pen pal resources. I thought it might be fun to get one. We could discuss our days and I could support him towards rehabilitation and life "on the outside." He could teach me how good I really have it not being incarcerated and also fill me with the purpose of helping someone. Perhaps there are sites like that, but I found this one: writeaprisoner.com. It's kind of like myspace or facebook mashed up with Megan's Law in some cases, but it is still a great time sink on a Friday.

I'm still getting familiar with the site and just found the part where it lists the crimes. There is also prison penpals with a hyphen that I haven't really checked out.

Also, being the competitive type, I suggested that some friends pick out their own prisoner, too. That way we could compare letters and see who is rehabilitating their prisoner the best. It would be like adopting a kid, but way easier. Or, maybe like getting a robotic dinosaur. Or, maybe like getting a pet rock that wrote letters to you. That is just the best premise for a sitcom in the 70s.

Be warned. There are some rules to mailing a prisoner. No stickers, no food, no nude pictures, etc...I will just mail mine cigarettes because that is like money in the joint.

Mom's Tamale Casserole

I'm putting this here so that I have access to it whenever I have a hankerin' for some tamale casserole and comfort. It's from my mom and was kind of a family tradition. I think I'm going to bring it back tonight, but fuck, it looks like a lot of work. Whatevs. It's something to do on a Wednesday. Also, is this the part where I find out that she got the recipe off the back of a pack of Marlboros or out of the back pages of a Penthouse Forum. This is where I get crushed isn't it?

Future recipes? Look for the tuna casserole. Children of the 70s ate a lot of casseroles I think.

Tamale Casserole

1 whole roasted chicken from the store or 2 to 4 chicken breasts

2 small cans of tamales (Hormel is my favorite)

1 recipe of white rice (1 3/4 cups water to 1 cup rice)

1 can of cream or chicken soup

1/2 soup can chicken broth

diced green chilis (optional)

grated mexican cheese or monterey jack cheese or just cheddar

Bake chicken breasts and shred. While the chicken is baking, make the rice. Or if you get a chicken from the store, just shred it and make the rice.

1) Take the paper off the tamales and break them into thirds and layer the bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole dish (I do it in the sink so I don't make a greasy mess)

2) Layer the shredded chicken on top of the Tamales

3) Mix the soup and the broth in the pan with the rice until it is the desired consistency. You can add the diced green chilis if you want. You can also salt and pepper to taste.

4) Bake @ 375 for 25 minutes. Add the grated cheese to the top the last 10 minutes. When the underlying casserole is bubbly, it is done.

* I think grandma marlene sprinkles paprika on top of the cheese.

Serve to only the casserole worthy guests.

Enjoy

mom

D'yer Rol'ls

This is wrong, but I have to profess a confession.

This morning, while making a fantastic pot of coffee, I was in the break room and this woman came in to get in my way as I moved fluid and lithely between the mini fridge, the coffee maker and my coffee mug. She had worked me towards the copier in her giant fantasmacolored shower curtain dress as she maneuvered herself to the microwave. She opened the microwave and it went down like this: she pulled a plate out of the microwave with five croissant looking things on it as I took my coffee and started heading out of the room.

She then looked at me and said "Do you want one of my rolls?"

I looked at the plate and then at her and then at the wall as I lied, "No thanks. I just ate a muffin."

Now, what really happened was when she said "Rolls" I flashed through all of the rolls on her body, got internally visually sick and then mentally, in my head said "Which one?" in reference to all of the rolls covering her body. That made me laugh inside a little bit and then I told my lie. That's what really happened in about half a second.

Fully Awesome Burbank

Pictured above are the pieces that make up a delicious puzzle. It's the raw elements of the Ready Pac Santa Fe Style Caesar Salad and it's no fuckin' joke. I'm a whore for anything with corn in it, so this salad had me at Hello, but chips, cheese and corn? That's the same chemical makeup as nachos on the food periodic table. I believe it is number 48. 47, is chips and salsa I think.

Anyway, cheese, romaine lettuce, chips, corn and chicken partnered with a non-chipotle dressing. That's a bold fuckin' move right there. You'd think a chipotle honey dressing or something, but no way...Salsa Ranch dressing. The Ready Pac people show real balls right there. Only a company like that would put apples in a prepackaged salad. My hat is off to your boldness Ready Pac people. You are innovators, risk takers and patriots.

So, what could possibly steal the thunder of this perfectly balanced ingredient wise salad? The packaging can, that's what. So, you think it's too fuckin' awesome when you pull the top level of the container out and it has all your ingredients separated from the salad in little compartments. Then, you dig into the lettuce to get the tortilla chips and Wham!, there is half of a spork and you are all like, "Shit, I need to go get a fork out of the break room because these douche bags at Ready Pac only put half of a spork in my container and now I have no handle to scoop salad. But, no, Ready Pac fires back, "Hey douche. Open up that spork and unfold it into a full size spork. Now who's the douche, Mayor of Doucheville, Nevada?"

Seriously, if you squint in the picture above you can see it. It's one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. More impressive than babies. More impressive than anything that your kid paints, draws or does in a recreational sports league. More impressive than a tiger meat burrito...Wait. A tiger meat burrito would be pretty impressive and maybe illegal. Jesus is anything impressive legal nowadays?

Anyway, finished spork is in the photo below, jammed into the delicious salad. My scissors and my favorite brand of highlighter are in there, too. Only because it's near Christmas and if you are buying me highlighters, that's my brand. While we're on that subject, I also use Number 3 pencils exclusively. There is one in the picture if you need a visual reference.


Now, something completely unrelated. Did you know that Burbank is fully awesome? Here's proof.
More proof. The place was lousy with Fully Awesome signage.

I like to think that if Axl Rose remade the Welcome to the Jungle video that he would not be getting off a bus in downtown LA, but rather landing at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. It's only like the best airport ever. Best soundtrack. Best twelve dollars for two pounds of pasta. Best looking people when compared to the ugliness and obesity that is the San Jose International airport. Amidst the current financial meltdown, I'd say that Burbank is one of the last banks that you can believe in. Dad Joke. Zang.

Hugh B. Forty

Jesus. I suppose I owe an apology to the Interwebs for my lack of buy-in over the last few weeks (month). The God honest(awful) answer is that I've been busy in these subjects:

Work: Who cares about work

Weddings: Attended and participated in a beautiful wedding between two of the most beautiful people I know in lovely Portland. There was a little bit of everything in a break neck weekend in Portland, OR. Got to dress up like 007 and have a prom style hookup. Basically, two kids groping in the dark in a hotel room. Just like prom. I also managed to find a first printing of The Shining in the hotel's main lobby bookcase. If it wasn't missing the dust jacket and such a rad Easter egg, I would've put that shit on eBay in a second. Had a wonderful time and managed to not ruin the wedding, go to the most surreal strip club (the strippers put their own music in the jukebox while they are completely naked and there is a full bar), and even get a couple of Voodoo Doughnuts and a gnarly ass-kicking cold from the weekend. Oh, and some kick ass Arsenal cuff links (Thanks, JD and B!). Really the wedding was an awesome time and you could actually feel the Jungian libido of my brain moving to the "everything is fine" side. When it was all said and done I felt more emotionally sound and actual happiness than I have felt since 1998.

Acting: Let me preface this by saying that I am no actor, but have now acted in something. In life's constant pursuit of a presence on IMDB, I've finally done it with a credit as Chris Isaak. A friend sent me an e-mail asking me to play Chris Isaak in a project that he was writing and I thought it was a jab at me. The script showed up shortly thereafter and I started learning some CI tunes on guitar, still half assedly. I received the shooting schedule and booked a flight and it was fucking on.

It was one of the most intriguing experiences I've been in to date. Let me say right here that acting is really fucking hard. There is so much more than memorizing shit. There is interaction with others and yourself while spitting memorized strings of text while you move around. There is emoting. There is guitar playing and massacration of Chris Isaak hits.

The anxiety when compared to playing guitar in front of a bunch of people pales in comparison when there is a camera a foot from your face and you are talking to someone and can't look at it. The whole thing was a real fuckin' trip and actually really awesome. The after effects have been seeing behind the curtain when you watch TV.

For instance, there was a dude from Mad Men in the shoot and when I got home, I caught up on my Mad Men and there's the dude I was watching football with and hanging out with, but it wasn't really him on the screen. He was really some dude in the 60s.

I was humbled and inspired by the whole experience and really enjoyed it. Plus, all the free Emergen-C you could drink and all of the snacks in the world. They also called me "Talent" which I found a bit presumptous, but they were all very gentle. The director and the other actors were so incredibly nice and supportive that the whole thing felt like an Alcoholic Anonymous session without the Jesus element.

By the end of it, it started to feel a little more natural and I think if I do it again, it'll be really awesome.

Legal Issues: I got officially convicted of Driving Under the Influence. In fact REALLY under the influence enough to get an enhancement on the charge. So, I had to go get enrolled in a 9 month DUI class and pay a gang of fines and go get my "Restricted" license from the DMV. An exercise in waiting and flaming hoops to jump through. On the path to resolution, though, and come July, god willing, this will all be behind me. I've learned my lesson and not going to jump over this candlestick ever again. Hugh be nimble (like a ninja). Hugh be quick (like a ninja shark). Getting a DUI kinda sucks dick.

So, that's it. Sorry I've been neglectful.

& The News

So, what's the bad news? The bad news is that my BAC was .22 a couple months back when they pulled me over and arrested me. Because of such a high (or impressive) BAC, I got an extra three months of cocktail college. My sister said she liked it and that you just end up watching a bunch of Intervention and hanging out with partiers.

In addition, I will be required to perform nine days of community service with criminals. I do, however, look pretty decent in orange. Vests, not so much. I wonder if they would let me just wear an orange cummerbund. I'm also trying to figure out which gang I should join. The white power dudes scare me and the Latinos are a little intense. I need to find the Canadian gang and then I think I would be able to get by by just being real nice to people and being funny.

Let me see. Other bad news is the fines, the restricted license for to and fro only to work, cocktail college and weekend freeway trash pick-up. This could totally work if I met someone at trash pick up or the cocktail college. It would be like a weekly date.

Now. The good news? I just saved three hundred dollars on car insurance. Seriously. I've never changed my insurance since I bought my car and was referred to a DUI car insurance guy who was kinda funny as hell and awesome. He called me back today and it will be switched over tonight. The car's a piece of shit and I never drive it, so it'll work out fine. Plus, I got a free t-shirt and bottle opener. Pure Awesomenacity.

Throughout the whole ordeal, I will admit one thing and that is that I really kind of needed it to happen so that I would stop arrogantly driving around like I was untouchable. I was given a lot of chances and someone had to finally come up and bitch slap me and cuff me to a bench so that I would stop acting like a fucktard. I still get fucktarded now and then, but I don't drive anymore when I'm all fucktarded. I think it's going to end up working out. Plus, I now have that social club that I've needed for the next nine months. DUI class has got to fall somewhere between AA and a book club, right?

Trail Of Beers

Well, it's on. Fresh off a beautiful trip to Hood River, OR, I booked the flight to LA to be in a TV project, which absolutely cracks me up. I'd give away the premise, but it's not really mine to give away. So, put that on the list with all the other shit that makes no sense that I do. The only acting that I've ever done in my life is that musical when I was like 8 and various instances of creative lying. Oh, I've also acted like I had Down's syndrome when my sister and I were shopping for pants once. She got superpissed about it.

So, the recent Hood River trip. It was for a friend's wedding and I was staying with two of the dopest people I know in a really nice place that would cost way too much if it were located in the Bay Area. We even got a special guest visitor on the couch that I took to Shari's at three in the morning for some fine barefoot dining while wrapped in a TrailOfTears blanket that was worth $500 in this particular circumstance.

The condo was within walking distance of a severely confused British pub that became post-festivity headquarters. I call it confused because there was a fucking Frommer's guide to Ireland on the bar and not one TV for showing soccer. Plus, they weren't even open for the first EPL game of the day on Saturday. I guess if you fly the Union Jack and serve Bass, you are British enough.

The condo also had a view of Washington conducting commerce and for $1.50 American, you could cross a bridge and pay sales tax and pump your own gas. It was brilliant and the weather was a borderline sign of the apocalypse. It was just perfect.

The pub, however, had one thing going in their favor in the form of a bartender that I was lightly smitten with on the first night that we got there. The last night I was there, I ended up with her at another bar with her bartender friend that she had to have been sharing a bed with, but stranger things have happend. It was the Pacific Northwest, though, so I may have been reading her wrong.

The next day, I woke up and had a slip of paper with a penis drawn on it and her girlfriend's name written above it. That makes us BFFs. I don't remember a tremendous amount of the latter part of the night, but my left nipple was in severe pain the next morning when we disembarked on the scenic route to the airport. There are a lot of waterfalls in Oregon. Pro Tip.

Now, for notes from the wedding, I'll just bulletpoint some quotes/conversations:

Conversation 1
Her: "I was told that you are my best chance for getting laid at this wedding and I've already thought of some disgusting things to do to you."

Me: "And your name is?"

Conversation 2
Other Her: "Has anyone told you that you look like Dane Cook?"

Me: "No. And I don't enjoy his humor. Have you ever heard of Bill Hicks?"

Conversation 3
Other Her: "I heard you call some girl a moose at the bar. Is that what you call me?"

Me: "Uhhh. No. Of course not. Swear."

Conversation 4
Dude: "Robert Palmer is dead?"

Me: "Yeah, he died like five years ago."

Dude: "What did he die of?"

Me: "I don't know. Maybe a love addiction?"

Might As Well Face It

I just ordered a new iTouch as I need an iPod upgrade. Coincidentally due to a friends re-enamoration with the brilliance of Robert Palmer (1949 - 2003), I had it engraved with "Might As Well Face It You're Addicted To Love." My iTouch will serve as a memorial to the man that didn't mean to turn you on. The runner-up engraving was "Mr. Gorbachev. Tear down that WALL!"

Bears

This is one of the funnier stories I've seen all month. You may not even need to read it, but a dude was riding his bike down the road and crashed into a bear. Fuckin' rad.

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle - Yahoo! News

47 Dicks

Ummmmm. On a whim or because my house had been taken over by ten year old guitar heros, I went for a drink last night. Probably too late for a Sunday night, but I'm not as fragile as I used to be. So, I had a few and talked to some girl for a while...woke up with a swastika drawn on the right side of my chest and a giant dick on the left. There was also something drawn on the back of my neck that I'm kinda hoping that no one else can see. Also, there is ink all over my sheets.

There is a ton of irony in a dick being drawn on me. For some reason, it feels like a symbol's revenge somehow. The picture above is from the Imperial Palace last week when I decided to draw dicks with a keno crayon until I got my food. This is not some weird Superbad thing either. Been drawing dicks for a while. I think it started with golf balls. I would just draw a dick on them instead of my initials.

So, I was at dinner last Friday with my sister and her boyfriend and her old roommate and their friend. A lot of wine was harmed in the formation of the fuzzy memory that is Friday, but I was talking to her friend who is retardedly smart, charming and has an advanced degree in Psychology. I asked her if a grown man drawing 47 dicks on a placemat would concern her and she just told me that it definitely raises a red flag. I'm not even sure she was kidding.

So, regardless. I got chiefed by a girl last night. Grown man chiefed. That's just sad. It will get better. This I know.

FTATM

This is my Favorite Thing At The Moment while I worry about The Breeder.

Get Your War On: The Animated Series

This is just beyond the definition of superbadazzzzzzzzz.



Just absofuckinlutely brilliant. The other episodes are on 236.com. Also, check out My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable.