The UnMighty

If you happen to be in the area...

2009-02-27T12:57:00.002-07:00

Come one, come all, and see The Quinn Brothers, LIVE!!! There has never been a show like it! They will wrestle bears, spin plates, juggle knives, jump through hoops, deliver babies, transplant hearts, eat fire, crap lava, exercise demons, milk cats, jump buses, comb hair, brush teeth, and much much more! Oh yes, much more!

WHERE: Wiseguys Comedy Club - 1270 West 1130 South, Orem
WHEN: This Friday and Saturday (Feb. 27th & 28th), 8 pm
COST: Not Much (But who cares? It's the freaking Quinn Brothers, man!)

I'm Baaaaaack

2008-10-30T00:35:00.003-06:00

Please enjoy you HORRORSCOPE.

Aquarius
Your love knows no bounds. Till tomorrow, when she bounds, and gags, and tortures you.

Pisces
Get ready to play host this weekend... to a flesh-eating alien that will chew his way out when he’s good and ready.

Aries
Your true love is waiting to meet you later this week. And by "true love" we mean "Gary", the giant you made fun of, while standing in line for movie tickets.

Taurus
You knew head wounds bled a lot, but you're going to want to hold onto your socks, because tomorrow’s is going to be a gusher.

Gemini
Your astrological sign will seen ironic for the first time later this week when the doctor gets those tests back for the lump on your neck and identifies it as your twin that never developed but has been capable of thoughts and emotions your whole life.

Cancer
At first, the dog you hit with your car won't seem significant. That is, until the dog's ghost shows up to haunt you. And urinate on your pillow. Ghost-dog urine… the worst.

Leo
Luckily you're ambidextrous. But your chainsaw-juggling career is over. (Also, you won't be having any kids.)

Virgo
Before you sign that deal with the Devil, see if you can negotiate for more that just "mad banjo skillz." Your soul is worth it.

Libra
Just before you pass out, you'll wish you had paid better attention at the first aid class you took, as the neck tourniquet was not a good idea.

Scorpio
The heart-to-heart you have with your mother later this week is going to be really emotional. But it's not till you have to smash in her zombie brain with a Louisville Slugger, that the real tears start to flow.

Sagittarius
They say that when a person is attacked and eaten by a wild animal, that person feels very little pain due to the amount of adrenaline in their bloodstream. Too bad you won’t get a chance to tell all those stupid doctors how wrong they were. Oh, how very, very wrong they were.

Capricorn
You knew Montezuma's Revenge was bad, but it's not until you pass your own stomach that you learn that Montezuma really has it in for you.

(If you enjoyed these, you'll be able to find more on your iphone by downloading the application titled "Horrorscopes". My good friend, Randy Tayler, who is a much better writer than myself, asked me if I would be willing to update the content on said application on a regular basis. This week they were intended to be especially Halloween-ish, but later they'll be a little more general. Check it out.)

Hiatus

2008-10-06T21:53:00.002-06:00

It is my regret to inform both my readers that The UnMighty is tired. I'm just so damn tired. My lack of... of... goodish word making in my recent posts should be a sign of the writing funk I have fallen into. I'm not sure how long this hiatus will last, but please be patient with me as I take a little time to recharge my batteries and replenish my creative juices and other important bodily juices. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Top 10 Congressional Suggestions For The $700 Billion

2008-09-29T20:59:00.005-06:00

10) Face lift for Ted Kennedy

9) Purchase Mexico and make it the 51st state. (Then spend the other $699.9 Billion on the after party)

8) Time machine research so someone can go back in time and smack Barbara Bush for smoking crack while pregnant.

7) Moon Colonization

6) $700 Billion Dollar record deal for the next winner of American Idol

5) Invest in the next stage of the Patriot Act where the government inserts tracking devices into everyone's brain

4) Pay it to England as a back tax for everything we owe them since 1776 and beg their forgiveness.

3) Lend it to white trash America so they can all move into bigger houses (and then hope they pay it back this time)

2) Research and development into sustainable energy. (no, that’s stupid. sorry.)

1) Each congressman gets 2, really classy, hookers

Question 3

2008-09-20T02:27:00.003-06:00

Assume you are going out to lunch with some close friends. This group of friends meet every Friday at the same time as part of a weekly tradition. There are four people in the group and each week a different person gets to choose where you go. For the most part the variety and quality of the chosen eating establishments keeps things fresh and enjoyable. However, every fourth week one member of the group, Steve, insists on going to Subway. Unwilling to try anything new, Subway Steve is completely unbending on this issue. His love for the long sandwich is only matched by your hatred of it. And as much as you’d like to miss Steve’s Friday you can’t because the group is governed by a few strict and unbending rules. If you don’t join them on Subway day AND eat a sub you will be permanently excluded from the group and you will lose these friends forever. There is no explanation for the rigidity of the rules. That’s just the way it is.

On Steve’s next Friday, with dread in your heart, you meet your friends at the local Subway. But this day is different. As the Subway sandwich artist completes your order and hands you your twelve inch meal you turn around and see a lone women enter the establishment and at that moment you are endowed, from some unknown source, with the certain knowledge that if you will but unwrap your sandwich, approach the woman, and then deliver the most vicious sandwich beating that your muscles can muster, you will magically develop a sincere and lasting affinity for sandwiches. You will no longer dread, but rather, look forward with fondness to Subway day. She will collapse and shriek with terror as you deliver blow after fresh baked blow. In the end the physical damage done to the victim will be minimal as the weapon was only a sandwich. However, the emotional damage will be significant and acute as this woman has never been beaten with a foot long sub in her life and will never receive any explanation as to why she received one that day. And that is the catch. You can never tell a soul why you attacked that poor woman that day. If you attempt to explain yourself to anyone, especially the victim, your new found love for the sandwich will be replaced by a bitter hatred even more powerful than before. Your friends who were shocked by your behavior will have to settle for the explanation, “I just felt like beating someone with a sandwich.”

Question: Do you continue to suffer every fourth Friday, or do you beat an innocent stranger with a sandwich?

My Letter From Prison

2008-09-13T23:29:00.002-06:00

Dear Sweetie,

How are things on the outside? Things are good here. I got the cookies you sent for my one-year anniversary in the clink. They were excellent. I shared them with my cellmate, and he wouldn’t stop going on about how you made Martha Stewart look like a two-bit crack whore. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I finally got another cellmate. His name is Adolf Ramirez. He’s a bi-racially confused white supremacist. We get along great, mostly because of the color of my skin. But he’s also an avid Connect Four player and has helped me improve my game immensely. He said if we were going to be bunky’s I had to get a White Knights tattoo. And since he was cutting me at the time, I said okay. But don’t worry. It’s not for realsies in my eyes, but just for laughs. I just wish the Black Dragons had believed me when I told them that in the shower. They beat my face till my eyes and airways closed from swelling. When I could finally open my eyes and see how black my face was, I had to laugh a little. Anyway, I’m really looking forward to next week, mostly because you’re bringing Maggie for the Daddy Daughter Day, but also because I’m getting a promotion in the laundry. I’m being moved from dryers to folding. The position opened up when The Preacher, (so named for his position as a Baptist preacher on the outside), woke up with a shank four inches deep in his ear. As happy as I am to take The Preachers spot, I am sorry he’s gone. We loved to ask him what he was in for, because he insisted it was for sending three fornicating teenagers to Hell, and that sending people to Hell was illegal in Louisiana. But everybody knows he was in for running into a kennel while driving drunk and killing a bunch of show dogs. But who am I to judge, maybe he did send some teens to Hell.
Hey, did you see in the news the little riot we had here. I lost a thumb. I keep bumping the stump on things and it really hurts. But some of my friends weren’t as lucky. Two guys got melted by lava while trying to climb the walls in the yard. Did you know that prisons still use lava to protect the guard towers? Can you believe that? I thought the rubber bullets were bad. But Lava?! Anyway, all the corpses have been burned, all the repairs made, and after a few weeks in the hole, everything’s back to normal.
Well, I better go because I don’t want to be late for chow. It’s macaroni n’ cheese day today and they cut up hot dogs and put them in the macaroni like mom used to do.

See you next week. Love,
The UnMighty

I Got Fired

2008-09-09T23:07:00.000-06:00

"I Got Fired." Possibly the most pride swallowing three-word combination in the English language. It ranks right up there with "she dumped me," and "I've got herpes." It must be one of the worst phrases to have to utter to friends, family, and acquaintances. But invariably, we, or someone we know, will have to say it sometime in our lives.

I've had to say it to friends and acquaintances since July and each time I do it feels as if a little bit of the light, that was my dignity, is snuffed out. Now, the circumstances are such that I am not really ashamed of my recent dismissal, but I know that even when I try to explain the circumstances to people, they are still judging me on some level. "Sure, your boss was wacko," they say out loud, without sarcasm. But in their minds they are saying, sure your boss was wacko... with sarcasm.

Now, most people would think that a sense of humor would be an asset to a high school teacher. At least, that's what my students and many of their parents told me. In fact, the only person who told me otherwise just happened to be the person who held my tenuous position at that school in her dry, bony hands. Let's call her Skeletor. Skeletor was the school director and ran the show with carte blanche authority. She was one of those people who compartmentalized human emotions into different sections of life. Sure, humor had its place. But a school full of teenagers certainly wasn't it. I mean, c’mon.

Skeletor was supposed to be my mentor. She told me, in not so many words, that under her guiding wing and strict tutelage I would someday make a fine teacher of youth. Ironically, she was the most uneducated person I'd ever met. (That's not true. I once knew a homeless guy named Polaris that used to bathe himself in the sink and eat his lunch on the toilet of a public restroom. What I meant was, she was the most uneducated person in the field of education.) It wasn't unusual for her to be confused by words used in everyday conversation, like "ironically".
Skeletor actually only came to my class and observed three times the whole year. (Where was the guiding wing of knowledge and power, I cried from within as I struggled through each class alone.) After the class ended and the students walked out she pulled a seat to my desk so we could go over her meticulous notes and the real training could begin. The only thing I remember from those enlightening conversations was that my humor made me both unapproachable, and un-relatable to the students. I think you've let your life as a stand-up comedian cross over too much in to your teaching career, she would say. I never was a stand-up comedian, I explained. Well, I understand you did comedy, she persisted. I didn't understand what she meant, but the idea conjured images of a man who had a physically intimate relationship with comedy. I laughed to myself and when I did, I realized she was right. My two lives had crossed over. I was laughing at school.

In one breath she would say, I know the kids are having fun in your class, but are they learning anything? And in the next breath she would tell me I'm requiring too much. I was stuck between a rock and a dumb place and wasn't sure how to proceed. In the end she decided that a personality like mine wasn't fit in the world of education. And maybe she was right. If anything can be said of the youth these days, it's that they're studying too hard and laughing too damn much.

Come One, Come All!

2008-08-29T12:55:00.005-06:00

Hey all you local bloggers. Come show your love and support for a local act that is about to EXPLODE onto the world stage! ("explode" might be a bit strong)
My small band, The Quinn Brothers, are putting on their show at,
The Ragan Theater, located in the Student Center of UVU (formally UVSC)
The show starts at 8 pm on Wednesday, Sept. 3rd.

Since the show is being fimed for a larger movie project we need to fill the theater so admission is only $1 AND we are giving away a 150cc scooter to one lucky audience member.

So, get a baby sitter (only if you have babies), put on your goin' out clothes, and come check it out.
You won't be sorry.

Question 2

2008-08-23T01:29:00.004-06:00

Assume you've just met the perfect mate. You and this new person are compatible in every way and your personalities compliment each other better than any person you've ever been with. You find this person intellectually stimulating while maintaining a high level of physical attraction for them. This person is successful, happy, and generally well rounded. They also get along surprisingly well with all of your friends who have congratulated you on finally finding your other half. Best of all, this person brings out the best in you. Since meeting them you feel like you are actually a better person.

After a month of dating, this person invites you to meet their family at the monthly Sunday family dinner, which they rarely miss. You accept, and attend the dinner with high expectations. Once there you realize that their family has an interesting quirk. They are obsessed with slapstick comedy, particularly that of The Three Stooges. The obsession has elevated itself to the point that it has almost overtaken their lives. This person’s dad has even made himself to look like Curly, while their mom has taken on the persona of Larry. After the first hour of the first visit you have already been slapped, whacked, nose smacked, yoinked, and bonked on the head more times than you can count. None of it is malicious, but all in good fun, and while you try to be polite, you are blown away by the family’s level of dedication to the show, which seems to be never ending. Even your significant other becomes part of the show as they take on a persona that is nothing like the person that you have already fallen in love with. However, as soon as you leave the home, this person immediately stops with the slapstick routine and becomes their old self. Not only that, but they also never speak of or reference the unusual Sunday dinners. This part of their lives is reserved strictly for the once-a-month dinners.

Knowing that these Sunday dinners will be a regular occurrence, could you be with this person?

Question 1

2008-08-19T10:10:00.001-06:00

SCENERIO: You’ve just been in a major accident and are mortally wounded. In exactly 5 minutes you will be dead. The paramedics have already informed you of your certain demise and you have already gone through the Five Stages of Death; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and have just arrived at acceptance. Your family will be well taken care of as you have recently taken out a large life insurance policy on yourself. 4 minutes before you pass a Chinese angel appears above you and informs you that you are not going to Heaven. To your relief, you are also not going to Hell. Rather, you will be reincarnated, born again, into one of two possible lives.

Possibility 1: You can be born into your run of the mill, middle income, American family. There is nothing extraordinary about this family. They are normal in every way. You will have a good relationship with your parents and all of your siblings. You will be, for the most part, happy. But you will remember absolutely nothing from your previous life. You will start life from square one as a newborn infant.

Possibility 2: You are born with every one of your memories intact. Even as a newborn infant, while breastfeeding, you will know who you are, where you came from, what your real age is, and you will be able to think and reason with the same depth you now enjoy. But, you will be born into the most backward, redneck, hillbilly family in the deep Appalachian Mountains. Everything about your family is dirty, weird, gross, and offensive, and there is a good chance your mother and father are blood relatives. Though your diet consists mostly of possum, raccoon, and corn, you are generally well fed and pretty well taken care of. However, you have nothing in common with your family and you will have little to no contact with mainstream civilization and will be completely unable to leave your parents until you are a legal adult.

QUESTION: Which possibility do you choose and why?

Top 10 Suggestions For New Olympic Events

2008-08-13T10:41:00.001-06:00

10) Indian Leg Wrestling

9) One Handed Knife Fighting (like in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video)

8) Baby Seal Clubbing

7) Poetry Recitation (no original poems allowed)

6) Star Gazing

5) Heckling (this could be done in conjunction with any of the real events)

4) Whistling Dixie

3) Pistol Whipping (to make it more objective, it would have to be to the death of course)

2) The Border Cross (contestants run and swim through an obstacle course whilst being shot at by armed guards)

1) Lactating

Gay Tweakers

2008-07-30T09:32:00.003-06:00

[The following post was written over a year ago while I was still living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. For some reason I never posted it. I think I refrained from doing so because I didn’t think the humor translated well when I wrote the experience down. (That’s also my disclaimer if you don’t find it the least bit amusing.) Anyway, I never bothered erasing it because my dad passed away soon after, and this short post illustrated two of his strongest characteristics – his humor and his inability to pass someone in need without helping.]

The other night my dad, brother Patrick, and I were driving to my parent’s house in Kelly Wyoming, which is just outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Before we got to the Kelly turn-off we noticed a hitchhiker with a cold thumb exposed, and decided to give him a ride. As soon as he was in the car we realized he was a little off. Having no experience in the field of psychology I was unable to diagnose his particular type or severity of “off-ness” but sufficed to say it was evident to anyone who may have encountered him. The following dialogue is as close as I can remember it.

Hitch: Thanks for stopping.

Dad: No problem. Where are you going?

Hitch: Dornans. (Dornans is one of those Dutch-oven-dinner/restaurant/gas station/fish-and-tackle sort of places. I’m somewhat blown away it’s not a nation wide chain.)

Pat: What do you do out there?

Hitch: I wait tables.

Dad/Pat/Me: Hmmm. Nice. Harrumph, harrumph.

Hitch: Where are you guys going?

Dad: I live in Kelly.

Hitch: Oh, okay. (pause) I sure am glad you guys are normal.

Me: What do you mean?

Hitch: Every time I hitch, I get picked up by the weirdest people. Just a few days ago I got picked up by these Indians that were totally wasted. I was sure that if we didn’t all die in a wreck, they were going to take me into the woods and beat me to death. And a few weeks before that I got picked up by two gay tweakers.

Me: What’s a gay tweaker?

Hitch: (looking at me with mild surprise due to my ignorance and then saying with a frank matter-of-factness) A gay tweaker. You know, a queer tweaker.

Dad/Pat/Me: (laughing at the misunderstanding)

Me: I figured out the “gay” part. What’s a “tweaker”?

Hitch: (again, with the same look of surprise) Someone who tweaks.

Dad/Pat/Me: (laughing)

Me: What does someone who “tweaks” do?

Hitch: They tweak; get high; take drugs.

Dad/Pat/Me: Oh, well. Of coarse. So simple. Should have known.

Dad: Well you lucked out because none of us are “gay-tweakers”. Although, (pointing to Me, then Pat) he’s gay and he’s a tweaker.

Hitch: (with look of concern) Really?

Needless to say, “Gay Tweaker” is now one of our favorite insults, and is used liberally on each other at any and all opportunities.

Independence!!!

2008-07-22T12:21:00.004-06:00

I is for - I love independence. Don’t you?
N is for - Nobody can take away my independence
D is for - Damn, I love America.
E is for - Eagles. (bald ones. not those gay golden eagles.)
P is for - Pardon me Cubans. Betcha wished you were here.
E is for - Easter; A reminder that I can worship how I please.
N is for - Nigeria. Nope, not independent. (sorry Nigerians)
D is for - Donuts. Because I eat what I want.
E is for – Eggs Benedict. (named after an independence hater)
N is for - Nice to meet you foreigner. Now get out!
C is for – Cancer which is scary but not as scary as Navy Seals.
E is for – Everybody please tell me what Independence means to you. I’m looking for inspiration because I need to write an essay for a contest and I am experiencing some serious writers block. I just don’t think the acronym is going to cut it. If I use your idea and win, you will get $100. And that is no lie. I’ll post the results in 1 month.

And The Winner Is...

2008-07-14T23:48:00.002-06:00

The UnMighty with, “The Orphans”

Now, you’re probably thinking that it doesn’t seem fair that I won my own competition And you’re right, it’s not fair, but that’s life – an ongoing barrage of crappy unfairness – one bitter smack in the face after another – a big stinking, heaping turd on your dinner plate and nothing to wash it down with – failure, rejection, disappointment, frustration, infection, disease, pimples on your back, and then… you die. So stop whining. I’m not your mamma, and I’m not going to make it all better. I’m not going to comfort you in my bosom and stuff your whining, contorted face with milk and cookies to make you feel okay about sucking. If you wanted to win so badly then maybe you should have brought your “A” game, made an effort, and delivered the goods. Sorry… loser.

Hmmph.

Geez.

Hey.

Hey, c’mon back.

You know what, maybe I got a little carried away. Yeah, I shouldn’t have said all those things. Even if some of them are true, it’s not my place. I guess I just have a pessimistic outlook on life because, well, because I’m an Orphan. You know what, come to think of it, you did a really good job. You all did. So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to give out just one pair of free tickets. I’m going to give a pair of free tickets to all the runners up that made our “possibilities” list. Would that make you feel a little better? Yeah, thought so.

And the runners up are…

Randy with, “Sideshow”
Jake Titus with, “Tom & I”
Jewels with, “Band O’ Brothers”
Steff with, “Drum Roll Please”
Salt H2O with, “Stale Twinkies”

An honorable mention goes to…
Rebecca with “Reatards” (Your reference to our good friend Kara was not missed. Thank you for that.)

A dishonorable mention goes to…
Bringhursts with “The Quinn Brothers”

Congratulations to you all (except the Bringhursts). You’ve all just won 2 tickets to The Orphans show happening Wednesday, Sept. 3rd, 8 pm in the Ragan Theater at UVU. You will find your tickets at Will Call under the names you used above. See you there.

If you were one of the winners, stop reading now.
(hey everyone else. the show is free for everybody. it’s going to be filmed and it’s imperative that the theater is full. please come, bring some palsy’s, and act like it’s good. thanks.)

(I need to turn The Quinn Bros My Space page to The Orphans My Space page without losing content, or friends, etc. I'll give 2 backstage passes to anyone who can tell me how to move all the content of a My Space page to a new My Space account. If you know how to do this, Email me at the email provided in my profile and we'll be best friends forever.)

What's in a Name?

2008-07-10T11:02:00.004-06:00

My brother Tom and I have been rocking under the name The Quinn Brothers for some time now. Unfortunately that name hasn't taken us anywhere. I blame the name because I refuse to believe there could be another explanation for our lack of success, like, we just suck. No, I won't admit that. It can't be true. My mom says we're good and mommies never lie to their children, so we're good. That said, rockin' tunes, dreamy melodies, thought provoking lyrics, and ridiculous good looks just aren't enough. We need a new name.

Below, I listed some ideas off the top of my head. Obviously some aren't as serious as others. But I'm just brain storming here.

Bucket-O-Puke
The Poor Snobs
American Ideal
The Racists
ToadStool Sample
Tender Moments
Tender Loins
The Pulled Hammies
Rubber Souls
Fire Retards
Hop Scotch
Crime Scene Investigators
The Artists Formally Known as The Quinn Brothers
Agent Yellow
Plastic Soldiers
Tar Stain
American Sons
Yankee Doodles
Fenetics
The Windbags
Grand Theft Autocrats
The Special Guys
Small Band
The Orphans
Unholy Cow

That's all I've got for now. But here's the deal, we're hoping everyone who reads this will also leave a suggestion of their own. Whether it's a vote for one already listed, a variation of one or more of the above, or something totally original, please tell us who The Quinn Brothers should be. (If it's important that you know what we sound like before you make your suggestion, go here.) If we choose your suggestion as our new band name you will win two free tickets (valued at $175 each) to a concert put on by a band that has not been named yet. Good luck.

My Life... As A Biker

2008-06-30T23:44:00.005-06:00

I’ve heard it said, that a woman becomes a mother the moment she feels the baby move inside her, and a man becomes a father the moment he sees his child. I think it goes something like that. Anyway, now that I have been through the experience twice I can testify of its truthfulness. Long before I felt any connection to the little bag-o-guts, my wife was already loving, thinking, and planning; forming a bond that was months ahead of the one I would one day begin.

There is a little less known saying that goes, a man becomes a biker the first time he hears the roar of a hog motoring down the street, but a woman becomes a biker's wife only after her husband secretly withdraws money out of their joint account, sneaks out, and buys a motorbike. I think it goes like that. I am happy to say that that day has finally arrived, and we are now the proud new parents of a Shadow Aero 750.

My life as a biker is everything I dreamed it would be; freedom, adventure, power, women, bar fights, hell raising, rock ‘n’ roll, wheelies, rumbles, petty crime, superior gas mileage, and the amazing feeling of wind in my short hair. Well, the gas mileage and the part about the wind are true. Everything else is stifled by my strong sense of civic and family responsibility. But for the most part, it’s everything I dreamed it would be.

To those who know me, it may seem that I remain mostly unchanged. They’re probably saying, “Sure he rides a kick-A hog, but it’s still the same old Ben. He still baths and everything.” But I have changed. For those who don’t own a motorbike this may be hard to understand, but I am a brother who comes from a vast fraternity of brothers. No, I’m not black. (Not 100% anyway.) I am the newest member of the family of bikers. To the layperson it may be hard to see the bond of friendship and love we share. (This bond doesn’t include bullet bikers. Nobody likes bullet bikers. Not even themselves.) The idea of such a bond is completely foreign to car drivers, but that is because car drivers hate each other. When you are in a car, the only thing that can make you angrier than social injustice and child abuse is a stupid driver. And when you’re in a hurry, everybody is stupid, except you. But such is not the case among bikers. We live by a higher law. And although you may not see the bond and higher law, it’s there. Don’t believe me? Next time you're driving behind a biker on the highway, watch what he does when he passes another biker. If he thinks you’re not looking he’ll take his left hand and point at the ground at a 45 degree angle.

I quickly learned that this was called the “Signal of Brotherhood” (S.O.B.). At first, I was certain everybody was pulling the “made you look” joke on me. But I figured this wasn’t the case when they never came back to punch me in the arm. Later, I determined they were pointing at Hell, as in, “See you in Hell, bro.” Again, I was mistaken. Finally, I learned that it was a signal of recognition and acceptance, as in, “Hello there brother. I see you, and you see me. We see each other and therefore we are not alone. I do not know you personally, but I love you and am loved of you. If you are ever in trouble, just perform the scream of the Norse god, Kerfluggon, and your brothers will be there, in all their raging furry, to fight on your behalf.”

Upon further research I learned that the S.O.B. was not always performed the way we see it now. Up until 1973 the S.O.B. was a low five. You actually slapped hands with oncoming bikers. You’re probably thinking an actual five is way awesomer than a non-five, and you’d be right. It was way awesomer. But the original S.O.B. was wrought with peril. S.O.B. deaths were not uncommon. But it wasn’t until Sonny “Bones” Wilcox, leader of the Southeast chapter of Hells Angels, S.O.B.’d a passing biker, swerved into an oncoming semi, folded like an accordian on impact sending his butt through the back of his face, and killing him instantly, that the biker community decided to change the way the S.O.B. was performed. Needless to say, the language is changing but the feeling and intent remain the same.

Despite my new adoption into the larger family of bikers, I am convinced that true arrival as a biker does not occur until one is part of a "gang." But rather and join and conform to the rigid traditions of an existing gang, I’ve decided to form my own. That way, I make the rules by which I live. Since the names, “Hells Angels” and “BACA” ,(which turned out to be an acronym about some sissy child advocates group), were already taken I decided to name my gang “The Pillow Fighters.” Right now I am the sole member of the Pillow Fighters, but we’ve got a lot of spirit and I see us doing great things. That said, we are now taking applications for membership and would be happy to consider anyone. So, if you own a hog and would enjoy the association, camaraderie, and fun-loving good times of the Pillow Fighters, then please leave your info and I’ll be in contact.

(All applicants should leave their age, sex, bike type, and a short explanation of why they think they would be a good addition to The Pillow Fighters. Please allow 3 to 5 working days to get back to you.)

BORN TO RIDE! RIDE TO BORN!

Deep Dialogue

2008-06-20T22:33:00.005-06:00

SCHOOL
UnMighty: If you had to pick a leader based on one quality, what would it be?
Student: Someone with a state of mind.
UnMighty: Which state of mind?
Student: What do you mean?
...
UnMighty: Tell us about your book.
Student 1: The book I read was called “Code Talkers” and it was about an Indian guy who served in World War 2 because America wanted him to use his language like a code that the Japanese couldn’t understand.
Student 2: What tribe were they from?
Student 1: I don’t know. Native American?
...
UnMighty: If you could do anything without failing, what would you do?
Student: Rid my rats of mites.

HOME
Wife: What are you writing about?
UnMighty: Twinkies.
Wife: (gasp) Are you writing about me?
UnMighty: Yes. It’s about how your body is starting to take on the shape of your favorite foods.
Wife: You are such an #*@#%&@.
(She sees that I’ve just typed this conversation.)
Wife: (gasp) Don’t you dare write that I just said that!
...
(Just left the grocery store with 3-year-old daughter)
Maggie: Gimme my donut. I want to eat my donut right now.
UnMighty: I'll give you your donut if you get in your car seat and act like a sweet girl. Can you be a sweet girl?
Maggie: That's me. Bing!

HOLY CRAP!

2008-06-15T14:11:00.005-06:00

Cash's father's day gift to me.

I discovered the surprise when I stuck my left hand in it.
Nice.

Food For Thought

2008-06-07T16:27:00.005-06:00

“Twinkies.” A simple recipe: angel’s food and cream. I’m not sure what’s in “angels food,” but no one does; no mortal anyway. But if God approved it for his angels, you know it must be good. And I’m sure the cream came straight from the teat of a free-range cow. Twinkies just might be one of the greatest foods ever made by God and nature. At least that’s what I used to think, that is, until I learned any Tom, Dick, or Harry can read the real ingredients ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE! Yeah, I’m serious. See for yourself.

To my dismay, I learned that Hostess has been sticking it to their loyal customers for years. Still don’t believe me? Here are the ingredients as written on the package, word for word:

enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, Beef fat, crack, baby fat, bone fragment, toast, camel toes, silly putty, toadstool, hummus, tooth filling, Spam, pumice stone, paper, rock, scissors, Hepatitis A, B, and C, Sharpie, bike tire, sand, depression, lederhosen, dandruff, HIV, back hair, polio, communism, rubber-bands, scabies, racism, crude oil, turpentine, polite oil, arsenic, incest, full blown AIDS, and hatred.

Although I now have a better explanation for the negative feeling I experience after eating a package of Twinkies, I’m not sure what I set out to do by writing this post. I certainly don’t want to cause harm to the Hostess Corporation, or it’s stockholders. They’re just honest people trying to make a buck, same as anyone else. I do think the inclusion of some of their ingredients could be deemed socially irresponsible, what with the current health crisis and all. But I have to concede that I am not a baker and wouldn’t know the first thing about what it takes to make a world-class pastry.

It may be of comfort to some to learn that the ingredients are listed in order from highest to lowest content amount. This was a relief to me because, despite the fact that sugar and high fructose corn syrup are bad for you, they are significantly less harmful than say, turpentine or full blown AIDS which are present in much smaller quantities. That said, now I think I’m just being a bit of a “Nervous Nelly” and should stop worrying so much about what goes into my body.

After all, I didn’t acquire the body of a Greek god by eating my vegetables. I never acquired the body of a Greek god by eating twinkies, either, but I tried vegetables once and it didn't work, so I gave that crap up long ago. No telling what Mother Nature puts in that stuff.

Top 10 Possible Titles For An Upcoming “Top 10” List

2008-05-31T21:27:00.001-06:00

10) Top 10 most inspiring quotes I’ve read on a throw pillow

9) Top 10 most vicious venereal diseases (complete w/ informative pictures)

8) Top 10 least extreme animals

7) Top 10 funniest learning disabilities

6) Top 10 most innocuous racial slurs

5) Top 10 favorite fonts

4) Top 10 most fun things to do standing up

3) Top 10 itchy places on my body

2) Top 10 worst jokes to crack while your wife is in labor

1) Top 10 numbers between 1 and 10

Please, let me know which of these lists you would like to see most. Also, feel free to leave your own "Top 10" suggestions as well.

"Hooked On Phonics" Didn't Work For Kara

2008-05-24T16:37:00.007-06:00

WARNING: This post contains direct quotes from people who have commented on the previous post titled “She loves to hate me”. Some of those comments contain profanity, hatred, and bad grammar. If you are at all sensitive to profanity, hatred, or bad grammar it may be in your best interest to skip this post and come back in a week when I intend to post a whimsical tale of my latest visit to the pet store, when I was playfully mauled by a litter of adorable cocker-spaniel puppies.

It is amazing the attention a little controversy attracts. Life’s little dramas are like the universal meth of society. No one is immune to it’s addictive properties. In every aspect of our culture, even the most passive observer will witness people regularly indulging, as if by compulsion, in the latest scandal. And the centers of gossip and drama have been well known for ages. Whether you’re at the water cooler, break room, employee lounge, dinner table, or somewhere else, “What’s the latest…?” is a question that is meant to tap the ubiquitous well of gossip which allows us, at least momentarily, to live vicariously through friends and family, and make our own lives feel a little less dull.

There are those, however, who will not be satisfied with the sporadic, vicarious experience, and therefore seek to create drama on a more regular basis in their own lives. I recently “met” one such person online. I stumbled upon her blog, was under the impression that comments were welcome, left one, and then learned from her response I really wasn’t welcome at all. Without retelling the whole story I will use the words of my younger brother Tom who, I think, summed up Kara’s experience and feelings in this short allegory:

A couple of years ago I opened a candy shop on University Ave. It was a pleasant little business where my friends could come and relax in the company of familiar faces and indulge their sweet tooth. I sent around advertisements to let the locals know where I was and what they could expect from my little confection connection. One day, while dipping my apples a stranger walked through my door. A stranger! I didn't know whether to yell "RAPE", or "FIRE", but my initial thought was "Who does this bastard think she is"? I didn't know her from Eve, but there she was, bold as brass, standing in my candy shop. As you can imagine, I threw her out immediately. Of all the nerve!

I thought the encounter and the reaction of my visit to Kara’s blog were so unusual and, to be honest, humorous, I decided to write a post about it. And like all good gossip my post received a lot of undue attention. Most of the comments were from usual readers, some from new readers, and then a few from the "anonymous" demographic. Strangely enough, however, the anonymous comments were surprisingly similar and left in very close chronological succession. Coincidence? I’ll let you be the judge. (The comments have not been altered at all.)

(May 18, 10:56 pm)
your gay dude. get a life!

(May 18, 11:13 pm)
Your a freaking reatard. get a life dumb fag. You think your so funny dumb shit.

(May 18, 11:41 pm)
so your a teacher huh? I bet you wish you had a real job so your wife could stay at home and blog like the others. looks like the blogging is left to you instead because your wife is too busy making money to pay for your cheap ass.

Upon closer inspection any reader, with the literary skills of a 7-year-old or higher, will notice how similar these comments are. I am not proposing that there aren’t three people out there who dislike me as much as the comments would suggest. On the contrary, I’m sure there are thousands who dislike me that much, with the numbers growing with each new post. I just think it’s highly coincidental that there are three people out there who 1) hate me, 2) have such similar taste in insults, and 3) struggle with the same basic rules of grammar.

Now, I have no evidence that it is Kara who left the comments and have no desire to make such accusations. I’d like to think that Kara has moved on, and that she has not given me, or my stupid blog, another thought, and is, as I write, out swimming with her top heavy baby. But I do think the same person left them. So for convenience of writing I’ll call the anonymous commenter, “Cara.”

Despite the criticisms left by Cara, I would like to say that she is always welcome here and I wish to offer the hand of friendship and assist her with some of her writing disabilities so that when she returns her words will carry more weight. Let me preface my critique by saying all my advice should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am not an English teacher, and also struggle with spelling and grammar. But I think together, Cara and I can achieve more. Let’s get started.

In all three comments Cara has trouble with the difference between the possessive pronoun, “your”, and the conjunction of “you are”, “you’re”.

In two of them Cara tells me to “get a life” because she assumes that anyone who may have a differing opinion or different sense of humor must therefore, not have a life and should straightway go out and get one. I just think Cara has used some faulty logic here. Despite my vast differences with Adolf Hitler I would never argue that he didn’t “have a life.” On the contrary he stayed quite busy conquering neighboring countries, killing Jews, and sleeping with his generals. He had a life, despite the fact that he used it poorly.

In two of the comments Cara suggests that I am homosexual, but then turns around and contradicts herself in the last comment when she refers to my wife. This is not only faulty logic but also a poor debating technique. Your initial insult of homosexuality only loses weight when you reveal to your audience that I am married to a female. And I’m not saying that having a wife is indisputable evidence of heterosexuality, but doesn’t it help?

In Cara’s last comment she did land a hurtful blow when she suggested that teaching was not “a real job.” I admit that the teacher’s paycheck leaves little to be desired, but is society really at that point where our feelings for teachers matches the monetary compensation we provide them with? Friends and family assure me that this is not the case. But then again, they are “friends” and “family” and may therefore just be blowing hot air up my butt. It is entirely possible that they agree with Cara and think that I’m a schmuck for teaching. However, I can’t help but think that if Cara had held her own teachers in higher esteem, she may have learned something from them and, as a result not spelled “retard” like a retard when calling somebody a retard!

Lastly, when making any kind of insult you have to be careful that your wording doesn’t detract from what you are trying to say by conjuring other ideas in the readers mind. In Cara’s last comment she said that it “looks like the blogging is left to you instead because your wife is too busy making money to pay for your cheap ass.” (This again is in reference to my low paying job.) I couldn’t help but laugh here because of the way Cara makes blogging sound like one of the necessary chores on a farm, like getting the harvest done before the first frost, or fetching water from the well for drinking and cleaning. In my mind, I could almost hear my wife say, “Well I’m off to work. Looks like a storms rollin’ in, so make sure you get that blogging done early.” Also, had Cara done a little research she would have learned that my wife is a stay-at-home-mom, does not have a paying job, and enjoys her own fair share of blogging. So in effect, the argument just makes Cara sound stupid to anyone who may know my family at all.

Because I’m not one to give criticism without coupling it with praise I want to say that I think Cara has a lot of potential as an insulting hate blogger. Right now her skills are just a little raw. But with time I think she will become clear, concise, and efficiently hurtful. And with all the drama she creates for herself, I'm sure she'll have ample opportunity to practice.

She Loves To Hate Me

2008-05-13T15:07:00.007-06:00

Whenever I hear it said of somebody that, "there isn't anybody who doesn't like him", I think to myself, all that means is that not very many people know him. One of the many things history can teach us is that anyone who is well known has been both loved and hated. As they say, "you can't please everyone."

Now, as a person it didn’t take mass popularity for me to attain the status of one who was both loved and hated. I have been on the receiving end of these two extremes my whole life; loved by my mother and hated by pretty much everyone else. Even my wife, whom I have a very close and intimate relationship with, harbors ambiguous feelings for me. However, as a writer, specifically, a writer in the blogosphere, I have only been the recipient of positive, if not neutral, criticism. That is, until recently.

One afternoon, when I should have been reviewing the finer points of the Cold War with my students, I decided to go blog surfing instead. (I assure you, this is not common practice. I am a dedicated, hardworking, invested, loving, caring, nurturing teacher. The education and development of my students is paramount in my life. Except this particular day when I figured, to Hell with the sniveling little turds.) So there I was reading up on the latest exploits of some of my friends and family when I stumbled upon a blog that belonged to Kara, who is from Las Vegas, and is the friend of a friend. I.e., I did not know Kara.

Mind you, this is not uncommon practice in the blog world. After all, Blogspot.com, and other like sites are networking websites. People go there to read about and meet new people. (If it is your first time to theunmighty.com, welcome. There will always be a hot meal and a warm bed for you here.)

The site that I stumbled upon was your typical “mom blog.” If you’re not sure what I mean go to the blog of some mom you know and look for one of the following:

The word “family” in the title
A picture of one or more of their children in the banner
A subtitle that specifically references one or more of their children
A very recent post about the wacky misadventures of moms with their kids at home

Kara’s blog hit 4 for 4.

Lest any mom’s hurriedly edit their blogs to make them look less mom-ish, let me say that some of my favorite blogs are mom blogs maintained by hardworking, stay at home, American mothers. I think it’s a fantastic outlet for their creativity, and feelings (which we all know they need to unload often and in great repetition lest their brains explode). So blog on moms of the world, and be heard!

I digress.

When I stumbled upon Kara’s blog I happily read about her most recent mom experience, which included a swim with her young son at an outdoor swimming pool. In said post she expressed her concern for her son’s safety, as he is very top heavy and not yet stable on his feet, thus necessitating her constant attention. Cute, right? That’s certainly what I thought. Her crafty wordsmithing combined with a few charming pictures made me want to run to my own children, scoop them up, and drown them in my love. But they were having so much fun playing their favorite game, “knife fight”, in the street I decided to leave them undisturbed and continue reading instead. At the very bottom of the same post Kara left these words:

“I want to thank all my faithful friends who leave me comments. My last post had a record # of comments and it made my whole week! You have no idea how it makes my whole day to get comments.”

Reading this I thought, great, here’s my chance to make somebody’s whole day. And they can probably use the pick-me-up being from Las Vegas and all, with their lives steeped in drugs, gambling, pornography, prostitution, and violence. I felt like a modern day Good Samaritan.

I don’t know exactly what I wrote, since Kara has since deleted my comment, but it said something about human babies being born with the innate ability to swim similar to dog babies and therefore she need not worry. Harmless enough. Or so I thought. Soon after my comment was posted, Kara visited my site and left this comment:

“I don't even know you, but Anjie [Anjie and her husband are close friends of mine] says you're just a funny guy. I'm just wondering why you post comments on a complete stranger's blog?? You don't have anything better to do, than to stalk Anjie's friends' blogs? It kind of freaks me out a little, so can you please mind your own business. Thanks.”

Surprised by her reaction, and fearing the misunderstanding might permanently prevent any chance of our becoming life long bosom buddies, I decided I better write her back and clear the air. This is what I wrote;

Kara,
Wow, I'm sorry. I must have really offended you. My apologies. But you should know, your blog is on the WORLD WIDE WEB! It's not unusual for people to surf blogs and to stumble upon friends of friends. Take a deep breath and count to ten before you blow an ovary.
-The UnMighty
PS. If you're that paranoid about strangers reading your blog you can put a privacy block on it where only invited parties can look at it.
PPS. Thanks for visiting my site and leaving a comment.

Needless to say, this comment too, was immediately deleted. But I politely respect Kara’s right to run her blog as she sees fit. In fact, the whole purpose of this post was to thank Kara, who, in my opinion, facilitated my arrival as a writer. I’m not saying that I am now a good writer. Quality has never been a criterion for success in the arts. I just believe that anyone who experiences any real breadth of influence is, without question, going to be loved and hated. And with her short comment I have officially achieved both sides of that line.

I would also like to express that I bare Kara no ill will. And I’d like to encourage all my readers to visit Kara’s blog, which I’m sure you will find stimulating, artistic, heart-warming, and really really special. Once there, please, leave Kara a comment and let her know how much you appreciate her. And that you think she is doing a great job as a mother and a writer. And that you would like to meet her sometime… at night… when she’s not expecting you. And that you are currently in Las Vegas watching her, and her family… through binoculars. And you’re waiting… just waiting… for the right time.

But don’t be creepy. Kara hates that.

BLOG UPDATE - 5/15/08: Yesterday Kara put a privacy block on her blog, so all the helpful links I provided in this post are now useless. From what I've observed, from outside her window, she had become inundated with comments from admiring readers and had to slow the flow as to provide ample time to catch up on comments already left. This became understandable only after I got ahold of, and read her medical file and learned she has severe dyslexia. So lets all just be patient with Kara. I'm sure she'll be back soon.

Top 10 worst moments to experience spontaneous, explosive diarrhea

2008-05-06T08:07:00.002-06:00

10) While spinning naked, at zero gravity, in the space shuttle

9) While stuck in a broken elevator with five strangers

8) The exact moment you pass through the metal detector at airport security

7) While delivering your first baby (you’re the doctor)

6) While standing on the diving board at the public pool

5) While performing the “how many clowns can we fit in this VW Bug” trick at the circus

4) While lying face down on the proctologist’s examination table

3) While climbing into bed on your wedding night

2) While leading a post cave-in escape through a very narrow passage

1) While looking down the barrel of gun of a man with a hair-trigger and a sensitive nose

The Human Pearl

2008-04-30T16:43:00.004-06:00

Confession: I am a nose picker. I don’t think this is a revolutionary declaration and probably doesn’t even warrant the “Confession” beginning that I used because I think a high percentage of the population are nose pickers. In fact, I’m convinced that people who just plain refuse to stick their own fingers in their own noses make up a very small percentage of the population. (1.6% according to the latest U.S. census survey)

Despite the high level of picking that occurs there is still a negative stigma attached to this very natural process. And to me, this begs the question, when did picking ones nose become socially unacceptable? It is not my intention here to be gross or juvenile. And I’m definitely not striving for shock value since, despite the negative stigma attached to picking, the subject is too juvenile, while at the same time not gross enough to solicit any real shock. It’s just that I have been thinking a lot about social norms and cultural relativity, and this subject is one of many that address the greater issue. I guess I could have written about a number of things; shaking hands, bowing, chewing with mouths closed, burping, flatulence, shoe and shirt requirements, clapping, forms of chivalry, functionless clothing, and other seemingly innocuous acts of social propriety.

To me this subject lacks inappropriate connotation because of my personal feelings about the item being picked. When analyzed scientifically, the booger is not as unpleasant as pop culture would have you believe. I have reasoned that the booger is not unlike the pearl. My comparison is not in the realm of aesthetic beauty or monetary value, but in origin. Though I am not a marine biologist, it is my understanding that a pearl is made when an oyster gets an unwelcome grain of sand inside its shell. The grain causes discomfort and to cope with said discomfort the oyster spins mucus around the grain. Once hardened, the final product is a pearl. In like manner, the human will get a foreign object in its nose (i.e. sand, dust, saw-dust, etc.) and to cope with the discomfort the human nose will coat the object with mucus. This conclusion has helped me look at my boogers in a whole new light. I don’t think I’ll soon be making a necklace of them. But still, it’s not impossible that my family will someday fall on hard times and I’ll need an anniversary gift.

Aside from the social implications, there is still some danger in picking ones nose. And it is this danger that has occupied an inordinate amount of my thoughts. The other night, while driving home, I started to wonder to myself about the possibility of picking a vein large enough to cause massive hemorrhaging from the nose. And if I struck the large vein, would I have the wherewithal, amidst all the bleeding, to get myself to a hospital?
This led me to think about what would happen if I died at the hospital. So I started making mental plans about what to do in such an event. Get my wallet so I have Id. But the address on my license is incorrect. This could lead to an unpleasant exchange.
“Miss, I regret to inform you that your husband has died.”
“Died?! How? What happened?!!”
“He bled to death due to a nose picking accident.”
“NOOOOO! THAT BASTARD! HE TOLD ME HE QUIT! THAT LYING BASTARD!”
“I’m sorry Mrs. Quinn.”
“Who?”
“Is your husband not Ben Quinn?”
“No.”
“Sorry to alarm you.”

It could take days before my family was finally tracked down and told of my untimely demise.

I rethink my mental plans. Grab my cell phone. Once I die they’ll go through my pockets, find my wallet, learn my identity, send a cop to the wrong house, find my phone, start calling everybody in my contact list alphabetically. Hopefully Adam will tell them who my wife is so they don’t bother calling all the people I don’t care about between A and K. Good. Don’t forget the phone.

My wife has little patience for the deeper questions in life. If I asked her if she thought death by nose pick was possible, she’d roll her eyes far enough to see her own brain. I know this because every once in a while, while driving along in silence, I make the mistake of vocalizing some of my deeper questions.
“If you were paid 100 dollars an hour to work out, would you limit yourself to working out one or two hours a day, or would you work out to the point of becoming freakishly ripped with all your veins popping out all over and your breasts turning to man pecks, just so you could be rich?”
“Who’s going to pay me 100 dollars an hour to work out?”
“No one, I know. But for arguments sake, what would you do?”
“Where are they getting the money, and how does my working out benefit them?”
“Forget who or where the money is coming from! Just answer the question!”
“No. It’s stupid. It would never happen.”
At this point my daughter would chime in and remind my wife that we do not say, “stupid”, and the conversation would be over. I would then recede back into my own mind where there is greater opportunity for profound and meaningful conversation between the hemispheres of my brain.

Deep into this conversation I feel an itch and have to pick. “Wait a minute,” I tell myself. “Grab your wallet. Check. Get your phone. Check. Think of the nearest hospital. Check. Now dig away. But use caution, because

My Idea For A Children’s Book

2008-04-23T11:08:00.004-06:00

So, the other night I was sitting down with my daughter reading, “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, and I started thinking, I could write this. In fact, my daughter could write this. It’s totally amateur. Half these words aren’t even real words. I looked them up. I’ll bet Dr. Seuss doesn’t even have a real doctorate. Eventually I concluded that if “Dr.” Seuss could write a book and be successful, I could write a children’s book and be wildly successful. So I got to brainstorming and came up with, what I think are, some solid ideas for my book.

My protagonist is a wizard. A boy wizard named Gary. Kids love magic, and Gary seems like the name of an approachable person. Gary is on a quest to find his family, which he was torn from at an early age. They’re polygamists and were part of a fundamentalist congregation that co-existed inside a very small compound outside of Waco: Waco, England. Gary will go everywhere on the back of his luck-dragon named Holyfield. We’ll have to give a little back-story and show that Holyfield is fiercely loyal to Gary because Gary saved him from angry mountain lions when he was still an egg and then Gary forced himself to lactate out of sheer willpower so he could nurse Holyfield as a baby. Every time they get in a fix and Holyfield has to fly really fast or kill someone with fire he’ll shake his head and say, “I’m gettin’ too old for this crap,” and then they’ll both laugh. The story will probably take place in two realms, which wizards like Gary have the power to go between; the Magical realm and the Gay realm. But he only goes to the Gay realm when he needs to procure new potions and spells from his magic mentor/supplier, a black guy named Anton. Anton will be the comic relief. He’ll have all kinds of crazy new tricks and potions that he’ll show off every time Gary shows up. And his catchphrase will be, “Abra-ka-Fabra”, which he’ll deliver regularly whilst resting one hand on his hip, snapping his fingers with the other, and furiously rubbernecking his head around. There may also be room here for a love interest. I’m thinking an Indian girl named Squaw. This would be good because kids love Indians with all their broken English and backwards ways. To broaden the book’s appeal, I think it should be educational. So it might be good to introduce words and scenarios kids should be familiar with. Maybe Gary could use his magic to help bust a meth lab or a crack house and then smack around and shake down the addicts for information on his family. Then they’ll have a heart to heart about the downfalls of drug abuse and the addicts will give scouts honor to never do it again. There should also be a chapter dedicated to sex education and how intercourse always leads to pregnancy and VD. (I’ll have to workshop some of those ideas, but I think this will make it marketable to the home school demographic.) Eventually Gary will have to confront and defeat the antagonist, the same man who took him from his multiple mothers as a kid and put him into foster care. I think the bad guy will be a mean cowboy wizard, named Sheriff Hitler, who rides a black Pegasus named Tupac who only talks it rhymes and drops, what he calls, “truth bombs.” And instead of six-shooters, Sheriff Hitler will carry two magic wands, which shoot lightning. And every time he blasts one of his enemies with his lightning wands he’ll do a victory dance, which is just of lot of pelvic thrusting while screaming “Cuminayeahaaa!” like Neil Diamond. Since kids like a happy ending I don’t think Gary will kill the Sheriff. Instead he’ll teach him the true meaning of Christmas when he spares the Sheriff from death in the final battle. That’s also a good idea because it leaves it open for a sequel where we find out that Sheriff Hitler is really Gary’s father.

That’s all I have so far, but what to you think? Too cliché?

Death Of A Friend

2008-04-15T15:04:00.005-06:00

I never was one of those guys who enjoyed attaching an undue amount of personification to his car. It never got a nickname like Gertrude, or The Beast, and I never referred to it like someone I was intimately or physically involved with. Nevertheless, I did have a certain fondness for my ’95 Geo Prizm. Partly because it was a gift from my father and partly because it was the means by which I saw so much of this beautiful world. So allow me, for a moment, to suspend my unwillingness to see machines as our equals, because, to be perfectly honest, my car was a truer friend than… well… all my other friends. Shame on them for being outdone by a car.

Gertrude the Beast was born June 27th 1995. I was not her original companion but became so in September 1998 after her original companion ran out on her like a coward. She was maroon, had four wheels, four doors, a great rack, which I liked to attach stuff too, and a trunk big enough for one medium sized body or two small bodies. We seemed to hit it off immediately and were surprised at how closely our interests aligned. We both liked music, air-conditioning, and driving places. We were like peas and carrots.

Within her lifetime she drove exactly 1,605, 250 miles, which is equivalent to driving to the sun and back. She visited every state in the nation, every country in North and South America, drove to Europe twice, Asia once, and is the only four wheeled vehicle to drive on the Great Wall of China.

She was also born with a surprisingly competitive spirit. Before she passed, Gertrude the Beast won three Formula One titles, two NASCAR titles, a motor-cross championship, and an aerial freestyle competition. Other notable accomplishments include the trafficking of displaced African refugees, assisting in the initial invasion of Iraq, personally capturing Sadam Hussein, and hosting Saturday Night Live. Sadly, her competing came to an abrupt end when she was convicted of vehicular dogslaughter in 2002. She pled guilty, paid a heavy fine, but was relieved the court never learned of the vehicular catslaughter, deerslaughter, and minorityslaughter she had also participated in.

Gertrude the Beast was there to see me through college, marriage, the election, the surgery, and the birth of my first two children. I had hoped she would be there for many more years but on the morning of April 14th, 2008, while driving to work she suffered major internal damage due to old age. After I cursed her and kicked her in the side I was immediately filled with regret because a man could not have asked for a better companion or truer friend. She was loved in life and will be missed in death.

Tomorrow she will be taken to the scrap yard, sold for the handsome sum of $100, and crushed. Goodbye old girl.

You've Been Lip Serviced

2008-04-08T18:11:00.005-06:00

Most people don’t know this, but my wife is a master of persuasion and champion debater. And being a graduate of a state college public speaking class, I am well aware of the tools used against me when we are forced to go toe-to-toe in a verbal sparing match. They are the 3 Greek elements of persuasion, as set forth by Aristotle himself, and I’m sure you will all agree that he was one deep thinking SOB.

The three elements are as follows:
Ethos (Credibility or Ethics) means convincing by the character of the speaker, or persuading by appealing to one’s ethics.
Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to one’s emotions.
Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning.

My wife, like all females, has never tried to use Logos. Before you ladies freak out and blow an ovary, let me say it is not my intention to offend. Females cannot be faulted for this. It’s just that they are born without the part of the brain that produces the logic hormone. We can no more expect them to use logic as we can expect them to pee accurately standing up. They’re just not built that way.

She is also unable to use the element of Pathos. This time however it is not due to a lack, but rather an over production of the element. When she attempts its use, words and noises fly out of her mouth in an uncontrolled barrage of inflammatory nonsense, which undulate in pitch, volume, and intensity. It's like watching one of the mutants, from the X-Men movies, as they first discover their powers and unwittingly cause large amounts of destruction.

As for Ethos, well, she uses it on a very limited basis.

So how can she possibly be a persuasive speaker, you are probably wondering. It is because she has discovered and capitalized on the forth Greek element;
Hyperbolos: persuading by the use of ridiculous exaggeration.

Allow me to illustrate with an excerpt from our most recent debate.

Situation: We are at the local Dell Taco to appease my wife’s “cravings.” This locale is equipped with a play area for kids, which my daughter disappears into the moment we arrive. Halfway through our meal…

Wife: Where’s Maggie?
Me: She’s playing.
Wife: Where? I can’t see her. Can you see her?
Me: She in one of those tubes. She’s fine.
Wife: Go find her.
Me: Go find her? Honey, there’s like 50 miles of tubing in there. It could take days. She’ll come out when she gets hungry.
Wife: There’s an outside exit in the play area. How can you be sure she didn’t open the door and run out into the street and is about to get splattered by a giant semi from Hell?
Me: What?
Wife: She’s probably in the back of a windowless van, gagged, bound, drugged, and helpless, with you sitting here stuffing your face, while her captors are forcing her to shoot up heroin and smoke crack and do acid.
Me: That’s a lot of drugs.
Wife: She could be getting high and watching pornography right now.
Me: Huh?
Wife: Maybe she’s in a shipping crate, on her way to war-torn Africa where she’ll be given a gun and forced to participate in the latest ethnic cleansing campaign and kill mindlessly while, simultaneously being forced into a life of child prostitution as the tribe passes her around like some kind of soulless plaything, and pushed to the brink of existence till she is nothing more than an empty shell, a vague memory of the cute, rosy-cheeked girl we once knew and one day, as she teeters on the edge of a monstrous African cliff, before she leaps to her own demise upon the jagged rocks below, she will utter one… last… word.
“DAAAADDYYYYY!!!”
Me: *gulp*
Wife: You’d never be able to forgive yourself. You’ll sit around in a constant state of morbid depression, getting old, fat, ugly, bald, stupid, and retarded. Unmovable. Slug-like, and crapping yourself, like a giant freakish baby. Nothing. You’ll burst into uncontrollable, seizure-like, fits of weeping every time you think about the day you chose a burrito over your own daughter. Hmmph.

And with that last “hmmph,” I was defeated; once again bested by the Queen of Rhetoric. I promptly ran to the play place certain I was too late.

As it turns out, she was only playing on the slide. Not a windowless van in sight.

Slip 'em a Mickey

2008-03-31T21:58:00.007-06:00

I’m not what you would call a “pickle” guy. Sure, I like pickles as much as the next person. I’ll enjoy them with a sandwich, or on a sandwich, or even right from the jar if I’m hungry for a salty snack and there’s a lack of better choices. But I would never use “pickle” in a list of favorites, let alone to describe my tastes. Also, I can’t recall a single conversation, from my 30 years, when someone said to me, “I love pickles” or “I think the pickle is the best damn thing in the world. I think I’ll marry pickle and conceive human-pickle babies.”
No, I have never heard that.

But somehow, by some ethereal sorcery, when everyday people cross the threshold of the Disneyland barrier, they not only want pickles, but they want them so bad they’re willing to pay exorbitant sums of money to obtain one.
“Is that a pickle?” Joe Tourist will ask. “I want a pickle. Nay, I need a pickle! I must have pickle!! How much is pickle? Thirty-six dollars? That’s totally reasonable. Give me one.”

However, the spell Walt has over every person who dares enter his world holds no sway over me. For me, Walt’s domain (which I call Mordor) lost it’s magic in the summer of 1990 when I got kicked out (on my birthday) for nothing more than a few trumped up charges of assault and battery. I was taken behind the scenes to Disneyland “security” and it was there that I was first exposed to the dark underbelly of what was universally touted as “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Dwarves were smoking, ducks and dogs were gambling, and fairy-tale princesses were prostituting themselves for nothing more than a meal. During my short stay, before my official ejection from the park, I focused my senses and became an astute observer. It was there that I saw, firsthand, the puppet strings and learned the Wizard of Oz was just a man behind a curtain.

I saw the canisters, filled with various smells, (vanilla, buttered popcorn, etc.), which were systematically sprayed over the crowd as they walk past the corresponding food shops. I saw the cages where the Disney characters are kept at night. I witnessed an official Disney song recording session in progress where seemingly innocent Disney songs like “It’s a small world” and “A Pirates Life” are laced with subliminal messages that encourage over-spending, over-eating, the purchasing of ridiculous souvenirs, and promote teen promiscuity, binge drinking, communism, Celine Dion, and white supremacy.

Despite the blatancy of it all, no one is the wiser. The world has collectively been slipped a giant Mickey and it won’t wake up. It’s like the town of Stepford, but instead of robotic wives they’ve given us little robotic minorities who chant about laughter and cheer whilst brainwashing us into mindless disciples.

The most alarming thing I discovered was found in the journal of Walt Disney himself. How I stumbled upon said journal is unimportant. From the journal I learned that the capitalistic abuses of Disney Inc. and it’s subsidiaries are for one purpose and one purpose only. To secure Walt’s empire preliminary to the second coming. Not the Second Coming of Jesus, (I would have used CAPITALS to specify that one) but the second coming of Walt Disney himself.

A few excerpts from his prophetic timeline read as follows;
2012: The United States of America becomes The United States of Disney when Disney Inc. pays off the national deficit.
2013: World War 3 breaks out when the entire band of Franz Ferdinand is assassinated at the Mtv Music Awards hosted in Sarajevo.
2021: The United States of Disney emerges victories and declares world domination.
2022: A secret society named The Illuminati of Mickey thaws Walt Disney from his cryogenic status to full vitality thus facilitating his “second coming.”
2022: Walt Disney assumes his position as Supreme Ruler of the World and governs from the highest tower of the Disneyland Castle.

Yeah, I was surprised too. And, despite the fact that going back with my family in tow is only aiding the fulfillment of Walt’s dark prophecy, I went back anyway because I’m a sucker for large crowds and long lines.

In case you’re considering visiting The Black Magic Kingdom on your next vacation, let me tell you what you should expect to spend.
Entrance Fee: $66 ($56 for kids 3 – 9)
Pickle: $36
Churro: $72
Burger: $85
20 oz. drink: $98
T-shirt: $153
Yamaka w/ plastic discs stapled to it (a.k.a. Mickey Ears): $379
Giant Turkey Leg: $586
Glow-in-the-dark crap for post sunset: $1,105 (when I say "crap" I mean stuff. It's not an actual glow-in-the-dark terd. You get those at San Diego Zoo.)
Tiara: $2163
The look on your child’s face when they realize the full magic of Disneyland, try to beat you because of it,

and then collapse from heat stroke:

Priceless.

I wasn’t willing to pay full price for my turkey leg, but I was willing to tear it from the hands of a screaming 6-year-old and hide in the bushes while I ate it.

Paralyzed? No Problem.

2008-03-26T09:39:00.009-06:00

Confession: my wife and I are one of those couples who are willing to slowly poison their kids with fast food to keep them happy. And if the fast food place has a playground, well, even better. Maggie can spend hours lost in those tubes while we sit peacefully, out of reach. One of her favorite things to do is go up into one of those plastic bubbles, take off her clothes, and “take a real shower.” We can see her up there rubbing her hands around on her naked body. It’s two parts white trash, one part adorable; like an Alabama wedding.

(I think that where we fall short in the modesty department, we make up for it in the hygiene department. What about those nasty STD germs, you ask? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.)

Anyway, on a recent visit to Carl’s Jr. we were pleased to discover that Carl watches out for the crippled kids too. I was almost moved to tears by the example Carl has set and the work he has done to bridge the gap between disabled and abled people.

Are you handicapped? Don’t worry about it son. You can climb and play here. And with a little determination you can probably pull yourself up, and navigate yourself around this two-story tower.

Hey, that kid's abled! Get him out of there!

Ha Ha! Just kidding. You keep on climbing champ. They're also all about integration at Carl's Jr.

So head on down to Carl's Jr. for some good food and some good fun. And in case some of you parents of "special" kids are worried about safety, relax. What's the worst that could happen? They're already handicapped.

Top 10 Signs You’re Subconsciously Ready To Quit Your Teaching Job

2008-03-16T13:33:00.003-06:00

10) Your students know more about Texas Hold’em than History.

9) When you come across a fight in the hall, instead of breaking it up you prefer to take bets.

8) When you get caught in the bathroom smoking, you refuse to remove the cigarette from your lips before you tell the principle to “bite me!”

7) You love to teach the kids of the “good ol’ days” by constant use of corporal punishment.

6) You can lecture for hours on the qualities of navel lint whilst extracting samples along the way.

5) Your favorite object lesson includes Nazi uniforms, the parking lot, and a giant pile of burning books.

4) When a parent comes to talk to you about why their child is doing poorly the only explanation you can muster is, “Well, stupidity breeds stupidity.”

3) Your way of “preparing kids for the real world” is by administering the occasional sucker punch, and stealing their lunch money.

2) You stopped bothering to learn names long ago and now just refer to all your students as “Numb-Nuts”.

1) In a year end self evaluation, you give yourself an F.

For A Good Time...

2008-03-10T09:45:00.006-06:00

I have long been intrigued by the writings on bathroom stall walls. In fact, I wrote about that fascination in February of '07 in a post titled Public Invitation. The idea to turn it into a video came only recently when I thought it would be interesting to see how one of those scenarios might play out. I also felt some degree of responsibility to warn those who may be actively seeking friendship, or more, in such a manner.

Leap Yeah!

2008-02-29T22:58:00.004-07:00

Where I come from we have this tradition and deep seeded religious belief that February 29th, the extra day of every leap year, is very special. Like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Arbor Day, February 29th is accompanied by it’s own set of mystical beliefs, and outré traditions. The belief is that on the 29th the eyes of heaven are closed and the people of the world are unattended and basically unaccountable for anything they do that day. Needless to say the 29th soon became a day of revelry, lasciviousness, gluttony, horseplay, tomfoolery, bally-hoo, hijinks, buffoonery, capers, shenanigans, and overall unwonted behavior.

Now, some people would argue that bad, or immoral behavior deterred only by fear of the stick, is callow, and is at the lowest level of self-governance. While some would say, that righteousness due to external incentives is not righteousness, Others would say, “No ones watching?! YAHOO!!”

If you were previously unaware of this unique holiday allow me to illustrate just what you’ve been missing out on.

In 1980, when I was two, and still a bit of a novice, I pulled off my diaper, unbeknownst to my parents, and crapped myself silly. Looking back, it seems more like a vicious prank on myself as much as anyone else.
1984; Some other first graders and I took a carton of eggs and a balloon launcher and shot eggs at cars on the freeway. Unfortunately four people lost their lives that day. Fortunately, they were all pretty old and on their way out anyway.
1988; I joined a PETA youth group and helped them burn down a facility that was doing medical tests on animals. The screams that came from the animals that we forgot to un-cage still haunt my dreams.
1992; I leaked a story to the LA Times that the 29th of February had been moved to the 29th of April. Some uninformed Americans still believe that the LA riots were a result of the acquittal of the white police officers that beat Rodney King like a piñata, instead of the truth, which is, they were just enjoying the regular celebratory rights of the 29th.
1996; I verbally supported Bill Clinton all day.
2000; I went to Vegas, got a job, and danced with the Chippendales for the whole night. Financially it was time well spent because, aside from my wages, I made $68.94 in tips. (Admittedly, it’s a little awkward dancing with 94 cents clinking around in the sling area of one’s Speedo.)
2004; I had a hard time enjoying the 29th that year because, unlike previous years, I was married to someone who cracks an even bigger whip than the Man upstairs. So, it was pretty much a let down.
This year I reclaimed my independence. I got up, took off my son’s diaper, and then left for work. I later found out from my wife that he’s doing his part to carry on my legacy.

I hope you all had an eventful 29th. Only four more years ‘till we get to do it again.

High School-isms

2008-02-24T23:13:00.003-07:00

The Following are actual questions and comments from a few of my high school students. Names have been changed to protect the ignorant.

Paige: “If I were French, I think I would hate American food.”
Sara: “Whatever. I love our food. French Fries are awesome.”
-----
Jacob: “You don’t know how long it took Columbus to get here? I thought you were a history teacher.”
Me: “Well, I know when he got here. Do you?”
Jacob: “Ya. Like 1944.”
Adam: “It was way before that you idiot. It was like the 1830’s.”
-----
Me: Who would you like to follow around and observe for a day, and why? It can be anybody; dead or alive.
(I get a variety of answers. People from history, politics, religion, pop culture, family, etc.)
Me: Jennifer, how about you?
Jennifer: I’d like to follow my dad while he was fighting in Vietnam.
Me: Oh, your dad was in Vietnam? (joking wryly) What side did he fight for?
Jennifer: You know what, I’m not sure.
Me: Well, is your dad Vietnamese? (Jennifer is obviously Caucasian.)
Jennifer: I don’t know. I’ve never asked him.
-----
Trina: “Is England in the United States?”

Valentine To Self

2008-02-14T07:40:00.006-07:00

My brother, Tom, and I decided we're tired of being lower-middle class. So, we decided to just go ahead and get rich in the movie industry. But since you have to start somewhere, we've decided to start with short movies that we intend to post here at theunmighty.com at least twice a month. Or, at least as often as possible... but no less than once a year... I hope.

I like to leave a little wiggle room in my goals so it's easier to feel some sense of accomplishment.

Our good friend, Garrett Batty from Three Coin Productions, did all the filming, directing, and editing.

To find this on YouTube type in "Valentine to self." It should be near the top.

All You Need Is...

2008-02-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I’d like to kick this month off right by dedicating my first post to a subject very close to my heart. So close, in fact, that it’s right inside my heart, and I’m not talking about blood… or cholesterol. I’m talking about love. Love, the topic of countless stories, movies, books, poems, and songs, is at the epicenter of fundamental humanity; so important in fact that I dare say The Beatles hit the proverbial nail on the head when they said, “All you need is love.” I mean, think about it. If all we really had were love we’d be just fine. Our days would be filled with purpose, meaning, and happiness. Peace would envelop the world in a warm cocoon of loving squishiness, and we’d never take up arms against our fellow man again. I’ve decided to make that my life’s mantra.

All you need is love.

Well, unless you’re homeless. Then all you need is love, and someplace to sleep where you won’t freeze to death. Other than that, I guess, all you need is love.

Now that I think about it, what about hitchhikers? Forget love. I’ll bet they’d just settle for a ride. Also, I would say amputees’ need more than love. They probably need some kind of major surgery, physical therapy, and then some prosthesis. And as long as I’m brain storming here, what about diabetics? Are you trying to tell me that when their blood sugar plummets that a shot of love is going to save their butts? H no! Best case scenario; their feet get the axe, then they need prosthesis too. Worst case; a fat shot of insulin fast or they're tits up in an hour. And what about drowning victims? Do you think any of them are under water struggling for love? OXYGEN, PEOPLE! That’s all they need! And what about the obese? Don’t try and tell me it’s the lack of love that’s fueling their gluttony. I think they’ve received too much love, and not enough tough-love. What they need is a taskmaster to crack the whip, and knock the Twinkies from their chubby fingered grip when they succumb to temptation, and to push them outdoors and then have them chased through a park by wild, starving dogs. After that, then maybe we’ll talk about some normal love. And don’t get me started on Asian child sweatshop laborers. Do you think any of them are thinking, “Now that all my needs are being met, I could use some love.”? Answer; NO, THEY'RE NOT! They’re going to need a butt-load more than love to make it to adulthood. As their collective legal representative I demand that they receive, 1) Regular workplace safety inspections, 2) A minimum wage equal to that in the U.S., 3) Clothes appropriate for the weather and working conditions, 4) Regular meals where all the four food groups are represented, 5) Dessert, sometimes. 6) Bi-weekly employee socials and mixers where they can meet and mingle and possibly spark a romantic relationship. When these needs are met, the Asian Child Sweatshop Laborers Civil Liberties Union will drop it’s case.

You know what, now that I think about it, The Beatles were naïve, mindless nincompoops. The world needs a lot more than love. My new mantra is as follows; All you need is a warm bed, a ride, exercise, prosthesis, oxygen, minimum wage, and insulin. Love is for the birds.

Top 10 Most Surprising Things I’ve Read In a Panda Express Fortune Cookie

2008-01-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

10) “We call this place ‘Panda Express’ because there’s an actual panda in the back ‘expressing’ all the food from his bowels.”

9) “You’ve just ingested at least 6 ounces of pure MSG.”

8) “Me Chinese, me play joke, me put pee-pee in your Coke.”

7) “If they wanted too, any one of the employees could jump across the counter and kung fu your a%#.”

6) “My name Javier. I’m a nine-year-old boy and I live in a sweatshop just outside of Caracas, Venezuela where we are forced to write fortunes 13 hours a day. Please Help!”

5) “說文解字说文解字.”

4) “A monetary reward will be paid to anyone who kills escaped capitalist Chinese citizens.” –General Mao Zedong

3) “You just ate Orange Chicken.”

2) “Impending doom awaits around every corner. Your violent demise is certain. Sorry.”

1) “Made In Taiwan”

Big Fat Quitter

2008-01-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

I hate snowmobile guiding. I love snowmobiling, I just hate guiding tourists down bumpy trails at 15 mph hoping none of them take a wrong turn or venture off into the powder where they will, without fail, get stuck up to their cracks or roll over and then say, with a dumbfounded look on their face, when I come back to help them, “I don’t know what happened. I was just following along and all of the sudden I went off the trail and tipped over. And, I just crapped myself because I’m a big fat retard and shouldn’t be allowed in public.” They never say that last part, but they should because it’s the only true thing in quotes.

Until I quit my job yesterday I was in the middle of my 5th year guiding. And, despite the high level of retardation of most of our guests, I probably could have made it through to the end if the work to compensation ratio hadn’t been so far out of whack this year.

Allow me to explain –
In years previous I lived within 40 minutes of the job site. Both places of employment were in or near Park City. I’d get there by eight a.m., warm up the snowmobiles and be guiding by nine. That, and I had a normal person for a boss. This year I got a job at Snowbird and my reasoning was that this place was closer and would be easier to get to and from work everyday. Not true. This was the routine. After teaching school all week I’d use my weekends to get up at six, drive 40 minutes to the bottom of Little Cottonwood Canyon, hitchhike to Snowbird, catch the 7:30 tram to the top of the mountain, ski down the back side of the mountain, change out of ski gear and into snowmobile gear, warm up and gas snowmobiles, hope the guests don’t cancel, take guests for rides on dangerous machines, repeat process in reverse, go home without a break in my week. On top of all that, my boss, who was a short, stalky, angry lesbian (imagine Grumpy, of the 7 dwarfs, with longer hair and a sex change. I kind of think she was angry all the time because she was a lesbian by chance and not by choice; a no-other-options kind of deal. She was always talking about how she was going to “chew your a$$” if you did this or that and “sh#@ runs downhill” so don’t do this or that cause the “sh%@’s going to hit the fan” and there’s going to be a “sh#@ storm” so “watch you’re a#@” or “I’ll chew it.” She was surprisingly fond of expressions involving a@#’s or sh#%, and for some reason she wanted to chew on both of them - a lot. But I digress.) On top of all that, my boss, the angry lesbian, decided that she would have less problems if she put two guides, instead of one, on every tour. At the end of the day, what that means is I was making half as much in tips. Well, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I called the angry lesbian and told her I was done. Surprisingly, after our conversation, I didn’t smell any sh@#, and my a#% was still intact.

Anybody have any great ideas for a weekend job?

The STINKEYE!

2008-01-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, those are my eyes. No, I did not use Photoshop to color the left one.
I have…

con•junc•ti•vi•tis (kən-jŭngk'tə-vī'tĭs) n. inflammation or infection of the mucosal membrane that covers the eyeball and lines the eyelid. Conjunctivitis usually causes redness, discharge, and itching of the membrane. It may also cause fatigue, loss of libido, shrieking flatulence when surrounded by people, hair loss, deafness in the left ear and extreme sensitivity to sound in the right, twisted testicle, turrets, paralysis of the brain, shrinkage of the urethra to the point of complete urine blockage, expansion of the urethra to the point of incontinence, an emotional sensitivity to puns, road rage, athletes foot, explosive porcelain shattering diarrhea, spontaneous usage of Ebonics, tooth loss, cow-licks, edible toe-jam, spastic colon, whiplash, overbite, PMS in males, ear hair, arthritis in the middle finger making it unable to bend, southern drawl, facial hair and a propensity for "locker-room talk" in females, elephantitis, sympathy for Yoko Ono, cleft pallet, table-tennis elbow (not as severe as tennis elbow), club foot, pirate talk, and ghetto booty.
Commonly called pinkeye, conjunctivitis is also know as Blood-Clops, The Baboon’s Sphincter, and El ojo del Diablo.
If contracted one should regularly rinse eye with hot water, wash hands, avoid staring at the sun, avoid staring at women’s breasts (especially if they’re talking to you), not operate medium-light to medium heavy-ish machinery, avoid attempting to scrape the red off the eyeball, avoid legal gambling, avoid consorting with the mafia, avoid raiding meth labs without backup, avoid starting a meth lab without proper support, avoid alligator wrestling, bull fighting, dog fighting, bull dogging, cock fighting, cock dogging, dog cocking, and knitting. Also, refrain from greeting friends and loved-ones with butterfly kisses.

New Year's Wish

2008-01-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

My son, Cash, wishing everyone a FAB-U-LOUS New Year!

The Best of 'The UnMighty': 2007

2007-12-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

After procrastinating my final blog till the last day of 2007 in the year of our Lord, I decided to search the net for ideas. I stole this idea from my friend Eric D. Snider. Instead of coming up with something original I decided to include some of my favorite lines from my previous posts. I hope you enjoy.

New Year, New Decade, New Son (Jan. 4th)
I’m feeling particularly reflective at the beginning of this year. ... maybe because this is the year I will breech the big 3-0. I use the word breech because I feel like I’m approaching this birthday butt first with my feet up by my head.

My Daughter and The Devil (Jan. 18th)
... “stop unrolling every inch of toilet paper we own or we’ll adopt you to a family someplace like West Virginia where they still use outhouses and wipe their butts with squirrels, you don’t even wipe your own butt anyway, what do you need fifty feet of toilet paper for?”

Improper Motive (Feb. 5)
Never mind that last time twenty guys got eaten by velociraptors, 5 guys were torn in half by a T-Rex while sitting on the crapper, which only adds to the humiliation, Newman (from Seinfeld) was blinded then eaten by the umbrellaheadasaurus, and two guys were raped by the gayasaurus (one died from VD and the other is still in counseling).

The Delayed Sting of Cupid's Arrow (Feb. 15th)
I pour the cereal and watch Maggie grip and work her spoon with all the coordination of an epileptic in full seizure and as she flings more food than she eats I can’t help but think how these mornings are so un-reminiscent of past childless mornings...

Public Invitation ( Feb. 27th)
In fact, to prove the quality of the modern bathroom stall writer I’d like to perform a small test. I’m convinced that unless you earned a degree in literature you will only pass this test by chance. Guess, if you can, which of these three excerpts and authors is not found in and did not write a classic novel.
1) “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
-Walt Whitman
2) “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”
-Jane Austen
3) “Janice Wright is a fat ho-bag!”
-Dan

Smallest Talk (March 10th)
... when you decide to bring a child into the world you have basically fated yourself to the same line of small talk every time your small child is with you in public.
“Oh my gosh, He is precious!”
“He’s a she.”
“Of course she is. That explains the adorable bow in her hair.” [this is said with a squished up face, a high pitched voice, and a finger on the baby’s nose like she’s trying to get the baby to crap a Pez]

Free Time (April 18th)
I imagined your average Indian male waking between two buffalo hides, crawling out of his tepee where he meets his friend Shrieking Turtle. He stretches, does a 360-degree look around himself, and plainly inquires, “Well, what the hell are we going to do today?”
...“Let’s go steal something.”
“What?”
“Women and horses. What the crap else is there? I mean we’re freakin’ Indians. I’m wearing a loincloth here. Our lives aren’t exactly filled with options.”
“Why don’t we see a movie?”
“A what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just being crazy.”

The Hot Seat (April 23rd)
At home one of the worst things associated with the long sit down is the initial sting of a cold seat, and unless you’re willing to do the Japanese "stand-and-squat" you are forced to endure this inevitable shock of cold. This is only compounded when I unwittingly place my freezing bowl of ice cream on my naked thighs.

Top 10 Signs Your Wife Is Jealous Of Your Guitar (May 10th)
3) She ends heated arguments with a crude gesture and the order to “STRUM THIS!”
1) She refers to it as “The One Legged Whore.”

No P.C. in Munchkin Land (May 25th)
I recently heard that the PC Brigade has even gone as far as to try and strip midgets of their name. They are now pushing to make them known as “little people.” I hope you are as shocked as I was. I’m confused. (No surprise, since mass confusion is often the goal of such immoral paradigm shift attempts.) We used to call children “little people.” Pretty soon they’ll be saying “brilliant child” is the proper term for midgets.
“I’d like you to meet my friend Jeff, he’s a brilliant child. That’s him over there with some other children. He’s the brilliant one… with the big head.”

The Apple And The Tree (June 19th)
(No good lines here, but the pictures are worth the visit.)

Newfangled... (June 30th)
Back in my day we didn't have the net and we had to stalk our victims in person.

Room 116 (July 17th)
Hesitantly I move toward the drawer to investigate. I pull it out in one quick yank and without warning an angry piglet leaps from the drawer and hooves me to the ground with one powerful blow to the chest. He lands on me with all the fury of a Christmas ham, beating me mercilessly about the face and head with his fore hooves.

Salt of The Earth (July 22nd)
Warren: “Really? You looked like you was gittin’ Wi-Fi.”

Let US Pray (July 29th)
My father jerked me from the pew mid soap box sermon by my tie, told me I’m wasn’t Moses, and later informed me that the man was Polynesian and is allowed to scream in church. Not only that but he was also expected to eat an inordinate amount of Spam.

The Awesome Power of Pasta (Oct. 31st)
I was in the middle of busting a tight rhyme when some uptight cracker cut me off. Typically, I would have taken it like a spineless Nancy, but now that I was awesome I scooted to the center of the car, rolled down the windows, steered with my knee, and sped past the offending cracker with both hands extended out either side of the car flipping the biggest, most awesome birds I have ever flipped. I was on top of the world.

Would you like some egg with your face? (Nov. 17th)
...naturally they started swooning and shrieking with pleasure and breathing heavy and heaving their bosoms with passionate rapture; so much so that I thought some of the poor creatures were going to hyperventilate and/or bosoms were going to fly free from their lacy, cupped restraints.

Happy Thanksgiving. Do You Have A Reservation? ( Nov. 27th)
I heard that Johnny Reb is mad at Billy Yank because apparently Johnny wants to keep his Negroes and his autonomy but Billy is a control freak and said “no way.” Ironically, while Billy's army is fighting for our black cousins some of his army is out here giving us trouble, but for the most part their guns are pointed at each other, so it gives us a little reprieve. Maybe they’ll all kill each other and we can split the land with the Negroes.

Memories In A Flash (Dec. 4th)
... after you took the picture, while you were pouring over it with maternal enthusiasm, you missed out on a bunch of other cute crap our kids did. Cash did a little tap dance for passers by, and earned over $10 in change, and Maggie struck up a conversation about the pros and cons of Affirmative Action with an elderly black man. It was adorable. I’m sorry you missed it.”

My Top 10 Favorite Things About The Holiday Season (Dec. 11th)
5) A chance to grope women, who are out of your league, because they unwittingly walked too close to the poinsettia.

Miracles Abound (Dec. 26th)
Knees and feet pummeled my torso and crotch. Elbows and hands battered my head and face like a crazed diabetic Mexican trying to shatter a sugar filled piñata.

Miracles Abound

2007-12-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

A few days shy of Christmas I was out with my family, doing the last minute shopping. (All my shopping to be more accurate.) My daughter, in true two-year-old fashion timed her tantrum perfectly. She waited till we were on the top floor of Mervyn's in the middle of the crowd waiting to check out. Nearing the registers we were surrounded on all sides by no less than two hundred antsy shoppers. (If this had been an English soccer match at least fifty people would have been trampled.) Just as we were nearing the epicenter of the retail experience my daughter was possessed by the Devil himself and endowed, from below, with the insatiable desire to drink. "I NEED A DRINK!!" she shrieked. Drink what? It didn't matter. She needed liquid and she needed it NOW! I was hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean yet still she squirmed and arched like a newly landed marlin who knew it was fight or die. It took all of both my physical and mental capacity to keep her from flying free of my bear-hug like grip. All four limbs became lethal weapons acting autonomous of the other three. Knees and feet pummeled my torso and crotch. Elbows and hands battered my head and face like a crazed diabetic Mexican trying to shatter a sugar filled piñata. I tried to anticipate the blows by clenching my eyes tightly for fear one of her little fingers should pierce an eyeball, stab my frontal lobe, and drop me like a sack of flour. One man, certain she was having a violent seizure, attempted to insert his wallet into her mouth lest she bite down on, and sever her own tongue. I left my wife and son behind and pressed to the edge of the mob trying to restrain her and minimize the collateral damage upon innocent onlookers. It was my intention to first, remove the danger from the crowd, and second, retreat to more private environs where I could give her the beating she deserved out from under the watchful eyes of children's rights activists. When I broke the perimeter I felt a rush of cool air, breathed deep, and lengthened my stride.

It's an interesting thing about the toddler tantrum; it can subside as quickly as it arises. Not 10 seconds from the crowd her red little eyes spied a shopping cart. Not your run-of-the-mill grocery store cart, but a special department store cart with a child's seat. She gasped, fell silent, and in the blink of an eye changed from demon to angel. Her face went soft, her limbs hung peacefully, and the horns receded. I set her down and as she approached the cart she whispered, "Oh my darling. Oh my adorable."
I asked her if she wanted to ride in the cart and in a sweetness that even Shirley Temple could not have mustered she clasped her hands together, batted her eyes, and softly said, "Oh yes."
Upon observing this astonishing change I had not the heart to deliver the aforementioned beating but instead lifted her inside the cart and pushed her away certain I had just witnessed a genuine Christmas miracle.

God bless us, everyone.

My Top 10 Favorite Things About The Holiday Season

2007-12-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

10) Everyone gets good at acting like they enjoy crap that they hate the rest of the year… like ballet.

9) Extremely outdated animation

8) The chance to sit around with the old folks listening to them breath through their noses so loud you think Lord Vader is in the room.

7) The superior feeling of Christian exclusivity

6) A chance to kiss women, who are out of your league, because they unwittingly stepped under the mistletoe.

5) A chance to grope women, who are out of your league, because they unwittingly walked too close to the poinsettia. (family tradition)

4) Late night Christmas Eve toy construction when it's o.k. to swear

3) Christmas MURDER! (Because the rest of the year it’s just plain murder.)

2) Midgets get to walk freely among normal people.

1) Conifer Genocide!

Memories In A Flash

2007-12-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

The advent of the digital camera has infused our generation with a new kind of nostalgia; a nostalgia of the immediate past. Never mind the bygone days when things were simpler, all children loved and revered their parents, and mom-and-pop shops had yet to be snuffed out by the super store. No, never mind all that. We long for the immediate past. Despite the fact that we were just there OR are even still there, we want to relive those precious moments that we’ve just had. That is why everything you buy these days “is also a camera”; your phone, your computer, your camera. Need I say more?

Because of this phenomenon my children are part of the most photographed generation in history. And it’s not because they are cuter, and therefore more deserving of lens time. (Well, mine are. But I’m certain yours aren’t.) It’s because cameras are small, compact, cheap, and part of every other piece of technology. It’s getting to the point where it’s unreasonable to not have one.

Recent studies show that 96% of Generation X Americans have only seen one pre-marriage picture of their grandfather[s]. And it’s probably the one of him in overalls (nothing else) in front of a small schoolhouse with a small group of other children who look like orphans or chain-gangers.
94% of the same group saw an average of four pre-marriage photos of their father. And each time were embarrassed by both his goofy haircut and the girth of his glasses. The same percentage of Generation X has one photograph from every school year attended, along with some random pictures from various family vacations.

My children, Generation Z, are a totally different story. Their lives are an experience in intrusive documentary. If my kids were celebrities my wife would be the most vicious of paparazzi. (The kind that, while their child is on a tricycle, runs beside them with a camera, trying to capture a moment of them in real life, despite the fact that their child is trying to escape in a panic and crashes into a tunnel entrance wall and kills everyone on board including her Muslim lover.) (Too soon?) I say “my wife” because technology alone is not responsible for this ever-growing photo frenzy. Moms are the other half of the equation. Most dads on the other hand are convinced that simply experiencing a moment in time will suffice. But women half to catch it, and then relive it immediately just in case they missed some nuance of the fleeting moment.

While visiting the in-laws over Thanksgiving, my wife, our two kids, a few of the in-laws, and I went to The Aquarium of The Pacific to enjoy some nature just as God intended; in captivity. To support my thesis I would like to include an actual conversation, between my wife and I, that took place there.

Her: “Set the kids against the glass there.”

I comply because that’s what a dad does. He’s ever posing the kids so to convince all her friends that her children are in a constant state of “cuteness.”

Me: “Like this?”

Her: “No! So that Maggie’s arm is around Cash’s shoulder! Make it natural.”

Me: “Sorry.”

I fix the arm. Maggie understands what’s happening and fights it. Cash falls over. I hurry and stand him up because I know I’m blowing it.

Her: “Just get out of the way.”

Me: “Right. Sorry.”

She snaps the picture and immediately changes the function to “view.”

Her: “Oh my gosh mom, look how cute!”

Her mom excitedly hurries to her side. This gets her sisters attention and soon all three women are huddled around a tiny LCD screen, making the noises women make whilst viewing pictures of children (even if the kid has a face like Mr. Ed). But that’s not enough.

Her: “Honey, come look at this.”

Me: “That’s OK, I know what it looks like.”

Her: “Whadaya mean, ‘you know what it looks like’?”

Me: “I was there. You just took it. I was looking at the same scene you just photographed. The image is fresh in my brain, and I love it. No picture could improve that moment for me. It was magical. But you should know, after you took the picture, while you were pouring over it with maternal enthusiasm, you missed out on a bunch of other cute crap our kids did. Cash did a little tap dance for passers by, and earned over $10 in change, and Maggie struck up a conversation about the pros and cons of Affirmative Action with an elderly black man. It was adorable. I’m sorry you missed it.”

Her: “Why don’t you love our children?”

Despite what my wife may think, I do love my children and I do appreciate pictures of them when more than three seconds have past.

Here is a very small fraction of the pictures taken in the recent past.

Cash at his first swim lesson. (We did not stage this. He climbed in there of his own accord. My wife just left him in there long enough to photograph... and get something to drink.)

My kids spend 95% of their waking hours sitting around in nature in cute clothes, smiling.

Maggie's first pair of slutty boots.

A day at the aquarium.

The three most important people in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving. Do You Have A Reservation?

2007-11-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,
This afternoon, while playing on the beach with some of my siblings, I saw three ships, with banners waving, coming my way. Flags of their homeland told of whence they came, and my curiosity got the best of me so I went out to meet them. A bunch of white guys rowed smaller boats to shore and I greeted them with nervous anticipation. They seemed friendly enough at first; that is, until they started raping and pillaging. But I’m not one to hold a grudge. Live and let live, right?

Dear Diary,
Some time has passed since my first encounter with the white guys. I’m trying to be non-judgmental so I decided to forgive and forget. Some friends and I showed the crackers how to plant native crops, catch fish, and hunt for wild game. To their own surprise a handful of them survived the first year. They wanted to celebrate by having a big feast and said we could come if we brought the food. We said “why not?” and brought a butt load of tasty vittles. They called it “Thanksgiving”, and we called it “Your-welcome-giving.”

Dear Diary,
As it turns out our white acquaintances have a lot of relatives AND they invited them all over. They asked if we wouldn’t mind pulling up stakes and giving them a little more space. To help us feel better about the move they gave us a delicious drink that helps you forget you’ve just been ripped off and a bunch of blankets made of this lovely European wool. They called them “Small Pock Comforters” and they were cozy. We didn’t want to seem unaccommodating sooooo, ok.

Dear Diary,
Our white neighbors got in a big fight. I heard that Johnny Reb is mad at Billy Yank because apparently Johnny wants to keep his Negroes and his autonomy but Billy is a control freak and said “no way.” Ironically, while Billy's army is fighting for our black cousins some of his army is out here giving us trouble, but for the most part their guns are pointed at each other, so it gives us a little reprieve. Maybe they’ll all kill each other and we can split the land with the Negroes.

Dear Diary
We found out that there’s gold on our land today. Talk about your bad luck. No time to write, as I have to get packing before my wife and children are murdered.

Dear Diary,
Well, we’ve settled on some God-forsaken worthless toiletbowl-of-the-Earth. No tatonka, no trees, no water, nothin’. Not even the Mexicans would want it.

Dear Diary,
Well I was wrong. They wanted our craphole too. Not to worry though. Our white friends have assured us that they have reserved, on our behalf, some land that they can find absolutely no use for. Just to be sure we asked them to have one more look around just to make sure they couldn’t squeeze an Indian head penny out of the area. They tried and they couldn’t, so it’s ours. To celebrate, me and some of the guys passed around the pipe. No tobacco of coarse, but plenty of broken treaties for everybody to smoke.

Dear Diary
While standing, on break, near the entrance of my casino I saw three cars, with campers trailing, driving my way. License plates of their homeland told from whence they came…

Would you like some egg with your face?

2007-11-17T12:35:00.001-07:00

Once, at the beginning of a blind date, my date asked if I would come into her apartment and quickly help her move a couch. In an effort to make a good impression I kindly obliged. With her and all her roommates in the front room I carelessly picked up the couch and let my pecks flex unrestrained. Well, as those of you who know me can probably guess, my rippling pecks, shoulders, and arms ruptured my shirt like Mt Saint Helens leaving it torn asunder and hanging useless from my belt. I don’t know who was more shocked, them or me. I just stood there, couch in hand above my head, with all of my bulging, glistening, strapping, rippling, chiseled, glowing, gorgeous, Herculean muscles on display for all the girls to ogle; the very archetype of masculinity trapped in a hot-den of rabid femininity. Well, naturally they started swooning and shrieking with pleasure and breathing heavy and heaving their bosoms with passionate rapture; so much so that I thought some of the poor creatures were going to hyperventilate and/or bosoms were going to fly free from their lacy, cupped restraints. That was only the beginning. The breathing and heaving was soon followed by the fighting which broke out over who had the right to love me up and bare my children. You could have cut the angst filled fertility with a knife. There was screaming, clawing, hair pulling, gouging, punching, kicking, back biting, and all kinds of slanderous gossiping. And all the while I’m just standing there awkwardly with my dates couch over my head.
I was SO embarrassed.

CONTEST:
I now want to hear your embarrassing date stories. (Thanks for the idea Anjie.) Please submit them by way of comments. Prizes will be awarded for the best stories. Mind you, the stories have to be true like mine. No artistic liberty should be taken. The grand prizewinner will win a cruise for two to Beautiful Island Place of Happiness.

A Latte of Deep Thinking

2007-11-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I chose to teach high school, as apposed to jr. high, is because I wanted the students to be at a higher level of reasoning. I knew that with higher reasoning skills came more opportunities for deep and meaningful discussions about the various subjects we would be studying. They would not only have the chance to learn the mere facts of history but they would also be able to explore their deeper meanings; the philosophical and cultural ramifications of those facts. Today’s deep conversation was no exception.

Student: Mr. Quinn. Do you know what the weather is going to be like on Sunday?

Me: It’s supposed to be sunny with a 100% chance of rain with a cold front from the west and some snow flurries then a blizzard with freezing temperatures and a heat wave with possible drought bringing in a tropical storm with 175 mile an hour winds which should spur a typhoon followed by ship wreck and 30 days of night and rivers of blood, locusts, plague, pestilence, rabies, murder, male pattern balding, and…

Student: So you don’t know?

Me: No. Why?

Student: Because my mom is taking me for coffee on Sunday and I’ve really been craving a latte.

Me: OK.

Student: Well, I’m hoping it’s cloudy so I can get a latte.

Me: They only sell lattes on cloudy days?

Student: No. It’s just that I only like to get them if it’s cloudy.

Me: Well sure. That makes sense.

Student: If it’s cloudy I like to get a latte and if it’s sunny I like to get an iced coffee. Don’t you drink latte?

(There’s a long pause while I stare at her and contemplate not only the generational, but also the intellectual gap.)

Me: No.

Born With a Greasy Spoon in His Mouth

2007-11-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

If the Burger King married the Dairy Queen and they had a child together, do you think that child would grow up and go into the food service industry or do you think he would pick another field of expertise? Personally, I don't think it's fair to pigeon hole a person into any one area but I also think that he or she would just be wasting the huge resource of knowledge that are his parents. But whatever.

The Awesome Power of Pasta

2007-10-31T23:49:00.000-06:00

We had some family over for dinner the other night. We were eating spaghetti. As I was dishing up a plateful I wanted to show my appreciation and said, “This looks awesome,” to which my sister-in-law replied, “Eating spaghetti is awesome.” I was immediately intrigued by the notion that ones social aptitude or level of “coolness” could be gauged by the quantity of spaghetti one consumed. Convinced that this must be a true principle, (partly because my sister-in-law is staunchly honest and partly because it just felt right), I decided to perform an experiment and put it to the test. I ate as much spaghetti as I could without vomiting. The following is a log of the first day’s trial.

6:55 am
I got up, went into the kitchen, and pointedly declined the waffles, sausage, and eggs my wife had prepared stating “those food items would only stifle my awesomeness,” and promptly pushed my plate onto the floor. As the plate shattered, sending glass and food in all directions, my wife and I looked at each other in shock. It seems my faith was baring fruit, as I was already acting more awesome. No one could deny that tossing my food on the floor like an angst-filled teen was anything if not awesome. “Hell yes” I said, “I’m havin’ BU-SKETY for B-Fast YO! Make some!” My wife walked out in tears obviously unable to handle my high level of awesome. I wanted to comfort her but restrained myself when I reasoned that the only thing that could help her now was more spaghetti.

7:21 am
After eating leftover spaghetti I split (left) for work. On the way I tuned the radio to a rap station, which I felt spoke to me on a profoundly awesome level. I was in the middle of busting a tight rhyme when some uptight cracker cut me off. Typically, I would have taken it like a spineless Nancy, but now that I was awesome I scooted to the center of the car, rolled down the windows, steered with my knee, and sped past the offending cracker with both hands extended out either side of the car flipping the biggest, most awesome birds I have ever flipped. I was on top of the world.

9:10 am
Five minutes into my second class I’m still sitting in my chair with my feet on my desk. I’m already tired of teaching for the day. The students’ just stare at me. Then one asks, “Mr. Quinn? Are we going to learn any history today?” I just looked at him for a minute contemplating what I might say. And then I spoke. “History schmistory.”
The students all laughed.

10:42 am
It was time to refuel so I leave school early to take an extended lunch and decide to cruise down to Olive Garden. “I’ll have the all you can eat spaghetti platter.”
“We don’t have an all you can eat spaghetti platter.” The waitress explained.
“What did you say?”
“We don’t have an all you can eat spaghetti platter.” She repeated with deliberation.
“What did YOU SAY?!”
“I said we DO NOT have an all you can eat spaghetti platter!”
“WHAAAAT DIIIID YOOOOU SAAAAY???!!!!”
“Sir, I’m sorry. We don’t offer an all you can eat platter. Can I get you something else?”
“WHAAAAT DIIIID YOOOOU SAAAAAY???!!!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!”
“I’ll talk to the kitchen and see what I can do.”
I got the all you can eat spaghetti platter. My powers of persuasion are becoming increasingly proficient. Awesome.

2:45 pm
Upon my return to school I am informed I have been fired for sloughing. “I thought you could only get detention for sloughing” I protested.
“If you’re a student you get detention. If you’re a teacher you get fired.” They informed me.
“That’s a double standard.”
“Well, we hold teachers to a higher standard than students.”
“That’s what she said.” Point, set, match. No one recovers from a “that’s what she said.” My principal was probably reeling from the retort.
“What?” she asked.
“Never mind.”
“No, I want to understand you. That’s what who said about what?”
“I said never mind.”
“Just tell me what you meant.”
“Just forget it. It’s been too long now so it won’t even be funny.”
We just stared at each other for a minute. Then I walked up to within one inch of my principal. I grabbed her face and kissed her long and hard. “Am I fired now?”
“Yes. And I’m calling the police.”
“Your mom’s calling the police.”
“What?”
“Oh geez. Never mind.”

3:15 pm
I’ve cleared my stuff from my classroom but can’t go home yet lest my wife catch wise to my new employment status. But now that I’m awesome and not a teacher I want my car to reflect that fact so I stop into a car accessories shop to purchase some stickers of Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes, peeing on stuff. I hit the jackpot. I bought one of Calvin peeing on the Chevrolet logo but since I wasn’t sure what car company built my car I also bought one of him peeing on the Ford logo. I got one of Calvin peeing on George Bush, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Irish Dancing, Mexico, Mac Computers, Lindsey Lohan, Smokers, Ex-Wife, Ex-Boyfriend, My Step Kids, Al Gore, Polar Bears, Global Warming, Michael Moore, Socialism, and France. I bought some of him peeing on acronyms like NRA, PETA, MADD, and NAACP. I even bought some that didn’t really make sense but still looked awesome like Calvin peeing on Polio, Kermit the Frog (a dead, limp looking version), Orphans, Caribou, a human fetus, Spina Bifida, and a sticker that had two Calvins peeing on each other. Needless to say I stuck all these on the back window of my car to show my high level of awesome.

4:25 pm
I’m on the road heading home with the window down, arm hanging out, spitting occasionally just for the H of it. I feel as light as the ether now that I’m free from the bonds of slave labor. I decide to open up the ol’ Prizm all the way and push it up to 60. Just then I notice the fuzz on my tail. I decide to pull over and play it awesome. He approaches my window.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“What?”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“I pulled you over because it’s illegal to completely obstruct the view through your back window with decals or anything else for that matter. It’s not safe.”
“You got a warrant copper?”
“I don’t need a warrant to pull you over. Can I see your license and registration please?”
“Where’s my lawyer?
“I don’t have clue where your lawyer is.”
“Well I know my rights so you can stick it pork chop.”
“Watch the insults!”
“Is this some kind of screw job? I’ve been framed.”
“What are you talking about?”

5:15 pm
After I was arrested and put in jail I started to get hungry.
“Hey piggy!” I yelled to the nearest cop. “When’s chow?”
He started to walk closer and explained that they don’t provide meals, and that I could eat when someone came and bailed me out. Then I noticed his nametag read “Fabrezio” and got excited.
“Hey Guido, do you think you could score me some spaghetti?!” I asked.
“What did you call me?” He said as he walked toward my cell.
“No need to get bent out of shape Corleon. I’m with you, so get me some spaghetti.”
“I already told you we don’t serve meals.”
I could tell this situation was going to call for higher powers of persuasion.
“WHAAAAT DIIIIIID YOOOOOOU SAAAAAAAAY?????!!!!! AAAAAA…”

7:40 am (the next morning)
“Hey Ben. Ben, wake up.”
From a sleepy stupor I wake to the prodding sound of my wife’s voice. My eyelids flutter and I notice I’m lying in a small pool of my own blood. “What time is it?” I ask.
“It’s seven forty.”
It’s amazing how soundly you can sleep when you’ve been Billy-clubbed to the face. My wife informs me that I’ve behaved like certain parts of the body, which are found below the waist, and then bails me out. At the booking window I collect my things and bid farewell to all the law dogs.
“So long coppers. See you next time.”
One of the cops behind the counter looks my way and says, “I hope there’s not a next time.”
“That’s what your mom said.”
A bunch of cops laughed.
Awesome.

Love & Money

2007-10-28T13:41:00.000-06:00

If money could procreate what would it give birth to?
Assume I lit some candles in my room, scattered paper hearts over the bed and floor, and put on some Barry White to help set the mood. I then left two 20’s on the bed, and took my kids and wife out for the evening to give the 20’s some privacy. Now I’m just wondering; if the two $20 bills did conceive, what would they get pregnant with? Would they give birth to 1’s that would mature into 20’s, or would they just give birth to smaller, miniature 20’s that would grow to normal size 20’s over time? Maybe these are not the only two possible scenarios. Maybe they could get pregnant with any denomination of bill: 5’s, 10’s, 50’s, or even 100’s? Or is this all a moot point since 20’s are marked with the face of Andrew Jackson therefore making them male by default and unable to procreate?
Just wondering.

5 Years of Chess

2007-10-19T18:35:00.000-06:00

My wife and I are one of those couples of which you hear people say, “If they can make it, anybody can.” Like magnets of a similar polarity our being together defies the laws of nature itself. I used to be jealous of couples who have everything in common and an easy go of marriage; passing the time without contention as all their moments together are filled with an air of pleasant ease. I would ask myself, what are they doing that we are not, to make it seem so easy? My conclusion, nothing; they were just born that way. Some combinations just have to work harder than others. And my feelings about that fact are ambiguous because I have also concluded that our relationship is a great benefit to all contrasting personalities that become entwined in the bonds of matrimony. An observation of our lives provides the observer with an opportunity for growth and education that just can’t be gleaned from those “perfect” couples.

My wife’s sister and her husband, whom we occasionally tease because of how easy AND cheesy their relationship sometimes seems, do not know contention or difficulty and if they did ever have an argument it would sound something like this:

Him: “I love you.”
Her: “I love you more.”
Him: “No, I love you more.”
Her: “No, I love you more.”
Him: “Nuh-uh. I do.”
Her: (affectionately) “Oh honey, I’m sorry for arguing.”
Him: (passionately) “By golly, your peace-making gets me hot.”
(kiss kiss kiss hug hug kiss kiss)
Him: “Go sit down right now! I’m rubbing your feet.”
Her: “Not before I rub yours.”

Not that my wife and I haven’t enjoyed similar exchanges, but ours sounded more like this:

Her: “I love you.”
Me: “I love you more.”
Her: “Yeah, you’re probably right. Now rub my feet!”

Allow me to explain why I’ve been thinking about this.
Before marriage I was one of those idealistic romantics that thought marriage came as a packaged challenge, like a video game, and all people experienced that game at the same level of difficultly. It was supposed to be like Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo. (My choice of metaphor should illustrate how long it’s been since I’ve played video games.) Everyone would have to advance through the same levels to progress to the end and save the princess, which, in this analogy, would represent mastering the art of marriage and never experiencing a hint of trouble again. However, after a few years of marriage and a large amount of interaction with other married couples I learned this is not the case. It is more like playing chess against your computer, but instead of being able to pick which level you wish to begin (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), the computer chooses the level for you.

Let’s stick with this analogy a moment. Once I entered adolescence I began to notice that I liked computers. I knew I liked them but at the same time was fully aware of my incompetence when it came to their inner workings (both hardware and software). I did not understand them and visa versa. Still, I enjoyed being with computers; it felt good. By my mid-twenties I had some limited experience with computers. I used them to type papers for school, checked the occasional email, and searched the net on a very shallow basis. Beyond that I was pretty much computer illiterate. Also, I had always been aware that there were some men out there who were quite well versed in the binary language and some of these men were so familiar with computers that they started playing a game called chess with them. From what they described, chess was a difficult game, but one well worth playing. As it turned out, the levels of success and happiness these men were having at playing their various computers at chess were varied and irregular. Some of them loved the game vowing to never play any other games with any other computers ever again, while some of them didn’t take to the game of chess as well as they thought they might and they gave up and went back to using computers on a limited basis. Some men attempted to trade in their old computers hoping to secure a newer model while they, the men, were still young enough to understand and use new technology. And still some men got angry with their computers claiming their computers were cheating at the game and that it was too hard. “I’ll never play chess again. It costs too much both monetarily and emotionally,” they would say. Some of these men even threw their computers out, and then screamed at them from the window while throwing the computer’s belongings into the street. That said, I was always intrigued with the prospect of one day playing chess with some special computer. And then one day that opportunity presented itself. I had been working with a certain computer for about six months, felt comfortable with it and decided to become a chess player. When I began my game I naïvely thought the computer would start out easy, helping me understand what to do along the way. I told the computer that I wanted to start at the beginner level but to my surprise it said “No. I only play advanced.”
“But I don’t want to play at the advanced level yet. I’m just a beginner.” I explained.
“Well too bad. It’s your own damn fault for asking me to play with you.” It said with finality. And that was that. I was now stuck in a game I barely understood for what was supposed to be forever.

After hearing this analogy some people might say that the energy we’ve had to expend to stay happily married could have been saved had we chosen people more compatible to ourselves in the first place. And to them I say, that it is a moot point since my wife is the girl I fell head-over-heels in love with and when it comes to these types of dilemmas the mind is ill equipped to do battle with the heart. I think our relationship is that much better AND stronger due to the energy we've put into it. Somethings are worth fighting for, and the love of your life should be one of them.

We just celebrated our five-year anniversary this past Friday (Oct. 12th). Wars have been fought, educational degrees have been declared and completed, and hundreds of Hollywood relationships have been born and expired in less time, but it is only the beginning. There will be plenty of time for other young, struggling, passionate couples to look to us and say - “If they can make it, we can too.”

Book of Real History, Chap. 1

2007-10-08T16:58:00.000-06:00

So I got that teaching job I said I was looking for back in March (The Burden of an Education). For a poverty level paycheck I still can’t believe how demanding teaching high school can be. (That’s right, high school. I was also offered teaching positions at two different junior high schools, but I decided early adolescents was someplace that, psychologically speaking, I could not venture.) I spend my extra time trying to stay one day ahead of the students as we are covering 20th Century history this year and my exposure to said field was cursory at best. And so I feel like I am just as much a student as I am a teacher. Since August I have been on the edge of my seat with shock and awe as I have investigated the past like some kind of explorer. (This, along with the fact that my father passed and we moved into a new home, is the reason I didn’t write much in August.) Assuming that most American high school graduates left school with the same sheltered/half-truth education that I did, I feel it a duty as an educator to start a semi- regular piece entitled “The Book of Real History” where I reveal lesser known tidbits from our collective pasts. Let this be the first of those entries.

Verse 1
Did you know that the most famous duel in history is laced with irony? The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr really had nothing to do with politics or slander. What most history books fail to mention is that while the two statesmen were heavily involved in American politics they were also in a bluegrass band together and they both played the banjo. It was called “The Burilton Mountain Pickers” and they enjoyed traveling around the colonies playing family parties, barn dances, and various church functions. One of their most popular tunes was a little ditty they wrote together called “Competing Banjos.” The song was written to be an equal opportunity for the two virtuosos to display their picking prowess but Hamilton, who was kind of a showboat, insisted on taking an extended solo to end the song. Burr tried to express his frustration but was stymied by his band-mate’s pompous indifference when Hamilton told him to “Blow it out your butt.” Burr, at wits end from the constant upstaging by his musical compatriot, held his rage in until their next performance when right at the climax of Hamilton’s final solo, at the end of “Competing Banjos”, Burr bludgeoned Hamilton over the head with his banjo fatally wounding Alex and putting an end to “The Burilton Mountain Pickers.” Coincidentally, the name of the song was later changed to “Dueling Banjos” which only helped perpetuate the myth that an actual “duel” took place.

Life Lesson #62

2007-09-26T14:48:00.000-06:00

When calling a friend, make sure it’s him that answers before responding, “Hey numb-nuts!” just in case he decided to go on vacation and leave his cell phone with his mother.

Top 10 failed marketing slogans for the “Segway”

2007-09-12T15:50:00.000-06:00

10) And you thought you were fat before.
9) Nerds Of The World, Unite!
8) Paving the way to a more obese future.
7) Just (Let Someone Else) Do It!
6) Remember when people walked for leisure? Ha ha ha.
5) The Atrophiezer
4) When you fall over it’s not as hard to pick up as one of those motorcycle things.
3) The Vertical Geriatric
2) Best Chick Repellent Since B.O.
1) Suckway!

Dad

2007-09-05T16:09:00.000-06:00

In Chuck Dickens “A Christmas Carol” Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by his old business partner Jacob Marley who warns Ebenezer that his life of selfishness will lead to sad ends. “…no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! Such was I!” Scrooge attempts to defend Jacob’s life. “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob” to which Marley replies, “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Over the years I have often been surprised at how liberally my dad gave others of his personal time, money, and love. When he died on August 10, 2007 at the young age of 56, I began to think on how he spent his time and have come to realize that he lived like a man who knew his days were numbered. One of the few comforts I have had since his passing was the knowledge that my dad knew what his business was, and was expert in his field. Sometimes when I’m missing him to the point where my chest tightens and I have to turn my face from anyone who’s not my wife, I wonder how different our lives, our relationships, and the world might be if we all lived in such a way. Before I go on, please know that what I say about my father is said without hyperbole, undue bias, or the typical heroification that usually accompanies the post-partum memoirs written on behalf of deceased parent figures. Since his death I have developed the theory that there are many ways to be a good father, but significantly fewer ways to be a great one. I want to write about some of those ways.

Through personal observation and speaking with friends I learned early on that my dad was different. If at the home of a friend, I knew I could usually come and go without having a single run in, let alone an actual dialogue with that friend’s father. And to be honest, that was fine with me since other dad’s usually seemed gruff, authoritative, and pretty much unapproachable. If I were to have a friend, male or female, over to my house I knew there was little chance of me getting that friend out the door without first being accosted by my father. He wanted to know everything. How’s the family, school, dating, (then to both of us) what are you doing, where are you going, with who, what else, when will you be back, remember who you are and what you stand for, (then to me) I love you. Honestly, his seemingly unnatural level of attention/interrogation sometimes embarrassed me; but my friends never seemed to mind. Now I like to think that they might have been a little envious of the zealous style with which he approached fatherhood. I’m going to miss his zealousness.

I am amazed at how often he found or created opportunities to teach us, his sons, something he felt was important. Sometimes the lessons seemed untimely but he was of the opinion that if children learn important lessons early, and establish a strong foundation, major issues never become major issues.
“There was a story on the news I wanted to talk to you guys about.” He said to me and my brothers one night.
“Ya?”
“A young teenage girl got high on crack and dove headfirst into an empty pool and died. Do you guys know how scary drugs are? How much they hurt not just the people who abuse them but also their loved ones? You four boys mean everything to mom and me. Do you know that?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you have the courage to stand up for what’s right when it comes time to decide.”
(Pause for effect)
“Dad, I’m only six years old. I don’t even know where to get cigarettes let alone crack cocaine.”
(I didn’t say that last part. But if I could go back in time and enter my six-year-old head, I would have.)

I loved the way he valued his our sense of adventure and need to do things that weren’t always part of the mainstream. His willingness to risk financial security to do something unusual with the family had become a source of criticism from friends more than once. But whether we wanted to sell it all and move to Nauvoo, or Jackson Hole, or anywhere else, he was in, as long as the family was doing it together. Even after suffering major financial loss at the hands of dishonest partners, or due to poor personal execution my dad maintained a surprisingly positive outlook, regrouped, and was willing to try something else. When most fathers would try to sober their sons with dream defeating reality my dad praised our ideas and hoped they included the group being together. He knew where his priorities lie. Daily he worked to lay up treasures in heaven and hoped the earthly treasures lasted long enough to do so comfortably.

Though he spent much of his life on the road he somehow always managed to be there when it was important. If someone was moving, had car trouble, was performing on stage, had a game, needed advice, wanted someone to play golf with, dad was there. “Just don’t tell mom. She’s at work while I’m out here with you.”

Speaking of mom, I learned how to treat women from the example he set with my mother. I’m going to miss the way he talked about my mom. In front of her and in private he loved to tell us how lucky he was, and how lucky we were for having her as our mother. He was the first to admit that he married above himself. He would hug her tight, kiss her, and say, “Your mom is one in a million.”

I will sorely miss his liberal showing of affection; the random calls where he would just call to say hi, what’s up, I love you. I talked to my dad on the phone two days before he passed; a long stretch by our standards. The conversation was insignificant. We talked about my family getting back to Utah, and getting moved into our new place. I hadn’t seen him for about two months due to a summer job I had taken and he expressed how much he missed us and how excited he was to see my wife Kathryn and my kids Maggie, and Cash (who he called Jack). He had to get back to work but he wanted me to know he loved me and was thinking of me. The last words that passed between us were “I love you.” If I’d known it was going to be the last time we spoke I would have slowed down, told him I still needed him, that I would miss our private conversations, that it breaks my heart to think of my young mother going to bed at night and seeing only space where her dearest confidant used to lie, that the real tragedy is that my children and many of my brother’s children will have no memory of him, that I wished I were there so I could hug him and kiss his cheek, that I wished I could have looked into his eyes when I said my last “I love you dad.”

There may be some, surface associates, that thought that Martin Quinn’s business was picture framing. But sales and frames “were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of [his] business;” a necessary evil to create free time for his real job. His business was family and man, and he was expert at it. Now that he’s gone it is my intention to take up the family business. I hope I can make him proud.

Coming Soon

2007-08-31T15:41:00.000-06:00

The 3 people who read this blog,
I apologize for my month long absence. A lot occured this month that took my attention elsewhere, some of which I'll write about. Please check back soon as I appreciate your readership and comments.

Thanks,
The UnMighty

Let US Pray

2007-07-29T15:35:00.000-06:00

Good news Muslim high schoolers. You can now pray it up in school. Despite attempts on the part of a few vehement atheists to stifle your religiosity many states are holding up your right to get all churchy during school hours. Personally, I really can’t say I blame you for putting up a holy stink. If a few prayers meant I could get out of class 5 or 10 extra minutes every day, then give me a rug and call me Ishmael, because I’m in.

My college years, along with some life experience since graduation, have aided me in my move toward the center of the political spectrum. I guess one could say I’ve liberaled up a bit. (I think it’s an interesting coincidence that “liberaled up” and “loosened up” both start with “L” and end with “up.”) Unlike before, I am now in favor of “special consideration” for all types of groups where before I was blind, or just indifferent, to their plight. I am now a strong supporter of Blacks getting into college based on color, Indians opening casinos everywhere they can, Fatties riding electric wheelchairs around Wal-Mart so they won’t be forced to get exercise, and Mexicans enjoying public benefits without paying taxes, just to name a few.

Mind you, I haven’t always been in favor of special consideration for minority groups. Let me illustrate with an example from my past. I am a member of a church that enjoys a relatively high Polynesian membership, for the lower 48 at least. And without fail, anytime one of them gets up to the pulpit they yell “Aloha!” Not only that, but everyone in the audience is expected to yell “aloha” back in response. (I guess it’s the islander’s version of the Southern Baptist’s, “Hallelujah!”) If the congregation doesn’t yell it loud enough, which they never do the first time, the screaming Polynesian repeats his greeting louder than before in an effort to prod the sleepy assembly in a kind of “come-on-crackers-you-can-do-better-than-that” sort of way. And the process repeats until the islander is satisfied, which can take some time. I’ve seen this go on for 20 minutes before. This practice has always seemed strange to me since I’m quite satisfied with just a single greeting from a friend or group of people, despite the decibel level.

When I first witnessed this I was still in my youth and believed that one should never shout in church. Pious indignation spurred me to my feet upon the pew and I attempted to subdue the seemingly hypnotized congregation. With hands raised like Moses to the Israelites I entreated all with a loud voice, “No my people! Do not blaspheme in the house of God! Be still. Peace be unto you. Be not easily swayed by the wicked enticement of one man. Be as a rock, a rock upon which we can build some homes, or maybe some condos for the lower income families! Yea verily - ”
My father jerked me from the pew mid soap box sermon by my tie, told me I’m wasn’t Moses, and later informed me that the man was Polynesian and is allowed to scream in church. Not only that but he was also expected to eat an inordinate amount of Spam.
“Can I yell in church?” I asked.
“No.” said my father.
“Why not.” I persisted.
“Because you’re white.” He explained.
“What does my color have to do with it?” I queried.
“You're so young.” he laughed.

Needless to say, I learned a profound lesson that day. Part of that lesson is that there are still some exceptions that cannot be made, especially if we are talking about mainstream America. At the same time high school Muslims were receiving legislative support for their right to pray to their God in their way, everyone else was further reminded that God has no place in our educational system. (Luckily He already knows everything and has no need of a preparatory education.) Several districts, in places like Texas and elsewhere in the United States had, up til recently, been allowed to practice what they called a “moment of silence” exercise where students could pray, reflect, think about the hot chick in class, or just pick and eat boogers without other students witnessing it. Whether they were doing it in classes, at the beginning of sports games, or before the schools human sacrifice ritual I don’t know. The fact of the matter is, is that these “moments of silence” were being practiced in the presence of atheist students, whose parents found out and were immediately gripped by the fear that some of these religious thoughts might rub off on their child and influence them to buy a gun and vote another cowboy into the Whitehouse. Justifiably they rallied, and by the authority of the Constitution of the United States of America, (which we all know was written by religion hating atheists), they, along with the ACLU, the harbingers of all that is good and right, put an end to this evil “moment of silence.”

Some of the ACLU’s social scientists have determined that the intellectual casualties were significant and they were lucky that they put an end to the “moment” when they did.
So pray on Muslims, because you too will soon be part of the mainstream and an eligible target of the protectors of Trooth, Rite, and the Amerikan Way.

God bless. (Just not at school.)

Salt of The Earth

2007-07-22T23:02:00.000-06:00

I love small town folks. I recently met three in Missouri when I took my laptop into one of those 24-hour diners where the waitresses call you “Honey” and they only play pre 1965 music from an old fashioned jukebox. I thought I should write about the encounters since I’ve never before had three such conversations in such a short amount of time. The ages are approximations and the conversations are as close as I can remember.

I first met Warren (age 48)

Warren: “You gittin’ internet in here?”

Me: “No. I’m just working on some other things.”

Warren: “Really? You looked like you was gittin’ Wi-Fi.”

(This was the first time I’d heard “gittin’” and “Wi-Fi” in the same sentence.”

Me: “Nope. I wish.”

Warren: “You should go down ta Burger King. You can git Wi-Fi there.”

Me: “Is that right?”

Warren: “Ya, just go in and turn down that narrow hall there (he says, assuming I know the layout of the Burger King) and there’s a big table in the back. You can plug in and git Wi-Fi all day back there.”

Me: “Thank you. That’s good to know.”

Warren: “Yep.”

Later I met Jacob (age 14)

Jacob: “Is that your computer?” (He says while approaching me with a burger in one hand and a drink in the other)

Me: “Yes, it is.”

Jacob: “What are you doing with it?”

Me: (Remaining vague in case he’s computer savvy enough to speak at length on any computer related prompt.) “I’m just typing.”

Jacob: “What kind is it?”

Me: “It’s a Mac.”

Jacob: “How much did it cost?”

Me: “About a thousand dollars.” (It was more, but I’m still being vague.)

Jacob: “Wow, that’s a lot! (coughs a second) What if computers like that grew on trees? That would be cool.”

Me: “That would be pretty cool.”

Jacob: “Ya, you could go out and just pick as many as wanted.”

(Long pause as we both smile at the prospect of computer trees.)

“Well, I gotta go.”

(He sets his burger on my table so he can shake my hand which, despite my greaseaphobia, I shake because Jacob seems like a nice kid.)

Me: “It was nice to meet you Jacob.”

Jacob: “See you later.”

Last I met Paul (age 65) who was sitting at the counter eavesdropping on mine and Jacob’s conversation.

Paul: “So what kind of program does that have?”

Me: “Whats that, oh, it has all kinds of different programs?”

Paul: “You a computer guy or some kind of programmer?”

Me: “Me? No. I can barely use the basic programs.”

Paul: “You have one of them new iPod’s you can talk on?”

Me: “You mean the iPhone?”

Paul: “Ya. One of them you can talk on and play music.”

Me: “No, I don’t have one of those.”

Paul: “They cost a lot?”

Me: “I understand they cost quite a bit for a phone.”

Paul: “What the Hell people need all that s@#% for anyway?”

Me: (shrugging) “I think they’re just lonely. So they try to bury the memory of past failed relationships and lost loved ones by investing a gratuitous amount of money on the latest gadget, naively convinced that the burgeoning tech industry and the developments of the future will help take their minds off the pains of the past.”

Paul: “What?”

Me: “I don’t know why people need all that stuff.”

Pleez Edyookate

2007-07-19T23:25:00.001-06:00

As a true fan of all movies including documentaries I decided to stop in and see Michael Moore's latest muckraking thriller, "Sicko", and have to admit he has made a compelling argument in favor of universal health care. Now, in an effort to appear like a truly informed American I've been doing some casual research into the views of the other side but in the process have reminded myself that I hate doing research. There's so much reading and looking around that is required. And so, for the first time, I am asking for the help of both my readers. I would like people to leave arguments that they have, or are aware of, opposing universal or socialized healthcare.

So please, in as many words as you would like, tell me why the U.S. should avoid such a change.

Room 116

2007-07-17T23:03:00.001-06:00

My curiosity got the best of me and now I’ll probably be dead before the sun rises. I’m writing this in a motel room in Missouri. I have been here on business the past few days and am without wife or child and get reasonably lonely in the evenings and so I thought I might take myself to dinner and a show. Why not, I said to me. I’m good company and have been meaning to get to know me a bit better.
Skipping forward in time; so there I was, appetite satiated with a belly full of shrimp and ribs standing before the box office of one of Springfield’s picture-show houses.
“One for 1408.”
As it turns out 1408 is Stephen King’s new movie about a haunted hotel room that no one makes it out of alive. Now, when I bought the ticket I forgot to consider two major factors. 1) I scare easier than a six-year-old girl. (The sequel to Wizard of Oz still has me terrified of monkeys and roller-blades and especially monkeys on roller-blades.)
AND 2) After the movie I would have to go back to my motel room… alone.

Right when I return to the room and walk in I know something is wrong. Evil is here. And because I’m crap-myself scared right now and can’t sleep, I decided to write all night just in case I wake up dead. That way my loved ones will know what happened to me.

11:35 pm
The air conditioner sounds like ghost howling. I try to shut it off but to know avail. It’s stuck on full fan.

11:50
The evil air conditioner won’t let me sleep so I turn on the TV to distract me but it clicks several times before coming on. Not mechanical clicks you might hear when turning on an old tube TV that needs to warm up before use, but a poltergeist or maybe a possessed-midget-who-is-stuck-inside-and-trying-to-get-out kind of click. M.A.S.H. is on but the sound isn’t coming from the TV like it’s supposed to. Instead it’s coming from my own brain. It’s like that dream I have where I’m on stage singing “Welcome to the Jungle” and I know all the words. I’m freaking out because I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of M.A.S.H. due to the fact that it’s not nearly as funny as people born before 1975 claim it is.

12:27 am
I started to drift off to sleep but was startled back to full consciousness by the sound of a baby crying. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, but it’s unnerving. I hate it when the Devil uses children against us.

12:42
I’ve put tissue in my ears in an attempt to drown out the baby and the AC unit. But now the TV has come back on and the only thing on is the same episode of M.A.S.H. that was on before. I turn the channel and realize it’s on every channel and now the TV won’t shut off.

1:20
All three noises climb to an unbearable climax so I try again to shut off the AC unit. No luck. I’m writhing from the auditory assault and in a fit of desperation I grab the desk lamp and smash the AC unit to pieces.

2:41
The AC unit is quieter now though it is still clinging to life with a pitch-fluctuating whirring sound. The crying of the baby is on the brink of making my ears bleed. I bang on the walls and scream “FEED THAT BABY!” The crying doesn’t stop but now there is someone behind every wall banging and screaming “FEED THAT BABY!”

3:15
I’m lying at the end of the bed, ear to the mattress with a pillow pressed firmly against my other ear. Something catches my eye. The handle on the bureau drawer moved ever so slightly. Hesitantly I move toward the drawer to investigate. I pull it out in one quick yank and without warning an angry piglet leaps from the drawer and hooves me to the ground with one powerful blow to the chest. He lands on me with all the fury of a Christmas ham, beating me mercilessly about the face and head with his fore hooves.

5:05
I must have blacked out because I just woke on the floor in a pool of blood I can only assume came from my nose and mouth. I crane my neck quickly in anticipation of another attack from Beelzepig. It is nowhere to be seen but I lay there a minute to be sure.

5:06
Just when I’m about to get up I hear a blood curdling squeal and look up to see the swine flying over the bed toward my face. This time I react by spinning to the side while reaching for the animal as it flies past. I snagged one of its rear legs. I keep spinning so to use the centrifugal force to keep his teeth away from my kill zones. When I don’t think I can spin any faster I release and watch the un-kosher terror fly headfirst into the T.V. thus ending his life and M.A.S.H. with one big electrical crash.

5:10
I’m really upset now because I’m usually pretty good with animals and only like to kill them for food… or sport…or as punishment to a neighbor who has wronged me.

5:46
I gather my wits and go to the bathroom to wash the bacon grease and blood from my hands. I scrub and scrub and never feel clean. When I dry my hands I realize that the cheap motel soap has made my eczema flare up. I’m in Hell!

5:53
I search high and low for some kind of ointment or lotion to sooth my dry itching hands but nothing.

6:10
I punch the bathroom mirror in frustration and shatter it. Now my hand is throbbing and bleeding heavily. I curse my stupidity but fail to learn from my mistakes and illustrate this by punching a pile of broken glass with my other hand. Crap.

6:14
My brain cracks and I loose it. I’ve never taken any martial arts classes but my rage doesn’t care. I kick and smash and do some major Jean-Claude Van Damage. I even pull the pig from the TV and use it as a club to beat the room to pieces.

6:57
Everything is destroyed, including the pig.

7:00
The guy I’m traveling with knocks on my door. Shaking from nerve wrecked hysteria and exhaustion I answer. He notices the blood on the walls, the smashed furniture and AC unit, the pig, and asks what happened.

7:35
I check out at the front desk and lodge a serious complaint with the manager.

7:36
Manager hands me certificate for “1 Free Nights Stay” at any Hampton Inn in the country.

7:37
I forgive the Hampton Inn and am looking forward to my next stay.

Newfangled...

2007-06-30T18:18:00.000-06:00

I'm writing this blog from my brand new MacBook. Since I recently breached 30 years my wife thought a new piece of technology might make me feel younger. So we went out and spent our savings in the name of anti-age-induced depression. But, now that I have it I'm not sure what's more depressing, being 30 or so technologically declined that I can't use this damn thing. I know it's a little early to be talking like the archaic old man who insists he was raised in a rougher and tougher age without the “modern conveniences” that are slowly transforming our race into the fat lethargic lounge-abouts that often work in the advanced tech industry.

(I'm convinced that pretty soon all humans will be born with weak useless bodies and giant powerful brains like this guy, who, I learned, works for NASA in one of their highly classified think tanks coming up with crap like individual fart powered rockets which I could never buy for my dad because he'd never land.)

But when you consider the speed at which advancements are being made, one could argue that my generation has witnessed more change in the shortest amount of time than any generation to come before. I'm not even a grandfather yet and already I'm prone to utter the superannuated cliché "back in my day..."
So to put the icing on my 30-year birthday cake I'd like to leave you with a few.

Back in my day we didn't have computers and if you clicked a mouse you'd get in trouble with PETA.

Back in my day we didn't have the net and we had to stalk our victims in person.

Back in my day we didn't have blogs and a blogspot was a urine stain on the carpet left by our dog named Blog.

Back in my day we didn't have junk email and spam was canned mystery meat loved by the peoples of Hawaii.

Back in my day we didn't have search engines and if you "googled" a lady you usually got slapped.

Back in my day we didn't have cell phones and if you wanted brain cancer you had to sleep on a uranium pillow.

Back in my day we didn't have iPods and when people went jogging they would just strap a singing midget to their arm.

Back in my day we didn't have software and Microsoft was what the ladies called my chest in high school.

All that said, I like my new computer and I'm really looking forward to my weak body and giant head.

I'm already half way there.

The Apple And The Tree

2007-06-19T00:02:00.000-06:00

Enjoying a little "Father/Son" time.

It's easy when you have so much in common.

Paris Is Not Free! All Hope Is Lost! (at least for 37 more days)

2007-06-10T12:24:00.000-06:00

This post is a follow up to my last post, “Paris Is Free!!!”, and will make better sense if you read that one first.

In my ongoing revelry and celebration I failed to notice the updates of Paris Hilton’s legal situation. Her unjustified abuse continues as she has been re-sentenced to serve the rest of her 45 day prison sentence. Just when my tender heart had regained a speck of hope, that hope was dashed to pieces by the malicious gavel of a vindictive judge. Shame on you your honor. And shame on us all for allowing it.

Despite the heavy amounts of injustice continually pressed upon her, Paris continues to inspire all with her courage, fortitude, and selflessness. Of her plight she has said, “I would hope going forward that the public and the media will focus on more important things, like my movies, TV shows, and other hot stuff I do.” Gratefully we have been assured that “A guard is monitoring her at all times to ensure there isn't anything harmful done to herself by herself." The statement is reassuring but the effort unnecessary as Paris would never bring harm to herself since she has been taught since birth of her important role in society and has learned to put her safety, wellbeing, and happiness above all others.

My heart is low this day and I have not the strength to write further.

PARIS IS FREE!!!

2007-06-07T22:57:00.000-06:00

Never has this headline meant so much. Not even when it was used to herald the liberation of Paris, France in August of 1944, or all the other times France was saved by some foreign nation.

I know this column is a little late, but you’ll have to excuse me. One of the reasons I have not posted anything as of late is because I have been so tied up in the goings on and recent release of Paris Hilton.

It is hard for me to express in words how important this event is but let me say that just when I thought the moral sun was permanently setting on the horizon of our collective ethos, the American judicial system has given us a shining sliver of hope. For a time I was convinced our great country was on the brink of godless anarchy. When a pillar of our extended community and archetype of goodness like Paris Hilton is convicted of something as trivial as driving under the influence or driving with a suspended license or shooting a homeless person I can’t help but feel that we are a society very nearly beyond Thunder Dome.

When, might I ask, did government get so big, bureaucracy laden, and audaciously pompous as to think they could torment one of our Founding Sisters, especially for something as trivial as driving with a suspended license? (If you are unfamiliar with the Founding Sisters let me mention a few prominent members; Lindsey Lohan, Nicole Ritchie, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Britney Spears, just to name a few.) Also, who, I’d like to know, doesn’t drive under the influence or on a suspended license? I’ve personally killed 27 homeless persons while driving under the influence on a suspended license. I don’t remember the last time I did drive sober or with a license. Sober driving, hmmph. Boooooooriiiing. I digress.

Though I was shocked at the close-mindedness of Paris Hilton’s judge, I was most saddened to hear in the news that she was being used by the system to make an example. What some people in our judicial system don’t understand is that there are those in society who have achieved a level of entitlement that is not afforded to others, or “normies” as I like to call them. You see, Paris Hilton is no mere citizen of America, bound by the same laws, restrictions, tax codes, and social proprieties that you and I are bound by. She is America damnit! She’s the Trend Setter; the sleeveless, rib exposing, pattern dress wearing guru of what is HOT and what is NOT! Aside from her enormous contributions made in politics, the sciences, and humanitarian aid, she has done more for modern TV and movie entertainment than any other actor, ever. A snippet of her biography should illustrate my point: The Simple Life, Bottoms Up, House of Wax, The Hillz, Wonderland, Nine Lives. (And those were just some of the movies she knew she was acting in.) She’s not in the media. She is the media! And they treated her like some common, poor, non-white girl who wasn't an heiress to a hotel chain fortune.

Let me conclude by saying that just because she was released early does not excuse the fact that she was ever troubled, let alone convicted, in the first place. Together we can stop the moral slippage of our time by remembering Paris and the hardships she has endured and making sure that it never happens again.

Welcome back Ms. Hilton. Please except our most sincere apologies.

Noteworthy Encounter

2007-05-31T23:28:00.000-06:00

Recently, while on the road performing and promoting my band at a convention, I was checking into a Motel 6 for the night. Unwittingly, I forgot to remove a name badge I was wearing that, along with my name, included some other info. Included in that info was the word "comedy." The following exchange I had with Kevin, the desk clerk, is true and as accurate as I can remember.

Kevin: "So you're a comedian?"

(Note: I consider myself more of a musician than a comedian. But to avoid having to explain my nametag I said;)
Me: "Well, sort of."

Kevin: "You know what’s awesome about comedians? They get their material from real life experiences."

Me: (Smiling politely at his astute observation) "I guess so."

Kevin: "They can even get material from lame encounters and stupid conversations."

That said, I'd like to dedicate this blog to Kevin.

No P.C. in Munchkin Land

2007-05-25T09:19:00.000-06:00

Even though I’ll be middle aged (30) in one month I still find it a real treat to see a midget in public. For me it holds the same kind of novelty as going to the circus as a youngster, or spotting a leprechaun in the wild. (The latter especially since the leprechaun, Midgetous Gaelicious, is a close cousin to our native breed, the Midgetous Americana.) I have to admit, however, that as their numbers multiply and more and more of them are becoming comfortable moving about in regular society that the novelty is wearing off. Pretty soon a midget eyewitness encounter will be as commonplace as seeing pigeons in a park. In fact, I predict that within 30 to 50 years, they will be living and working right along side regular people with the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. And all their amazing intrigue and uniqueness will be forgotten and left by the wayside, like the luck dragon. They will be counted as just another casualty of the war waged under the banner of “Political Correctness.”

There is a contingent among us that is attempting to quail all that is special and beautiful and funny to look at. They, the PC Brigade, will not be happy till all is the same; visually, a pasty blandness that sits on the observational palette tasteless and to be swallowed in one dry, uninteresting lump. Shame on them for attempting to strip midgets of their midget-ness. One can only assume that the Brigade is jealous of this uniqueness. They must be so ordinary that everywhere they witness extraordinary they work to remove the “extra” as to not feel inadequate. So what if you can save thousands by shopping at Baby Gap, or order off the kids menu, or play in the ball pool at Chucky Cheese, or chase rodents down small holes for sport. If you can’t do those things then you just have to find what does make you special and capitalize on them.

I decided to write this piece because I recently heard that the PC Brigade has even gone as far as to try and strip midgets of their name. They are now pushing to make them known as “little people.” I hope you are as shocked as I was. I’m confused. (No surprise, since mass confusion is often the goal of such immoral paradigm shift attempts.) We used to call children “little people.” Pretty soon they’ll be saying “brilliant child” is the proper term for midgets.
“I’d like you to meet my friend Jeff, he’s a brilliant child. That’s him over there with some other children. He’s the brilliant one… with the big head.”

I’m here to argue that this movement can only end badly. Have we learned nothing from history? We tried to assimilate the American Indian and we’re still paying for that mistake. I say free the American Midget. Reintroduce it into the wild, it’s native habitat, and pray that our attempt to juice-style blend all of Gods creatures into one homogeneous population hasn’t left irreversible damage on it.

United we stand… some taller than others.

Mom

2007-05-13T00:31:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of the holiday I want to write something about my mom. That said, I really feel like It’s hard to write about moms without sounding cliché or like every other guy who thought he had the greatest mom in the world. But I’ve concluded that it doesn’t matter how cliché it comes off because this time I’m saying it about my mom. I’m not going to say everything because I anticipate her being around for many more Mothers Days and if I say it all now I’ll have to spend money next year.

When I was an early adolescent I stopped calling my mom mom and started calling her ma. There was no good reason. It just fell into my vernacular like all other youthful slang does. It became a term of endearment and never said with a country drawl, but with more of a Brooklyn… uh… drawl. Pretty soon my siblings unconsciously caught on and before long mom became ma. As my older brothers grew and started having kids of their own the title was naturally passed on from everyday use but now it sounded appropriate since ma was a natural substitute for grandma.

Ma, the only female in my immediate family, is the unassuming one, the one that wouldn’t stand out if you met us in passing or were privy to a 5 minute exhibition of the family. To me, that is one of the things that is endearing about her; her deceptively diminutive quietness. In passing she would only come off as your average mother. You might never realize that you’ve just met one of God’s finest. A few qualities you would miss; she has a work ethic that is unparalleled in most men and never has a complaint about the time that she has to put in; literally not one lament about under appreciation. You wouldn’t witness family conversations around the dinner table or the campfire and hear her defend those the rest of us may have a certain dislike for, even if they’re real dirt bags. I mean the kind of people that only deserve a “Tanya Harding” to the shins. She is incapable of slander. She is also the slowest to heavy laughter so you may never know of her completely contagious laugh. She attempts jokes the least, but at the most unlikely of times she says something that makes only herself laugh until she attempts to defend her high standard of humor by saying, “now that was funny” which sets everyone off. Once she has started, she usually can’t stop until tears are running or pants are soiled, literally. Once, at a family gathering, chicken races were suggested and all of the sudden she wanted to compete. She awkwardly attempted to mount my father’s shoulders and started laughing so hard that she was unable to tell him she had just urinated down his back. But with or without wet pants her kindness and charity are boundless and her influence in my life, even into my adult years, cannot be measured or repaid.

If you don’t mind, I also want to mention something of my wife, since my kids are still young, and clueless of their responsibility on this holiday. Since I got married I’ve been guilty of saying things men should never say to their wives like, “my mom never… ” or “my mom always…” which I know isn’t fair just like it wouldn’t be fair for my wife to compare me to her father. I would fall short at every measurement. (Except physical height. He’s like a member of the Lollipop Guild.) I have to remind myself that my mother too was young once and is who she is because four boys put her through the refiners fire in young adulthood. My wife isn’t my mom and that’s okay. She is completely unique and I thank God she is mine. She has brought into my life many new qualities and continues to improve on the work, myself, that my mother began years ago. She is different, but when I watch her cradle my son while feeding or read my daughter bedtime stories I have no doubts my kids will someday look at their mother the way I look at mine. I just hope she never has to urinate down my back.

Happy Mothers Day to the two most important women in my life. I love you both.

Top 10 Signs Your Wife Is Jealous Of Your Guitar

2007-05-10T00:08:00.000-06:00

10) She reminds you daily of how sexy Garth Brooks is when he smashes his guitar at the end of a concert.

9) She wears earrings that look like tuning keys.

8) On your kitchen table you find an invoice from a private investigator and a manila folder full of black and white pictures of you and the guitar.

7) She likes to suggest hobby alternatives like drugs or alcohol.

6) In an effort to regain your attention she buys a G-string and an E, B, D, and A string to wear as lingerie.

5) She knows what every pawnshop in town is willing to give for it.

4) She spends an inordinate amount of time in an internet chat room conversing with a guy named “Mr. Banjo.”

3) She ends heated arguments with a crude gesture and the order to “STRUM THIS!”

2) When your high school girlfriend called to catch up, she took the kids outside to give you some alone time.

1) She refers to it as “The One Legged Whore.”

The Animal Within

2007-04-30T21:29:00.000-06:00

Somehow I’m getting cable at my house. I'm not paying for it but it's coming through. The angel inside of me wants to call the cable company and come clean but the pirate inside of me ran the angel through with his blade. Now, the pirate and I sit back, feet up, in the modern day entertainment position and watch all kinds of nonsense while our bodies atrophy away to a soft pudge. Of all my newfound television interests one of the programs I’ve really learned to enjoy is the UFC or Ultimate Fighting Challenge. I think the UFC is entertaining for the same reason programs like WWE, When Animals Attack, and Americas Funniest Videos are entertaining. Because is satisfies a deep seeded blood lust that has been buried under layers of mans version of modern day “civilization.” We may wear a suit and tie and work nine to five and buy our meat pre-wrapped but some ancient part of our nature still wants to hunt, battle, kill, feel like a predator now and then.
(Side note: I think “Americas Funniest Videos” should be called “Taking it in the Crotch” since every other shot is some poor schmuck getting whacked in the hobbits by his own child or some piece of sports paraphernalia.)

Back to the UFC; I don't know if this feeling is common among men, but as I sit there, bowl of Lucky Charms in hand, milk on my chin, watching these modern day gladiators, I can't help but think, "I could do that." You're probably thinking I'm a naive egomaniac but bare with me. I figure you've only got to be able to do two things. First, you've got to be able to move fast; speed. This I've got in spades. Sometimes when I'm shadowboxing with myself in the mirror, and my hands start moving with the fury of a class five hurricane, I lose track of them and I almost knock myself out. Also, sometimes when I'm River Dancing, I do an Irish kick so hard that the momentum takes the other leg off the ground and I land on my back. That's the kind of speed I'm talking about. Other than speed you've got to be able to take a hit. This also should not be a problem, and let me tell you why. During my freshman year of high school I once took a flying discus to the temple and walked away without even a concussion. Another time, while riding motorbikes with my brothers, I took a diving header over the handlebars sans helmet. At the end of my flight I head-butted a 10-inch diameter metamorphic. The result; I got six stitches in my crown but the rock got split like a melon. My head is the perfect target for heavy blows.

Now, the physical part of it aside, I do think I would have a hard time with the mental aspect of cage fighting. My whole life I have been more of a lover than a fighter. But to cage fight you have to be willing and able to put the hurt on anyone who steps into the ring with you, and I just don't think I have that mental "kill switch" that you need to survive in there. I have to really dislike a person to put the kybosh on them. So, in closing I want to say that although most of the people out there are safe from the fury of the UnMighty I would like to include a list of people I'd be willing to punch in the throat.

Danny and Darren Davis: The retarded redneck twins that made my life Hell ever since I wore a tinfoil covered paper plate as a belt buckle on “cowboy day” in the 6th grade.

Newt Gingrich: Nothing against him personally but you’re bound to attract some negative attention with a name like Newt.

Osama bin Laden: For obvious reasons.

Barack Obama: I don’t think its just coincidence that Obama sounds so much like Osama.

Tom Cruise: I don’t necessarily dislike Tom. He’s just the scapegoat for all of Scientology.

Katie Holmes: For marrying Scientology.

Elmo: There are people starving all over the world and he’s just laughing away.

Carson Daly: Two punches for him. Somehow he manages to stay on TV despite his lousy show and sub par sense of humor that have gained him much undeserved fortune and fame.

Kumar: The Indian guy who barely speaks English and, without fail, always answers the phone when I need technical support.

There are many who deserve to be on this list but I’m out of time and it’s hard to remember everybody when I’m highly emotional. If you think there are people who should be included please let me know in a comment. I'm always open to punching more people in the neck. Also, if you thought this entry was a little on the violent side, take comfort, because the next entry is going to be about hugs and all the people I want to hug.

The Hot Seat

2007-04-23T22:36:00.002-06:00

This may come as a surprise to some members of the opposite sex, especially the unmarried demographic, but one of the most enjoyable simple pleasures in a man’s daily life are the few he spends in the bathroom taking care of nature's business. Some, like myself, stretch those experiences to their maximum in an effort to get the most out of one sitting. I can read, play sudoku, play my guitar, or even return phone calls. (If you know me well you’ve probably talked to me more than once while I was on the think tank). And the best part is, I can’t be called on to do anything. That time is my own and I’m beholden to none. No one can tell me to move, and I don't until my legs are conclusively asleep.

This experience, of course, has it’s antithesis; opposition in all things. There is the joy of the domestic restroom experience and the pain of the public restroom experience. Let me give one example to illustrate my point. At home one of the worst things associated with the long sit down is the initial sting of a cold seat, and unless you’re willing to do the Japanese "stand-and-squat" you are forced to endure this inevitable shock of cold. This is only compounded when I unwittingly place my freezing bowl of ice cream on my naked thighs.

In public the opposite is true. Shock occurs when I sit, not on a cold, but on a warm toilet seat. The warm toilet seat means one thing; someone has recently been there and his butt heat is still radiating from the very surface my skin is touching. I hit the seat; feel the heat, my stomach sinks, and my mind races in an attempt to decipher who may have been here last. It doesn’t take long since it was only about 30 seconds ago that I past a fat, hairy Italian on his way out laughing under his breath, and, that explains all the black hairs around the seat when I sat down. Gag reflexes kick in and now the taste of bile accumulates in the back of my mouth. Without recourse I resign myself to this temporary lavatory Hell and set aside my bowl of ice cream, for which I have totally lost my appetite.

Maybe if the seat cools sufficiently the next guy can enjoy it.

Every once in a while I accidently leave the door unlocked and Maggie comes in, turns and sits in the mini hammock which are my underwear, and then hopes to get a private concert. And though the private moment is lost I can't help but oblige my number one fan.

Free Time

2007-04-18T23:15:00.000-06:00

I recently got back from a trip to the Midwest where my brother and I attended a multi day business conference. For lack of funds we drove instead of flew which means we had 1200 miles of sparsely populated desolation to consider through the window at 75 miles per hour. One of the states we drove through was South Dakota and while Tom drove I sat back, quietly singing along to the iPod set to shuffle, and was reminded of western movies that featured the same settings I was witnessing fly by. Movies like Dances with Wolves made me think of the Native Americans that used to live here back before they were “Native Americans” and before they were “Injuns” and were still “Indians.” The vast openness of the rolling hills that rolled as far as a woman’s eye could roll with no signs of civilization but the road in front of us made me wonder about the singularity of purpose of one who may have lived here before Anglos came and made everything complicated. I imagined your average Indian male waking between two buffalo hides, crawling out of his tepee where he meets his friend Shrieking Turtle. He stretches, does a 360-degree look around himself, and plainly inquires, “Well, what the hell are we going to do today?”

Of course, I understand they knew no different, but I’m left to wonder if after sharpening their ten thousandth obsidian arrowhead if they ever looked heavenward and asked, is there anything else? It almost seems that if they weren’t killing an animal or doing a rain dance then their lives were just about the passing of time. I think that is why "hunting and gathering" was so prevalent among the men. It was the only thing to do, and it got them out of the tepee a few days a week. They didn't have to go. I saw the movies. Buffalo used to walk right through their camps. Plus, thanksgiving teaches us that they grew corn and fish in their gardens. They had food sources close to home and when the women realized hunting and gathering was just an excuse for a guy’s weekend away they put a stop to it. And hence, the beginning of horse stealing and squaw-napping. It was all arranged with neighboring tribes to unload domineering wives. They just threw the horses into the mix to make it look indiscriminate.

I don’t want to use the word depressed, but I get a little depressed when I think of their lack of possibilities despite the simplicity they enjoyed.
“Let’s go steal something.”
“What?”
“Women and horses. What the crap else is there? I mean we’re freakin’ Indians. I’m wearing a loincloth here. Our lives aren’t exactly filled with options.”
“Why don’t we see a movie?”
“A what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just being crazy.”

Anyway, I just really enjoy this iPod. I think I’ll get up and rain dance.

Where To?

2007-04-16T23:04:00.000-06:00

Have you ever been in a big city and watched a homeless person walk down the street and wondered to yourself, "Where's he going?"

The Burden of an Education

2007-03-31T16:30:00.000-06:00

My wife and parents can finally put their incessant badgering to rest. I’ve finally broke down and decided to seek a job teaching history to high school students. They, my parents and wife, are members of that ever shrinking demographic who think one should use their degree after it is earned. I can’t help but laugh to myself at the thought of such a preposterous notion. They have not yet clued in to the fact that recently the degree is just societies way of justifying four years (7 for me) of a zero contribution to community or economy. “Sure I’ve sapped government funds for the last four years, but I can do algebra.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t appreciate my education because I do. I like the superior feeling it gives me when compared to all the stupids out there. It’s not the degree certificate I don’t appreciate either. I tried to remain humble by leaving it inconspicuously among old school memorabilia, but my mom found it while helping us move and put it behind mat, glass, and frame. Now it hangs above my desk, like a beacon of light and a constant reminder of what I’m not living up too. But, I have always been a person most comfortable while sitting on laurels, so I am not shamed, but rather, contently satisfied.
"Utah Valley State College bla bla bla something about virtue of authority bla bla bla confers on Benjamin R. Quinn the degree of Bachelor of Science History Education bla bla bla 2004."
I look at my reflection in the glass, wipe away a smudge with my thumb, and smile. It makes the whole room reek of prestige. So as you can see, I appreciate the degree.
What I don’t appreciate is my degree’s long-term relevance and it’s earning power. First let us consider its long-term practicality.

Statistics taken from 2005 showed that the average length of a teacher’s career in the U.S. was 5 years. Many burn out well before their 2-year mark. One may attempt to attribute this to the growing feeling of evil and unruly behavior in today’s youth but a broader look at the American workplace will show that it is partly due to a major cultural paradigm shift; a new and growing philosophy that says, “only stay as long as its novel, then move on and try something else.” The U.S. Department of Labor statistics show that workers between the ages of 18 and 38 change jobs an average of 10 times. That’s a different job every 2 years. Worker longevity is not like it was in the old days. I’m a testament to this truth. I’ve be a waiter, a common laborer, a camp counselor, a snowmobile guide, a ski instructor, a river guide, a farrier, a musician, a guitar teacher, an improv comedy club owner, and most recently, a writer. (And if the four people that read this blog would just recruit 10,000 people each I could make some money here.)

With these stats in mind one may wonder, why specialize? It seems superfluous unless you plan to work in an ultra specialized field like Left Frontal Lobe Brian Surgeon (That is someone who only operates on the left frontal lobe of a guy named Brian. (And you thought I misspelled brane.)) Wouldn’t you be better off just taking whatever variety of classes interests you most? The answer is yes and no. Yes, because you would be better off, and no because there is little chance my spouse would have allowed me to remain outside the work force had my school load been made up of classes like Latin dance, mountaineering, scuba diving, photography, and drum lessons. (These briefly describe the first three years of my college education.)

To the WW II generation and their baby boomer children a 30-year stint in one profession was commonplace. Learn a trade, or maybe get a liberal degree and go to work 9 to 5 until you retire and your kids take you to Sizzler to celebrate. But that is not the case anymore. A growing sense of wonder-lust combined with the ever-burgeoning tech and service industries have given us the excuse to professionally come and go as we please. These statistics also fuel the question; why specialize? It just doesn’t seem reasonable to spend 4 years preparing for something you’re only going to spend 2 years doing. It is almost as lopsided as the wedding night phenomenon. You wonder and prepare with jittery anticipation from adolescence only to find yourself lying on your back wide-eyed with confusion two minutes after it started.

Now let us consider the earning power of a teaching degree. It is no secret that the pay is less than equal to the job. The word “sucks” comes to mind. But to make teachers feel better about their financial situation people with paying jobs give them magnanimous titles. “Sure the state won’t pay you more, but we can give you a title. How does ‘noble’ sound?” When socializing in a group of mixed incomes they throw around words like “rewarding,” “virtuous,” and “inner satisfaction.” But in my heart of hearts I would happily trade “rewarding” for a car made post 1980. This type of rewarding doesn’t buy the kids birthday gifts and makes parents tell lies like “using your imagination will make you a more interesting person” which we all know isn’t true because poor people aren’t interesting unless they’re in a Charles Dickens book.

That said, my resume is in the hands of over sixty people and if my parents have their way one will call and offer me a job. And one day, years down the road, I will be sitting next to my son, dusting off his char-covered marshmallow and he’ll look up at me with puppy-dog eyes and ask, “Dad, why do we only go on vacation to the KOA?” to which I’ll respond, “Because daddy has inner satisfaction.”

Separate Vacations

2007-03-23T01:01:00.000-06:00

Recently my wife expressed the desire to take the kids alone to visit her family or on some other excursion without me. I think the conversation came up during or immediately following an argument while her words and actions were still totally dictated by emotion. “It will be more relaxing and fun for me” she said, “I won’t have to constantly be worrying if you are having a good time. I can sit around and talk to my mom all day about babies and glass wares and won’t have to endure your eye rolling, plus it will be easier to take care of the kids with my family around.”
Well, soon after that conversation we were supposed to be in Northern Utah (five hours away) for the wedding of a family friend. I couldn’t go due to work and told her this was the perfect opportunity to test her theory of a better time without me. (No, we are not experiencing marital problems. No more problems than the average marriage between two headstrong people, that is.) The following are samples of phone conversations that took place between when she drove away to when she got back.

Day 1) She called 3 hrs after leaving.

Me: Hello.
Her: Why did we have children?
Me: It’s not going well?
Her: They’re screaming bloody murder and I got a speeding ticket.
Me: How fast were you going.
Her: I WASN’T SPEEDING! THE COP WAS A VINDICTIVE WANKER!

Day 2) Day of the wedding.

Me: Hello.
Her: You could have come if you really wanted to.
Me: How’s the wedding?
Her: Your kid has almost been run over four times now!
Me: So do the bride and groom look happy?
Her: How the crap should I know!? I want to tear the hair out of my head!
Me: I’m sorry they’re being difficult. How’s your family?
Her: What’s with the quiz? Did you call just to give me the third degree?
Me: Honey, you called me.
Her: You can't just let things go, can you?

Day 3) Hanging out with family and friends.

Me: Hello.
Her: I hope you’re happy. (hang up)

Day 4) More family and friends.

Me: Hi sweetie.
Her: You can take sweetie and shove it! I’m getting my tubes tied.
Me: Ok, I’ll make the arrangements.
Her: You would.

Day 5) On the way home, six hours after departure.

Me: Hi honey. Where are you?
Her: Where am I!? I’m only HALF WAY HOME!
Me: What’s taking so long?
Her: Your kids! They’ve got bladders like squirrels and stomachs like elephants! It’s a constant feeding, pooping, peeing, screaming, crying frenzy! I WANT TO RAM HOT REBAR INTO MY SKULL!
Me: I’m sorry. I’ll give you a long back rub when you get home.
(long pause)
Her: Get an adoption agency on the phone, and see if anyone is looking for a pair of siblings.

All in all I think she was quite satisfied with her time away and looks forward to doing it again.

Relapse

2007-03-18T00:43:00.000-06:00

Since the beginning of January I’ve been on this Body For Life diet and have been doing better than I have ever done on a plan that required dietary discipline. But everybody has their breaking point; temptation they can’t resist.

The other day I walked into Smiths grocery store with the usual high-minded intent of slipping in, getting some fruits, vegetables, whole wheat bread, low fat milk, and maybe some lean white meats and then slipping out before my lustful eyes had the opportunity to ogle the unmentionables. I would mention them here but like I said, their unmentionable. Unfortunately, as soon as I walked in the front door my senses were assaulted by a giant mountain of sugary cereals. Not a stack, a mountain. The kind Attila would need elephants to conquer. Immediately I went into cold sweats, my legs locked uncontrollably though my heart screamed, “keep walking”, and had it not been for the cart I was leaning on I would have fallen forward and broken my nose. I attempted to prove my stalwart resolve to move on by setting my jaw, and whispering through clenched teeth, “get thee behind me Satan” to which the mountain replied, “no”, a simple but brilliant retort. I quickly concluded I was no match for this mountain in a battle of wits so I decided to just turn my back on it like Lot on Sodom and Gomorrah.

But I am a pillar of salt. I looked back. And when I did my eye caught a newspaper ad that read, “8 for 8 dollars.” Now, had these boxes been regular price there may have been some hope. Reason would have kicked in and screamed “No! You’ll bankrupt your family and ruin your marriage!” But temptation was only intensified exponentially by the incredible bargain. I felt like a chubby ten-year-old that was released from fat camp on Halloween night with an empty sack, a Superman cape, and the perfunctory charge to “stick with it buddy.”

There was nothing I could do. My will was undone. I bought 16 boxes.

When I got home some time later I knew I would have to face my wife. I decided to be forthright and own up to my mistakes. Much to her credit, when she saw me walk in with an armful of boxed diabetes and a heart full of shame she was not critical or even angry. She forgave me and loved me in spite of myself.

I unpacked my grocery bags, put all the cereal on the table and that was when I realized I accidentally got home with two extra boxes. Thinking back now I can’t help but wonder, was it really an accident? It’s like Smiths was telling me “listen, I like you. The first ones free” which we all know are the last words heard by a soon-to-be addict.

Luckily I have Maggie to help shoulder the burden.

You know what they say, misery likes company.

Smallest Talk

2007-03-10T01:29:00.000-07:00

Despite the common reaction of most women when they see a baby, they (babies) aren’t usually cute. If it’s their own child, women are deluded. If it’s someone else’s, they’re polite. However, the delusion to their own babies is a good thing. The fact that women are so heavily biased is simple nature, the result of our species evolution, and rightly so. Just think what would have happened to the human race if women were as objective as their male counterparts. Every time an ugly baby was born (a staggering 99% according to experts) they would have turned their backs on the helpless neonate uttering some heartless sentiment like “I’m not letting that mangy hairless ape suck on my crumb catchers.” We’d have never made it past the hunter-gatherer period of history. Mankind would have been wiped out, and the cause: maternal neglect. (NOTE: Crumb Catchers is what my mother-in-law calls breasts. I would have just given the female body it’s due respect and called them such, but I wanted the sentiment to come off as womanly as possible.) Speaking objectively, Babies are more like personified raisons: squirming, grunting, pooping raisons. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. My son Cash is one. My daughter, in infancy, not so much - she fit in the raison category, but Cash is the genuine article. It is not my intension to play favorites. I should say my daughter has developed surprisingly well and at just under two years of age has a wit and charm to rival most young adults. I only say this to illustrate the fact that I can be totally objective and not at all biased. So, although I can appreciate, on a purely phylogenic level, the subjectivity of women toward babies, it has been the cause of many redundantly annoying encounters, which brings me to my point.
Small talk has never been my strong suit, and the older I get the harder time I have hiding that fact. I think it is because small talk is such a surface level, insincere, culturally expected social interaction. That said, when you decide to bring a child into the world you have basically fated yourself to the same line of small talk every time your small child is with you in public.
“Oh my gosh, He is precious!”
“He’s a she.”
“Of course she is. That explains the adorable bow in her hair.” [this is said with a squished up face, a high pitched voice, and a finger on the baby’s nose like she’s trying to get the baby to crap a Pez] “Where did you get it?”
“Well, when a man loves a woman sometimes their passions lead to…”
“I mean the bow.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Bed Bath & Bows or Bows Unlimited. I don’t know, my wife gets that stuff.”
“Well she is just precious.”
“And now that we’ve come full circle I bid you good-bye.”
I should say that small talk is not one of those pet peeves that angers me (unless I’m talking to one of those non-closers who speaks in stream-of-thought like they’re brainstorming for a college term paper) so I don’t want to come off as cold and calloused. I know that it is just the result of nice people trying to show they care enough not to snub you or cross the street when they see you coming. I just wish that our culture had long ago established some way to show kindness without the exchange of meaningless tripe, especially when the tripe is blatant lies like my daughter is the cutest baby in the world. That’s sweet, but impossible. I mean, she has my genes. You can’t blow hot air up my butt and tell me it’s nice weather. Now, what the random passerby failed to notice is that my daughter learned sign language before she was a year old, can de-shell a walnut with her bare hands, and will probably go into zoology since she already knows all the animals and their corresponding sounds. Now that would have made a good conversation.

A Better Oscar Scorsese

2007-02-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday the ordinaries of the world were once again privileged to view the select elite as they walked down the red carpet to begin the 79th Academy Awards Show. And as always they glittered, glowed, and delivered their pre-written jokes as only a seasoned thespian could. In my opinion only one thing could have made the night any better. That is, if the caterpillars on Martin Scorsese’s face went into cocoon only to emerge during his acceptance speech as beautiful butterflies and flutter away into the audience. Now that would have been magical.

Public Invitation

2007-02-27T20:27:00.001-07:00

WARNING: This entry is rated PG-13. It references public restrooms and a man named Joe. If you are uncomfortable reading about restrooms or Joe please skip to my last blog, which has nothing to do with restrooms or Joe. Thank you.

My wife, kids, and I drove from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole Wyoming today and I was obliged to make the usual stops for gas, sustenance, a break from the banshees that are my kids, and, of coarse, the potty break. I say “potty break” not because I’m exploring a softer side of myself but because that’s what you say when you pull into a gas station with kids. “We’ve got ten minutes for a potty break. Everybody out.” And this is only because men know they’ll look like trailer trash if someone hears their kid say “Dad, I’ve got to use the crapper.”(1)
So anyway, there I am, on my own potty break, taking care of business when I realize I’ve failed to bring reading material with me to help pass the pleasant moments. And so I do what any forgetful person in my situation would do, I read the fascinating comments and lines of poetry conceived and left by the great minds that have come and sat here before me. There are lines that tell me what John is or what Carol did or who Steve loves or what I am or what I can sit on and while I spin. To me the bathroom stall is the worlds blank slate, a communal page on which the unknown poets and philosophers lay it all out for the common man to consider and contemplate. They have given us verses to rival those of Hemingway, Thoreau, Emerson, Quinn, and Dickens, to name a few; emotion wrenching verses like: “Here I sit my buns a flexin’, just gave birth to another Texan.” In fact, to prove the quality of the modern bathroom stall writer I’d like to perform a small test. I’m convinced that unless you earned a degree in literature you will only pass this test by chance. Guess, if you can, which of these three excerpts and authors is not found in and did not write a classic novel.

1) “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
-Walt Whitman

2) “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”
-Jane Austen

3) “Janice Wright is a fat ho-bag!”
-Dan

(The answer can be found under footnote 2 )

This brings me to the purpose of this blog, as good, and as thought provoking, as most of the writings are I am most intrigued and perplexed by the writing of invitations. Without fail someone, let’s say his name is Joe, is offering a good time if the reader will but call Joe and schedule the good time. Upon reading such invitations I’m left to wonder, who is this lonely person who is willing to share his good time with perfect strangers? Has Joe no family, no friends, no associates to whom he can turn in his time of wanton leisure? Is Joe old, young, rich, poor, gainfully employed, dependent on state aid? What type of success has Joe experienced with this type of marketing in the past? I’m really curious to know if Joe has a specific activity in mind or if he’s just open to a plethora of activities. Not everybody likes everything so I would suggest to Joe that he include a menu of possibilities to narrow his search.

Call Joe for a good time. 555-1234
Joe is interested in movies, rollerblading, scenic hikes, baking yummy desserts, and discussing good books.”

This strategy would target Joe’s desired audience while not falsely encouraging other guys looking for a good time who may have a completely different field of interest.
I would call Joe myself to see if our interests align but I rarely see these invites but in towns through which I am only passing, leaving not even enough time for an ice-cream cone and small talk let alone a trip to the local art museum. Since I am without the time to investigate myself I am left to wonder, has Joe found that friend he is looking for or is he still waiting for the right guy to sit down, without a book, and start reading? I guess I’ll never know. So I just want to say to all the “Joe’s” out there, may you find many friends and may they all be as sweet and true as the words left on a bathroom stall.

Footnotes
1. Interesting fact: the expression “the crapper” only became popular after the advent of the flush toilet invented by Thomas Crapper – a blanket apology to all his descendents who share his unfortunate name. You should take comfort in the words of Bill Shakespeare, “What’s in a name, even a crappy name?”
2. Congratulations if you said #3. Either you are well read or you know Janice Wright personally.

The Delayed Sting of Cupid's Arrow

2007-02-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

In this season of love I am compelled to contemplate the nature of romance – compelled by our society, commercialism, and my wife who insists all household upkeep will cease if I fail to contemplate it to the tune of flowers, candy, and gaudy jewelry. I say gaudy not because of my wife’s taste but because I call anything made of precious metal or jewels that you wear “gaudy.” I’m a simple man with a thin wallet.
This is my first multi-kid Valentine’s Day and as I look back I realize how much our relationship has changed since our first Valentine’s together. And not just because all trips outside the house take military-like preparation, but the very nature of our love changes. It is inevitable. Some would say the change is natural and if embraced will lead to a richer, deeper connection with your spouse. Others (me) say, bull crap. This is a rip-off. Allow me to illustrate with one of many examples. No matter what the occasion, Valentine’s included, when I go to bed I can expect that within one to thirty minutes one or both of my children will be lying between my wife and I doing one or more of the following: crying, coughing, moaning, sucking, sneezing, tossing, turning, flailing, or Maggie’s personal favorite – lulling herself to sleep by kneading our neck skin between her fingers. (That one may sound weird but it’s true. It’s like we’re being strangled by an injured, but determined, Chucky.)
As I lay there sleepless with my daughter’s hands on my neck or feet on my face I think how ironic this is. The very product of our love is now lying between us working to dismantle that love. It is as if by some primal instinct they know what they’re doing. Subconsciously they’ve teamed up and are preventing us from bringing competition for resources into this world – a twisted “survival of the fittest” if you will. And they are winning. Lately, most nights, I’m forced by sheer exhaustion into the guest room in hopes of getting enough sleep to sustain me through the next workday, but just as I get comfortable morning comes and there’s Maggie on top of me whining “Food food” while putting her fingers to her mouth (learned from her sign language video) just in case my ears aren’t fully awake yet. I climb out of bed still half asleep and on the way to the kitchen she throws me a knowing smile, this time unaccompanied by a sign only because the video hasn’t yet taught her how to sign “Maggie: 660, Dad:0 – Only 25 more years to go and Mom’s eggs will be all dried up. Now make me some Cheerios sucka!” I accept my defeat the same way every morning. In a blurry stupor I go the kitchen to make Maggie some breakfast while my wife lays in bed on her side to feed Cash like a farm animal who roots until he hits the mother-load. (I think that’s where that word comes from). I pour the cereal and watch Maggie grip and work her spoon with all the coordination of an epileptic in full seizure and as she flings more food than she eats I can’t help but think how these mornings are so un-reminiscent of past childless mornings when my wife and I would wake up late, she would rest her head on my arm, and we would talk about the night’s dreams and whatever else might drift into our minds. Then I stop myself lest I be accused of being married to the past, and softly say - Deeper and richer. Our love is growing deeper and richer.

This is my bed Valentine's night. This picture was not staged.
Now that's Amore!

Improper Motive

2007-02-05T23:26:00.001-07:00

So I’ve been sitting around thinking a lot about Jurassic Park lately. I doubt this is surprising to anyone since, aside from being one of the finest films ever produced by Hollywood, it is also thought provoking on a surprisingly formidable level, and anyone who tries to tell me they haven’t experienced countless sleepless nights staring at the ceiling while contemplating the possibility of dinosaur and man coexisting, whether in harmony or dissonance, is a bald face liar and is probably, as I speak, beating out the flames that were once his pants.

Of all the possibilities, metaphors, and philosophies purported by the movie that could arouse great discussion among great minds, the one that has recently provoked the most contemplation in my own mind is that of motive. Why, I ask myself, did they go back to the island two more times? The first visit (movie) was great and totally believable. However, since the trilogy has come and gone, movie critics and philosophers alike have tried to discern why the producers would dishonor it with the hair-brained sequels that followed?

Why did the characters succumb to such weak motives as were provided by the movies’ writers? Millions of dollars went into these high budget films and the best they could come up with was tripe like, "The dinosaurs are asexual and are breeding with themselves and now they want healthcare!" All I’m saying is give us a believable and interesting reason to go face flesh eating man killers like, "Air Force One crashed into Dino Island and the President and the First Family are hiding in the wreckage while constantly being stalked by predators." Half the country, the good Christian half that is, would be over there faster than you can say Hallelujah, armed to the teeth, drunk on Budweiser, and chomping at the bit to send every last reptile back to Hell where, as the Bible teaches us, they came from. So maybe you’re not republican, so how about this, "The CIA just received pretty reliable intell that there is a good possibility that the dinosaurs might be developing WMD’s." We’d have the military over there before congress could even convene to sanction such an action. (I’m sorry, I forgot. You’re not republican.)

But alas the characters go based on preposterous motives. Never mind that last time twenty guys got eaten by Velociraptors, 5 guys were torn in half by a T-Rex while sitting on the crapper, which only adds to the humiliation, Newman (from Seinfeld) was blinded then eaten by the Umbrellaheadasaurus, and two guys were raped by the Gayasaurus (one died from VD and the other is still in counseling). Never mind all that, they go back, and not in stealthy fashion either. They don’t go with an elite strike force using choppers with whisper mode and other high tech gear. They go with loud ground vehicles manned with jittery nameless minorities who try to stay quiet but fail every time they hear a twig snap and scream like a bunch of fifteen-year-old girls at a slumber party.

The endings were generally just as disappointing as the beginnings in these lack luster sequels. From my hazy recollection nobody found any WMD’s but only discovered it was a ploy by “The Man” to kill the dinosaurs so we could harvest the fuels made from their fossils.

That’s two strikes Hollywood. Careful what you write in the future.

Kids will say the damnedest things

2007-01-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

“Where the Hell are those bastards that are supposed to be finishing the carpet!?”

“You do know they hear everything you say and mimic it?”

“The carpet layers heard that?”

“Your kids.”

“My kids will know there are only 3 reasonable excuses for swearing: one, when quoting the bible, two, when angry or annoyed, or three, when it makes a joke or story funnier. Most other times its totally inappropriate and they’ll probably get in trouble."

"At least you set a high standard."

"Damn straight."

My Daughter and The Devil

2007-01-18T23:50:00.001-07:00

Before my daughter Maggie was a year old Satan came to my house and recruited her. I say “recruited” as if it were for an important position but I get the impression Hell has a lot of rungs in its hierarchical ladder and Satan takes a personal interest in his employees on every level. Not to say she’s not capable of moving up but she’s not even two and has to prove herself - so for now I think she is working at the level of minion. My wife, in typical mother fashion, is naïve enough to think her kid is the only one not in league with the Great Satan. I have tried to tell my wife that our daughter works for Satan but she won’t hear it. How can someone so cute possibly work for Satan? she asks while twirling one of Maggie’s pigtails with her index finger. Never mind the fact that right after she asks this absurd question Maggie deliberately dumps the very glass of juice that she begged for on the floor and then has the nerve to say “uh-oh” as if someone walked up and knocked it out of her hands.
The actual employment started a little less than a year ago…
One night while lying in bed thinking about nothing in particular I heard a noise coming from Maggie’s room. I got up with the intention of discovering the cause of said noise, but when I got to Maggie’s closed door something stopped me before I opened it. There was a vaporous red light emanating from the crack beneath her door. Now, from my extensive film experience (watching not producing) I knew this meant one of two things. Either she was in there basking in the red glow of a lava lamp while sharing tokes on a bong with her pals OR Satan was in there recruiting her for his work. Irritated by both possible scenarios, I burst into the room to find no bong, no pals, but Satan, standing there smiling at my daughter. The most troubling thing, besides the fact that Lucifer himself was in my house, was that Maggie too was standing. I noticed that Satan had a document that he rolled as he laughed in my face and at that moment I realized what had happened. Maggie had sold her soul for the gift of mobility. (Just so you understand, the curse wasn’t that she could walk but that she could walk before she could reason.) As I screamed revenge I leaped for the throat of Satan but narrowly missed as he dropped into a fiery hole, which I can only assume led to Hell because we don’t have a basement. As I cursed Lucifer’s name salty sweat dripped from my forehead into my eyes and woke me. It had all been a dream. My heart was still racing when I wiped the sweat from my eyes and sighed relief. "Thanks to all that is holy, Maggie is still a crawler." The moments that followed were filled with thoughts of the flawed development of the human body and mind. Why does nature or God allow us to develop basic motor skills before we can understand simple instruction or expressions like “no” or “stop unrolling every inch of toilet paper we own or we’ll adopt you to a family someplace like West Virginia where they still use outhouses and wipe their butts with squirrels, you don’t even wipe your own butt anyway, what do you need fifty feet of toilet paper for?” As I tiredly considered this enigma I attempted to readjust my position and go back to sleep by turning on my side and putting a pillow between my knees like a pregnant woman when I heard a bump. This time the noise was real. Paternal instinct took over and my feet hit the carpet and were already moving to investigate before I had the chance to think what I was doing. Like in my dream my search led to Maggie’s door and without pausing I opened it and stepped in. Just then surreal slapped my face and brought me fully awake. Maggie was standing in the middle of the room. I looked at her but couldn’t move or speak. She returned the empty stare in kind. The motionless deadpan staring contest continued for an unnatural length. The silence was only finally broken by the tiniest splash. It was a drop of ink hitting the floor. That’s when my eyes shifted and I noticed the feather quill in her right hand. My heart sank when I realized I was too late. The deal was done. Satan had already come and gone and I wasn’t there to stop him. My paralysis finally gave way and I slowly walked over and picked up the books Maggie had just pushed to the floor. I then moved to her and took the quill from her hand that, of course, disappeared in a poof of smoke. Again I looked down at her and her at me, but this time a smile broke across her face, and my heart went from sinking to melting. Sure she was now working for the Dark Lord, but she was still my daughter. I gathered her up in my arms, kissed her forehead, and set her back in her bed with the admonition to stay there till morning, which no doubt fell on deaf ears, and then returned to bed myself.
It has been nearly a year since the incident and not many nights have passed that she hasn’t ended up in mine and my wife’s bed in the middle of the night, and there isn’t anything in our house less than three feet from the ground that hasn’t been pulled to the floor or covered in whatever she was supposed to be eating, but that is the way of things. I understand that we, the parents, are the ones to blame; always encouraging them as they move from one stage to the next – rolling, crawling, walking – cheering them on along the way. However I should say that as she has learned we too have learned some lessons and we won’t be making the same mistake again. Our month old son will stay strapped on his back till he can communicate and understand, and we’ll not be dissuade by tears, screaming, or bedsores.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Satan.

New Years Resolve

2007-01-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

As a new year’s resolution my family, spurred by my eldest brother, has jointly engaged in the Body For Life challenge. Even now, looking down at my pasty, rolling, patchily haired torso, I ask myself, “why”. Sure if I were still in my late teens or early twenties this body would seem like a sick fraternity prank. But to a man nigh unto 30, this body is a trophy, a guerdon if you will, for reaching such a noble milestone as thirty. I should feel no need to shroud this body in shame but should be encouraged by those within my circle of influence to display it with pride to be admired by all and polished by his woman’s awe filled hands. All I can say is damn the fashion magazines for taking that glory from me. The time of sexual equality is run out and I can’t help but quietly covet the bygone days when men where admired and loved for their minds and tender hearts. Of course, I would be amiss to say women are entirely to blame alone. They are products of their environment; relative species in a relative world, conditioned and catechized by corporate America till they are no longer free thinkers but assimilated. Damn modern media and the object it has made of a man’s body. And damn those who adhere to that twisted media’s false doctrines. DAMN THEM ALL!
I wish you the best with your goals too.

New Year, New Decade, New Son

2007-01-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

This marks the beginning of my life as a blogger. And though it sounds like a British insult I’m willing to try it on.
Mmm, cozy. Like a wool sweater.
I’m feeling particularly reflective at the beginning of this year. Maybe because it’s a new year, maybe because my son was born two weeks ago, maybe because this is the year I will breech the big 3-0. I use the word breech because I feel like I’m approaching this birthday butt first with my feet up by my head. To one who has breached the big 4-0, the big 3-0 probably sounds like a welcome and exciting bike ride through a grove of beautiful aspens. But to someone coming from the big 2-9 it sounds more like collapsing during a walk in a forest from an asthma attack and being hit by some old fart on a bike.
The inevitable aside, my son Cash, named after the late great Johnny Cash (because my wife wouldn’t let me name him Don Juan de Ben-O, a name combination of his father and the man my wife wishes was his father), was born on the 18th of December. His name is actually Jackson Cash Quinn to my dismay. My vote was for all single syllable names, Jack Cash Quinn. My wife however, convinced Jack Quinn said in quick succession sounded Chinese which means he would have to learn kung fu not to mention the added cost of chop sticks and a math tutor so he would fit in, or like Jaclyn, a girls name, which would automatically land him in his high school “gay straight alliance” club. The downside is, now he’ll never be a part of the “gay straight kung fu fighters.” It wasn’t until one of my close friends informed me that Jack Cash sounds remarkably similar to Jackass (thanks Dan, you really saved my jackass on that one) that I was appreciative of my wife’s unbending stubborn pride.
Cash’s 20-month-old sister, Maggie, who calls him “be be” or “be be Cass” (which gives me this eerie feeling he’s going to someday start wearing moo moo’s and meet an anticlimactic end while choking on a ham sandwich) still thinks he’s a doll mommy pushed through her tearing nether region (to use the scientific term) for her own playtime pleasure. The fact that he’s so life like and makes real baby crying sounds whenever she pokes his eyes is an added bonus. Its not just his eyes mind you. Eyes are Maggie’s favorite part of all of God’s creatures and she shows her love by pressing on them at any chance she gets while repeating in her cute 20 month voice, “eyes.”
I’m almost 30, the father of two, and it’s a new year. The possibilities are endless.