Clearly Defined Roles

Wait . . . Dad?

Yeah?

Don't you know on Mondays I can wear my slip-ons because we don't have P.E.?

I didn't. Eat your cereal.

Oh. Wait . . . Dad?

Uh-huh?

What taste's better, bacon that's cooked or not?

I imagine cooked bacon tastes better.

But you don't know?

I've never eaten raw bacon.

Oh. . . . Wait . . . Dad?

Eat your cereal.

I can't cause it's all mushy now. I bet if I hadn't gone to wash my hands it would have stayed crunchy.

And he was probably right. Had he not gotten up to go wash his hands, he would have been able to eat most of his cereal. Yet aside from the mushy cereal and the fact that he tried successfully not only to get away with wearing loafers to school, but also to pick an outfit that is clearly not mother approved, I would say that this weekend has turned out all right.

Which of course it did.

I'm not some "Disneyland Doesn't Know How to Change a Diaper" Dad.

I'm "Wait  . . . Dad?" for gosh sakes.

I'm a professional. This is my career now.

But you certainly wouldn't know it based on the amount of concern I received while my wife was out of town, as if three days alone with my own son might be a little out of my depth. And I will openly admit I was a bit miffed about being treated like an irresponsible uncle.

Even Calvin got into the act by trying to explain to me how to give him a bath, how to prep his homework, and, this one's my favorite, how he only eats the "square" cereal (Chex) as if I was tempted to put a bowl of raisin bran in front of a spoiled eight year old.

When did I become doddering?

Cause when I leave the house for more than a day, the only thing I tell my wife to do is to stay hot and sexy, which she's usually pretty good at, and sometimes remind her that her boyfriend is not allowed to use my deodorant.

She leaves the house and I get a thirty minute monologue on how to pack a lunch:

The lunchables go in the lunch bag.
He doesn't need a drink cause there's already one in there.
Make sure to put an icepack in the lunch bag so it stays cold.
Don't put the snack in the lunch bag, put it in his back pack.
Clean the water bottle and put ice in it before you add the water.
Make sure the lid is on tight so it doesn't drip.
Are you listening to me?
I can write this down if you don't think you can remember.

Now none of this stuff is random, unreasonable or even ridiculous. It is the result of years of waking up at six and getting our little devil off to the one place he doesn't want to be, in clothes he doesn't want to wear, with food he's never gonna eat, except the Skittles and Capri-Sun.

Water bottles have leaked.

Snacks have ended up in the wrong bag, effectively starving the child for an additional 45 minutes.

I'm sure some poor snot bundle has had a bad tummy because the turkey slice in his lunchable crept above forty two degrees for enough time to allow botulism to multiply.

These are important things to avoid, so it's probably time to openly admit that there are certain homemaking tasks that I'm unskilled at.

Laundry, dishes, and hygiene for instance.

Were Joann suddenly whisked away to an exotic location by a sopping wet Colin Firth, six months later she would find us both eating day old nachos off of the coffee table and wearing ill fitting food stained moo-moos.

Just like yesterday.

But, and here's the thing, there's not really a double standard in the household. Instead of the tag team that we used to be, we've settled into clearly defined roles.

Were I to be frozen in carbonite because of some bad financial decisions I made in the 80's, by the time Carrie Fisher came to rescue me, the interior of this house would look like the opening scenes of Wall-E.

My honey doesn't have many tragic flaws, but junk mail to her is like hubris to Oedipus' mother.

Now, in her defense, there is a very real possibility that A) A bill gets mixed in and thrown away by accident and B) That she one day finds a coupon that she might actually use.

As of this writing, there are three separate piles of paper junk on my kitchen island of which she has instructed me not to touch.

And I'm fine with that.

Because I'm wearing recently washed boxer-briefs.

See?

Clearly defined roles.

And I'm happy that she's coming home today, cause for whatever its worth, I miss her.

I just hope she doesn't notice that the Penny-Saver is missing from pile three.


Friday Five: Contacts

So I was emailing back and forth with a booking agent today and was asked whether or not I was a member of the local infamous Macrae Clan.

Not sure what was meant, so I quickly Googled "Macrae Clan Sacramento" and got nothing, so I immediately thought of my brother whose exploits around Sacramento border on the legendary. I told the agent I wasn't responsible for the past, but would clearly pay for any furniture that needs to be replaced in the future.

Turns out the agent was referring to John McRea, the lead singer of the band "Cake" which along with Tesla and Papa Roach is one of the few breakouts of the Sacramento music scene.

But the thought occurred to me that for someone who is going to claw his way to Rock and Roll Obscurity, I don't have any connections whatsoever.

"Yet", of course.

So since I have no direct connections, I started making a list of all the secondary and tertiary connections (I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy), and since I'm not only a genealogy nerd but also viciously competitive when it comes to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game, my tertiary and quaternary connections started getting a little out of hand.

Now, be aware that this list is in no way exhaustive and does not include any of the connections I will be embarrassingly exploiting over the next few years and also doesn't include the kind of chance happening like the time I sat behind George Zimmer at a performance of Camelot or the time my Dad had to share the stage with a very coked out Eddie Money or the time my wife's best friend was hit on by D.B. Sweeny. I've got one two words: Toe Pick.

So here, for Friday, are Five of the Funnest Entertainment Industry Wait . . . Dad? Connections:

1. I have an uncle who knows the collectables dealer who was the model for "Comic Book Guy" on the Simpsons.
Since one of my life's goals is to compose the saxophone solo on the opening credits, I'd say I'm just that much closer to completing my bucket list.

2. My mother grew up with the guy who is director of photography on the reboot of Beverly Hills 90210.
He offered once to help me get my SAG card back when I was pretty enough to be an actor. I wished so desperately to be Luke Perry, but back then I was more Brian Austin Green. And I was stupid not to go for it, but of course then I was a STAGE ACTOR Queens English lilt and everything. But at least I get to crash Mom's house when she spends Thanksgiving in Catalina.

3. My step mom's brother was married to Joan Baez's sister.
This one is especially nifty considering that my first band out of high school was an acoustic rock band that did slow covers of punk tunes and we toyed once with calling ourselves Bone Jaez. Creepy huh?

4. My dad once had a booking agent that is the mother of the bass player for Papa Roach (The Sacramento Band mentioned earlier).
This is not my only connection to that band. The singer who first recorded my songs professionally is not only a good friend of mine, but was a high school chum of their lead singer. My best friend in high school almost become their drummer, and I opened up for them once at a kegger and they might still remember me as the guy who played terrible Beatles songs with a copy of a porno playing on the TV behind me. It's the details in life.

5. One of my Acting Instructors baby-sat for Tom Hanks.
Which means I am exactly three phone numbers away from being able to text Peter Scolari.

I could go on and on (because that's what I do), but Calvin is waiting for me to go to the store and pick up string beans which is what he requested for dinner.

And when your child requests string beans its time to give up your silly lists and go get string beans.






Routine

So it looks like the tomatoes are done for. The last bit of fruit is still green, but already starting to split and rot away.

And I must say, I gave my garden a lot of love this year, but other than one nice bowl of screaming awesome salsa, I was pretty disappointed in the results.

It was my first real foray into green thumbyness and I kinda sucked.

Which is fine.

The first step to being good at something is sucking at it for a while.

So as I stood out in the back yard this morning looking at my forlorn fruit vines, sipping my coffee, and scratching all over I noticed that I had a pretty monster zit just below my right shoulder blade.

Actually it could have been a number of things. It could have been a bug bite or one of those heat pimples you get from sitting at a company conference all day where the air conditioner is almost but not quite low enough to keep you from sweating profusely in a shirt you only wear once a year or so.

But it felt like a zit.

And of course, being the gross 12 year old boy that I am, I finished up my coffee and scurried into the bathroom so I could angle the mirrors and get a good glimpse of the monster before I squeezed its guts out.

Zit popping is one of those little life pleasures somewhere on the same orgasmic level as foot rubs and thinly sliced home grown tomatoes.

And much to my surprise, elation, disgust, there was more than one.

I wouldn't necessarily say that my back fat was littered with puss monkeys but I could definitely trace out a few constellations with a magic marker.

Which begs the question; "Why?"

Why all of a sudden?

My routine hasn't changed that much.

Up early, cup of coffee, work most of the day, yell at my children, eat dinner, wait till everyone goes to bed so I can stay up late and finish that box of Cheese-Its.

What box of Cheese-its?

Exactly.

No wait. There is one change. I've been exercising daily. Or more importantly, sweating daily.

And something occurred to me as I sat there with my ass on the counter and my neck twisted like an owl;

I don't wash my back very often.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I shower every day, and I put on clean clothes every day. And I soap up, and shampoo every day. I keep my toe nails clipped and my nose hair a reasonable length and I'm not one to shy away from belly button lint, but I've never lathered up that spongy thingy on a stick and rubbed it up and down my back.

Why not?

Well, it just wasn't part of my morning routine.

Letting the hot water run down my spine seemed sufficient.

And my shower routine was very specific.

I won't bore you with the step by step, but the soap started and ended in the same place and the only real variable was how much of Joann's curly hair I could dig up from the drain with my big toe.

It was very specific and timed exactly right so that I was always, to the minute, aware of how many times I could hit the snooze alarm and still make it to work at the exact time I needed to be there.

And those fastidious steps of operation didn't include the back scrubber thingy.

Not because I'm gross, but because my routine was decades old by the time I became a married man and single guys aren't allowed into that section of Target where back scrubby thingies are sold.

Yet, and this is weird for me to conclude, the routine is meaningless now.

All my routines are meaningless now.

I would like to give off the semblance of professionalism by calendaring my day, but the difference between 8:00am and 8:17am, which in my former life was monumental, is now insignificant.

I am faced with reassessing all of my routines, my priorities, and my beliefs.

There is no rhythm except in the music I make. No constancy except for the love that I have for the people around me. No right. No wrong. Nothing but a blank canvas and a trust in my own judgement.

Time to let go of the dying fruit and force the spiders to find some place else to spin their webs.

Find a way to really live,

or rot on your vine.



Beg My Pardon Five


Today is a beautiful day.

No really. The weather is perfect with its deep blue skies and light autumn breezes. I've had plenty of sleep. I've invented a new food. (Fresh peach banana smoothy with yogurt, milk, and a spoonful of Nutella, effing delish). My quarter-back didn't do so well last night, but that's fine because the guy who kept tackling him all night happened to also be in my line up, so, quite a wash.

There was eggs and ham for breakfast, I got through all 23 minutes of my 25 minute work out. Went to the archery range with my wife and proved to her I could easily kill an African elephant as long as I had those grenade tipped arrows that Rambo was using. I have reached my weekly goal for applying to seven different venues not including a last minute application for 2014's Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis. I like my chances just about everywhere.

So in pure kingly fashion, I have decided to pardon all the things that might have made this day less than perfect:

Top Five things that get to live today:

The Spider:
There is a terribly frightening spider the size and shape of a black widow making a tennis court sized net across my salsa garden. I picked at its web the other day, and I shit you not, it was taught as a guitar string and I had to use both hands to snap it away from the last of my tomatoes. I looked it up the other day, and thankfully it is just a harmless garden spider that has kindly been sucking the blood out of the kinds of pests which I don't want buzzing around my bell peppers.

But it's gross and I want it dead.

Except not today, today it lives.

The guy who took my spot:
At 2:00pm, I stop all progress, all writing, all projects, all experimentation, so that I may load up into the car and stand outside in the sun with fifty other jobless (self-employed) schleps waiting for our darling children to be excused from school. At the sound of the bell, I wade through the throng and scan the crowd for any hint of my wispy toed headed progeny so that I can make eye contact with him before he considers himself abandoned an proceeds to have a panic attack.

I take his hand and we walk almost an entire block to where I've parked the car.

I have a very specific place I like to park the car. I like to park on the side of the road that the school is on and pointing in the direction of our home. I do this so that I don't have to make an unrecommended u-turn in the middle of the chaos. I also like this spot because it happens to be at the apex of a curve in the road and I can see very clearly what is in front of me and what is behind me, which is essential when you have hundreds of children darting in an around your car trying to get home to play video games.

This spot is exactly twenty feet further than where his mom likes to park. She likes the shady spot.

But today, someone took my spot, even though there were several perfectly reasonable spots available elsewhere.

The shady spot was also taken. So I was forced to take a spot one driveway further down, where the sight lines are less than perfect.

The person who took my spot should be stabbed in the neck with a barbecue fork.

But not today.

Today he lives.

Calvin:
Upon seeing the car twenty feet further away than yesterday, he exclaims "Daaaaad? Why did you have to park so faaaaaaaaar?"

I could very easily have grabbed him by his back pack and the seat of his pants and thrown him in front of the car driven by the homocidal maniac who took my spot as he sped off into hell.

But I didn't.

Cause today is perfect.

Today Calvin lives.

Apple Inc.:
I have five Apple devices that had to be upgraded due to the release of iOS 7. Had it been six I would have released 2,417 eight-week old puppies into the think-tank offices of Infinity Dr. thereby destroying productivity and rendering Apple's market share to less than 1%. And I would continue to do this every friday until my Wifi caught up.

But I won't do that today.

Today their stock price lives.

And lastly,

Hope:
I have been able to do things this week that would have taken me many months to accomplish otherwise. I am in no way out of the woods and I never before in my life had a task list this monumental and unscratched. But I'm working hard and dreaming big and today is the perfect day to feel good about it.


Learning Curve

In my previous gig, new people used like to ask me how they were doing.

I would tell them that they were doing fine.

"Don't worry." I would say.

"It takes a least six months before you're anything more than useless." I would add.

"If you don't understand how to do things in six months, . . . well . . . that's when we need to talk." I would also add.

I didn't sound as draconian as all that (well, maybe I did), but it was always important for people to understand that judging who they are in the beginning tells me almost nothing about who they will end up becoming. It's like trying to judge a man by who he was in the third grade.

(I happen to have been a very mighty man in the third grade. A tower of awesomeness, a community pillar, the stuff of legend)

I have trained people that were terrible in the beginning and turned out to be some of the best people I've ever worked along side. Inversely, I have trained people that I thought were just magic and patted myself on the back for my own awesome hiring skills, for them to just turn around and become a terrifying hot mess.

Takes a while to get in the groove.

So today is my Day 1.

I set last week aside to decompress, drink copiously, and consume a plethora of fatty foods.

It was fun, but honestly, not really.

I had a few laughs, but I really just felt like spent the whole week a stinky Mr. Cranky pants.

Sleeping ten hours a day was pretty cool though.

Highly recommend.

But I marked today as my calendar Day 1. My beginning of the Common Era.

My Anno DooWahDiddy.

That's latin for: In the Year of Our DiddyDumDiddyDoo.

There I was just a walking down the street.

etc.

And as a new day of a new life has dawned, I've learned quite a few things in my new job as the super crazy dude who dropped his cushy way of life to hack his way into the jungles of artistic freedom.

Did you know that you can alter the images of a YouTube video, but you can't fix the sound?

And that if your gonna take video from an iPhone that was recording you at a coffee shop gig, then you're gonna have to record the audio separately otherwise you're gonna hear some milk steaming?

And that if you're gonna try and fix the terrible audio, you're gonna have to find a way to split it from the video and take it through a whole separate process and then return the fixed audio to the video through an entirely different process?

And you can't split the audio from the video in iMovies or GarageBand, but you can do it in Logic?

And that Logic also has all the stuff you would need to improve the terrible audio?

$499 spent very wisely back in the summer of 2011.

Even if it still doesn't sound very good.

Did you know that waitdad.com automatically updates my video page whenever I upload a new video on Youtube, but, and this sucks, it will not sync with any of my calendars, so if I wanted to add a show, say, Saturday 12th on the corner of 20th and L. in Sacramento, I have to do it manually?

I'm gonna have to send a letter.

Did you know that I'm playing a benefit concert on October 5th for the Sacramento Police Mounted Association from 12-4?

Of course you didn't, I haven't created the event on Facebook yet, but it is on my calendar at my website for those fans who like to check around.

So we're off to a very good start.

Just don't ask me how its going yet.

At least not for another six months.

Then we'll talk.






Five Little Confessions

Had my first actually busy day since Operation "Terrify My Parents" began. I got up before 10. I worked on my core. I went for a heart pounding bike ride. I made a smoothie. I went to Home Depot to get some stuff for some fix-it projects. Finished said fix-it projects. Made what might be considered the greatest tuna melt in the history of fish sandwiches. Picked up the child from school. Did the dishes. Hand-crafted a new paper airplane for said child. (Which sounds easy, but there were over two pages of detailed instruction and they were written in Chinese).

So, suffice it to say, today's Friday Five is going to be a bit lighter than normal cause I still have a bedroom to get ready for guests and start making what might be considered the greatest meatloaf in the history of modern suburban culture.

And since this is a new me, and I too am just getting to know this new me, I thought I would start with a few little tidbits (confessional tidbits I have learned about my self over this past week)

Number One: I like turkey bacon.
No, silly person, not as a substitute for actual bacon. There is no such thing. Turkey bacon will not flavor a chili or give you anything but a terrible BLT, but by it's lonesome, or casually laid between the cheese and the thin layer of basil on what was arguably the best tuna melt ever, turkey bacon has found a place in my heart in the pantheon of remarkable food choices.

Number Two: I was really looking forward to Kati Perry's new single.
But it's terrible. Not terrible in a One Direction sort of way, but just a terrible mishmash of meaningless drivel. I know I shouldn't get my heart set on the quality of a new pop anthem, it's not like Tom Waits would ever quote Eye of the Tiger, but somewhere, the best pop artists and technicians were sitting in a room with millions of dollars at their disposal, and not a single one thought to mention that every line is from another song. There wasn't a single person in that room with the audacity to come up with a single original metaphor? You have the rapt attention millions of impressionable minds and the best you got is a Helen Reddy knockoff? Boo.

Number Three: I secretly love Fix-it Projects.
I don't want a list. I have other things to do. But the look on my wife's face when I was able to take ten feet of PVC pipe, a couple of elbow joints and a hacksaw, and in just a few minutes fix a drainage problem that has been bothering us for years, well . . . some one's getting lucky.

Number Four: Video Games are too complicated for me now.
Calvin brought his Xbox out to the living room so he could play on the big screen. I have been secretly playing some of his games after everyone goes to bed. But I don't understand them. They're too hard and there are too many buttons. I am officially out of that particular loop.

Number Five: Calvin holds me hand when we walk together.
I'm not sure when that's supposed to stop, but I'll take it every chance I can get it.

Time for a beer.


Super Sunday Morning Man

So what exactly is the first day of the rest of your life supposed to feel like?

The answer, my friends, is pretty boring.

Slept for ten hours. Got up and brewed the first batch of freedom coffee. Wrote in my journal. Went for a gentle bike ride with my wife. Cooked lunch (Hamburgers with turkey bacon on whole wheat flat bread). Paced about the house a bit, sipping mango iced tea and lamenting my fantasy football disaster from last night.

All three of my guys I've been scouting since July have taken an absolute dump statistically.

Well, poop.

At least I still have an excuse to drink beer before noon for the next fifteen Sundays.

After this, I will shower and brush my teeth. After that I will rehearse for an hour or so. Go to the store to pick up some items for dinner. Cook that dinner. Eat that dinner. Clean up after that dinner. Watch Monday night Football and hope that Michael Vick and Desean Jackson have the kind of opening game that Colin Kaepernick and Anquan Boldin had yesterday.

The guys know what I'm talking about.

And all that matters to the girls is that I'm most likely going to be doing the dishes.

Either way, I just became super sexy to both parties.

Every man in the world likes to root for the underdog, and girls like men soapy and wearing yellow rubber gloves.

Unless they can get Colin Firth emerging from a water fountain dressed in white linen.

That sh*t is gold.

Enter wife:

"Hey babe?"

"Yeah?"

"Do these pants look too wrinkly?"

"Nope."

"Do they look like they've been rolled up in a ball?"

"Yeah. They do look like they've been rolled up into a ball"

Exit wife.

Now normally an exchange like this would aggravate me because it would have totally ruined my flow. I only have so much time an energy to put into this stuff, and sometimes the joke that has been swimming around my head will just poof out of existence, all in the name of confirming to my wife what she pretty much already knew. What would she have done had I been at work? Would she have taken a picture of her pants and texted it to me? Probably not. She would've just made the decision from the get go that she wasn't going to be comfortable in anything and either gone out in rain gear, or hid in a closet with a pint of ice cream, a spoon, and a Pride and Prejudice DVD cover.

But I've seen her in four outfits today.

So at least she's gonna keep trucking on.

Which is good, cause I still need her for things. Lots of things. And the point I was making was that I totally ain't irritated. If she wants my opinion on the winkle factor of her pants while I'm writing, or text me a list of chores from the living room couch or talk about her feelings at the breakfast table, I am suddenly, totally cool with that.

Cause I can do that now. There will be tomorrow. I can chillax.

It's like having a new super power.

I am Sunday Morning Man.

Stronger than an eight year old, Faster than an old lady writing a check at the super market, able to reach obscure serve-ware from the tallest cabinet.

If he can't do it right now, he can do it this afternoon, and if he can't do it this afternoon, he can do it tonight or tomorrow or October.

And yet,

and yet,

He can see right now there's a little passive aggressive caveat to his new super power.

Something that I think she's gonna need to be aware of if she wants to call upon Super Sunday Morning Man whenever the spirit moves her.

Which is the fact that if she's gonna interrupt him, she's gonna get written in.

Enter wife:

"Hey babe?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm probably not going to eat anything but soup tonight, my stomach is really bad, so you just have to cook dinner for you and mini-you."

"Kay."

"It's all the heavy foods, and the heat, and the stress."

"Kay."

"What are you gonna make?"

"I have no idea. This . . . this changes everything."

"I know, I was excited for you to make me dinner. So I put the pants in the dryer for a few minutes, do they look less wrinkly now? I mean, can I go out wearing these without looking like a complete schlub?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Kay, I'm gonna go pick up mini-you. Think about what you want to make for dinner and let me know what you want me to pick up from the store. Kay, bye, love you."

Exit wife.

And in this case it works just fine. She's unwittingly helped me drag this piece out of the gutter and brought a sense of liveliness it was totally lacking before seeking my useless opinion.

I might have spent this entire piece on mango iced tea and Fantasy Football. Which might have been funny, but not nearly as good.

So let this be both a pledge and a warning.

Super Sunday Morning Man is here for you.

Cause he can do that now.

But everything you do is now fodder for the blog-mill and nothing is sacred.

Well, I guess some things are sacred.

At least while Super Sunday Morning Man's mother is still alive.

Friday Five: Doctor Edition

Got to spend my Friday morning at the doctors office.

Yay hoo!

The reason is relatively moot, for I had an indescribably severe pain in the lower abdomen yesterday afternoon that could have been anything from appendicitis to exploded ovaries, but will most likely turn out to be a little stress coupled with mixing an IPA with a Boston Lager the night before.

Remember Children: Stout before Ale, all is hale; Ale before Lager will crush you like Frogger.

"Frogger" is a registered trademark.

And a lot of crazy stuff happening at Camp WaitDad. A lot of crazy stuff.

But its all gonna be just fine.

I promise.

Unless it turns out to be my ovaries.

In which case I may have some explaining to do.

Anyhoo, I got to spend the morning at the doctors office with my wife, which, unless you have seen the two of us in action already, is a lot more fun than it sounds.

First, we both like to tell jokes to ease the tension. And we're both pretty funny and there was a lot of tension.

It wasn't exactly Disneyland, but the key to our success is bringing home the gold in ridiculous situations, of which there have been many.

And we have been through our fair share of emergency rooms and advice nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, podiatrists and aroma therapists.

And all of them have wanted to get to the heart of the problem.

And in order to do this, they have to ask a lot of questions.

A **ck ton of questions.

Although most of the questions are pretty basic, there are a surprising few, that are, well, surprising.

And they tickled us to no end.

We were so tickled that we decided to bring you a Top Five, Most Interesting, Inelegant, and nearly inappropriate questions along with some fun insinuations.

I will list them in chronological order, only because that's how I remember them the best:

1. Are you afraid of anyone in your household?
This was on the questionnaire. And I don't want to insinuate that domestic violence is anything shy of horrendous, or that this question has undoubtably saved lives, but what made us laugh was the disgraceful amount of alternative answers we really wanted to put. "Um, Maybe." "Yes, our children are terrifying." "Is the closet monster considered a member of the household?" "I think my goldfish knows things." "Shhhh, Netflix has eyes." We really are terrible people.

2. On a regular drinking day, how many alcoholic beverages do you consume.?
Well, lets be honest, EVERYDAY is a REGULAR drinking day. Wine is freaking delicious, and it makes me smarter, funnier, and able to face closet monster without rocking back and forth in the fetal position. Do I have a problem? Most likely. Do I know how unhealthy it is? Most likely. Do I know that if I'm going to consume alcohol every day, that I should limit myself two two drinks or less? Fine, but how big are the glasses?

3. Are you taking Nortryptoline and how long has your urine been this color?
So of course I had to pee in a cup at some point, and since I hadn't had any liquids or anything to eat and I'd already peed twice and I'd been sick for over twelve hours, my sample was a little darker than normal. And by darker, I mean the stuff was oompah loompah orange. I'd never seen my pee the color of an unfrozen otter pop before and I wasn't entirely prepared for how warm it was. That being said, I placed the warm jar of otter pop urine on the ledge like I was told to do and walked back to the doctor's room.
After a few minutes quiet shuffling, the nurse burst into the room, almost breathless and asked me if I had taken any Nortryptoline (an antidepressant) and when I told her I hadn't, she asked just as breathlessly if my urine had always been this color, I told her it hadn't. She looked like she didn't believe me, and I swear to god, she squinted her eyes and backed out of the room slowly.

4. How many cups of coffee do you normally drink?
Gee doc, whatever it takes to wake me up after a regular drinking day.

and lastly . . .

with my wife sitting right there,

5. Would you like me to check for any STD's?

Well doc, I know she looks like a dirty whore, but that's okay because we actually don't have sex.

or

Well doc, I think you should, money's been tight and and I've recently had to settle for handjobs at train stations

or

What's an STD?

or

Absolutely not! But would you mind calling my cell later this afternoon on an unrelated issue?

or

Can closet monsters transmit that sort of thing?

So there you have it. A five within a five. And I'll keep you updated on my ovaries.




It's only fair.

I introduce my brother to good wine, he introduces me to Fantasy Football

Getting to know you

Are the social media's making you feel more lonely and disconnected?

Cause if they are, then you are the person everyone seems to be talking about on just about every social media platform I peruse.

Apparently, social media is not only the new pariah, but also the podium from which the minister preaches the fire and brimstone effect of "tweets", "likes" and photo filtration.

Environmentalists in Hummers.

Thank god for Tumblr, which is mostly still dirty jokes and soft core porn.

Now aside from the random customer that tries to scroll through her Facebook page while trying to order her coffee, I've found that the social media platforms are a pretty nifty way of keeping in the loop.

And the social dynamic hasn't changed much.

That loud, obnoxious, girl at the party is now just filling your newsfeed with baby pictures and Tony Robbins quotes instead of talking about her children and her inability to orgasm.

The shy people have "Klimt" paintings as their profile pictures and won't "like" anything until it has been "liked" at least by twelve other people. I'm sure their cats miss them, but its kinda nice that they're at least trying to participate.

The dirty girls are posting dirty things instead of just xeroxing their asses and being gossiped about come monday morning.

The dirty boys are still making dirty inelegant passes and being "unfriended" instead of tolerated.

Every band wants you to come out a see their show, including mine, and you can ignore the invite.

I ain't mad, bro, I still love you just the same.

Dads post "Dad Jokes"

Moms post passive aggressive advice about what they think is wrong with your life.

My aunt beat cancer and my son passed Organic Chemistry.

Fuck Yeah!

(Both true, by the way, Fuck Yeah!)

Social Media to me is this monster end of year kegger where everybody is invited, everyone rushes off to find their little clicks, some head for the food, some head for the beer, some head for a quiet spot to strum on their guitars, and then there are those like me that like to roam from click to click making an impression when I can, turning a serious conversation into a joke, stomping on jerks for being mean, enlightening, getting enlightened, hearing the latest news filtered through an alcoholic haze, hearing the latest gossip, being on the inside of an elaborate joke, and hopefully, later, crawling into bed with the super hot curly haired girl.

Which I get to do.

Every damn night.

Yet the argument is that we are losing a piece of our social fabric in our indirect entailments within the social web-o-sphere.

Hmm?

Interesting poetics you're waxing there kids, but you're entirely wrong.

Social media hasn't hurt anything.

It hasn't changed much of anything at all.

We've always raged about the hot topics, and then forgotten about them come voting time, or come Miley Sirus' next album.

What has changed is the unfettered ability to create and to have worldwide distribution.

Art and opinion is now fully democratized.

Its an open source world, my friends, and as always, you make of it what you will.