I’m Going to Save Your Friday

It’s the last work day of a long weekend. Face it, you’re no going to do jack shit today.

Me? I’ll probably answer the phone a dozen times and explain to people several times my pay grade how incredibly stupid they are. OK, that part of the conversation will actually be in my head. The said aloud part will be more rationale and humble.

Anyway, you, you’re going to be surfing new sites I share with you such as:

Casual Slack

Shit America Needs

And the website of my [estranged] friend and a terrific author:

TL Hines

So, there you have it. Just like my step sister Peggy, I’m a proven giver.

Now, go enjoy your long weekend. Maybe take the time make a resolution, such as you’ll try to leave a comment or two once in awhile so I don’t feel like the fat sister of the internet.

p.s. My favorite word is jackanapes.

Sell Out & Cook Out

SELL OUT

I felt like puking, and it had far less to do with the fact that I’d run 4.5 miles in just 30 minutes. Instead, it had everything to do with a Kohl’s commercial starring Lenny Kravitz and his wannabe rock anthem: Love Revolution. The Love Revlution was a feature of MySpace’s music tour [that's right, I said MySpace's music tour] called Get On The Bus, which was also the name of a [redundancy alert!] very bad Spike Lee movie.

This is where it gets really edgy [No, not Kravitz's long list of pilfered/mutilated songs]: The Get On The Bus moniker tied into Kravitz’s Love Revolution bus, which toured the nation while plugging his –and I am NOT making this up– Levi jeans and t-shirt collection sold exclusively at Kohls.

The campaign featured other notable rockers [please note the distinct smell of sarcasm]: Avril Lavigne, Plain White T’s, and Vanessa Carlton. Others suckered into pawning Kravitz’s horrid music and clothes inclue: professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and Hayden Panettiere, who is best known for her role as the cheerleader on Heroes.

Boys and girls, here’s how we learn that karma is a bitch: My Name is Earl During the tour, Kravitz was admitted to Miami Hospital suffering from a series of severe respiratory tract infections that developed into bronchitis. If the universe thinks you suck, it’ll give you a warning.

COOK OUT

Michele Humes over at the foodie blog, A Fine Furious Life, just posted an excellent story [replete with fantastic pictures] entitled, So You Want To Go To Culinary School. A highly recommended read.

This Isn’t So Much About Me As It Is About You.

I was recently revamping my blog’s About Me section. This after reading The Bean’s, which is funnier than the idea of Pres. Bush as celebrity judge at a Spelling Bee. As I was revamping, it occurred to me that I should explain how and why certain blogs appear on my blogroll, as well as how I know the author.

After approximately 1/8 of a nanosecond, I realized that would constitute a tremendous amount of work on behalf of my (at best) four readers. Consequently, I decided that in true modern day American fashion, I’d cheat and take the easiest route possible.

And so, without further ado, I offer you the About Me sections of those people fortunate enough to not truly know me, but to be sentenced to a level of Hell entirely missed by Dante: Appearing on a mostly true story’s blogroll.

…on third thought, again because it seems like an awful lot of work -what with cut & paste being so difficult and all- I’ve decided to share with you COPYRANTER’s About Me section:

I hate capri pants. Also: advertising, advertising people, PR people, marketing people, salespeople, real estate people, journalists, lawyers, doctors, Streeters, i-bankers, midtown, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, going to Brooklyn, fake blondes, real blondes, saline implants, silicone implants, Civil War enthusiasts, Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, fireworks, parades, Summer, Winter, greeting cards, stuffed animals, children’s drawings, video games, religions, personal trainers, golf, golf courses, golfers, polo shirts, clogs, The Yankees, Yankee fans, mooks, Carson Daly, the Hamptons, Hoboken, people who don’t know how to walk in NYC, Moby, TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, stand-up comedy, Improv comedy, sketch comedy, “alt” comedy, Readings, SUVs, PCs, drinking straws, weddings, Brunch, fondue fountains, chick peas, Starbucks coffee, Candace Bushnell, Amy Sohn, James Joyce, Don DeLillo, Chuck Klosterman, screenwriters (dicks), short men (Napoleon Complexed turds), Jason Binn, men named Jack, Dr. Phil, Scrabble®, people who don’t hate anything. I probably at least don’t care for you.

Who has your favorite “About Me” section? Do share!

Breakfast @ 3500′ ASL*

At 8:51this morning, Cindy sends me this picture via my phone:

Oh, she and some friends are just flying to Cambridge, MD for breakfast.

Yeah, you know, like everyone does, right?

Me? I’m sitting at my desk making my novel come to life.

Jealous? Umm, maybe a bit.

Then I think about the thousands of hours I amassed as a Black Hawk crew chief in the Army. Speaking of which, Part 3 of the “You’re in the Army Now” stories is imminent. In the interim, read Part 1, or Part 2, or see pictures of my tour in South Korea (courtesy of my buddy Patrick Wiltz).

* ASL = Above Sea Level…and, truth be told, it was more like 1000′ ASL

Why I Love My Camera Phone

Because I can share things I find, such as:

I found this picture (above) hanging in the men’s room of the M Street Bread & Chocolate (in DC). This is so very, very wrong to hang in the bathroom. Seriously wrong.

I found this graffiti (above) on the wall of a club in Baltimore.

Cindy sent me this appropriately named loaf of bologna (above).

There’s capturing beautiful moments, such as (above) this sunset over Pax River.

Or documenting situational irony outside Waldorf, MD (above). Click to make larger.

Or the joy of sharing stupid shit from the airbase, such as this sign (above).

At the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, I found this row of urinals (above) that look like…

. . . (above) an oversized eye washer? a hungry Pelican?

But mostly I love it because I can capture shit like this:

Comfortable Comforters Comfort the Comfortless

I declare SUCCESS in finding a new comforter. However, both the girlfriend and The Bean demanded that I show before and after pics. So, here you go . . .

My old and dreadfully hideous comforter, my former dog (Murphy – lost in the divorce, kinda), and my wonderful girlfriend (I’m not biased, Rock & Roll Mama met Cindy, she’ll tell ya how lucky I am):

And now –drum roll– the new and oh-so-wonderful, color-coordinated, super soft and cuddly, comfortable comforter (taken with my cell, sorry), appearing in my new house, in my newly returned to state of Maryland:

As a testament to how wonderful it is, these two spend a lot more time in bed with us:

Napoleon.

Taxi.

Elevation Higher than Population: Montana.

I used to live in Bozeman, which is a beautiful town in southwestern Montana. It’s the home of Bridger Bowl, the Gallatin National Forest, and where A River Runs Through It was filmed. It’s also the proud home of the wonderful Sweetpea Festival, and Montana State University, where I earned my master’s.

Sure, education, arts, nature, and exercise are great. But for locals, one of the best kept secrets of Bozeman is a teeny, tiny lil gem hidden within the local newspaper, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle (affectionately called The Comical, by locals).

The Police Reports are so funny that for years the newspaper has made a killing selling it as a tear-away, day-by-day desk calender. What’s so funny about crime, you ask? Well, both the Police and the newspaper’s writer’s draft their Police Reports for maximum humor, helped along by Bozeman’s naturally occurring oddities.

For example:

• A man witnessed a cat and pigeon fighting on South Sixth Avenue and took the pigeon home after deciding the fight was unfair.
• Deputies assisted a disoriented motorist on Interstate 90 who pulled his vehicle into a ditch while wearing no pants, one sock and sunglasses at night.
• A West College Street woman told police Tuesday that she heard her neighbor yell, “Get off me.” As it turned out, the neighbors were tickling each other.
• A rabid squirrel, foaming at the mouth, chased a man on South Third Avenue Sunday. The squirrel was not located.
• A man was arrested on North Black Avenue after verbally threatening and flipping off officers, insisting that it was his constitutional right to do so.
• A man threw a chair on the roof of an East Main Street business Thursday for no apparent reason. He was arrested.
• A man threw up on a dancer at a Gallatin Road strip club Thursday.

Admittedly, those are mild in comparison to others I’ve seen. My all time favorites include:

• Numerous drivers called to report a gorilla, or possibly a person wearing a gorilla costume, running through traffic on 19th.
• A caller reported seeing a car creeping down Main St. at 2am with its lights off, a can of gasoline and a shovel on the roof, and a strange man leaning out of the driver’s window.

Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself at this website: The Best of the Bozeman Chronicle Police Reports: Authentic reports of lighthearted lunacy from one of America’s best-loved lesser-known smaller Rocky Mountain town papers.

My advice: if you ever go west, visit Bozeman, MT. It’s just 1.5 hours north of Yellowstone. Trust me, you will definitely enjoy yourself. Just do us both a favor and try not to make it into the Police Reports, ok?

A Comfortable Death

. . . or, more accurately, death to my comforter.

It is quite possible the ugliest thing I own. It looks like every rejected piece of scrap material from How to Make an American Quilt and Project Runway. Yes, it is just that awful.

As a man, I can tell when something is fugly. Yet, unlike most men, I can also dress and groom myself quite capably, I drive a nice car, I speak well, and I have a personal hygiene routine — all without being metrosexual (though I do know the lines and songs from musicals such as West Side Story and Grease; because, growing up in NY, my single mother used summer acting camp as a babysitter). And my household furnishings are both well-appointed and comfortable.

That is, except my comforter.

This ugly hag of a nighttime companion is an unwanted remnant from my latest failed marriage. And yet somehow, despite these damning facts, for nearly two years I’ve been promising myself that I would replace it: my one and only comforter. And yet, there it is. Lying there on my bed, like a passive-aggressive, truly hideous, and completely unwanted reminder of it’s former passive-aggressive, hideous, and unwanted owner who abandoned said bed rug oh-so long ago.

Ack.

Well, enough already! Today I embark upon a mission to replace said nasty boudoir rag with something, anything, else: a lump of greasy rags, a cardboard box, a collection of dead animal pelts. Regardless, I vow to not return until I possess a new comforter that is a) not hideously disgusting, and b) devoid of the stench of villainous women. And if matched my bedroom’s motif, that’d be great too.

Wish me luck!

Corey King’s Day Off (sucked).

After three days as the sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever NyQuil poster boy, I have returned to the living.

When I was younger, staying home sick was somewhat enjoyable. Sure, the potential for fun was tempered by the probability of diarrhea, vomiting, and zombie attack. But you weren’t in school. That was the key. Now, however, as my clammy, feverish body flailed helplessly in my sweat-soaked bed, batting away piles of snot-ridden kleenex, and downing gallon upon gallon of juice (never peeing, by the way), all I could think of was the ever expanding in-box that awaited me upon my return to the office. Surely, I told myself, the pile of documents on my desk awaiting my editing has grown to Lincoln-in-a-top-hat proportions. And the missed calls! (Though, I don’t have voice mail…I accidentally forgot to ask IT to set it up.)

Know what else – there’s zilch on TV Tuesday afternoons. What happened to cartoons? And fo rthe love of Pete, who are all of these aspiring cooks? designers? realtors? mechanics? therapists? And why do they all have their own shows? And what in the hell is Billy Mays yelling about? Kaboom. OxiClean. Handy Switch. Steam Buddy. Awesomer Auger. Zorbeez. Hercules Hook. Ultimate Ladder. None of that garbage is worth screaming about. From watching one afternoon of TV, here’s what I learned: you don’t need a degree OR ability to get work these days — damn my guidance counselor and his infernal lies!

And while I’m at it, let me give you this friendly little piece of advice: if you’re truly sick, pick your movies carefully. The Breakfast Club: good. The Producer’ gay good. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ? Two words: dumb. move. I was a Catholic Bishop watching men’s figure skating. Oh the agony. I want to be doing that. THAT! Anything other than THIS, in fact. Argh. However, when Cameron flakes out at The Art institute of Chicago while staring at Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte”…I laughed out loud. Only the night before I saw Family Guy spoof that scene.

Worst of all, there was no damp washcloth on my forehead. le sigh How did mom’s damp washcloth always manage to make everything better? OK, your turn. How do you suffer through a sick day?

I’m Dying

OK, that’s a tad bit mellow dramatic. However, I assure you I am the stereotypical sick man: pathetic and whinny. So, I’m taking some time to recover without blogging. I’m not the rest of you, I cannot lay in my deathbed and update twitter after every sniffle, sneeze, and cough. Instead, I’m watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club.