They must have been on the Pineapple Express

They must have been on the Pineapple Express when they shot the movie Pineapple Express. In one scene Seth Rogen’s girlfriend, who is in high school, and her family are in a motel room hiding from the drug dealers. There is a whole scene where she fights with her parents and then with Seth Rogen and on the TV in the background is the UFC fight between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans. Why in the hell would that be on in a hotel room with a high school girl and her parents. I can’t imagine any situation when a high school girl and her parents are sharing a motel room and are flipping through the channels and stop on UFC Unleashed and think, “this is a good show to watch as a family”. The crew that shot that scene must have been high and watching the fight and then when they went to shoot the scene, they were so high they forgot to change the channel on the TV.

Horse Wrecks

I adventured out into the night on Thursday to get to work on my Christmas shopping. As I drove through Burbank, navigating the traffic, it hit me how crazy driving in a crowded city is. We have rules and laws that we have all accepted and follow, we drive on the right side of the road, we go on green, yield on yellow, stop on red, and so on and so forth. Millions of people just inching along following the rules and sometimes people make mistakes and crash into each other. How my brain made the jump to this next thought is beyond me but here it goes. I started to think about the Wild West when everyone rode horses. There were no lanes, no traffic signals, no right of way rules; everyone just went where they wanted. Do you think people ever got into horse wrecks? For example a guy is riding through Tombstone on his horse and he sees a hot girl and isn’t watching where he is going and he t-bones another guy on a horse. What happened then, did they exchange information, did they call the sheriff, and was the guy at fault responsible for paying the vet bill for the damages done to the other horse? These questions all have answers that are useless information but information I wonder about nonetheless.

40 is my magic number

I have found that when anything costs $40 or less it’s easy for me to say, "it's only forty bucks (or whatever the price is)". Anything over that I can't really blow off, it's decision time, do I really need this. I sometimes wonder how much you have to make a year to be able to say, "it's only a hundred bucks" or "it's only a thousand bucks". Can you imagine having the type of money where you could say, "it's only a million bucks"!?

Don't text and walk

It is illegal in California to text while driving; it should also be illegal to text and walk. On my way to work yesterday I approached an intersection where I would be making a right turn. There was a woman standing on the corner texting, the light hand been green for a few moments and she wasn’t crossing the street so I proceed to make the turn. Just then she looks up from her phone, sees its green, steps off the curb, and goes right back to texting while crossing the street. I hit the brakes hard and swerved to avoid running her over. The amazing thing was that she never even noticed that she just almost died, she was so focused on her phone that the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Don’t text while walking.... the life you save just might be mine, can you imagine the guilt I would have felt had I run her over!?

World's Greatest Dad

I just finished reading Jens Pulver’s autobiography Little Evil. Jens was the first ever UFC Lightweight Champion. In the first chapter Jens tells the story of being 7 years old and having his drunk, abusive, father line him and his two younger brothers up in the living room, while they stood there he went into the other room and rummaged through a closet until he found a shotgun. When he returned he put the barrel of the gun in Jens’ 7 year-old mouth and said that he was going to kill them all. I have always known that I have probably the greatest dad on this planet, but reading those words and thinking back to when I was 7 and my dad was the world to me, I stopped for a moment and just soaked in how lucky I am.

My dad is and always will be my hero. There has never been a moment in my life when I needed him and he wasn’t there. My childhood memories are filled with images of my dad coaching my baseball teams, my soccer teams, my basketball teams, teaching me to work on cars, do home repairs, and to play golf. My dad would work 10-12 hour days and still make sure he was home in time to pick me up and take me to practice, sometimes there wasn’t time enough for him to change out of his work clothes. Not only was he taking me to practice but also he was there to coach. He wasn’t getting paid to coach, most of the time he was never even asked to coach, he was just always there and the next thing you knew he was on the field helping out and then he was one of the coaches. I never had one of those moments when I looked for him in the stands and he wasn't there because he was right there in the dugout or on the sideline.

I have always been close with my dad and in recent years have probably become closer to him than I have ever been. I have lived my life by the motto, “If I am just half the man he is I am doing pretty good”. Everything I am as a man is based on what I learned from him, whether directly or just by watching him and what he does. He truly is something special and I hope I have made him proud.

I would have fired 21 year old me

I was thinking back over my career and the jobs I’ve held and got back to me as a 21 year-old employee. I realized that I would probably fire 21 year-old me. If that me came to interview today I don’t know that I would hire him. I was terribly dressed in what I thought was appropriate office attire, baggy Dickies and baggy plaid shirts...oh yeah and that terrible goatee, and I was always changing my work schedule to accommodate my bodyboarding and snowboarding. I know it was just immaturity but I don’t know if 30 year-old me could tolerate 21 year-old me.

Jesus does tech support

While employed at a previous job, a friend who though being Jewish was obsessed with Jesus, put a Jesus band-aid on my computer. This band-aid was just one of the many Jesus trinkets he had collected. When I left that job I transferred Jesus to my personal laptop. Recently I was showing my mom a few pictures I had taken and while turning my computer around I lost my grip on it, I juggled it momentarily like a drunken street performer until it broke free and crashed to the floor. It landed face down spreading wider than a prostitute’s legs. As I looked down at my pancaked computer I thought, “well we had a good run”, to my surprise when I picked it up it was almost completely unharmed and working just fine. I looked at Jesus staring back at me from his place on the band-aid and thought, “really, did he protect it”?

This wasn’t the first time I saw Jesus work on a computer. At yet another job a friend was having a continuing problem with an error message in a certain program. I did all I could to try and troubleshoot and fix the problem with no success. While balancing my petty cash I came across a dollar bill with a stamp on it that said, "Jesus loves" inside a Jesus fish. I told my friend that she needed some Jesus on her computer and it would fix her problem. I taped the bill to her computer and from that moment on the error stopped.

Next time you are having computer problems put some Jesus on it.

My luck, for posting this, my hard drive will blow up shortly.

Doctors are wrong a lot

I was watching coverage of a BMX contest and the commentator said that it was amazing the rider was even competing since it was only 6 months ago that he had a benign tumor removed from his brain and doctors said he would never ride a bike again. This is a common storyline in sports, this athlete was injured so bad, or had cancer, etc, that they would never compete in (insert sport that they are participating in right now) again, and now here they are in the finals, Super Bowl, UFC main event, or whatever major event they are competing in. Its always the same story, doctors said he would never walk again and now here he is running a marathon, are doctors really THAT wrong that often?

Disneyland ain't got shit on this!

In a small town in Mexico they now have a border-crossing park. For the price of $20 American you can participate in a border crossing simulation. You will run through the dessert, climb through canyons, crawl through tunnels, hide from the border patrol, and go for a ride in the back of a coyote’s truck. You will get the entire border-crossing experience. How can the tea cups compare to this?

Wild pack of family dogs

While spending some time in a small, rural town recently, I saw something I had never seen in person before….a pack of wild dogs. I’m not talking about two or three dogs, it was a pack of eight to ten dogs, of different breeds, ranging from puppies to full grown dogs. When I asked if it was in fact a pack of wild dogs the answer I got was, “yeah, it’s pretty common around here”. I found it interesting that when left on the streets domesticated animals will so easily revert to their wild nature. So the next time you are playing with Fido remember after a few days on the streets he will become a killer again.

A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
As my little sister played, the dogs took her away
And I guess she was eaten up ok, yeah she was eaten up ok

Is this LA or a landfill?

As I flew into LAX the other day I did something I don’t normally do, I watched out the window as we made our approach for landing. While doing this I noticed something odd, when I looked at the city below me, if I didn’t focus on the buildings and just looked at the mess as a whole, it looked oddly like a landfill. It was very disheartening to think that the place I call home looks like the dump from above. If you don’t believe me look at the two photos below and do the comparison yourself.

You’re so vain you probably think this vanity plate is about you

Why is anyone still getting vanity plates? I understand that in the 80’s it might have been cool, but a lot of things were cool in the 80’s that didn’t hold up to the test of time. In 2010 who is still getting these personalized plates? I saw a guy the other day driving a BMW Z3 roadster and the license plate said “BMW Z3”, you know what it said on the back of the car? BMW and Z3, I didn’t need you to personalize your plate to tell me that. The worst are those that you're pretty sure are vanity plates but you can’t figure them out, so you're sitting in traffic going nuts and feeling like an idiot because a) you can’t figure out a vanity plate and b) you’re upset....that you can’t figure out a vanity plate! The fact that they are called “Vanity Plates” should tell you something, so unless you ‘re going to give us some useful information like, “DUCHBAG”, “DTERAPE”, or “MOLESTR”, let the inmates that are stamping your plates assign the letters and numbers.

Fighters have become people to me

Matt’s hands were up, yet the punched slipped through, you could tell he felt it, up until now he was winning the fight, could this be the turning point? Matt Mitrione took some big shots from Joey Beltran in their prelim fight Saturday night. He looked really good in the fight and went on to win, but there were a few punches that got through and could have been the end of his night. When those punches landed I had a gut reaction, the same reaction you would have if one of your friends got punched in the face. The strange thing is, I‘ve never met Matt, and in all reality he is a stranger to me. As some of you may know I spend a lot of time following the sport of MMA and its fighters. By continually following the fighters online, watching interviews and videos of their training, you develop a fondness for them, almost as if you know them. Then you see the look of confusion on their face as they come to and look at the corner man and ask, “what happened”, after that big right hand, Thai knee, or head kick has ended their night. It is hard to see that look because you know about the weeks and weeks they spent preparing, the time they spent away from their families and kids while in training camp. You know how much was put into this moment and now they are looking up, as the lights come back into focus, and they don’t even know they have lost. I had this feeling when I watched Randy Couture being hammer-fisted by Brock Lesnar, Roxanne Modafferi being slammed into unconsciousness by Sarah Kaufman, and when Wanderlei KO’ed Keith Jardine, it was like watching a friend being beaten up. It is no longer just watching fights to me, it is watching people that I have followed and gotten to know, through my computer screen of course, but nonetheless, I get nervous for them. At it’s core, watching people fight is a surreal experience, and when you find yourself becoming invested in the fighters as people, not just entertainers, it might be time to take a step back.

I’m just getting started

I walked in the door and dropped my bag after another day of work and it hit me, I’m just getting started, I have another thirty-five years of this. Thirty-five years of getting up, sitting in traffic, putting in my hours, then sitting in traffic to get home. That is a harsh realization when the years of work you still have ahead of you is greater than the number of years you’ve been alive. I already don’t want to get up and go to the office, there are a million things I would rather do, what’s it going to be like five, ten, fifteen years from now? You always hear that you need to do what you love so it doesn’t feel like work; well the reality for most of us is that isn’t an option. Everyone can’t do what he or she loves for a living, so if you have to do something you don’t enjoy, is there a secret to getting through it without being miserable? Kanye was close when he said, “18 years, 18 years, got you for 18 years”, I think it should be more like, “65 years, 65 years, they got me for 65 years”, and that's if I’m lucky enough to retire at 65.

The thought of you makes me physically cringe

My blackberry is buzzing, the red light is flashing, this is its subtle way of letting me know some new information is awaiting my attention. As I click the roller ball to open my inbox I see the name of the e-mail sender and my body physically shudders! The mere sight of this person’s name causes a physical reaction. From day one of meeting this individual I had a gut reaction that screamed, “you don’t mesh well with this person!” I tried to ignore my biological senses and play nice. As time has passed and events have transpired, I have found that I can no longer fight biology, my body has made up its mind, whether I want to fight it or not, I don’t like this person. The physical reactions have escalated to the point where the sight of this person makes me roll my eyes or glare, and the sound of their voice makes me want to shove my fingers into my ears, knuckle deep, and scream la-la-la-la-la-la-la like a 5 year old. I feel physically uncomfortable in their presence. Their name emanating from my blackberry screen; polluting my field of vision makes my entire body react. How can another human being induce reactions like these?

If you say you hate all races you can get out of it

When I told people that I had jury duty coming up every comment I received was how I could get out of it. I was given things to say to get excused all together, things to say to get the judge to excuse me, and of course a dozen people told me I should have just thrown the notice in the trash and pretended I never go it, the funny thing is I wasn’t trying to get out of it. Why is it that everyone’s reaction is to try and get out of jury duty? I have served on a jury and it was an interesting experience, seeing how the judicial process works first hand, seeing how the D.A. and the defense attorney pick their questions to weed out the jury. This time around I was called to a courtroom for selection and was put in the jury box for questioning. I was eventually excused, but it was intriguing to see the questions we were asked due to the nature of the case. The biggest problem I had was the people that were saying things that were obviously for the sole purpose of getting excused. You could tell by the tone in their voices that they didn’t believe what they were saying. Why is everyone trying so hard to get out of jury duty? While I was sitting in the jury box I thought to myself, “knock on wood, god forbid, I find myself in a courtroom, preparing to face a jury, I want that jury to be paying attention and willing to be there, I don’t want a bunch of people who are pissed off and wanting nothing more than to get out of there. Next time you get a jury duty summons put yourself on the other side of the jury box and give the defendant the trial they deserve.

Aren’t there enough empty walls in LA?

I make the drive from Los Angeles to Norwalk and Orange County and a regular basis. In the years I have been making the drive I noticed that the great murals that adorn the concrete walls of the freeway have slowly been covered with graffiti. These murals have been on these freeways for many, many, years, and I am sure have had some graffiti on them from time to time, but now it has gotten to the point that some of the murals are almost invisible, now under a layer of gang names and terrible tagger graffiti. I am all for graffiti art, but a graffiti artist has the respect not to go over someone else’s artwork. Taggers on the other hand are not artists, have no artistic integrity, and will put their tagger name on anything, no matter how wrong it is. This point became more evident than ever when I was driving through Echo Park a few nights ago and passed by the Elliot Smith wall. For those of you not familiar with the Elliot Smith wall, it is a wall in Echo Park that he posed in front of for his album Figure 8. Since his death in 2003 the wall has become a tribute to him, with fans writing messages, music quotes, etc. As I made the drive late at night and passed the wall, I almost didn’t see it because the iconic red, white, and black art work that makes up the wall is covered close to entirely in graffiti. This is a wall that is a tribute to an artist that means a lot to many people, they have put personal messages to him on the wall to show their respect, and some kid with a spray can erased those messages, for what? Is nothing sacred any more?

Ghost Stories

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the Mounds Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. From the outside the Mounds Theater looks like a strip club or adult theater, but on the inside it looks like an old time movie theater. The Mounds Theater is said to be haunted by 3 spirits, a 10-year-old girl, an usher, and a projectionist named Red. As many of you know I believe that there is a ghost, spirit, energy, entity, or whatever you want to call it that co-inhabits my apartment, so I am open to the idea that there are forces in this world. The guide did some demonstrations for the large group and most of it was easily dismissed or at least explainable. Then we went to the basement in a small group, the basement was separated into two rooms with a large opening between then. When we were down there nothing really happened, as we got ready to leave one of the kids that was with me was taking pictures in the second room, everyone was going up the stairs and myself and the guide were the last two at the bottom, I looked back at her and I saw something go from where the kid had been taking pictures into the part of the room you couldn’t see. I said to the guide, “we have to wait for him he is still in their taking pictures”, she responded, “I’m the last one down here”, I said “but I just saw something go back into that room”, I looked up the stairs and saw the kid who was taking pictures at the top of the stairs leaving the basement, myself and the guide were in fact the last two in the basement, needless to say I hauled some major ass getting out of that basement.

When the large group moved on to its next stop there were only 5 of us and the guides left in the theater, the guide asked if “we wanted to do a blackout tour”, which meant all the lights in the theater were turned out and all we had were flashlights. The response from all of us was “absolutely!” We went through the theater, back into the basement, and up to Red’s projection room, many times with flashlights off in total blackness. Again in the basement, the same basement where I had seen something, things got intense. We were in total darkness, you could not see your hand in front of your face, and you could hear a pin drop in the silence. All of sudden my friend Kelly started to freak out and said she couldn’t take it anymore and we needed to get out of there, nothing had happened and we couldn’t figure out what was freaking her out. We all agreed to leave, before we did however, the guide said wait one second. He hit play on the audio recorder that had been recording during the silence and there in the white noise you could clearly hear a voice say, “don’t leave yet”. Needless to say we didn’t heed that request and we got out of there. When we made it back up to the theater we asked Kelly what had freaked her out and she turned to Eric, who was standing to her left in the basement, and made him swear on his kids that he had not been messing with her. He swore, and she said that she felt breathing on her neck and a small tug on the hair on her left side. Eric responded by making her swear on her daughter’s life that she hadn’t messed with him either, she swore, and he told us that he had felt something touching his right arm. The space between them was the corner of the room that I saw something move into when I was in the basement earlier.

This didn’t deter us, we wanted more, so we made our way up to Red’s projection room. Now this one may be even harder for you to believe without being there but I will tell you, I was there and I believed. We went into the projection room and some of us had dowsing rods, which is no more the a wire coat hanger cut and bent into and “L” shape, you hold the short end and point the long end, the theory is that if you ask the entity a question, that they will move the rod and point to things. Rick had been holding one tight in his hand the whole time when had been in the blackout, so tight that he said it was stuck to his skin and didn’t think it could even move. As soon as we walked into the projection room and stopped, his dowsing rod immediately twisted in his hand and pointed to the right hand projector.... Red’s projector. Rick handed me the dowsing rod and the hair on my hand stood up slightly and the dowsing rod again pointed to Red’s projector. A few minutes later Kelly was holding two dowsing rods, one in each hand, we told Red if he wanted us to leave to make them cross, nothing happened, when we said if it was OK if we stayed they slowly crossed each other. Red is known to not be a fan of women, a man scorned, so Kelly asked if he wanted her to leave, she was the only female in the room, the dowsing rod in her right hand started to pivot back and forth as if Red was shaking his head no.

Lastly we moved from the projection room to balcony in front of it. This is where Red, who was a prankster, is said to have jumped off the balcony in an attempt to scare the people in the back row, resulting in him breaking his leg. As we stood at the railing, Rick’s dowsing rod kept pivoting to the right and pointing to the same place on the railing. Rick had been quiet and we asked, what he had been thinking about, and he said, that he just kept asking Red were he jumped. Shortly after that Kelly was standing on the far left and she started to again get uncomfortable and said that she felt as if there was someone next to her and then the dowsing rod turned left as if Red was saying I’m the one next to you, she moved several times and it kept pointing back to that same spot, now next to me, it was time to call it a day.
I know it may be hard for you to believe these stories because you weren’t there, but I am telling you, four of the five of us had experiences in that theater, experiences that can’t be explained.

Unsung heroes

I sat down to watch Happy Go Lucky last week and before the movie there was a montage of Miramax films celebrating their 30 years of filmmaking. The montage was amazing, beautifully done, and edited perfectly to a great soundtrack. There were scenes from Gangs of New York cut together with Good Will Hunting, as well as Kevin Smith movies. The montage ended with the music swelling, the drumbeat got more intense, and the scenes were cut on the drumbeats. As I sat there mesmerized I thought, “what an amazing job the editor did cutting this package”, it was only two or three minutes long but the way it was edited I got sucked in. Then it came to the end and there was no credit given, it just ended and the DVD menu came up. This package must have taken an editor hours and hours to get it perfect, the way it flashed through scenes with the beat, and yet no one will ever know who he is. There are so many talented people in this world that create amazing works that never receive the credit they deserve.

I want all the books

When I see a book, I want it. I want to know what's inside, good or bad, I am curious to see what someone else has created. Writing a book is a huge undertaking, I want to know what that person found enough passion in to dedicate a large chunk of their life to put it on paper.

Free Ballin'

I went to dinner tonight while going commando. There is something freeing about knowing there isn’t a second line of defense between your business and the world. If you’ve never done it, do it tomorrow, you won’t regret it. My favorite is to do it when you need to do a quick errand, like running to the grocery store. If you run into me at the Albertsons in Burbank it is probably happening right in front of your eyes.

A letter to the President

Dear Mr. President,

Last night I had plans to meet a friend for a movie. As I navigated through West L.A. on my way to Culver City all traffic came to a screeching halt as I approached Olympic. I tried several different routes and a couple secret residential short-cuts I have, and all of them netted the same result, a dead stop. I called my friend to say I wasn’t going to make it and I turned around and headed home. When I arrived home I fired up the laptop and googled, “what could possibly be more important than my plans for dinner and a movie”, and it turns out the president was in town. Apparently he had some business is Hancock Park and all of Olympic had been closed for his motorcade. All I’m saying is that, Mr. President, next time you are making travel plans, be a little more considerate of others, it’s not always all about you sir.

Sincerely,
Upset

I twittered, tweeted, twated???

Hello everyone, I am now on twitter so that I can let you know when I have posted a new blog. Feel free to follow if you like or just continue to check in now and again and see if there is anything new.

www.twitter.com/blahblahbryan

Via con Dios good buddy

On August 14th, 2010 I had to say good-bye to a good friend, my 1985 Chevrolet Sprint. I acquired the Sprint in 2003 or 2004 for the price of $500, the Sprint turned out to be priceless. The Sprint was a reliable go-to car for me while I fixed up the Cadillac, when I was in between cars, or I just wanted the feeling of driving a go-kart on the freeway. Then the Sprint did something for me that I never thought I would be able to do, I was able to give my Dad a car. For Father's Day 2005, I passed the Sprint on to my Dad. The Sprint has been getting him back and fourth from work for the past 5 years.

The Sprint and I had many good times and it will be missed. There were the trips to the beach, Mountain High, McCloud's house with 6-8 bikes stuffed in the back, and going places that it just didn't fit in. I always drove the Sprint with pride, even in its later days when it was starting to break down a bit. Just like the many parts on the Sprint that were from the Ecology Auto Center (a pick your own part junkyard) the Sprint made its way there to be a donor to those Sprints that still have a little drive left in them.

I have no idea how this works

Have you ever looked at something and thought I have no idea how this works? I was looking out of the window of the plane the other day (instead of sleeping because apparently the guy next to me had never flown and wanted to take iPhone video of the clouds) and as I looked at the wing and all of the hydraulics working I thought, “I have no idea how this works!” It is an intricate array of small moving parts that must all work together. I know the general principle, that the bottom of the wing is flat and the top is curved, thus the air takes longer to travel over the top allowing the plane to lift off the ground, but as far as the engines and wing controls I am clueless. Yet I get on planes over and over again just assuming they will work and I won’t come crashing to my death from 50,000 feet. When you really think about it, how much of the stuff you use on a daily basis do you really understand how it works? Take my iPhone for example, I have no idea how the touch screen works, how it can send a signal to a satellite in space and transfers my voice to another phone. Can you imagine being one of the few who actually understand this stuff? Next time you hit the brakes in your car think about if you even know how they stop you from smashing into that Prius in front of you.

Dane Cook is not a douche bag

Dane Cook stopped by the Joe Rogan podcast last week, and as I sat on a plane listening to it, I thought to myself , “why did I stop liking Dane Cook?” I remember the first time I heard Harmful if Swallowed and Retaliation, five of us were driving up to Mountain High to pick up our season passes and Jay said I have something for us to listen to. The five of us spent the entire drive laughing hysterically and quoting back things we just heard. Then something happened, Dane Cook became the best self-promoting comic of all time, he was the first one to utilize Myspace in a way that all of sudden he was playing arenas to crowds of forty to sixty thousand people. He was now popular, everyone knew who he was, everyone was a fan, and everyone was quoting him. Dane Cook had sold out, went mainstream, and people started hating on him. I will admit that I too lost interest and may have called him a douche at one time or another. It’s a strange phenomenon when something you love or enjoy becomes loved and enjoyed by many. What you enjoyed didn’t changed, but you don’t want to be one of the masses, you want to be a part of a small exclusive club. I take back what I said, Dane Cook is not a douche bag……unless he really is, then I stand by my statement.

Inception

I walked out of the theater after seeing Inception and wanted to go right back in and see it again. If you haven’t seen it do yourself a favor and get to the theater. It’s a movie about hijacking, stealing, manipulating, and sharing dreams. The movie runs about 2 ½ hours but doesn’t feel like it for a second. You instantly want to see it again because there are so many small details and intricacies that you know you couldn’t have caught everything the first time around, you know that with each viewing you will find something new. I can’t wait to see it in IMAX, and I mean real IMAX, not this UltraScreen, budget ass, wannabe IMAX they have in Fargo.

After seeing this movie it makes you wonder how close this is to becoming reality.

I ran out of hangers

I did laundry yesterday and for the first time in a while everything I own is clean and in need of being put away. This morning I started the process of hanging things in my closet and I soon realized that I didn’t have enough hangers for all of my clothes. I knew that I had bought a few new things but didn’t realize I had bought that many. I refuse to buy more hangers, if I don’t have enough hangers I must have too many clothes. Looks like good will is going to get a nice donation in the near future.

The new coming out of the closet

There is a new coming out, people are no longer coming out gay, they are coming out as pot smokers. There are many similarities, like neither is anything to be ashamed of. There are out and proud pot smokers, like Joe Rogan, who will tell anyone who will listen that they smoke pot, there are pot smokers that are on the down-low who only let a select few know they smoke pot, there are the closet smokers that don’t want anyone to know, there are the experimental smokers, who tried it in college, are you noticing a similar story line here. I really started to notice it when speaking with co-workers, some will come right out and tell you they smoke pot, there is no hesitation, but others will only tell you when they feel comfortable that you will be cool with it, or they think you are a smoker yourself. When the down-low smokers tell you they smoke they usually look around, make sure know one else is listening, then under their breath they will whisper that they can’t wait to get home and smoke a bowl. I’m surprised by the number of people who’ve come out to me, people in all walks of life, wealth, and positions. I can hear the chants now, “we’re here, we’re high, get used to it!”

Going old school

I got home from my last trip to discover that the internet was out in my apartment, I have been without internet for 3 days now. I have had to resort back to DVD porn, it has been fun for nostalgic reasons but I don't know how our forefathers did it?

Hit and run

I was at a bar/club Friday night, I had just bought a drink when a girl walked passed me on her way out of the bar. As she passed me she put her hand on my waist leaned in and said, "I just wanted to tell you that you are very attractive", she then walked out and left. As much as I enjoyed the compliment I would have enjoyed it more had she stuck around long enough for me to respond.

I am perfect for middle management

It was 2:30 in the morning and I found myself sitting behind a Hampton Inn & Suites desk, across from someone who had know idea they were about to be fired. She wasn’t really going to be fired but she was about to be the guinea pig for me to test ways to fire a person. My favorite went something like this, “have a seat I need to talk to you about something. Before we get started pick a hand”. I would then hold up both my closed fists, before she could pick a hand I would say, “it doesn’t matter which hand you pick, they both say you’re mother-fuckin’ fired…. Now I need you to get out of my office. Oh yeah, and close the door on your way out, I don’t want to hear you cry”. Now if that isn’t a great way for a middle manager at some random company to fire someone, I don’t know what is. Weird the way we sometimes discover hidden talents.

Now that is quite impressive.

While stopped at a red light on my way home from work Friday night I saw a lovely young lady crossing the street, she was in a nice dress and 3-4 inch heels. The light started to change as she was halfway across the street and she started to run to make it. She ran so smoothly and eloquently in those heels, which I was amazed by, seeing as I couldn’t run across the street without looking like I was in last place at the Special Olympics! To all you ladies, who make maneuvering in heels like easy and natural, consider me impressed.

Hey Pin Cushion!

If you are grown up it is now time to take the facial piercings out. I have found that I cannot take people with facial piercings seriously. Maybe it’s because I am 30 now but I just find eyebrow rings, lip rings, etc., very unprofessional. I can let a girl with a small stud in her nose slide, but a ring in the nose or a bullring, no way, I will never trust you with a big project.

Interested out of hate

I have found myself following the NBA finals and for that matter the end of the conference finals strictly out of a hate for the Lakers. I am not a big sports fan and don’t tend to watch much sports (other than MMA and Golf), but I have been sucked into the NBA playoffs and finals. Let me start by saying that I was a Laker fan as a kid, Magic, Worthy, Scott, Green, I loved showtime. That being said I cannot stand this Laker team. It starts from the top, Kobe, while I admit is a great player, is a complete douche. Everyone says that scoring 82 points in a game was an accomplishment, I think it was a clear sign of what a ball hog he was and how little respect he has for his fellow teammates. That, with the fact that every time he misses a shot he looks at the referees like “where is my foul”, like there is no way he could have missed on his own, is too much for me to get past and see him as this great player. When you add Pau Gasol, the king of the flop and winner of worst actor award, and Sasha Vujacic, who is a Jason Swartzman look-a-like, this is a terrible team that I cannot support.

I keep asking myself “why do I keep watching when I don’t care” and I think the answer is that hate makes me care.

Booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere

When someone in Kentucky recommends a place for you to go on a Wednesday night to have fun don’t believe everything you are told, but if you ever find yourself in Louisville on a Wednesday night, you need to make your way to the Phoenix Hill Tavern, because no matter how hard I try to describe it to you, I will never do it justice. I arrived at 11:30pm to promises of two live bands and a booty shakin’ contest but when I walked in the place was almost empty. Phoenix Hill Tavern is a two-story bar/club that very much feels like walking into a horror movie or a fun house at the carnival. The bottom floor has a country karaoke room and the main tavern room, which is decorated to look like an old time tavern or saloon. Upstairs there is the tropical room, covered in fake palm trees and fire pits, along with a small room with couches where you can listen to a guy in a very tight tank top play Weezer covers in a high pitched nasally tone. After discovering that the booty shakin’ contest wasn’t until 1am there was some time to kill and some amazing people watching to do. Slowly people started to show up but the crowd was nothing if not a mixed bag, there were kids in metal band t-shirts, many women well over 300 lbs, some even in the 400+ range, white boys in crooked hats and South Pole shirts, a lot of black lesbians dressed like male rappers, one was the lesbian version of Lil’ Jon, along with some white trash, but what surprised me the most was the AARP crowd. There were several people in the crowd that were well over 60 years old. The first old-timer I saw was a man dancing alone on an empty dance floor to Brick House, there was another woman who was wearing a wig and with what appeared to be her daughter. My favorite was the man that came to be known in my group as “Lester”, this was a black gentleman in his mid to late 50’s, sporting a small afro, polo shirt and polyester pants, and a look on his face that just said “what? I’m here because this is where the bitches is at”.

The Main room remained empty until about 5 minutes before the booty shakin’ contest was about to begin and in that 5 minutes the room filled to capacity with people jockeying for position at the stage. When the contest started there were only 2 participants signed up but as the action got underway more girls joined in on the fun. The topper was when one of the white trash crowd stumbled on to stage completely drunk and flipped upside down in a dress with no underwear on, showing the crowd her coonskin cap.

So if you ever find yourself in Louisville on a Wednesday night find the Phoenix Hill Tavern and enjoy the show.

I am my father's son

In my ability to chase every dollar I lose at the casino with another dollar to try and get it back. As much as losing sucks, doing it with my dad by my side somehow makes it fun.

A Banksy film.

I had the pleasure of seeing Exit Through the Gift Shop Sunday afternoon, the new film by the street artist Banksy. This film was billed as a documentary on street art but may very well be more of a living art experiment, there are many rumors and speculations flying around that this film was actually a hoax masterminded my Banksy himself. The film starts out following a self-proclaimed filmmaker, named Thierry Guetta, while he films many well known street artist as they scale buildings and billboards putting their art up for everyone to see. At one point in the film Banksy, an artists who’s identity has always remained a secret, seems to fall into his lap and he begins filming him as well, with the stipulation that his face is to never be shown. About three quarters of the way through the film Banksy realizes that Thierry is not really a filmmaker and all the footage that has been shot will never become a watchable film if left in Thierry’s hands. Banksy dispatches Thierry on a wild goose chase to become a street artist himself, leaving the footage with Banksy to try and salvage something of value out of the thousands of hours of raw material Thierry has shot. Upon returning to LA, Thierry takes on the moniker Mr. Brainwash or MBW. He goes on to put on a huge art showing in LA selling over a million dollars in art, much of which is clear rip offs of other artists, such as Banksy and Shepard fairey. It appeared that in an attempt to get Thierry out of the way Banksy had inadvertently created an international art superstar.

When I left the theater I though it was funny how so many people bought into the hype of Mr. Brainwash, when clearly his work is imitations of many other artists including Andy Warhol, all in an attempt to be the hippest of the hip. One guy standing in line says “I don’t even know what I am here for”, he just wants to be part of the in crowd. When I got home my friend Ross sent me a message saying that the whole thing may actually be fake and that Banksy was behind it all along. I did some research and it turns out that there are two main theories on the film, first that Banksy was behind all of the Mr. Brainwash’s art, with the help of the likes of Shepard Fairey, as well as the art showing, Thierry is actually just an actor playing the part of an artist, all in an attempt to show everyone how willing they are to buy into the hip new thing. The second theory is that Banksy is actually Thierry and the artist who’s identity has been hidden for all these years is actually right in front of our eyes for all to see while never being the wiser.

What I find interesting is that the people who bought the Mr. Brainwash art could very well have bought art that was a joke, but if it is ever proven that it was a joke, and that Banksy was actually behind it, the pieces they bought will probably be worth ten times as much.

In the end we will most likely never know what the truth is, as Banksy is as much of a prankster as an artists, and will never reveal the joke. Essentially the film has no ending as it is ever changing with what opinion of theory you believe. The uncertainty of whether it is a hoax or not makes the film endless, without knowing that fact the film goes on forever.

Whatever the truth is I think is unimportant, I think that Banksy has accomplished exactly what he intended with this film, a mystery as big as his identity.

She talks really black.

I was having a conversation with a woman the other day and she was describing another woman’s accent and she said she had a very south side accent. I knew what she was trying to say but apparently she didn’t think she was clear enough and she followed it up with, “what I meant was she talks really black, I guess I should have said she talks in ebonics”. This is a woman that knows me but doesn’t really know me, she doesn’t know my family or where I come from, for all she knows I very well could have been adopted by a black family and her statement could be very offensive to me. What really caught me off guard was she said it very matter-of-factly as if it was normal to say someone talks really black. Not only did she say it so casually but she said it again in another conversation, describing a phrase the woman used as “a very black phrase”, which made it very clear to me that she thought this was a very acceptable description of someone’s accent and dialect. It was interesting to me that she felt these were completely acceptable phrases and I cringed instantly when hearing them.

Has every girl gone wild?

Am I alone in thinking that they have made enough Girls Gone Wild DVDs?

I saw an ad for another Girls Gone Wild DVD and I thought to myself “I think they have made enough of those.” I remember when the first one came out and it was awesome, these were normal girls flashing the camera. Now when I see an ad for Girls Gone Wild – Girls of K-Mart or some other ridiculous version all I can think is “wow, has every girl gone wild now? Is there a single girl in this country that has not been naked on a DVD for Joe Francis?” I have to admit it is casting a bad light on the female gender in my mind to see that there are that many girls willing to get drunk and naked for a free t-shirt. I'm just saying.

Is this real or a Saturday Night Live Skit?

I sat down to watch the Conan O’Brien interview on 60 minutes and shortly after the segment started I thought, “this looks a lot like an SNL skit”. Every thing from the way it was framed, to the soft focus, and the banter between Conan and Steve Croft. It was amusing to me that in this time of hybrid type news shows, i.e. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, where you are getting news delivered in a satirical way, that an actual news show was invoking the same reaction from me as those shows. To me it seemed as though Conan was putting on a performance or an act rather than an interview, and he very well could have been.

Home, bittersweet, home

As you may have noticed by my recent posts that all involve airports and airplanes I have been traveling a lot. I have been traveling to many small towns and have come to realize that it has been harder and harder to come back to LA. There is something about being in a small town covered with trees, open spaces, and neighbors that know each other that makes it hard to come home to the land of concrete. I was sitting in Mississippi a few weeks ago and realized that what I was hearing were birds and insects and other things that I have come accustomed to not hearing and I realized that it was because it was quiet, I was in the middle of neighborhood street and it was quiet!!! You really notice what a sensory input overload this city is when you step out of it for a minute or two.

Airplane games

I have added a new game to my plane boarding games. There is always the game where you board early and then watch as everyone else boards and you figure out which girl you would have sex with if the plane was crashing. The new game is man or woman. I have noticed that there are many women that are middle-aged, over-weight and have very short hair cuts. Sadly you can't tell if many of them are men or women just by looking at the face. So now when I get on a plane I not only look for my plane crash sex partner but I also try to guess, by faces only, if certain people are men or women, sadly I have been wrong more than once.

This plane is definitely crashing

Nothing like being on final approach for landing and waking up to Shit Luck by Modest Mouse and Isaac Screaming "This plane is definitely crashing"!!!!!

Attention passengers boarding flight……..

Pajamas and sweats are not appropriate flight attire!!! The more time I spend in airports and on planes the more I realize that people forget that you are still in public when you are on an airplane. I see people in their PJs and sweatpants all the time, young girls are the worst offenders. Also just because your flight is early in the morning isn’t an excuse, I have flown on early flights (I am writing this in the airport before I flight that I got up for at 4:30am), I have flown still drunk or at least somewhere between drunk and hung over and I still managed to get my ass up and make myself look presentable. Also you should not be taking your shoes off on the plane, again you are in public not in your bedroom.

Flying used to be an event, people would get dressed up for a flight, but now it has become so affordable and common that once again sloppy ass Americans are ruining it.

Take your "butts" outside

In California smoking indoors has been banned for a long time. Unfortunately in Milwaukee that is not the case. I was having dinner in a restaurant the other night in downtown Milwaukee and there were a few gentleman at the table next to us smoking. Surprisingly the smoking indoors didn't bother me too much, what did bother me was when I got back to my hotel room and I realized that my clothes stunk like stale cigarette smoke. Even when I smoked I hated that smell, I would wake up in the morning and smell my clothes from the previous night and it would make me sick. That smell is one of the main reasons that I quit smoking. What made it even worse was that the sweatshirt I was wearing that night was the only one I had on this trip, so for the rest of the trip I have to wear a sweatshirt with a faint stale cigarette smoke smell, old spice body spray can only cover up so much of that smell. Again this goes back to being considerate of those around you, just because you don't mind smelling like a bowling alley from the 70's doesn't mean I don't.

"Consideration for others is the basis of a good life, a good society." -Confucius

All I want in life.....

I want more than anything in my life right now to be better at golf. I think about it all the time. The problem is that the more I try to get better, the worse I seem to play, I try to fix one problem and it causes two more. When I watch the Haney Project with Ray Romano and I see him getting frustrated and disappointed in his lack of progress, I know that feeling, yet it’s not enough to make you want to stop playing. If anything, when you are struggling, you want to play more, you want to fix the problems, if you have more problems, you have to play more to fix them all. Most of the time in life when you struggle with something, you tend to want to quit or do it less, but with golf when you are struggling you want to play all the time, you want to fix whatever it is that is causing your problem. It’s strange how hitting that white little ball can take over your life.

Golf truly is a heartbreaking passion.

Please be considerate of those around you.

Ladies and gentleman I would like to take this opportunity to remind you to please be aware of the people around you and how your actions affect those people. The following story will help illustrate my point of being considerate of those around you.

I was at lunch today and stopped at Ralph’s to pick up a few things, I thought I was going to quickly get in and out but oh was I wrong. I was only buying 2 items but out of principle I refused to use the self-checkout (those machines are taking people’s jobs while making ME do that job!), so I jumped in the express lane, 15 items or less. After a moment in line I realized that there was a woman in line that had a cart full of items, I myself have made the mistake of getting in the express lane with a full cart before so I didn’t say anything, it's an honest mistake. When she reached the cashier he told her that she was in the express lane, however he would let it go this time but to be more careful next time. She said that she didn’t realize she was in the express lane and again, I was OK with it. At this point she turned and looked at the woman in front of me, who only had a loaf of bread, and myself, I only had two items, and made no gesture to let us go first since she had a full cart in the express lane. She was now aware of how her one mistake was going to inconvenience the rest of the people waiting in her line (who all had the required 15 items or less) and yet still pulled out a stack of coupons, one for almost every item. Then when it was time to pay she reached into her bag, pulled out her checkbook, and just then started to fill out the check. If you are going to pay with a check at least start filling it out while waiting in line. Now here was the tipping point for me, while she was filling in her check, the bagger was bagging up her items and was almost done when she noticed that he hadn’t use her bags that she brought from home. She asked him to please re-bag ALL of her items, this time using the bags she brought from home. So lets recap, full cart in express lane, two people behind here with a total of three items (no attempt to let us go first), paying with a check that she doesn’t start to fill out until her groceries have all been scanned, and having her items re-bagged in her own bags, all without a single apology or acknowledgment of consideration for the people around her.

She is flawed enough to be with him.

Have you ever looked at a couple and thought “she is way out of his league, how is she with him?”, but when you take a closer look at them you start to realize that she isn’t really out of his league, she is flawed enough to be with him. I saw a couple on a show and my initial reaction was this woman is very attractive and he isn’t on that level, but as I watched a bit longer I started to notice that her skin wasn’t that great, she had a few extra pounds on her, etc. There were all these little things that when noticed leveled their playing field.

Water seeks its own level and humans are 60% water.

I don't plan on having kids so I quit recycling

The number one reason I always hear people give for recycling and trying to save the earth is so that there will be a planet for their kids and grandkids to enjoy. Since I don’t want to have kids I decided that I don’t have to care about the environment anymore. I can pour motor oil right down the drain straight to the ocean, I can drive cars that billow black smoke, I can throw all my plastic bottles right in the garbage. It is very freeing not having to worry about future generations, so all of you that plan on reproducing you better take care of the environment three times as hard because you are recycling for three now, you, your kids, and me.

“You could literally drive your own tank. You could drive a tank, you could throw toxic waste out the top, you could shoot a bald eagle right in the head. Dude they're shitting all over my tank.” - Bill Burr

Soundtrack to my life

I was listening to Kid Cudi's Soundtrack 2 My Life yesterday, and that combined with watching the Biography of Vanilla Ice last week really got me thinking about the soundtrack to my own life. When you think about it there are songs, artists, and albums, that play a part in telling the story of your life. I felt as if I was channeling John Cusack in High Fidelity when I ventured down my musical memory lane. For me it is everything from Vanilla Ice, Another Bad Creation, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in my elementary school days, to Boys II Men and Ice Cube's Players Club in junior high, to my first explicit lyric album I bought the summer before high school, Warren G Regulators. Then in high school I was introduced to Weezer and Green Day and I ventured down a new path. After high school came country, then jazz, some classical. To this day certain songs will take me right back to that place I was as clear as it was yesterday.

Sometimes you just need to "stop, collaborate, and listen" to the soundtrack of your life.

That's so NOT how that happened

I was watching a show the other night and a woman was telling the story about how she found out she had a heart murmur and this was what she said “the doctor walked into the room and said ‘how long have you had a heart murmur?’ and I said ‘excuse me, what do you mean heart murmur?’” The first thing that came into my head was that is 97 percent NOT how that conversation went. That conversation might have gone like that if it was a scene in a sitcom. We are a society so influenced by television that we now tell our own stories as if they were part of a TV show. I am guilty of this as well, I have on occasion finished telling a story and thought “wow that is actually a modified, more entertaining, version of what really happened.”

Legalizing marijuana will make kids do heroin

Marijuana is basically legal in California now and I have noticed that it seems to have extended the age range of the people who use it or at least made them more open about their use. I hear people who are in their 40s and 50s talking about their marijuana use. For all I know my parents could have been smoking pot when I was a kid, I would have had no idea, but now people talk about it and their kids have to know. We all know that kids don’t want to do anything their parents do, so now instead of experimenting with pot they are going to experiment with other drugs. I picture a teenager smoking a joint and his friend sees him and says, “you’re smoking weed……my PARENTS smoke weed!!! Weed is for old people, you should try crack.”

Next thing you know we have an entire generation of heroin faces and crackheads!

Popeye ate his spinach out of a can.

I was making dinner the other night and I grabbed a can of green beans out of the cabinet and I started to laugh because you always hear people saying how you should only eat fresh and organic vegetables. They will tell you how canned vegetables are bad for you because of the preservatives and what not, but aren't canned vegetables better than no vegetables at all? I think it is funny how it used to just be eat your vegetables, now its eat your organic, no pesticides, grown using all natural compost fertilizer, vegetables. When did the nutrition triangle become a trapezoid?

If canned spinach was good enough for Popeye it is good enough for me!

"I'm strong to the finish, when I eats me spinach, I'm Popeye the sailor man! toot toot" - Popeye

Take advantage of home.

I spent the afternoon today in downtown L.A. with a friend, we took a tour of the Disney Concert Hall and had lunch at the Grand Central Market. The tour was great, it not only covered the Concert Hall, it also informed you about the history of the downtown area, the surrounding buildings, and the major renovation process that is happening currently. I am always saying that I need to get out of town and take a vacation but the truth is, there are so many great things right here, that I have not done and that are very affordable. Sometimes I forget that I live in a tourist destination!

Isn't it ironic.......don't you think?

Is it ironic that people like myself, who are self aware and intelligent enough to realize that we should not reproduce, are actually the ones that should be reproducing? We see that the world is over populated and know that we should slow the reproduction process before we completely deplete the planet of all its resources. Our genes are the ones that should be passed on, creating more intelligent and aware people. However it is the less intelligent people that continue to make baby, after baby, after baby, making more unintelligent people, all the while yelling “Get ‘r Done!” and saying “I don’t care about global warming, I will be dead by the time anything bad happens”. The lesser intelligent are out reproducing the intelligent at an alarming rate!

How far are we from Idiocracy?

"The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections."

No way Jose!

After Hershel Walker, the 47 year old former NFL football player, made his MMA debut Saturday night, Jose Canseco sent a message on twitter stating "I guess I may have to show Herschel Walker who the real bad boy of the Sports Industry is. If the powers that be are reading, I want in." This is the problem with letting people fight MMA just because they will make a lot of money. First it was Kimbo Slice being promoted by EliteXC, now Hershel Walker, as well James Toney. If this is a legitimate sport and is going to stay that way and not become professional wrestling, promoters need to stop putting on these fights. Make these fighters work their way up through the ranks and prove that they belong in the big leagues. When Michael Jordan decided he wanted to play baseball he didn't just get a starting position in the majors, he had to work out with a minor league team and it turns out he wasn't good enough and he went back to basketball. Michael Jordan who is thought of as one of the best athletes on the planet wasn't good enough for the majors in another sport, yet a 47 year old Hershel Walker was allowed to get into the cage as a co-main event fight, in a sport that has 100 times the possibility of serious injury as baseball, without as much as one fight to his name. As Canseco said "if the powers that be are reading", please stop putting on these fights and keep the SPORT of MMA a sport.

Sorry Haiti

I am sorry to say this but can we stop trying to raise money for Haiti. George Clooney did his telethon, every cable network is constantly telling me to text something to some number to donate money, hell I couldn't watch the Jersey Shore reunion without being told to help Haiti. Don't get me wrong it’s terrible what happened there and I feel for the people but what about all the problems here. We have a government that is going bankrupt, unemployment is at an alarming percentage, homes are being foreclosed on by the minute, just spend a few hours driving around LA and the surrounding areas and you will see the growing homelessness problem, where is the telethon for the homeless? This country spends some much time and money trying to fix all the problems of the world that our country is deteriorating. I believe in helping your neighbor but only once you have helped your family.

It must suck to be cats and birds

I sometimes wonder what it is about cats and birds that crazy people are drawn to. Whenever you hear about a crazy person and they have pets it's either a bunch of cats or birds. We all know about cat ladies, women who have ten, twenty, thirty cats, they think of them as their children etc. but birds seem to come with the crazy too. Look at Heidi Fleiss on this season of Celebrity Rehab, she lives in the middle of Death Valley with somewhere around forty birds, Mike Tyson has a pigeon coop and talks about how they are his only real friends. A bird is strange animal to have as a pet, have you ever heard a pet bird making noise and it was a sound that you enjoyed? Every time I have been in a house that has a bird the sound of that bird makes me crazy, maybe it is the birds that make the people crazy. Whatever the situation, these are two pets that are consistently paired with crazy people, you will occasionally hear of the crazy person that has a pet lion, tiger, boa constrictor, or wolf, but not on a regular basis. Time and time again birds and cats come with crazy people. I really want to know what it is about these animals that draw the crazies to them.

Then I was like....and she was like.....and he was like

I can't pin point when the word "like" took over my vocabulary in conversations but I can no longer tell someone about a conversation I had without using "like". I know it is possible, I know that it wasn't always a staple of my communication, but it is an extremely hard habit to break. I am constantly saying "I was like", or "she was like", or "he was like", over and over and over again. If I am telling someone about a conversation I had, every part of the conversation is prefaced with one of these phrases, even when I am talking about what I was thinking. Instead of saying "and then I thought", I say "and I was like". It is fascinating to me that you can develop such a habit without even knowing it but yet trying to change it is like impossible.

A country boy can survive

Yesterday I saw what could be my new favorite film, Crazy Heart. It is the new Jeff Bridges film and it is great. If you are a fan of country music and the old time country stars this is cool film you will enjoy. Nate said that it reminded him of the Wrestler and I completely agree. It has that same feel and has a similar story line of a man who was at the top and now in his older age has fallen off some. The film runs the gamut of emotions, it starts out funny and works it way through happiness, sadness, loss, grief, envy, redemption, and closure. Robert Duvall is a scene stealer much like in Days of Thunder.

You also see in the film the difference between "new" country music and musicians and "old". It makes you realize that the new country just doesn't have the same soul as the old, there is more pop and rock in them than life and emotion.

It isn't playing many places right now but if you can find it do yourself a favor and check it out.

"It's funny how fallin' feels like flyin' for a little while"

How lame have limos become

I was watching wrestling the other night (don't judge me, I was reliving my childhood) and Ric Flair pulled up in a white stretch limo. All I could think was how dated limos are. I remember being a kid and hearing kids saying "I have never been in a limo before", if you were a kid and had rode in a limo you were cool, it was a big deal, all the other kids wanted to know what it was like. Now you see someone in a limo and you start to laugh because it is kind of tacky. Why get a limo, just get a an Escalade or even a Suburban. Limos just feel like teenagers going to prom and people with money in the 80's and early 90's.

Dont call me skinny

I am tired of being told I am too skinny! Why is it completely acceptable to tell someone that they are too skinny but not acceptable to tell someone that they are too fat? When the word ‘too’ prefaces anything it means that there is more than is needed, an excess, so by saying I am too skinny, you are saying I am excessively skinny. I am far from excessively skinny, I know in comparison to the majority of this country these days I am too skinny but that is only because that majority is overweight. Is it that looking at my lean, fit physique makes you envious and you need to try and make yourself feel like I have the problem, not you? Why is there any difference between these two statements, “you really should finish that, you are too skinny and you need to put some weight on” and “do you really need that last bite, you are too fat and you need to lose some weight”? I love that one is completely OK and the other one makes you an asshole.

I have always been thin (except for when I was a baby, I looked like the marshmallow man), as was my dad, but he now has a nice little gut and I am sure I will too when I am his age. So just hang in there I will join the fat masses in due time, for now just let me be skinny and healthy and hate me for it silently.

How are they going to explain this to their kids?

After watching another two episodes of one of my favorite shows, Jersey Shore, I have really started to wonder, what the hell are these people going to tell all the illegitimate kids they have when they find videos of these shows?

For all I know my parents could have been wild partiers, doing all kids of crazy stuff before I was born, but you know what, I will never know that because there is no photographic or video evidence. In this day and age of digital cameras, flip video cameras, and cell phones taking both pictures and videos, there is evidence of all the debauchery that goes on. I watch as Snookie says, “I can’t get any ass, all I want is to get some ass at the Jersey shore”. Now what happens when one of the 3 or 4 kids she is going to end up having goes to school and a classmate pulls up youtube and shows all the other kids video of his mom, drunk, standing on top of a booth at a club, and then taking a header down into the booth? What about the girl on Flavor of Love that took a shit on the floor in the middle of the house, how do you think her kid is going to feel when they see that video. It used to be that you would hear occasionally that a kid found his dad’s stash of playboys, found a picture of one of his friend’s moms, and showed it to everyone, but that was very rare. I am curious to see how many instances of this happen now, between youtube, facebook, TMZ, not to mention the millions of porn sites, kids have to be finding friend’s moms on a more regular basis.

All I am saying is if you want to be like that, fine, just don’t put it on film for your kids to deal with in therapy one day.

Ladies of the Night

Do you think getting a hooker is like anything else you do, once you do it enough it becomes normal?

I was watching Cops and there were these guys getting busted for solicitation and for some of them it wasn’t there first time being busted, the cops knew these guys by name, some of them had just been busted days before. It got me thinking, “is getting a hooker like anything else we do?” What I mean by that is, is it like going to the gym, when you go the first time it sucks, you don’t feel good after, but once you go enough you start wanting to go all the time. Is it the same with going to a hooker, the first time you are thinking, “shit this is pretty low, I'm getting a hooker”. Then after that first time you think "that was kind of sad, put it wasn’t really THATTTTT bad." After enough times you are ordering up hookers like pizza, “well its Friday night guess I should order my company for the evening, yeah I’d like to order a small blond, please”.

Apple Judgement

I have found that I judge people equally for not having a Mac computer and for having an iPhone. You would think that since I am pro Mac that I would also be pro iPhone but that is not the case. When I see someone pull out there PC laptop with it's huge power cord or watch as it takes 10 minutes for windows to finally boot up I can't help but think "what is the matter with you, just buy a Mac and make your life easier". At the same time though when I see someone pull out their iPhone I think "what a douche, they must be checking their facebook page", maybe it's because people who have an iPhone seem to always be on their iPhone or downloading some new retarded waste of time app like the light saber that makes me automatically judge those that have them. It is hard living a life that is so divided!

Hot Girl at the Bus Stop

Over the last couple weeks I have on several occasions seen very attractive women at the bus stop waiting for the bus. Immediately my brain goes to the thought "what is a hot girl doing at the bus stop?" It's like my brain can't seem to fathom that an attractive girl could be in a situation where she has to the ride the bus, like the bus is only for unattractive people. I automatically think "she is hot, she couldn't find some guy to drive her where she needs to go?" Just thought it was funny how the brain works sometimes.