In The Altogether.

In today's example of why words rock and why I'll never be anything more than a talentless hack sitting in front of this Blogger screen, I give you...Bill Bryson.

I'm sure many of you have heard of him, and some of you have read his books. A Walk In The Woods and A Short History of Nearly Everything are both quite popular, and although I haven't read either of them, Bryson's been on my "To Read" list for quite a while.

The other day I was wandering around a Barnes, with good intentions to pick up A Walk In The Woods and give it a go. But instead I found a collection of columns he wrote after moving back to the United States after having lived in England for twenty years, called, I'm A Stranger Here Myself.

While I fully intend to read Woods someday, I think I made the right choice with this purchase, because, only sixteen pages in, Bryson's already soared to hero status on my list, and I can't wait to read more.

In one of his columns he talks about how there's only one thing to watch on latenight TV in England, when returning home from the pub after six pints of beer...that being a lecture series called Open University.

And he goes on to mention the variety of viewing options on American television at all hours of the night, including (and I'm quoting directly here, though I hardly feel the need to clarify that, because there's no way you'd believe I made these words up myself) "...a small selection of movies on the premium movie channels mainly involving nubile actresses disporting in the altogether."

Go back and read that again.

Disporting in the altogether??

Come on now! How do people invent such phrases? In the context of the sentence, it's easy to decipher what he's saying, but...doesn't that sound infinitely more poetic than, "a bunch of hotties runnin' around nekkid on Skin-emax"?

(and yes...I immediately ran to my dictionary and looked up the word "disport.")

A couple pages later, he's out to eat at a fancy restaurant, listening to the waiter rattle off the specials for the evening. As he finds himself unable to understand any of the entrées being described, he turns and asks, "Do you have anything that once belonged to a cow?"

Seriously. Hero. A top-shelfer for sure.

"More than 300 million people in the world
speak English, and the rest,
it sometimes seems, try to."
—Bill Bryson

Concert Etiquette: Is There Such A Thing?

So while plodding along on snowy interstate roads early last week, and ignoring the weatherman's forecast of more blizzardy conditions a couple days later (and joyfully finding bare, dry roads for the round trip), I logged quite a few miles to attend a couple good concerts.


On Tuesday, I drove to Milwaukee to see Alanis Morissette put on a pretty decent hour-long show. I'm a big fan of her stuff. She doesn't blow people away with her stage presence, but her presence in general is just...something that's fun to be a part of. And she writes some good, honest songs.

She was on tour with Matchbox Twenty, who came on after her and cranked out 24 songs in two solid hours on stage. Rob Thomas live is something to behold. (no, I don't mean cuz he's oh-so-dreamy.) How an artist can pour himself into a song he's probably sung several thousand times and make it appear like he's experiencing the emotions of the lyrics for the first time is beyond me. Rob Thomas kinda does that. Man, is he good.


During the show, two ladies were sitting next to me who ran the gamut of audience participation during the Matchbox Twenty set: they sat and jawed during the slow songs, talking loudly enough above the music to hear each other, and be heard by me; they spontaneously screamed at the stage from time to time, because, you know...it was Matchbox Twenty, and Rob; and when the music was too loud for them to hold a conversation, they stood up and shook their groove thangs, fueled by the beers they were drinking.

For instance, during "If You're Gone," when the boys had things turned down pretty low, and Rob was out in front making all the girlies swoon, here's what I got in one ear:

Drunk Lady No. 1: "...and Rick was there, too. I haven't seen him in soooo long, not since that night at the cas—"

Drunk Lady No. 2: "WHOOOOOOO!!"

(pause)

Drunk Lady No. 1: "...since that night at the casino when I won all that money, remember? I won like seven hundred fifty bucks!"

My reaction to all their loud talking:

"Ladies, ladies...if you wanted to sit and have a gossip session tonight, you could have just put a Matchbox Twenty disc in the CD player and sat on your couch with a few beers, shooting the bull, couldn't you? But see? *pointing* That's Rob Thomas up there, all live and in person. So would you please..shut..the fuck..up, and let him sing to you?"

[Note: All words in italics never actually made it out of my mouth, but they sounded good in my head.]

Seriously...how old would I have sounded if I told two ladies at a concert to stop talking, while the room is filled with maybe 14,000 other cheering people? Fans can choose to do whatever they wish at concerts. I saw a girl last summer with her face buried in her phone during a Sister Hazel concert, sending text messages for at least half the show. And when her friends asked her the next day how she liked the concert, she probably raved, "You should have been there!! They were soooo good!"

— • — • —

Thursday night I found myself in Madison for a Will Hoge show. Much...much...smaller venue. As in, maybe a couple hundred people in a small bar, where we were ten feet from the stage, and five feet from the bar when we needed refills. Nice.

It was a twin bill show, and near the end of Hoge's set, I felt someone behind me bump into me. Happens, crowded bar...no big deal. But then...it happened again. And again. I turned around to see a girl shaking her groove thang. On my groove thang. (What can I say? I'm completely irresistible.) She gave me a grin, and started laughing. I turned back around, because...well, she was, um, resistible.

She squeezed into a small space in front of me and my buddy, and motioned one of her friends to come and join her, and so for the last couple Hoge songs we had two personal space invaders in front of us, and my buddy had to be careful when he tipped his beer that he didn't have her hair in the bottle.

When Hoge was finished, that's the last we saw of those two. Aww.

Side note: When setting up a twin bill, shouldn't the more talented of the two groups perform last, and longest? I know music is all about personal preference, and very few people know who Will Hoge is. But the other act was...Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. (say it with me: "who??") He's a former member of the Drive-By Truckers (umm..."who??"), and struck out on his own. With the 400 Unit, I mean.

We got 50 minutes of Hoge that night, and more than an hour and a half of Jason Isbell. He's a guitar player. And there's another guitar player in the band, too. And they play a lot of guitar. Loud guitar. Some good guitar...but also some very average guitar.

He must have had his share of fans there, though, because many people in the crowd were doing the obligatory head bob during his songs.

Does anyone know Jason Isbell? Or the Drive-By Truckers? (or the 400 Unit??)

That ticket was only thirteen bucks. And I could have left satisfied after Hoge's last song.

Next time I hope he's the only act on the card.

"All my concerts had no sounds in them;
they were completely silent.
People had to make up their own
music in their minds!"
—Yoko Ono

Next Stop...A Wisconsin-Shaped Plaque

I very often have a self-deprecating personality and sense of humor, because I generally find people who can poke fun at themselves and don’t take themselves too seriously more engaging and tolerable than those who are completely self-absorbed.

Birds of a feather, I guess you could say.

However, if you’ll allow me to indulge in a few hundred words of self-aggrandizement in these paragraphs, I promise to go back in my next post to calling myself a dork, and probably acting like one, too.

You see, I got some pretty cool news today, but as soon as I start to talk about it, it’s going to sound a lot like bragging. I prefer to call it, um...sharing.

My newspaper column, What The Parrot Saw, received a second-place award in its division in the 2007 Better Newspaper Contest held by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

Granted, the division was for columnists who are six-foot-four, with three g’s in their first name, the word “parrot” in the column title and who’ve voluntarily gone swimming in Lake Michigan in January. And I still took second place! (The winner was a former women’s basketball player and wetsuit owner named Georggette, for her column, “My Parrot Outsquawks Your Parrot.” I don’t know how she won.)

No. Really, the divisions were based on circulation, and I don’t even know how many other columnists were in my division. But I’m not going to balk at second place. It was quite a pleasant surprise.

And I have to say, it came at a pretty good time. I’ve been in need of a shot in the arm regarding my column inches as of late. I love the idea of being a columnist, but there’s always that pesky challenge of filling the space every week, you know? Rather daunting at times. But when I ponder whether it’s time to surrender the space for a while, the answer always comes back a resounding, “No!”

When I started my column almost six years ago, I set a few broad goals. The first: get my first column written and actually published in the newspaper. If I would have jumped in right away, instead of listening to the doubt, I might have a dozen years of archives by now.

The second goal: keep it going. It would have been a worse fate than not starting at all if I would have written a handful of columns and then decided I had nothing to say. It’s entirely possible that I don’t have anything to say, in both my column and on this blog...that’s up to you, the reader, to decide. But I’ve at least been finding about 600 words of filler each week for my column.

And the third goal, which was soundly squashed by some almost before it came out of my mouth: maybe get one of those fancy wooden plaques in the shape of our state to hang on the wall. (The plaques are for first place. I received a certificate, which will still probably be framed and hung somewhere to brag about. I mean...to share.)

I may never get the plaque. And it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t.

But the second-place award this year caused me to stop and think that using a stronger verb here or there, replacing a few dangling modifiers and clichés, creating a more clever punch line once in a while, and perhaps not writing about condiments so often...just might be the recipe for first-place accolades somewhere down the road.

At the very least, it put me back in the right mindset, because the question of giving The Parrot a rest hasn’t even entered my mind in the last 12 hours.

Sorry, folks. You’re stuck with me for a while longer.
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled self-deprecation.)

“I don’t deserve this award,
but I have arthritis, and I
don’t deserve that, either.”
—Jack Benny

Would Somebody Please Force Me To Read More?

I've been tagged for a meme about books.

I don't think I've ever done an official meme on this blog, but the "tagger" was Simple Blog Writer, and she's beyond cool, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

(and did I mention that it's about books? how can I not do it?)

1. One book that changed your life:
It, by Stephen King
Not because I think it's the greatest book ever written, or even King's greatest book, but because I started to read it and got about a hundred pages in, and lost interest, putting it away for a couple months. Then I picked it up and did the same thing over again...surrendering after a hundred pages. One day I started again from page one and became so engrossed I spent every free minute of my time with that book until I was finished 1,090 pages later. That's the first book of that size that I ever finished. And it turned me into a King fan.

2. One book that you have read more than once:
The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger
If you don't know Holden Caulfield, you really should. Seriously...go. Buy it, rent it, steal it. Get to know Holden.

3. One book you would want on a desert island:
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
No, I'm not saying that to sound pretentious. I figure if I was alone on a desert island, I'd eventually get so bored that I'd have to read it. I've been meaning to for the past dozen or so years, because it's regarded as one of the great literary masterpieces of all time, with reviewers fawning over it, saying that even the most minor characters spring to life. And there it sits...on my bookshelf. Unread. Mocking me. I've tried. I've failed. So push me out of a plane in the Caribbean somewhere with a parachute and an unabridged copy of War and Peace, and then I won't have a choice.

4. Two books that made you laugh:
Anything ever written by Dave Barry.
The guy could type the letter "k" on a piece of paper, publish it, and people would buy it, and laugh. Or at least I would.

Running With Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs
They say that anyone who's survived their childhood has enough material to write about for the rest of their lives. Burroughs can write for twenty lifetimes and still have stories left to tell. He's as good of a storyteller as David Sedaris.

5. One book that made you cry:
You know...I've been mulling this one over in my head for a few days now, and I can not think of a book that made me cry. That statement makes me so sad I just want to...cry.

6. One book you wish you'd written:
Any of the Robert Fulghum books. Maybe some people regard them as fluff, but...his writing is so smooth, and he turns tiny little details into great stories that make you smile, think, laugh. I'd be more than thrilled to have my name on any of those books.

Oh, and of course, the Great American Novel, as well. Cuz who doesn't want to write that, right?

7. One book you wish had never been written:
All of the garbage out there by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and on and on and on and on...

8. Two books you are currently reading:
The Courage To Write, by Ralph Keyes
I'm rarely more than two or three steps away from a book on the writing craft.

Homegrown Democrat, by Garrison Keillor
Keillor was introduced to me only a short time ago...within the last couple/few years. And I owe somebody somethin' for pushing his name into my inbox and my ear so many times that I finally had to see what all the fuss was about. I'm very grateful.

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Republic, by Plato
OK, maybe this one is on here to sound pretentious. But it's not really, either. Someday I'll slog through it.


Now comes the part where I'm supposed to tag five people to do this meme on their own blog. And I've got a couple specific people in mind who should love a meme like this. (yes, you. and you, too.) But perhaps I'll just end it like this:

If you're a voracious reader, and you visit this blog on a semi-regular basis, you've been officially tagged. If you don't have your own blog, but have answers to most of the questions...please share them in the comments.

"To buy books would be a good thing
if we also could buy the time

to read them."
—Arthur Schopenhauer

Space...The Crowded Frontier.

I was watching “Larry King Live” last Friday night, which is a little hard to admit here in this opening paragraph because it makes it appear that a date with CNN was my best social option to kick-start my weekend.

So I probably shouldn’t reveal that I also have in-depth knowledge of which candidates have won the presidential primaries up to this point, or you’ll start to think that the cable news channel is my only friend.

Anyway...back to Larry King. He had a panel of guests last Friday from Stephenville, Texas, who all claimed to have seen a large UFO in the sky near sunset on the night of Jan. 8.

The fact that dozens of people reported nearly the same thing made the story a little more credible and interesting than if one individual kook came forward and started babbling about seeing a saucer-shaped object and little green men with seven eyes.

Several people said they saw a low-flying object with very bright lights flying at a high rate of speed, and that the object was enormous...maybe a mile wide...and silent.

Sounds like something a little bigger than a Stealth Bomber to me.

UFOs fall into that category of things that, if someone tells you they saw one, you might listen to their story with great interest, but also with a bit of a grin as if to say, “No, you did not see that!!”

The panel on Larry King was convincing enough to make me believe that they saw something, but at the same time, I’m enough of a skeptic that I’d have to see it for myself.

One of the guests was a private pilot, and thought the object was traveling at “maybe two to three thousand miles an hour.” Quite an estimate.

And another saw it fly over his house toward Stephenville, hover there for a bit, and then come back in his direction, this time followed by three Air Force fighter jets. Of course, there was no one from the Air Force on the program to either confirm or deny the activity of its pilots in that location on the evening of Jan. 8.

The panelist who presented an opposing view was a former pilot himself, and stated that there is a military base nearby, which could explain the jets, and that there are many different types of phenomena...weather, astronomical, man-made...which might explain the bright lights.

To which I replied aloud, to no one in particular, “What exactly is a man-made phenomenon?”

The discussion held my interest for the full hour, but it left me with the same opinion I held before I saw the show. There’s got to be something...or someone...else out there.

Are we alone in the universe? Is there intelligent life on other planets? Are there aliens living and working among us? And if not, how do you explain reality TV?

Certainly not questions that can be answered in an hour on “Larry King Live.” But I bet if we all put our heads together in the comments section, by the end of the weekend we can have the answer to whether or not extraterrestrials exist.

Now take me to your leader. And tell them my Friday nights need to become more exciting, or I’m going to go crazy down here on planet Earth.

[On the agenda for tomorrow night: organizing my sock drawer according to color and/or style: black, brown, blue, tube, thermal, argyle.]

“I don’t laugh at people anymore
when they say they’ve seen UFOs.
I’ve seen one myself!”
—Jimmy Carter

Hey, Buddy...Can You Spare Some Change?

Change.

That’s an awfully big little word that some people are throwing around wherever you look these days.

This one wants to be the “greatest agent for change,” and that one has “the most experience to affect change,” and still another is fighting for “change we can believe in.”

Many Republicans probably want citizens to believe that the Democrats will turn their hard-earned dollars into...pocket change. While the Dems are promising change from the past seven years...which, I’m guessing, begins with actually being able to spell and correctly use the word “change” in a sentence.

Don’t look now, folks. It’s an election year. (You looked, didn’t you? I warned you.)

The primary season is in full swing, and the candidates are seemingly everywhere at once, as they should be, trying to get their messages out. From formal debates to appearances on talk shows to speeches in small towns broadcast on C-Span.

It’s up to them to tell us how they’ll change this country, and it’s up to us to listen.

I’ve mentioned in the past my desire to run for president, but as I see how the process is unfolding, I must admit, it’s caused me to change...my mind.

Oh, sure, I could go out on the campaign trail and start saying all the right things about hot-button issues like the war (I'd like to start four more), the environment (I'd like to keep it), taxes (I'd like to end them) and a budget surplus (let's build one).

But then, get this...if the people of this country vote you into that oblong-shaped office in Washington, D.C., they expect you to make good on all your promises.

Whew! Some of these candidates might be in trouble.

When I talked earlier about running for president, I was asked what my platform might be. And I figured, being 6’4”, I didn’t really need a platform...did I? I thought I was tall enough to handle any obstructions that might arise during my campaign or my presidency.

Then I learned what a platform was, and I tried to build one. Aside from making sure that Miss Teen South Carolina has enough maps so she can find places like The Iraq, my platform wasn’t too different from some of those already in the race for president.

So I thought I’d leave it to the professionals. Running for president is a 26-hour-a-day, nine-day-a-week grind of a job. And I need some time to watch the football playoffs, because they’re getting pretty entertaining.

Once you’re actually in office, though, the pace gets quite a bit less hectic, and you’re allowed plenty of opportunities to take some nice vacations, provided your schedule for the week doesn’t include any speeches to fumble.

Although I’m officially declaring myself out of the running before my campaign even picks up any steam, I will continue to do my part as a citizen and pay attention to those in the race, and cast my vote in the primary on Feb. 19.

When I get too overwhelmed by all of this political spinning and arguing and *ahem* debating, I know it’s a sign for me to change...the channel.

“The only person who is educated
is the one who has learned how to
learn and change.”
—Carl Rogers

Starting Off The Year With A...Plunge

(I apologize for not getting this post up sooner, but I was perfecting the art of Photoshopping my head onto Matthew McConaughey's body, to make this a prettier post for all my female readers, and that took a lot of practice. I know, I know...I can't believe how much he's let himself go, either. Next time I'll use Jon Lovitz's body instead.)

Remember the scene in National Lampoon’s “Vacation,” where the Griswolds were staying at a hotel for the night, and Clark went down to the pool and found über-hottie Christie Brinkley in the water, asking him if he was gonna “go for it?”

Clark stood by the side of the pool, flailing his arms and repeating, “This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy!”


I know just how he felt, because on New Year’s Day I stood on the shore of Lake Michigan on Bradford Beach in Milwaukee, wearing only flowered board shorts and old tennis shoes, thinking the exact same thing.

And I ran in...except there was no supermodel waiting for me in the water. I’m lucky there wasn’t an iceberg in there!

Yes, on January 1, 2008, I officially became a Polar Bear, along with my brother-in-law, Mark, who was a good enough sport to join me in the bone-chilling madness.

I’d seen the event make the news in past years. A couple months ago, for a reason I can’t fully comprehend, I began to think it might be fun.

I expected the thought to exit my brain as quickly as it entered, but...there it sat. And grew. In mid-December I sent out a feeler e-mail to some friends (subject line: "Shrinkage"), asking if anyone might care to join me.

One had already attempted this feat, one had plans for this New Year’s Day but expressed an interest in taking the plunge in 2009, and one specifically questioned my mental capacity, but added that if I chose to attempt it in Madison, his arm could be twisted. He just didn't want to make the drive to Milwaukee.

And from the rest...silence. I was beginning to think that this would either be a solo act of stupidity, or else I’d spend my New Year’s Day watching Bowl games.


Before the holidays, I was visiting my sister and her family, and after Mark and I had done a good job of draining an oversized bottle of wine, I casually broached the subject:

“So Mark,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect. “How would you like to become a Polar Bear?”

After another pause, possibly for more dramatic effect, but also to let the question, and the act, sink in, Mark answered.

“Sure,” he said.

“Really? I asked, thinking that the wine had done its job to sufficiently impair our judgment.

“Sure, why not?”

Over the next few days, through e-mails and conversations, I kept feeding him opportunities to back out, not wanting him to feel obligated to dive into the frigid water just because his brother-in-law was loony and wanted a good idea for a column, and a blog entry.

As I pondered, I didn’t know if it was something I could accomplish, but I knew it was something I wanted to attempt.

I spent New Year’s Eve at my other sister’s, which is about halfway to Milwaukee, and since she and her kids wanted to come down to witness the event and get photographic evidence of the insanity, I crashed on her couch, and after she woke me up in the morning with a fitting serenade of the Beach Boys’ “Catch A Wave,” we packed ourselves in the van and drove to Bradford Beach.

The wind was whipping and the temperatures were in the teens as we drove down, and I had serious doubts that I could actually go in the water. One thing I did not want to write was a column and blog post that said, “I thought I was going to become a Polar Bear, but I chickened out. Happy New Year.”

We met up with Mark and my sister and niece in a marina parking lot a half-mile hike away from the beach, and as we got out, we were met with the same cold wind. I would have been content at that point to call the attempt a failure. But off we walked.

A few minutes before we reached the big crowd on the beach, we heard an air horn blast and a big cheer. Thinking that we were too late for the mad rush into the water, I again considered postponing the plunge for another year.


Instead, we made our way into the crowd of people in various stages of undress, some soaking wet, some half dry, some frantically reaching for layers of clothes.

I was beginning to think it might be best just to write about pickles. Or politics. Or something dry, warm and clothed.

Mark proved to be a stellar motivator for this event, repeating over and over as he put his gear down on the snow-covered sand: “C’mon, Gregg. Let’s do this, Gregg. We’ve gotta do it, Gregg. Let’s go, Gregg.”


After much consternation, I took off my heavy winter jacket, and then a sweatshirt, and a pair of wind pants.

Soon I found myself, as I said before, in shorts and shoes, standing at the water’s edge. This was the first moment of the day in which I was certain I was going to officially become a Polar Bear.

I’d heard all the “rules” to becoming a true Polar Bear, and that you weren’t one unless: you went in sober; you went back in a second time to qualify the first plunge; you were an actual polar bear living in a zoo; or you’ve had a seven-figure endorsement deal with Coca-Cola and appeared in commercials during the holiday season.

Mark and I decided to heed only one rule, the most important rule: You’re not a true Polar Bear unless you go all the way under the water.

My sister got some good advice a few days before from a friend at work who was a veteran of the event, and that advice gave me great pause. It said, “Run in, go under, then run out while your brain is still able to tell your legs to move.”

Oh, boy. What about those Bowl games I’m missing?? Let’s go find a TV!

As we both stood by the water, Mark bolted first, high-stepping into the water, and before he took his head-first plunge, I got up the courage to make my feet move as well and in I went.


I got up to mid-thigh and decided it was deep enough to dive, so as fast as I could I dove under, got my footing back under me and started the sprint back to the beach where we had blankets and towels laid out.


With wet shoes on slippery snow, I wiped out on my way through the crowd and heard someone above me yell, “Man down!” but I got right back up, a towel with which to dry myself the only thing on my mind.
As we stood on the blanket, drying off and adding several layers to our torsos, it was only then that it hit me what had occurred in the last half minute, and that I was soaking wet and very inappropriately dressed for January in Wisconsin.

And the cold water had apparently taken its toll on some of the participants, because we heard one of the guys near us say, jokingly I hope, "I think I have a mangina!" Maybe he won't be a Polar Bear next year.

After I had a couple sweatshirts on, it was very easy and almost...comfortable...to stand on the beach in wet shorts with bare legs, and sip a little hot chocolate and people-watch. For a short time.

Five or ten minutes later, my toes started to get cold, signaling the time to don the five-dollar socks I’d purchased specifically for the event, and to get some dry clothes on my bottom half.


I expected cramping, or an uncontrollable head rush, or the inability to make my legs move, or chills for three days post-plunge. Instead...I got an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that it was official. I had a kinship with my favorite animal at the zoo. I was a Polar Bear.

We wandered among the crowd for a bit, taking in the sights, and then trekked back to the vans.


I’d like to think that participating in something so unique to begin 2008 was a symbol for a new beginning, a time to recharge and reinvigorate...that I dove into that icy water to shed some bad stuff, and that this year will bring great changes in my life, all because of those 10 frigid seconds in the water.

That’s what I’d like to think.

But let’s be real...it was just a crazy guy, near a big body of water, with an equally crazy brother-in-law. And a good idea for a blog post.


The next meeting of the Milwaukee Polar Bears convenes on January 1, 2009. I’ll be there, in flowered board shorts, at 11:30 a.m. Who’s coming with me??

— • — • —

I found this quote in late December/early January, and I don't remember where it's from. So if it's from one of your blogs, please tell me and I'll give you all the credit in the world for finding it. I don't even know the author, but I thought the message made for a great mindset heading into the new year.

Great words to heed and move forward with after thawing out from a dip in one of the Great Lakes in January.

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right and forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it!"

“It’s tiiime for...a cooool change.
I know that it’s tiiime,
for a coo-oo-ool change.”
—Little River Band

Another Step Back.

Well.

It's the offseason for those NFL teams that didn't make the playoffs. Time to shake things up a little, make some changes, and start working toward next year.

That seems to be an ongoing mantra with the Detroit Lions: "Next year."

All these players with all this potential, and all you can say if you're a Lions fan is, "Next year."

A couple seasons ago, they hired a tough-minded head coach in Rod Marinelli, who brought in a supposed offensive genius in Mike Martz. I can't stand Martz, but he did great things in St. Louis, so I had to give him a shot to work his magic with the talented skill players on the Lions roster.

Today, Martz was fired. And who did they promote to fill his spot as offensive coordinator? Jim Colletto, the offensive line coach. Ask quarterback John Kitna how good his offensive line was this year. Ask him to show you all the bumps and bruises and turf burns he must have from being pushed around and knocked down so much.

The offensive line is very possibly the worst unit of the Detroit Lions football team, unless you include the front office in the discussion. Then it's no contest.

So rather than firing the offensive line coach, they promoted him instead. "Here," they said as they handed him the reins of the offense. "We've seen that you're completely unable to get five players to do their jobs correctly...so why not try to manage eleven instead?"

To help Colletto in his task, receivers coach Kippy Brown has been promoted to assistant head coach, passing game coordinator, and running backs coach.

Passing game coordinator??

What...the...fuck.

Sometimes it feels like it's a sin to be a Lions fan.

Thanks for listening.
I need to go and weep now.

"They say that the best defense is offense,
and I intend to start offending right now."
—Captain James

Don't Plop, No Fizz...

Fortunately, this was not the scene on my nightstand this morning.

In years past, I might have thought that if I didn't need two of these tablets on New Year's Day, it meant I didn't have a very good New Year's Eve. Perhaps that's a sign that I'm growing ol...UP! Uhh...up! It's a sign that I'm growing up! (whew. that was close.)

Instead, I spent my New Year's Eve with good people, good laughs, good munchies, a few good beers and some champagne at midnight. I'll take that every year.

A detailed account of my New Year's Day will fill your screens in the next day or two (am I the master of suspense or what?? Dean Koontz, move the hell over!), but for now, I'm all about a couch and a movie I've probably seen before, or channel-surfing until I doze off.

Happy 2008, oh blogosphere, and especially to those of you who continue to visit my little corner of it. If you're feeling ever-so-daring, share with me some of your resolutions for the new year. (or the fact that your annual resolution is to make no resolutions.)

"The only way to spend New Year's Eve
is quietly with friends or in a brothel.
Otherwise when the evening ends and
people pair off, someone is bound
to be left in tears."
—W.H. Auden

One For The Stupid Questions Archive

For those of you who don't watch sports on TV, haven't turned to a sports page or clicked on a sports site in several months, or have recently been living under a substantially sized rock...the New England Patriots are a good football team.

Tonight they completed a perfect 16-0 regular season, and are the odds-on favorite to win three more games and hoist the Lombardi Trophy in early February.


Coach Bill Belichick came out for his post-game press conference and opened with his comments on the season...all the hard work it took, the dedication by his players, the focus. He said he and the team will enjoy this win and the accomplishment of 16-0 for a day or two, but then get back to work and focus on their playoff game coming up in two weeks. He made mention of a few of the individual and team records that were set during the season, and summed up the season as a whole as one he and the team are proud of.

After speaking for a few minutes, he paused...which one can assume is the signal for the reporters in the room to begin asking their questions. And the first one the viewing audience heard from off-camera was...

"What's your reaction to 16-0?"

Belichick, already known to be rather terse and unfriendly in his press conferences, gave the guy a couple-second stare before he answered.

"I just gave it."

*pause*

"I'm happy."

Now, I work for a newspaper, but I don't hold the title of reporter. I don't think I would want that job. And I realize it takes some creativity and imagination to come up with good questions in order to be a hard-hitting journalist.

But...what the hell was that guy listening to (or not listening to) in Belichick's opening remarks that made him think he still had to ask that laaaame question? And he was the first one out of the gate, too! Like he couldn't wait to put his question on display.

That's like asking members of a team that just won the Super Bowl, "How do you feel?"

"How do you feel?" is a question you ask someone who's just had hernia surgery.

Somebody should really strip that guy of his media credentials and then ask him, "What's your reaction to losing your job?"

"Trifles make perfection,
but perfection is no trifle."
—Michelangelo

Jolly, Merry, Happy.

I think I've finally found the holiday spirit.

I know I'm joining the Christmas party a bit late, but...I do every year.

When I hear bad Christmas music wafting down from the loudspeakers at Wal-Mart in late November, I deny that it's approaching. When I see a countdown that reads, "46 shopping days until Christmas," I think to myself that that's 45 days too many to have a countdown.

But last week, I went to my niece's grade school holiday concert, and I got to see first through fifth graders walk up on the stage and stand on risers in front of an auditorium filled with proud parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends...and belt out choruses and mumble through verses they didn't quite have memorized, singing songs like, "Simple Gifts for Christmas," and "A Time For Joy."

Watching those kids up there...some dressed in suit coats and bow ties, others wearing hiking boots and flannel print shirts...helped move me toward the spirit of Christmas.

At work last week, we published our annual children's Christmas Album, with drawings and stories from elementary and middle school kids. Some years I do some of the typesetting on the rough drafts of those stories, and as I page through them, transferring their pencil-written thoughts on paper to electronic words on the screen, I crawl inside their heads, and think about Christmas from their perspective. And that pushes me in the direction of the Christmas spirit as well.

One child this year, in the "how-to" section of the stories, was devising a plan to get to the North Pole to see if Santa Claus was real, and he came up with several ideas, but shot them down immediately after suggesting them.

He wrote:

• Fly in an airplane but you might run out of gas.
• Take a hot air balloon. But the wind might blow you the wrong way.
• Go skydiving but the helicopter or airplane might run out of gas or you might get dropped in the wrong location.
• Dreaming might get you there.

As soon as I read that fourth option, that's all it took for me. A very wise soul named Josh at our elementary school flipped my Christmas spirit switch.

Tomorrow, and probably Tuesday as well, I'll spend time with the people who mean the most to me. Hopefully tonight, as soon as I hit Publish on this entry, I'll get to hang for a few hours with another group of people very high on my list.

And still others will get a note, a phone call, an (impersonal) e-mail (shut up; I'm a single guy, don't bother me about Christmas cards, OK?) or even a blog comment saying, "you rock. happy holidays."

That's what this season
is all about to me:
The people. The laughs.
The memories.

And it never hurts to dream.
Who knows where it might lead?

Happy, Merry, Jolly, everyone.
May you laugh often.

"I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day.
We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and
humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my
Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus
I drift along into the holidays—let them overtake me
unexpectedly—waking up some fine morning and suddenly
saying to myself, 'Why this is Christmas Day!' "
—David Grayson

Big Tuna Swims With The Dolphins

ESPN's football IQ plummeted earlier this week when it was reported that Bill Parcells would be leaving his position as an NFL analyst and taking a job as the Miami Dolphins' vice president of football operations.

Parcells has run this route before, retiring from football and sitting behind a desk at ESPN for a season before being wooed back into the game by a team desperate for a dose of his football acumen.

If it's not the Detroit Lions...and it never is...I whine a bit selfishly that I won't get to listen to his genius-speak on my favorite sports network. Although during his most recent coaching stint in Dallas, he was on TV often enough, both in games and interviews, that the symptoms of withdrawal never surfaced.

Now he's moving into the front office in Miami, and says without pause that he will not name himself the head coach.

Although, take from that what you will. The day before he signed his deal with the Dolphins, he was a dotted i and a crossed t away from being introduced as the Atlanta Falcons' veep. And in the time it takes to run a contract through the shredder, that deal was dead and he was packing for Miami instead of Atlanta.

For now, I take Parcells at his word that his days of stalking the sideline wearing a headset are over. He's 66, and many of his critics are quick to point out that his best coaching is behind him, and that he can't reach today's player with his dictatorial demeanor.

"Bull!" I say. But then I might be a tad biased.


Speaking of biased, one of the most entertaining sidebars to this whole drama involves Dan Le Batard, a nationally recognized sports columnist for the Miami Herald.

Le Batard wrote a column immediately after the hire, casting Parcells in the most negative light, calling him names and arguing that he gets so much more credit for being a football guru than he deserves.

His hatred of Parcells boiled over during an appearance on Colin Cowherd's show on ESPN Radio, when Le Batard said he despises Parcells so much that he's one of the sports figures on Le Batard's short list that he'd like to meet in the ring for a mixed martial arts bout.

I take quite the opposite stance when it comes to the Big Tuna. I'd much rather buy him a beer than put him in a submission choke hold.

In listening to callers' commentary and reading their reactions on forums and blogs, it's clear that a lot of people don’t like Parcells. It's also clear that a lot of people do.

I've fallen into the latter category ever since I knew who Bill Parcells was. The only name higher on my list of favorite professional football figures is Barry Sanders.

And now Parcells is back, to try his hand at rebuilding his fifth NFL franchise. Let's face it...in Miami, there's nowhere to go but up. Just how far up, however, will become evident over the next few seasons.

I don't expect to see Lombardi Trophies and Super Bowl banners anytime soon in southern Florida. But one thing will be clear:

Bill Parcells will be calling all the shots.

"My entire life has been spent thinking
about this game. That's pretty narrow...I don't
view myself as a person who's well-versed in
very many subjects. I'm not proud of that."
—Bill Parcells

Hotter Than José Cuervo

[Warning: Reading the following entry will cause your IQ to drop by at least 20 points...perhaps more. If you're concerned with preventing damage your current IQ, or if you possibly don't have an extra 20 points to spare, please click immediately over to here. Or to here. But by no means should you click here, which might cause irreparable harm.]


I watched the finale of "A Shot At Love" last night, (I warned you!) that stupid show on MTV with Tila Tequila, who was supposedly looking for love from a pool of guys and girls (she's bisexual). And what better way to find love, of course, than to get your own show on a music television channel that no longer plays music, and watch approximately 30 people desperate for their 15 minutes of fame and willing to play character roles vie for your attention through games and challenges. All in the name of, um...love. Yeah, that's it. Love.

I must unequivocally state that I did not race home from darts last night for the sole purpose of watching the final episode. I just happened to be home early, and I was channel surfing past MTV and there it was. I knew they were getting close to the final two contestants, because I may or may not have watched some of the earlier episodes in the series (fine...I did), and I was at least curious to see if she'd pick the guy or the girl. (shocking, isn't it, that it coincidentally came down to one guy and one girl. I was...stunned.)

Now. In my defense, I am a guy. And Tila is rather easy on the eyes. But that is one laaame defense. It's not like I made the time every week to sit down and watch new episodes. And I didn't TiVo it, or DVR it...because I can't. Don't have the technology. But MTV has this habit of repeating its shows about 674 times per week, so it was pretty easy to follow the storyline throughout and see who got eliminated and who got a key (to Tila's heart, presumably) and advanced to the next round.

So yeah. Last night I got to see how it all wrapped up. I feel so...in-the-know, ya know?

A post like this is probably a good place to admit that I've also seen more than my share of the seasons of "The Real World" and "Road Rules," too. (oooh, that's gonna leave a mark.)

The idea behind those shows really is a bit fascinating, just to see how diverse groups of people react and co-exist when thrown into extreme situations. But part of it, too, is all about seeing who's going to hook up with whom, and where, and how soon after they meet. And how much of it MTV's gonna show.

I know at least one regular reader of this blog who's probably logged as many "Real World" hours as I have, but I won't go so far as to "out" him/her. I'll leave that up to each individual reader to decide how much they wish to reveal about their MTV viewing habits.

But it's sooo lonely out here on this one-man Isle of Shame. So, please...share.

Even if it's not MTV-related...what are your guilty viewing pleasures? C'mon. Be brave. They can't possibly be worse than "A Shot At Love" or many many seasons of "The Real World" and "Road Rules" and "The Real World/Road Rules Challenges."

I seriously need to go read a book.

"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster

than any invention in human history—with the

possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
—Mitch Ratcliffe

The Bones.

I took a creative writing class in college, which turned out to be rather short on creativity, as I look back on it. The prof who taught it wasn't too enthused about the subject material...but the one thing she did that I'll always be grateful for, is introduce me to Natalie Goldberg. Not the actual person, unfortunately, but her first book, "Writing Down The Bones."

It was a requirement for the class, and almost as soon as I bought it, I was hooked. The book is made up of about sixty-five short paragraphs of two or three pages each, with titles like, "Man Eats Car," "One Plus One Equals A Mercedes-Benz," and "Don't Marry The Fly."

Turns out that was the only good thing to come out of that class, but it was more than enough. And that's where my "relationship" with Goldberg began. She preaches simplicity, specificity, and allowing yourself to let loose and write anything that's flowing through your brain at any time. (Hence, the Benz above.)

And her mantra, which I've quoted in other posts throughout this blog, is six carefully chosen words: Just write, just write, just write.

She's a Zen Buddhist, so much of her Zen practice shows up in her writing, and in her teachings about writing...how to be present and concentrate at a very deep level, yet not concentrate at all to stifle the writing that wants to come out.

I was fortunate enough to meet her several years ago at a book signing in Milwaukee, when she was promoting her book, "Thunder and Lightning," which was a sequel to her "Bones" book and the one that followed it, "Wild Mind." Her first two books highlighted her rules for writing practice, and "Thunder and Lightning" focused more on turning all that practice and the lessons you've learned into something more polished.


It was amazing to just...hang with her, and sit and listen to her talk about her craft, read from her book, and answer questions from the smallish crowd. I didn't know a lot about Buddhism back then (and I still don't now), but it was as if there was this...aura...around her, or something. (I realize that I'm writing right now like the characters in "My So-Called Life" talked, but...I don't know how to describe it.)

A couple years after that first meeting, I found out that she was coming around again to promote her memoir that interwove her life with her dad and her Zen teacher. This time, her tour was bringing her to Chicago...on a Monday night. Chicago's about a three-hour drive for me.

I tried to talk myself out of it (not very vigorously, mind you), arguing with myself that it just wasn't worth three hours of driving down and three hours of driving back to spend an hour or so in between in Natalie Goldberg's presence.

"Feh!" I shot back at myself. And late one Monday afternoon in October 2004, down the interstate I went. (quit looking at me so strangely.) It was worth every mile. And if I knew she was coming back anywhere in the tri-state area next week, I'd do it again.

She lives in Taos, New Mexico, and the way she describes it, the sky in Taos is bluer than any other blue in the world. I've been planning a trip to see that blue for more years than I can count, and I know I'll get there. But trips to Vegas and New York City kept bumping that destination further down on my travel plans.

I don't know if I'll ever get to see Goldberg at another book signing, or if I'll ever be lucky enough to take one of her week-long writing workshops. I do know that one day I'll see the part of the country that she's called home for many years...and I also know that I'll continue to read, and reread, and reread, her books, absorbing every syllable she has to share.

And I hope I always heed her mantra:
Just write, just write, just write.

"So it is very deep to be a writer.
It is the deepest thing I know. And I think,
if not this, nothing—it will be my way in
the world for the rest of my life. I have to
remember this again and again.
—Natalie Goldberg

Say It With Me...

w00t.

If I'm not hip enough for an iPod, I'm surely not hip enough to use the word "w00t" in general conversation, or even blog entries. Am I?

I better get with the program, though. Because Merriam-Webster...yes, the dictionary people of dictionary people...has named "w00t" its Word of the Year 2007. A funny little word with two zeroes for o's...and why? Wh0 kn0ws? (actually, it's a common practice in computer hacker language. I just learned that tonight, and if you clicked on the link, so did you.)

w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all);
similar in use to the word "yay."

Love that definition. "...for no reason at all." So you're well within your rights to go around saying, "w00t! w00t! w00t! w00t!" all day. But that'd be quite a bit of joy to express.

The word hasn't found its way into the print edition of Merriam-Webster yet, but if words like "McJob" are in there, "w00t" probably isn't far behind. (I have a feeling that "McJob" has the McDonald's people pretty McPissed.)


If this guy is hip enough to say things like, "w00t!", I think I might stick with "yay."

"If your strength is small,

don't carry heavy burdens.
If your words are worthless,
don't give advice."
—Chinese Proverb

Mix Well For Sheer Eclecticism

So what did Gregg listen to at work today, with his DellPod stuffed full of so many new selections from which to choose?

After yesterday's post, I know that's what you must have been asking yourself at least a handful of times throughout the day. I could almost hear it through my headphones.

Wishing to provide you with as complete an answer as possible, I made a list...and here, in order, are the groups on which I stopped to listen to two or three or several selections as I waded through my Monday.

Rhythm Corps
Barenaked Ladies
The Kinks
Depeche Mode
England Dan & John Ford Coley
Jake Coco
Janis Joplin
Journey
Kenny Rogers
Little River Band
"My So-Called Life" soundtrack
The Presidents of the United States of America
Staind
Counting Crows (some bootleg versions of shows in Chicago and at Woodstock '99 that I hadn't yet ripped and loaded)


I might very well be the only person on earth who had England Dan & John Ford Coley playing in their ears today. And does anyone remember the song, "Common Ground," from Rhythm Corps? Love. That. Song.

"Music, the greatest good that mortals know,

And all of heaven we have below."
—Joseph Addison

Too Hip For A DJ?

I spent part of both days this weekend ripping music and adding it to my DellPod, a task that I was consumed with for a couple hundred discs when I first got my mini music player, but then neglected for months at a time.

Along the way, if I'd get a new disc that I just had to have on my player, I'd rip one, or maybe two, at a time. And then I'd go back to avoiding the chore. Once in a great while I'd get another burst of ambition and rip a couple dozen discs.

This weekend, for some reason, I plowed through about fifty more. Which means that tomorrow at work, I'll have plenty of (quote)new(unquote) music to choose from. Kinda like rediscovering your own CD collection, isn't it?

My music always used to be impeccably arranged (I must ashamedly admit it was alphabetical...not autobiographical, like John Cusack's character in "High Fidelity" did with all of his vinyl), but for the past couple years, it was arranged in a different way: shelves of stuff that's been ripped, and shelves of stuff waiting to be ripped. I can't believe the neurotic side of me has let it sit that way for so long. But it has.

My DellPod has logged many hours of service, and been a faithful companion, but I fear the time is drawing near when I'll have to consider replacing it. The power button is a little touchy at times, and it's got a couple glitches.

I chose the Dell version I don't even know how many years ago, because at the time, the DellPod was a hundred bucks less than the same size iPod, and I was all about saving the hundred bucks. Of course, almost as soon as I bought mine, the prices became more comparable, the hard drives started getting bigger, and my player soon began to look like a big ol' 8-Track tape.

But I was happy with my decision at the time. I consulted a tech-geeky buddy for his opinion, and he said he saw no reason to not buy the Dell model, except, "...you won't be a hip kid with an iPod, then." I considered that statement: kid? umm...no. hip?...hahahahaha. And called Dell and ordered their 20GB DJ.

My nephew got the same DJ just a couple months later as a Christmas gift, and I always chided him about catching up to me with his song library. Before long, the hip kid-ness in him took over, and he got a fancy-pants 30GB video iPod, and his mom inherited the DJ. So now he talks about how many movies he's got loaded...not songs. I'm really falling behind on the hip-o-meter now!

I imagine when my DellPod finally is ready for the mp3 graveyard, I'll replace it with a shiny new iPod. Cuz I'm just hip like that.

Oh, and because they're not a hundred bucks more anymore, either.

"Country music is three chords and the truth."
—Harlan Howard

Be Sure To Write.

Every so often, when I need a little inspiration and motivation to help me remember what it is I want to be when I grow up, I pop in my "Finding Forrester" DVD, and get lost in the story.

If you haven't seen it, it's about a kid from the Bronx who wants to be a writer. Doesn't sound like an entirely action-packed movie, huh? Well...there aren't any car chase scenes, and no helicopters crashing into skyscrapers, either.

But I'm usually more impressed with movies that explore the human condition and delve into personal relationships than I am with movies like, "Die Hard 17: Die, Already...Die!" (funny, there's no IMDB link for this title. yet.)

Jamal Wallace, the teenager from the Bronx, is played by newcomer Rob Brown, who forms an odd but compelling relationship with a reclusive literary legend in William Forrester, played by Sean Connery.

I get totally immersed watching these two interact, but that may be in part because of the nuggets of writing wisdom sprinkled throughout their conversations.


One day in Forrester's apartment, he ponders aloud: "Why is it the words we write for ourselves are always so much better than the words we write for others?"

He sits down with Jamal, the two facing each other, a manual typewriter in front of each of them, and says as he starts to type...

"Go ahead."

Jamal: "Go ahead and what?"

Forrester: "Write."

Jamal: "What are you doing?"

Forrester: "I'm writing, like you'll be, when you start punching those keys."

(pause)

Forrester: "Is there a problem?"

Jamal: "No, I'm...just thinking."

Forrester: "No. No thinking, that comes later."

Then Forrester continues with his advice: "You write your first draft with your heart, and you rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is...to write! Not to think."

For those of us who just finished a month of writing, we learned all about that first key, didn't we? No matter what, put ass in chair...and write.

If somehow, "Finding Forrester" has slipped past you unnoticed and you haven't seen it, this writer gives it high marks. I can usually take or leave Sean Connery, but he and Rob Brown are great. And the verbal head-butting scene between Jamal and one of his professors is worth the rental fee.

Early in their relationship, Jamal asks Forrester, "What's it feel like?"

"What?" asks Forrester.

"Writin' something the way you did."

"Perhaps you'll find out," he tells the boy.

Perhaps.

"To be a writer, you have to first
stick your neck out and take a chance
and then be willing to make a fool of yourself
and give yourself away."
—Jessamyn West

Wanna Draw?

I wish I was more creative. It might be a gross understatement to say that I'm not exactly overflowing with artistic talent.

People who can draw and paint and mold big globs of clay into ornate pottery worthy of the Ming or any other dynasty...well, I just don't know how they do it. But I've always wanted to.

I got the opportunity to reminisce a while back when I was looking through a selection of books to order from one of those book clubs that promises you everything short of a jet airplane for a buck if you'll only give their club a chance.

They upped their ante by a book this time—six for six bucks—and that pushed me over the edge. I'm a sucker for nearly free books. But I digress.

One of the choices that got an immediate "Book To Order" check mark was a titled called, "Drawing for Dummies."

That sent me rolling back to my childhood summers when a neighbor and I would utter two simple words when all other recreational possibilities had been exhausted. "Wanna draw?"

After swimming at the local pool, or playing pickle or tag or guns, out would come stacks of paper and handfuls of pencils, and we'd draw other worlds from outer space or helmets from our favorite football teams or designs for elaborate traps to capture the vicious neighborhood wiener dog.

Our creative energy knew no bounds, even if we weren't Picasso or Van Gogh.


And don't we all remember Bob Ross from public television? The painter with the afro so big he could hide his palette in there.

He was famous for his paintings of happy clouds and happy trees and happy nature scenes of all kinds, and for his soothing voice that made you think he could bring about world peace if only all the leaders of nations would come together for one of his seminars.

The guy was happy. And boy, could he paint.

He'd always start with a blank canvas and a brush that looked better suited to touching up your house trim than creating artistic masterpieces.

Several stiff stabs with a three-inch brush and he'd immediately have a horizon laid out. A few more and mountains magically appeared.

Then he'd take something that can best be described as an angled stick (probably not the technical artist's term) and with a vertical scrape or two he'd have majestic trunks of pine trees looming in the foreground.

He'd build his paintings like this, element by element, with what seemed like standard household utensils.

I was in awe. Was art really that easy?

Not so much.

While he was creating such saleable pieces as "Morning Dew on Forest Floor" or "Sunlight on Yonder Hills," my efforts with a staining brush and crooked stick would have been more appropriately named, "Mess on Canvas I" and "Mess on Canvas II." (It's a series! Collect all forty-eight!)

I could never change the channel when he was on. I had to see how he'd effortlessly bring a mountain brook babbling through his paintings or create a hollowed out tree trunk where a happy little chipmunk could live.

I've got tremendous respect for the talents of the editorial cartoonists who can caricaturize popular figures that we can actually recognize when they put their pens down, or those who fill the panels of comic strips with enough interest that make readers turn to them on a daily basis.

Perhaps I'm able to occasionally string together a word or two that makes a good story (occasionally), but put a pencil in my hand, and I don't seek out a sketch pad, I reach for the nearest crossword puzzle.

I've got big plans, though. With my newest art manual and the memory of Bob Ross alive and well in my head, I'm going to learn to draw. Dummy that I am.

Maybe my stick figures will take some shape now.

"They couldn’t find the artist,
so they hung the picture."
—Gerald F. Lieberman

Pretty Woman, Stop A While

I love TNT's policy of showing the same movie back to back. It's as if they're saying, "We know you just finished watching this movie, but we've really got nothing better to air, unless you might find that test pattern screen an intriguing option, so...here. Watch it again.

(the sad part is...sometimes I do.)

Tonight's double feature of a single movie was, "Pretty Woman." It's been ages since I saw that movie, and I channel surfed past TNT during the end of it. (well...the end of the first showing, as I soon found out.)


At the risk of losing some of my Guy Points, I used to think that was a pretty cool movie, because I used to think that Julia Roberts was pretty cool. In my defense, when she burst onto the Hollywood scene in that role, she reminded me sooo much of a girl I used to know. Same style, same mannerisms, similar speech patterns and habits. And no...the girl I knew wasn't a hooker.

Now when I see Julia Roberts, though, I don't think of the girl I used to know. I wish it was still that simple. Now all I see is someone who's been injected with fame and fortune and let it completely go to her head. Sure, she still makes some decent movies, and is one of the highest box office draws in Hollywood. Swell.

But I've seen her on too many talk shows over the years where she's completely fake and insincere and attention-starved and...such a long way from the naive little prostitute who got into Richard Gere's lawyer's Lotus on Hollywood Boulevard and became famous.

Hey, maybe I shouldn't judge too harshly. Maybe an Oscar and twenty million a movie would turn me into an arrogant asshole, too.

But I kinda miss the Pretty Woman,
and the awkward girl from Mystic Pizza.
And the girl I used to know.

What other celebs do you think have gotten too full of themselves after reaching the top rung of the ladder in Hollywood?

"It's funny when people say, 'I don't think
Julia likes me.' Honey, if I don't like you,
you're going to know about it."
—Julia Roberts