The Baffling Case of the Sunday Headaches
It’s official: I’m getting older.

And not because I’ve just turned 35, either. Frankly, I look damn good for 35. In fact, just the other day, a coworker told me I had the “fresh face of a 25 year old,” which, I’m assuming, is the way middle aged women who read Oprah’s magazine tell someone they look 25. She may have been coming onto me-the way she comes on to every other male within sight, even the orange jumpsuit clad inmates who get bussed over from prison every morning to empty our trash and clean the restrooms-and she may make my fresh flesh crawl, but that doesn’t make her creepy compliment any less valid. Evidence of my vigor and vitality abound. I have the lean weekly paycheck of an 18 year old. I can climb up to 14 stairs without something popping. I’ve yet mistake acid reflux for a myocardial infarction and slump, twitching and gripping my chest, to the tiled floor of a Taco Bell. And I have never brightly chirped “T.G.I.F.!” at a coworker. If you remain unconvinced of my boyish charm, it can only mean that you’re suspicious and bitter, which, if you ask me, is the real sign of advanced age. Don’t blame this dewdropper if you’re all balled up and in a lather. You’re all wet, and so’s your old man. Dry up, you Dapper, and quit flapping your gums. Screw, why don’t you, you Palooka. And how!

As you can see, I’ve got many a rosebud yet to gather with pith and vinegar to spare. So what’s got this hep cat feelin’ like a blue square? Well, Daddy-O, let me lay it on down. A couple months ago, I began waking every Sunday morning with a dull throbbing headache that would eventually progress into an ultra light sensitive, needle in the eyes and blender in the brain ordeal of vomiting and cold sweating. Not only did this leave me feeling most unrefreshed and bleary eyed on Monday mornings, it also presented a mystery. Why only on Sundays?

It was time to dust off my deerstalker hat and look up an old friend, Mr. Scientific Method. Mr. Scientific Method suggested letting a doctor sort it out and slammed his door on my oversized magnifying glass. Well, nuts to him. What Mr. Scientific Method doesn’t know is that my doctor calls puncture wounds “boo-boos” and mysterious subcutaneous masses “uh-ohs.” I call him Mr. Last Resort. No, I’d have a go at solving this one myself, lest I be diagnosed with an “ouchie” and sent home with a prescription for St. Joseph’s aspirin.

To begin solving this mystery, I first made a list of known facts:

1) I’m youthfully vigorous and handsome
2) Headaches are bad
3) I get headaches on Sundays
4) Any month beginning on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th
5) Friday the 13th is a kick-ass movie

It’s amazing how simply laying the facts out in linear form can suggest a logical course of action. After rewatching Friday the 13th, I made a list of possible causes of headache as suggested by this fine film, and then weeded out those that didn’t apply to my case:


1) Knifed in the stomach-no
2) Stabbed repeatedly-no
3) Throat slit with large hunting knife-no
4) Arrow pushed through neck from behind-no
5) Axed in face--maybe
6) Thrown through window-no
7) Decapitated with machete-no

Yet another list of facts, yet more revelations. Sure, it hadn’t conclusively revealed the headache causing culprit, but, in scientific research, ruling something out is definite progress, and ruling out 6 somethings makes you a candidate for the Nobel Prize. But I wasn’t in this for the inevitable fame and riches. Surely others suffered from the bizarre Sunday headache, and by first helping myself, I might be able to help them. Or not. Whatever.

At any rate, I was getting close. Having brilliantly ruled out Fridays, I instead focused my attention, like a red hot laser beam of science, on the other day in question: Sunday. What was it about Sundays that were different from other days? Why were they giving me headaches? I don’t attend church, or that would have been my prime suspect. So what did I do on Sundays that was different from every other day of the week? I made another list:

1) Sleep late

And that’s it. Well, that’s simple. What do I not do while sleeping late that I’d otherwise do while awake? Yep, it was time for a list again:

1) Write letters confessing fake problems to Dear Abbey
2) Smoke
3) Sing the entire score to the Pirates of Penzance
4) Drink 6 liters of highly caffeinated Diet Pepsi
5) Act as a Beacon of Decency for all who behold me
6) Eat pizza

It doesn’t take a genius to spot possible headache inducers there. The strain of coming up with etiquette-related gray areas is a full time job in itself, never minding the task of coming up with clever aliases. Perturbed in Peoria? That’s me. Aghast in Anchorage? That’s me, too. Devastated in Denver? Yep, you guessed it. Offended in Carterville? No, that one’s real. I’d have used “Comeuppance in Carterville.” The point is that these things don’t write themselves, people. The creative mind must necessarily run in a vacuum, and the natural side effect of implosion is headache. Case solved. Oh, and also, drinking all that Pepsi gave me caffeine withdrawal headaches every time I slept for more than 5 hours.

And so, for the first time in my life, I am unable to do something I could manage easily before. This Superman has found his kryptonite. A byproduct of age? Or yet another side effect of global warming? No, it must be age. Yes, time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older, too. Alas. If I weren’t still so gorgeous, it might seriously depress me.

From here on out it will only get worse. I can see myself with Shawn in the not too distant future, on senior citizen’s Tuesday at IHOP. I’ll order my usual “Rooty Tooty, Fresh ‘n Fruity,” and Shawn will lean over and whisper, “No, you can’t have pancakes. The gluten makes you bloat.”

“What?” I’ll yell back.
“GLUTEN!” He’ll scream. “You can’t have GLUTEN!”
“I want pancakes!”
“No pancakes!”
“Fine,” I’ll say. “Then I’ll just have a Diet Pepsi.”

Inspirational Triumph? I'll Be The Judge of That

Last night, Shawn and I watched the Disney movie “Eight Below,” which, according to the back cover of the DVD case, is a “triumphant and inspiring action-adventure the whole family will treasure.” Jess Cagle, of WCBS-TV/People Magazine, is quoted as saying Eight Below is “An exciting, heart-warming adventure.” I’ve never heard of Jess Cagle, but I have heard of People Magazine, so the endorsement seemed legit. Like most people whose home video libraries contain multiple titles ending in the word “massacre,” Shawn and I aren’t really the “heart-warming, inspiring tale of triumph” type. Actually, we prefer as few survivors at the end of a movie as possible, grudgingly allowing that one or two chartacters must necessarily make it out alive or there’d be no sequel. But we are also dog people, so the massacre buck stops here. In terms of puppies in peril, nothing less than inspirational triumph will do.

As many of you might know, Eight Below is about a team of 8 sled dogs that are left behind at a remote Antarctic base by a team of scientists who must suddenly evacuate and discover that there’s no room to take the dogs. This begs the question, “Well, how did they get them out there in the first place?” But I digress. The dogs are left chained up outside with the understanding that someone will return for them shortly, and, of course, due to the worst storm in Antarctic history, no one does. Shawn and I knew this going into the movie, but were lulled into a false sense of security by the Disney trademark. Sure, Disney killed Bambi’s mother, locked Dumbo's mom in psych ward, and fed Nemo's mom to a barracuda, but none of the dogs had their mommies with them, so we felt relatively safe from whatever Oedipal issues Disney's never quite worked through. Besides, these 8 dogs had something Bambi’s mother didn’t: Jerry. The back cover of the DVD case foretold that “Jerry’s beloved sled dogs must learn to survive together until Jerry-who will stop at nothing-rescues them.” In fact, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, the line, and I quote, “Jerry and the dogs make an incredible journey to reunite” virtually guarantees a happy ending. Forget Bambi...think Air Bud...except there are 8 of him and he’s moved to Antarctica.

The film begins with Jerry and his team of dogs being forced to take a scientist in search of a meteor to a distant mountain. Here, I must make an aside to mention something that really, really annoyed me. The two men are bunkered down for the night in a tent in the middle of a vast and frozen wasteland. They fail to strip down to their long johns and engage in a playful wrestling match that awakens certain curiosities, but that’s not what bothered me. After all, it’s Disney. What irked me was this: as they prepare to go to sleep, Jerry notices a child’s drawing the scientist has, and asks, “Who’s the artist?” The scientist replies, “My son, Eric.” The camera then zooms in for a close-up of the drawing, upon which is clearly written, “To Daddy. I love you. Eric.” Whoever could the artist be? What a mystery! Knowing that the fate of the 8 sled dogs was tied to Jerry and his fiery intellect, I began to feel the first pangs of uneasiness, but chalked it up to poor communication between the script writers and Disney’s prop department. That Jerry will stop at nothing to rescue his dogs is of no comfort if Jerry’s as smart as what his dogs leave steaming in the snow behind them.

The next morning finds Jerry and the scientist out on the mountainside looking for the meteor. As luck would have it, the fist-sized meteor, after its travels through millions of miles of space and its high velocity impact with the Earth’s surface, happens to be lying out atop the snow where any idiot in a funny hat could wander by and pick it up. One wonders (at least I do) why fossils, gemstones, and murder weapons aren’t this accommodating, but, again, it’s Disney. We’ll just have to assume Tinkerbell pulled the meteor out from the deep crater that unbelievably hot objects falling from incredible heights must necessarily leave in a continent made almost entirely of ice and move on, because no one really cares about the stupid meteor in the first place. After finding the meteor, the team must race to make it back to base camp before a storm strands them out in the middle of nowhere.

While I’m perfectly aware that when one assumes, one “makes an ass out of u and me” (don’t laugh, you’re the “u”), I did think that this was the storm in which the dogs would be left. The scientist, having found his meteor, promptly slides off a ledge onto the ice, where he whines about having a broken leg before falling through into the water below. Maya, the team’s alpha dog, crawls out across the ice on her belly to bring the scientist a rope, and then the team pulls him to safety. Good dogs! Cold, wet, and injured (and still whiny), the scientist, I supposed, would have to be air lifted out in a tiny helicopter, and the dogs would have to fend for themselves for a few days out in the storm before being rescued themselves. Personally, I’d have left the scientist behind and gotten the dogs to safety first; but since this was wasn’t the inspirationally triumphant story of a stranded scientist and his long johns wearing, wrestling guide-who will stop at nothing to rescue him-it was obvious things weren’t going to swing that way.

But no, the injured scientist and Jerry, who is now suddenly ill and coughing for some unexplained yet dramatic reason, are heroically dragged back to camp through the storm by the dogs, led by Maya. It must be admitted that Maya reminded us of our own Mesa, though Mesa’s never done anything more heroic than bark at passing cars at 3 a.m. Since Mesa is a third or fourth generation mutt, there’s no way to tell which breeds she’s got in her (we’re still trying to figure out where her curly tail and webbed feet come from), and so every so often we’ll spot a purebred dog that reminds us of her. So we were big Maya fans. That’s why we were so distressed to see her and the seven other dogs left chained outside the base as a plane with all the people took off. There looked like there was plenty of room on the plane to me, even with the injured scientist groaning on the floor. As the plane took off and the dogs tugged at their chains and whined and howled piteously, Shawn and I decided at once that we did not like this movie.

But we were stuck. To turn the movie off would be to leave the dogs forever stranded in our minds. That would simply not do. Besides, there was Jerry-who would stop at nothing-to rescue them. And it’s Disney. Perhaps the dogs would get snowed on and look sad, but that's as bad as we were expecting things to get. We watched with baited breath as Maya, Dewey, Truman, Shorty, Max, Shadow, and Buck all broke their collars and chains and escaped to forage for food....leaving Old Jack behind. Old Jack is 10 years old and, as Jerry comments earlier, “ready to retire.” Old Jack never gets off the chain and starves to death, but not before Maya attempts to rouse him to action.

At this point, we decided we really didn’t like this movie. When another dog falls off a ledge and lies dying surrounded by the rest of the team, we decided we absolutely hated this movie. Sure, we have no problem whatever watching an entire sorority house fall under the blade of a masked madman who knows to twist the knife once it's in a naked co-ed's belly, but seeing a dog lying on its side fatally injured and whimpering while his littermate stands watch over him proved to be way too graphic for us.

And then there was Jerry-who will stop at nothing-to rescue his dogs....eventually. Nowhere on the back of the DVD cover did it even hint that the rescue would take about 6 months. Jerry spent a lot of time looking moody and ruggedly handsome, had clich?-riddled fights with his girlfriend, and taught kayaking at summer camps...but spent very little time rescuing his dogs. To be fair, he did have a few conversations with people that went like this:

"Fly me to Antarctica."
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Oh, come on!"
"No."

Meanwhile Max, the pup of the group, is stalked by a killer Leopard Seal who later bites Maya in the leg, crippling her, causing Shawn to cry out in dismay. I happened to be holding my cat Wednesday in my lap at the time, and he scared the hell out of her. She left a gash in my leg beating a hasty retreat, and Shawn moaned, “I hate this movie!”

In the end, Jerry ultimately arrives just in time to save the mortally injured Maya and the five other dogs, but not before pulling Old Jack’s frozen corpse from the snow. He smooches his girlfriend and everyone laughs happily ever after. The movie ends with a shot of a makeshift cross with two dog collars hanging from it. I’m sorry if I don’t find that image especially inspirationally triumphant.

Once again, Disney has scarred us for life...or have they? Actually, the true story upon which Eight Below is based is a lot less inspirationally triumphant. There was a Japanese Antarctic surveying team that was evacuated by helicopter from their base in 1958. They left behind not 8, but 15 sled dogs. Seven of those dogs were unable to escape from the chains and another 6 died on the glaciers. There were just 2 survivors, Taro and Jiro, who were brothers. They survived for just under a year on their own. I suppose the 2 dogs surviving is inspirational, but the 13 who died rather dampen any warm fuzzy feelings that might give me. The fact that today, Taro and Jiro are stuffed and on display in a Japanese museum doesn’t help much, either.

The whole thing rather reminded me of why I don't watch nature shows anymore. The last one I ever saw had to do with lemurs. It showed a baby lemur happily bounding around in a tree while the narrator commented on how innately agile these remarkable creatures are. And then the lemur fell out of the tree and landed on a log below, which broke its back. As it thrashed about screaming, the narrator calmly commented that sometimes the most agile of creatures can miss the mark, and that something would be along shortly to eat the lemur and end its suffering. Oh goody.

I'm pretty sure Shawn and I will stick to movies where the only things that die are terrible actors and the only people-who will stop at nothing-are psychotic killers. It's just so much more humane. And we've yet to find an actress who reminds us of Mesa.

Woodworker: n, someone who makes things out of wood.

I’ve worn many a hat in my day; certified FEMA participant, negligent bystander, person of interest, employee of the month, passive aggressive enabler, delusional prophet of impending doom, licensed insurance salesman, assistant number 6031, that asshole on the fifth floor, dog bite victim, and fat little Dixie Chick. None has fit me as well as the “woodworker” hat, although fat little Dixie Chick is a close second. OK, I was never the fat little Dixie Chick. I suppose “liar” might be more technically accurate, but my, what an ugly little word. Let’s agree on “grandiose” and move on to my woody new hat.

What impetuous, you might wonder, has led to my recent haberdasherous hijinks? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, even made-up words (which my spell check insists I create with alarming frequency...perhaps I should add “linguistic innovator” to my list of hats), so I offer the following visual explanations:

Some people claim that kitchen cabinets are for food, dishes, or other kitchen related items, not for an increasingly unmanageable Simpsons collection. This is why I point out that we’ve bought a separate kitchen hutch for those kinds of things.

How the hutch, too, became filled with Simpsons items is inexplicable. Well, I guess “inexplicable” isn’t really the most technically accurate word. There I go being grandiose again. But if we’re going to play the blame game, let’s at least play fair. Our house is only so big and suffers from a severe lack of designated storage space...no doubt because I’ve also filled those other spaces with my collection. What’s pictured here represents about half of the total. A fair amount of the blame belongs to Shawn, who has duplicates of roughly half the items in my collection, all of which also require storage. And then there are the dogs, whose indiscrimination between vintage mint-in-box collectibles and Snausages makes any open display a mere smorgasbord. And finally, I blame Arizona, the dustiest state in the union. It’s uncanny; with all the windows shut to keep the air conditioning in and the 115 degree ozone-laden air out, a thin layer of dust will still accumulate within an hour after any surface is cleaned. Dust is not a collector’s friend, especially a lazy collector.

Nor does the collector find joy in all his treasures being hidden away in hutches or closets. Not only is my collection a source of deep personal pride, it also represents about a quarter of my income since 1997. This is not a light I want hidden under a bushel. We searched the far and wide Phoenix area for an appropriately large and reasonably priced display case of some kind for the collection, but came away empty handed. Little did we know it at the time, but that journey’s end was the beginning of another, for there was but one practical solution to our problem. We must design and build our own custom display case. Such an undertaking would demand skills we hadn’t yet developed, know-how we didn’t yet know, and machines with high pitched motors and sharp, sinister blades we hadn’t yet purchased. Rome was not built in a day, and this display case won’t be, either. It’s an apt analogy because the two are likely to end up roughly the same size. OK, that’s not technically true, either. Let’s just say that the display case will be, in its own way, Romanesquely grandiose.

The first step was painfully obvious. We’d need a moderately priced table saw to get the project up and running. I already had a hammer, a ruler, and a red toolbox. I was ready to hammer in the morning, I was ready to hammer in the evening...all over this land, your land, my land, from California to the New York Island, this log, it used to be a tree. All I needed was a reliable, accurate way to cut all kinds of wood.

And so it was that Shawn and I found ourselves at a Home Depot having the following discussion:

“Say, Shawn, isn’t that a Ridgid TS24000LS Portable Job Site Saw on a patented Work-N-Haul-It table saw cart over there?”

“Sure looks like one to me. See the heavy-duty 15 amp motor with the belt driven 5/8 inch arbor? That sucker can do 4,000 RPM’s.”

“No shit? What’s the maximum ripping capacity?”

“25 inches right side of the blade, 12 inches left.”

“That is one sweet looking carbide tipped blade. Bet that baby has a cut depth of over 3 inches.”

“3 and one eighth, to be exact.”

“Whoa, did you see this Retract-A-Rip fence and rail system? Those are dual cams on that fence, baby. Rick solid.”

“And that lightweight but durable cast aluminum table top is smooth.”

“Extruded aluminum is shit, bro. You gotta have cast aluminum.”

“Yep, I reckon it’ll do. Let’s us grab our crotches, spit carelessly in random directions, and throw this here saw in the back of the pick-up.”

Maybe it’s the Sodium Barbitol talking, but I must again fess up to being grandiose. The real conversation went more like this:

“Hey, Shawn, what do you think of this saw?
It’s orange.”

“I like orange.”

“Me, too!”

“Orange is, like, my favorite color.”

“Get out! Me, too!”

“So should we get it?”

“Well. Do we need one that big?”

“Sure. I mean, why not?”

“What’s this thing do?”

“Hmmmm. I’m not sure. This here is the blade, though. That cuts the wood.”

“I see. Isn’t this wheel in front supposed to turn?”

“I think so. I don’t really know.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe the display model is broken.”

“Oh.”

“So what do you think?”

“What’s ripping?”

“Ripping? Where does it say that?”

“It says, ‘Maximum ripping capacity 25 inches.’ Is ripping a good thing?”

“I wouldn’t think so, but maybe it is. Think that’s enough ripping? Do we need more ripping or less?”

“Do you know anything about table saws?”

“Well, I know we need one.”

Every weekend for a month, I dragged Shawn to Home Depot, Sears, Lowe’s, and then back to Home Depot, and then back to Sears, and then back to Home Depot, then to Sears again, and then to Lowe’s... Along the way I amassed a wealth of table saw knowledge. Ripping (cutting wood across the grain) is indeed a good thing, and more is better. I know what a riving blade, a kerf, and a throat plate are. I know what the difference between a T-Slot miter gage and a sliding miter table. I know what kickback is and why an anti-kickback prawl is important. And I know why arbor size matters. This knowledge, though, came at a terrible personal cost....to Shawn.

To this day the life drains from his face the second we step into a home improvement warehouse, and both “Tool World” and the “Tool Corral” have been ruined for him forever. I suppose I’m to blame. After all, it was I who would repeatedly stand him in front of a saw and present him with the query, “What do you think?” “It’s nice,” he’d say. “Nice? It’s a tale saw,” I’d say. “It’s not supposed to be nice. It’s supposed to be a terrifying display of limitless power.” “Oh,” he’d say. “It looks fine.” Toward the end, all he’d say was, “It looks just like every other saw,” and then claim he had a headache and needed to go home.

Choosing a saw turned out to be nowhere near as complex as I’d made it, though. Every pro of every saw had an equal and opposite con, and eventually you’ve got to just pick something and live with it. Picking something became much easier when a budget was introduced, and the final decision was a breeze. We got the saw that was in our price range and in stock, which, ironically, was the Ridgid TS24000LS Portable Job Site Table Saw on the patented Work-N-Haul-It cart.



I will also admit, however, that getting a full sized table hasn’t helpful in terms of making more space, even with the fold down patented Work-N-Haul-It cart. But that’s merely an egg broken for the omelet. I now spend my Saturdays out in the blistering heat on the back porch cutting wood, often with a purpose. The fun thing about sweating profusely and running a table saw is that all the sawdust sticks to you. That’s when you have to make sure Shawn isn’t looking and jump into the pool for a quick rinse off. Just remember to suggest that perhaps the filter isn’t working properly when he wonders why the pool gets dirty so fast. Wearing safety goggles in that kind of heat will lead to the amazing discovery of just how much that small covered part of your face can sweat. I have to keep stopping every now and again to empty the pools of sweat that collect in the goggles when they reach eye level. It’s quite disgusting, but it’s all of part of the creative process.

And what, you may wonder, have I created thus far? Well, I’m glad you asked. Early on in my quest for table saw knowledge, I came across and became obsessed with finger (or box) joints. It was my idea that the entire cabinet could be assembled using these attractive and sturdy joints.



I constructed a jig to make the joints, and it came out splendidly. I’m not being grandiose, it really did. The only problem is that the two pieces never quite fit together, and I wind up pounding then with a hammer screaming “Fit, damn you, fit!” until something splits and I have a enraged meltdown. We could have bought a second Ridgid TS24000LS for the amount of money I’ve wasted on wood I’ve ruined, but I refuse to admit defeat, even if Shawn has to get a second job to pay for materials. I’m just that committed. Besides, a woodworker is someone who makes “things” out of wood. I’ve made some things. Mostly they look like splintered pieces of hammer-beaten wood half glued together, but they are things. Ergo, I am a woodworker.

You will see pictures of completed Simpsons display case on here before long. Oh yes, make no mistake about that, you will see it. And it will be grandiose.

Charo, Fay, Debbie, and Some Pregnant Chick in a Tube Top
I’ve been having a recurring dream where I’m teamed with Charo on a new reality TV series called “Don’t Drop the Taco!” At first I’m annoyed because a forty year old bag-boy from Cleveland gets paired with Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, clearly the most athletic of the bunch, while I’m paired with a has-been flamenco guitar player and geriatric booty shaker. Yeah, that’s fair. But later we’re all amazed to discover that Jim Palmer absolutely no good on water skis and a florist from Sacramento and Patti LaBelle prove to be stiffer competition in the Wacky Water Round. Although I’m relieved that our taco is soggy but undropped, I can’t help but feel that the only reason Charo is here is to plug her forthcoming album with the Salsoul Orchestra, Cuchi-Cuchi. “I haven’t been this exhilarated since I was a young girl growing up in Murcia, Spain,” Charo pants at the Wacky Water Round finish line, shaking the water from her sequined bathing suit, “the beautiful sounds of guitars flows there with the winds all the time. It’s the same sounds that flow in my new album, Cuchi-Cuchi, available in stores next month!” The show’s host, Tony Danza, nods enthusiastically while staring at the 65 year old Charo’s cleavage, which is considerably younger than the rest of her and promises to be on prominent display during the next round at The Pogo Stick Pagoda.

I wake up when the show ends and the grand prize, a 1994 Mazda Miata with only one original owner, is won by a chipmunk from Sarasota and Paris Hilton, Charo having long ago dropped her end of the taco when the 5 inch spike on her shoe becomes firmly embedded in the soft grassy field of the obstacle course. She fell flat on her face right there at the starting line. Brushing dirt from her sequins, Charo said, “At night, in Spain, breathtaking melodies serenade everybody, which is why I am so happy to share these songs with you on my latest album, Cuchi-Cuchi. Also, I have a house in Hawaii.” Why I would continue to dream about an event after I’ve been disqualified from it is possibly more mysterious than the dream itself. What does it all mean? Professional analysis of thematic elements has yielded one irrefutable conclusion: Shawn doesn’t buy me enough presents.

In other news concerning myself, Shawn and I were able to take in the “2006 Road Rage Tour” when it came to Phoenix last month. It featured The New Cars, who are actually the old Cars, minus Rick Ocasek and Benjamin Orr. Claiming to be the Cars of any vintage when you haven’t got Rick Ocasek is shameful, but I suppose it sounds better than Crappy Band of Nobodies. Shawn and I figured they’d be opening the tour, and since we were only interested in seeing the other band on the tour, not only did we take our time getting to the venue, we also decided to wait in the long, slow-moving line for $35.00 t-shirts. A video monitor near the line desperately attempted to make Ashlee Simpson “concert” seem appealing, and a squat and drunken homosexual man wearing eye makeup and holding a drink in both hands stood beside us is line making loud comments to no one in particular.

And there we stood while two women at the front of the line each requested a shirt in a size small. Each of them unfolded the shirts and held them against themselves and said to other, “What do you think?” While they both agreed that certainly the small size would fit, they both decided the next size up might me more comfortable. And so it went through sizes medium, large, and finally extra-large, which is the size they both decided to buy, 20 minutes later, and they waddled away from the counter saying something about how the extra-large would be better to sleep in. And this is why t-shirt lines always move so slowly.

We had been waiting in the t-shirt line for about half an hour when we were horrified to hear the opening cords of the song Call Me coming from the auditorium. It what rational universe does the legendary Blondie open for some upstart band of loser drummers and keyboard players like the New Cars? Has the world gone insane? First Bush was reelected, and now this. No wonder I get so many headaches.

We made it to our seats about halfway through Call Me, which is good. The original version of Call Me is about 10 minutes long and is never played on the radio. It contains a verse with the lines “Dress me up and show me off and put me on the scene. Dress me in the fashions of the 1980’s.” Last time I saw Blondie, this had been changed to “The fashions of the 1990’s.” I was curious to hear what it would be this time around, and we sat down just as Debbie was singing “Dress me in the fashions of the 21st century." For better or worse, that should be the last change to the song she’ll ever have to make.

I’m not sure which century Debbie’s lime green day-glo jumpsuit and white vest combo came from, but it doesn’t matter. She’s Debbie Harry. Debbie skipped entire choruses of Maria and Good Boys, spoke rather than sang the song Atomic, and held the microphone out toward the audience to avoid Heart of Glass’s “ooh ooh, oh oh’s” entirely. Debbie’s never been an especially strong vocalist, and at 61, she’s clearly no longer interested in trying. It doesn’t matter. She’s Debbie Harry. She spent a good amount of time kicking at a fan on the side of the stage in an effort to redirect it, lost an earring and found it two songs later, and constantly interrupted songs to wave at someone in the audience and say “Hi! I see you!”

We were enjoying the show immensely until a pregnant chick in a tube top arrived late a few rows ahead of us and decided she’d like to stand up and dance with her purse. Now, I love watching pregnant bimbos dance in tube tops as much as the next person, which is to say not at all, but there is a time and a place for everything. Pregnant tube top dancing is an activity best confined to one’s home, like nail clipping or ear-wax removal. Farther down the rows, a woman and her preteen daughter were also dancing to Heart of Glass. Debbie had just finished singing about how her love was no longer a gas and abruptly shouted in the microphone, “You know I always say to those guys! So long, motherfucker!” The mother leapt to cover her daughter’s ears, as though she could somehow beat the sound we had all already heard to her daughter’s ears, and Debbie moved on, riding high on love toward the bluish light. The whole thing reminded me immediately of Fay Fredricks.

Fay Fredricks is channel 12 News’ premiere blond anchor bimbo in Phoenix. She and her co-host, Mark Curtis, were discussing the then upcoming movie about September 11, United 93. Much ballyhoo was being made about whether or not the movie had been made too soon and if America was ready to see it. Mark admitted he felt it was too soon, and doubted he’d be comfortable watching real footage of the attack in a movie. “What do you think, Fay,” he asked, “is it too soon? Are you going to see it?” “Well,” said Fay, seriously, “I’m going to do something I rarely do. I’m going to reserve judgment. Until after I see it.” Yep. That’s what she said. Methinks perhaps Fay didn’t quite understand the question. Mark stared at her blankly for second, and I turned the channel.

There is no turning the channel on pregnant chicks in tube tops, however, and we had to make do with occasional glimpses of Debbie from behind the swaying fetus. The pregnant chick finally sat down after the guy she came with refused to get up and dance with her, I don’t think anyone blamed him. When Debbie, and the rest of Blondie, left the stage, Shawn and I got up and attempted to leave the theatre when we were set upon by a hoard of security personnel. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” they hooted. “You guys won’t be able to get back in!” “Sorry, gentlemen,” we said, “you can keep your so-called New Cars. Blondie has left the building, and so shall we.”

Sweet Suckin' Maggie
Topic: Venictive
Dear Skye222,

This is just a little open letter I’m writing to remind you, and anyone else who cares to read it, that, once again, you lose. You lose big time, baby! If there were a town called Loserdale, where up was down and down was sideways, you’d be their zoning commissioner. I bet you thought I was going to say you’d be the Mayor of Loserdale, but Mayor is an elected position, and, as I’ve mentioned, you are a loser. While I’m sure you possess plenty of pleasing attributes, say, pretty hair and keen command of Latin verb congregation, I can only attest to the clawing desperation and pathetic attempts at one-upsmanship you’ve exhibited when our paths have crossed, time and time again. There we have stood, metaphorically face to face, clashing repeatedly and bloodlessly on the eBay battlefield, thereafter resuming our travels down opposing forks in the road. My road is sunlit and shade-dappled, leading me northeast toward Victory with the glad weight of my gleaming prize in my hands! Your northwestern road inclines sharply where the pavement ends, loops around in a sudden and treacherous U-Turn, and propels you flailing back into the dark oblivion from whence you slithered, repeatedly struck by lightning and golf ball-sized hail. The bare trees lash out at you as you stagger by, head dropped in defeat, and even the burning shame you feel at having been once again bested by me will not warm your cold, empty hands.

The words “nemesis” and “arch-rival” are thrown around with the ineffective frequency of words like “suggested donation” and “no shirt, no shoes, no service” nowadays, so I shan’t bother to use them here. Frankly, I’d prefer a nemesis who doesn’t collect “Kissy Dolls” and dress them up in real baby clothes, anyway. Yes, that’s right; I know all about your “Kissy Dolls,” those grotesquely apple-cheeked plastic abominations that make “kissy” noises at you when you squeeze their arms together. Yes, I’ve checked your feedback. I’ve seen the auctions you’ve won. How many of these things do you need? What joy could you possibly glean from a product described thus:

“This all vinyl, 16" doll, called Tiny Kissy, is the re-issued version of a very popular early 60s doll by Ideal. I believe that she may have only been made for one year, 1966. There were a few different versions of the Kissy doll but this 1966 doll had an updated look to go with the times. She has very wonderful coloring. She is in excellent condition. Her kissing feature works when her arms are squeezed toward each other however I can't really say I hear a loud kissing sound if that is what it is supposed to do. It’s more like a gentle pop. She is a strung doll so can pose without a stand once she is balanced properly. This Kissy has on her original dress and panties. The elastic has worn out in the panties so they are being held up with a safety pin. Her orange hair ribbon is a replacement as are her socks and shoes. The outfit has no holes, rips, or stains. It is possible that her hair may have been slightly trimmed in back. I only say this because it seems a little bit shorter on one side than the other. It is possible that it is not though, as this is the only one of this type I have actually seen in my many years of collecting. ”

Who would want some lopsided old doll in ratty underpants making “popping” sounds at them? On what level is that experience attractive? Why not slap a wig on a roll of bubble wrap and give it a big ol’ squeeze? That’ll tilt your pop’o’meter! For the sake of all things tasteful, please go out and get yourself a cat. You could even name it “Kissy” and dress it up and push it around in a stroller if you must. At least it would be a real living thing, able to respond to your affections without having its arms forcibly crossed. Heck, you could even purchase a real non-Caucasian baby for half of what you’ve spent on your “Kissy” collection---or so I’ve heard.

But I’m making unnecessary judgments here. Hell, buy every damned “Kissy” doll in creation for all I care. I’m willing to “Kissy” and make up on that point, but you’re not satisfied with “Kissies,” are you Skye222? No, you must also collect dolls named Maggie. Little stuffed monsters named Maggie, 1790’s pre-Barbie fashion dolls named Maggie, and Maggie brand doll clothes. The whole sordid story is there in your feedback; prompt payments, courteous emails, excellent eBayer. But between the lines there lies a story of a woman spiraling madly out of control and on a fateful collision course with ruin.

Here she is: Sweet Suckin’ Maggie. Mint in package from 1990 and the only one of its kind to appear on eBay in 6 years. Squeeze her tummy and she sucks on her pacifier. Yes, a doll named Maggie that makes simulated mouth noises. Oh, how you must have wanted her. She must have haunted your dreams before she began to haunt your nightmares, for, for a brief period of time, you may have foolishly believed she could be yours. Surely you saw that I, “sirsimpsonator666” had already bid on Sweet Suckin’ Maggie. Surely you must have recognized my moniker from the countless other “Maggie” items I’ve snatched from your grasping talons. Need I remind you of the Maggie Simpson birthday candle debacle? Sure, you may have won that Maggie Simpson “Babyface” mug, but I was just tossing you a bone. I don’t care for hot beverages.

But how you could have underestimated my prowess on the Sweet Suckin’ Maggie auction, I shall never know. For you see, to me she is not simply another orally-fixated answer to the hollow emptiness in an echoing womb. She is the missing piece to a complete collection of 11 inch 1990 Mattel Simpson Dolls. You can’t have a Really Rude Bart with his kazoo that simulates unfortunate digestive side effects and a Bubble Blowin’ Lisa with her saxophone that blows bubbles without a Sweet Suckin Maggie there between them. It’s an unbalance that threatens the very cosmos.

Does cosmic balance mean nothing to you? What kind of a collector are you, anyway? Attempting to break up a complete, mint in package set is the ultimate eBay sin, yet there you were, clutching some popping doll in soiled undergarments and attempting to outbid me. And what’s with every bid ending with .35? You think I’m not onto that trick by now? Do you honestly think I’d allow myself to be outbid by a paltry 35 cents? Note that my winning bid ends in .85. A ha! Take that!

Why couldn’t you just walk away? Why did you have to keep bidding? Do you not yet realize that I am relentless? But no, you had to keep bidding and driving up the price, long after every other bidder had recoiled in dismay and went off to bid on something else. There you were, trying to best me by 35 cents at 10 second intervals through the entire last minute of the auction. Damn you, woman! The auction would have ended at $60.00 if you had just walked away. Perhaps you take some sort of sick satisfaction in knowing that I am now $147.85 poorer, and have been forbidden to bid on another Simpsons eBay auction for an undetermined period of time. That’s fine...for you of all people should know that Sweet Suckin’ Maggie is worth it. And just so you know, for less than another 3 paltry dollars she could have been yours. Yes, that’s right. $150.00 was the limit of the money I could beg, borrow, or steal for this auction. 3 bucks! You’ve probably got that much in change rolling around in your car!

Before I sign off to go admire the way the afternoon sunlight sparkles off the clear plastic window of the box that holds my Sweet Suckin’ Treasure, I just thought I’d tell you that I really like that 22” 1961 Ideal “Kissy” Doll you’re currently bidding on over there on eBay. While I’m not allowed to bid on Simpsons auctions, there was never any mention made of “Kissy” dolls. Wouldn’t it be just horrible to have to pay three times what she’s worth just because some crackpot decides he wants it? Wouldn’t that be awful? And if he won, I’m sure he’d pull it right out of the box it’s been protected in for 40 years and give “Kissy” a sassy new hair do. Then he might just offer “Kissy’s” head up for aution on eBay.

You never know.

The Amazing Adventures of John and Shawn, Episode 2

The Amazing Adventures of John and Shawn, Volume 1

Partner In Crime
The other night, I was sitting in my living room and looking out the window when I saw a police car pull up in front of our house. I was about to say, “Hey Shawn, there’s a cop car in front of the house,” when another police car pulled up behind the first one. So instead I said, “Hey Shawn, there’s two cop cars in front of the house.”

“What are they doing?” Shawn asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I wonder what they want.”

Shawn looked out at the two silent cruisers, and then looked at me. “Have you done anything I should know about?”

“No,” I said. “Have you?”

“No,” he said.

We stared at each other with paranoid suspicion. And then the two police cars pulled away. Apparently, they had just pulled over to have a bit of a confab, but their visit still proved illuminating.

“Besides being criminally gorgeous,” I asked Shawn, “just what do you think I would have done to bring two squad cars to the house?”

“I was kidding,” Shawn said.

“Uh huh,” I said. Had this not been the second time an unexpected police presence prompted Shawn to ask me this very same question, I might have believed him.

The first time I was accused of being a fugitive from justice was about two weeks after we had moved to Arizona. We were spending the evening puttering about the house in a quiet, law-abiding way, when suddenly the sky was roiling with the sounds of screaming turbines and the thunderous chopping of helicopter blades. The noise was deafeningly disorienting, and we began to run about bumping into things while screaming “What’s going on? I don’t know!”

Eventually we fled the house, only to find ourselves frozen in the front yard by blinding searchlights. A voice hugely amplified and echoing with authority began barking unintelligible orders from above, and we stood clinging to each other and squinting about in confusion. If I believed in things like alien abduction or the Apocalypse, I most certainly would have soiled myself. Clearly we were experiencing an invasion of some sort, but without decipherable sensory input of any kind, it was difficult to decide how best to meet it. A brief reprieve came when the searchlights shifted, sweeping over the house and then down the street. We seized the opportunity and retreated back into the house.

“What’s going on?” Shawn asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

And that’s when he said it the first time. “Have you done anything I should know about?”

At the time, I was entirely too disoriented to be offended. It didn’t occur to me until much later that I had been accused of being a wanted felon. And I’m fairly certain Shawn wasn’t kidding. After all, he we had just packed up and moved cross-country at my suggestion and within a time frame that flirted with being sudden. Sure, we had known each other long enough, but not quite so long that one of us couldn’t conceivably have found the time to lead a secret life of treacherous debauchery.

But after you’ve lived with someone for a few years, you’d think they’d know better. The question, “Have you done anything I should know about?” becomes difficult to answer because it lacks specifics. Questions like, “Are you secretly a mass-murdering sociopath?” would be better, since then you’ve at least got an idea of the kinds of atrocities your partner thinks you’re capable of. “Anything” is pretty broad. It implies that there’s no deed foul enough to fall outside the realm of possibility. Unpaid parking tickets, setting nuns afire, pimping out meth-addicted fourth graders, jaywalking...they all fit neatly under the “anything” umbrella.

How long Shawn has felt trapped in a blood soaked web of deceit is impossible to tell, since he only shares these suspicions when capture seems imminent....which implies that not only does he think I’m a criminal, but an inept one as well. I like to think that if I did get it into my head to thin the counselor population at a remote summer camp that I’d get away with it, meddling kids or no.

Still, the question remains: What do you say when someone asks you “Have you done anything I should know about?” Now that I’ve had the time to think about it, I’ve come up with a few answers...

“No, but grab a shovel real quick and meet me in the back yard.”

“No, but be a pal and flush this down the toilet.”

“No, but if anyone asks, that head was in the freezer when we moved in and we’ve never been to Toledo.”

“No, but do excuse me for just a moment while I go set fire to my hard drive.”

“No, but if they ask you, my name is Jacques VanHeildelberg. I’m a traveling circus contortionist from Niagara Falls, and we just met last week in a microwave cookery class. Now help me find an eye patch.”

“Ready to be famous?”

Once again, I’m on the prowl for a new and funky camera. By “new,” I usually mean one that’s been out of production for around 50 years, weighs as much as a newborn Holstein calf, and smells like the bottom of a longshoreman’s kitbag. By “funky,” I mean the kind that requires either an obsolete film format or a banned mercury battery, or, more often than not, both. And by “on the prowl,” I mean sitting at my computer with my hair-trigger cursor poised above the “Bid Now” button as I sort through eBay listings for cameras, most of which read along these lines: “Up for bids is this neat old camera I found wrapped in a sock in my dead uncle’s basement. It looks like it would work, but I know nothing about cameras, so this one is being sold ‘As Is.’ NO WARRANTIES OR GUARANTEES! NO REFUNDS OR RETURNS! BID NOW! DON’T LET THIS ONE GET AWAY!”

I find it odd that no one on eBay knows how to use a camera. The law of averages seems to dictate that at least a few people with cameras in their possession should have some fundamental understanding of how they work. How hard is it to look through a window and press a button? It’s the same basic principle behind anti-aircraft artillery and submarine periscopery. This leads me to believe that most of these sellers know exactly what the camera should do, and they know full well it isn’t doing it. “As Is” is a handy little term that implies most buyers will at least find the seller’s broken crap decorative, which is a sentiment I resent deeply. And I refuse to partake in any auction by a seller who doesn’t know the difference between “accept” and “except,” as in “I except money orders and checks,” or “No personal checks excepted!” I cannot accept this use of except, nor will I accept instructions from the exceptionally ignorant. I feel the need to bait sellers such as these with messages like, “I’ve got a fourth-party check drawn from a Serbian bank that has since been turned into a methadone clinic specializing in street mime rehabilitation. I have endorsed this check in green crayon using letters from an alphabet of my own creation. I know nothing about checks, so I can’t guarantee you can cash it, but it’s quite pretty and would look nice in a hardwood frame. Since you except no checks you should happily accept this one. Also, I’m trapped in an invisible box and am therefore unable sign for registered packages.”

Where was I? Ah yes, a new camera. The exceptionally attentive reader might ask, Have you not just blogged about how much you love the camera you already have? Just how many cameras does a person need? How many do you have, anyway? What’s with you and this whole camera thing? Do you have any idea how boring this is for the rest of us? And where’s your half of the rent? Shawn used to ask such foolish questions as well. Used to. Now he merely smiles serenely and escapes to a quiet place somewhere in his mind while I explain at great length that although my two Yashicamat cameras may look alike, one has the two element Yashinon 85mm f/3.5 lens and the other has a three element Yashikor 85mm f/3.5 lens. The difference between them is night and day. Or at least noon and 3ish.

I realize that cameras may not fascinate everyone. I’m sure my blog would be immensely more popular if I was a stamp collector or an amateur botanist, or a sassy ski bunny turned tell-all Hollywood escort. You gotta work with what you’ve got. It could always be worse. I could be blogging all about my dog’s latest bout with diarrhea and the havoc it wreaked on our (landlord’s) carpeting. I could tell you how much I love my iced tea maker. I could be reviewing Joan Rivers fan sites, or posting pictures of my cats dressed as famous news anchorpersons.

And yes, while I can talk Shawn into a glassy-eyed semi-coma with my personal version of camera evolution through the ages, the only reason I know about these cameras is because the line between charming antique functionality and hopeless obsolescence is so fine. It would suck to get all excited about finding a mint condition Agfamatic only to get it home and realize it will only work with 126 films...which haven’t been made in 30 years. Wanna know which film formats are still being made and by which companies? I bet you don’t. But I could tell you, just like I could tell you all about the great mercury battery debacle. I could tell you that thousands of cameras were made to operate exclusively on 1.3 volt mercury batteries, which were banned because mercury leaking from discarded batteries was poisoning water supplies under landfills. I could tell you that this single act doomed many a photographer who had built an expensive system around their mercury battery powered camera. I could tell you that people are still traveling to Europe, where the batteries weren’t banned until 1998, just to smuggle back as many mercury batteries as they can find. I could further tell you that mercury batteries were superior to today’s alkaline or zinc-oxide batteries because they kept a consistent voltage for the duration of their life, and that the modern day batteries of the same size are now a different voltage, 1.5 volts.

See? You see all the useless knowledge I’m stuck with? It impresses no one at parties, I can tell you that, and frankly, anyone it did impress isn’t the kind of person you’d want to par-tay with in the first place. That actually reminds me of a wildly funny and entertaining story, which I won’t go into here, because this blog is about cameras. I must remain “focused.” Ha!

Anyway, between Shawn and my sexy self, we own about 1,000 useless little plastic figures in the shape of various Simpson’s characters. There are only so many useless things a person has space for in the average household, and 12 pound cameras that don’t do squat will find no home here. And yes, I’ve got a few other cameras already. The camera I previously blogged about, my beloved Nikon F2, is and will always be a 35mm camera. There’s more to life than 35mm, though. There’s medium format, which produces a negative three times the size of a 35mm. That’s a huge negative! Is a bigger negative a better negative? Well, sure. While I understand that in the real world bigger isn’t always better (as with tumors, spiders, and frilly satin bows), in the world of photography, bigger is always better. Just think of it as the difference between a 3 and 7 mega pixel digital camera. Besides, if medium format wasn’t better, how could Hasselblad justify the $18,000.00 price tag of their new H1 medium format outfit? When you consider that the average coronary bypass operation costs about $20,000, it really makes you wonder how the two compare in terms of sound investment value. This begs another question: Is more expensive necessarily better? My $20 medium format Argoflex and I hope the answer is no.

This little guy was made between1945 and 1947 by the Argus Camera Company in Illinois. Argus is actually still in business, although now they make crappy digital cameras. This is a Twin Lens Reflex camera. The top lens is the one you focus with when you look down through the hood in the top of the camera. The bottom lens is one that takes the picture (strangely enough, it’s called the “picture taking lens”). This set up produces a phenomenon called “Parallax Error,” which means that since the two lenses don’t actually view the scene from the same height, you’re afforded ample opportunity to chop your subject’s head off when you take pictures with it. Jolly good fun, that. The Argoflex, and every other camera that came after it, regardless of who made it, shamelessly copies design aspects stolen from the newly defeated Germans at the end of World War II (there’s a fun fact for ya!).

My $20 Argoflex was in perfect cosmetic condition when I got it. The only problem was it didn’t work. Half the joy of older (“vintage” if you must...I avoid this term because it’s usually followed by “collectible,” the single most overused word in marketing today) cameras is that they’ve sat around unused for decades, giving all the internal parts time to fuse together and for lubricants used on gears and levers to solidify. I discovered that Argoflex E shutter blades are prone to sticking because the grease used to lubricate them made them stick. I discovered that one could simply clean the blades and it would work like new. I discovered that removing the lens to get to the shutter couldn’t be simpler. And, lastly, I discovered that having the “i” so close to the “u” on a keyboard when you’re repeatedly typing the word “shutter” means you’d better type carefully.

And so begins the blog segment, Vintage Camera Repair for Dummies.

Before attempting to repair your camera, you must familiarize yourself with its features. The following technical schematic should prove helpful.

Now that we’re familiar with the lens assembly, we can begin the more interesting disassembly. Remove Mysterio 1 by prying it off with a razor blade. This will bend Mysterio 1, but we’ll worry about that later. Loosen the several tiny screws hiding under Mysterio 1, which will reveal more screws that loosen the Silver Ring of Mystery, causing it to fall off unexpectedly, taking with it the Black Ring of Mystery. Now we’re making progress!

The abundance of tiny screws makes the next step fairly obvious.

Welcome to the inner sanctum! We’re close to those shutter blades now! While I will admit that what we’ve got here is essentially a horrendous tangled mass of gears, levers, and springs, a crystal clear photo of the assembly will make it simple to put everything back where it was.

Now it’s simply a matter of cleaning the offending gunk and setting the blades back exactly as they appear. Then, reassemble. When you finish, you should end up something that looks like this.

Deep down, I think we all knew there was no way the Argoflex was coming back after step 2, especially after I lost one tiny spring and spent three days looking for it, to no avail. Too bad, too, I really liked it. This is a Koni Omega Rapid, also a medium format camera, which I got to replace the Argoflex. It’s a press camera from the 60’s. It also has a loose back, which I understand is quite easy to repair. Challenge excepted!

I Love My F2


This is what my Nikon F2 would look like if I had bought it brand new the year it came out, 1971. Having just been born, I had very little money in 1971, and, being a baby, if I had had the money, I probably would have spent it on something brighter and shinier. My second or third hand F2 is "gently used," a phrase which means "everything still works, but it looks like crap." My F2 is covered with scratches, dents, and dings, and brass is showing through where the chrome has worn off. Any used camera dealer will tell you, however, that this isn't "damage"; it's "character".

Yes, to look at my camera, you'd think I'd lived a life of savage, Indiana Jones-esque adventure. My camera says I'd not think twice about dangling from a helicopter skid over an erupting volcano with one hand, while snapping one Pulitzer prize winning photo after another with the other. It says I'm drawn to fiery explosions, lurid crime scenes, and stalking elusive cannibalistic tribes through lush Amazonian rainforests, scoffing at the notion of "personal risk" as I squint rakishly at hell on earth through a split-image/microprism type K viewfinder.

My camera is, of course, a liar. I have no idea what dashing millionaire playboy/photographer rogue owned it before me, but the back yard is as exotic as my photo shoots have gotten. I don't know what sort of thing my camera was used to, but it now spends its days waiting for one of the dogs to sit still and look toward the camera, which can be hell on earth in it's own, less fiery, way. To a dog, a camera is a potentially tasty snack treat, so keeping them far enough away from the lens to take a picture is an effort in itself.

Sometimes I worry that my camera is bored. I worry that groans each time the shutter opens to reveal Dougal holding yet another tennis ball in his mouth. I worry that it makes snide, sarcastic comments to itself. "Oh look, another shot of the doggie. Way to go, Ansel Adams! You rock!" It could have once belonged to a private investigator and spent hours attached to a zoom lens, waiting in nondescript cars parked outside seedy motels to catch the twilight exodus of well-to-do philanderers with suspicious wives. It could have frozen in time the last death rattles of soldiers in 'Nam, or plumbed the murky depths to discover sunken Spanish galleons. Sometimes, I worry that my camera sits in the darkness of its deluxe padded camera bag dreaming of days of glory long since past and plotting to throw a spring or a gear to end its suffering. It hates me, I just know it.

But then, like a dog adopted from the pound, there's no way to really know where the camera came from or what's its seen in its past life. It's just possible that it acquired it's scarred, swashbuckling facade from being hauled around in a Midwestern grandmother's purse. Or it could have belonged to a clumsy wedding photographer, in which case the camera would be an embarrassment to me. It could very well be afraid of dogs, and lie awake trembling in its padded bag dreading another toothy close up of Dougal, in which case it would still hate me. We may never know.

Regardless of its feelings for me, I love my F2. Until it develops the complex motor skills and intelligence to file a restraining order, it will just have to live with me. Why do I love it so? To attempt to describe it's many attractive attributes would be to attempt to describe the beauty of Helen of Troy, or the vastness of space, or the flavor of Dr. Pepper. But I'll give it a go anyway.

Nikon has recently announced that it will stop making all but two of its film cameras, and completely discontinue making manual focus lenses. For a company that revolutionized photography, this is big news. Not only did Nikon invent the body style that is now typical of all 35 mm cameras, all Nikon lenses fit all Nikon cameras; Nikon is one of the only camera manufactureres that ever thought to do this, and it's one of the major reasons they've gained such a loyal following. A Nikon lens from 1959 will still work on a $4,000 Nikon digital model manufactured last month. Likewise, a new $6,000 autofocus lens will still work on my F2...only it won't focus automatically.

This is bad news, because it means if I wanted a new lens for my camera, I'd have to buy an autofocus lens. The autofocus feature won't work, but it would make the lens three times more expensive than it's manual focus counterpart. Since I've never really been able to afford new equipment anyway, this isn't really much of a tragic blow to me, but it does reinforce the notion that film cameras are going the way of the 8-track.

And that's why I love my F2. It embodies everything that's completely obsolete about film photography. It thinks a pixel is a woodland nymph, and attaching a flash to it is a hopelessly complex procedure that requires three cables and renders the camera inoperable with less than 4 hands. While most digital cameras are about as heavy as a travel pack of Kleenex, my F2 is over two pounds of solid neck fatiguing brass, and its near indestructibility has earned it the nickname "The Tank" by those in the know.

Any idiot can point and shoot a digital camera and end up with decent pictures. But there's no skill involved, no talent, no art. Likewise, any 35 mm film camera made after 1980 offers the same soulless ease. With an F2, there's no such thing as "point and shoot." By the time I've lined up a shot, there's often nothing left there to shoot. And that's the way I like it. We manual camera fanatics refuse to let our cameras do the thinking for us, even when it's to our benefit.

Take, for instance, the science of light metering. Modern built in light meters are ridiculously accurate and make knowing how to calculate exposure times and apertures a science as obsolete as Phrenology. So why do we refuse to use cameras that use them? It's all about control. A camera with a built in light meter will automatically adjust your shutter speed or your aperture, or, in many cases, both, and the user can't override these settings. What if you want a slower shutter speed for a slight blurring effect? What if you'd like a darker, moodier picture? The only way to go is manual.

Sure, you could digitally enhance a digital picture and get a picture that's both moodily lit and slightly artistically blurred, but that's cheating and we all know it. You'll find purists like me squinting at the dial of a Bakelite light meter hanging around our necks. We'll point the meter here and take a reading. Then we'll point it there and take a reading. Then we'll average to two readings and come up with a baseline exposure and aperture setting. Then we'll look up at the sky, stare at our subject, and scratch our heads. Then, after minutes of agonized soul searching, we'll recklessly decrease the f-stop without adjusting the shutter speed and snap the picture. Ha ha ha! The anarchy!

And did our settings work? Well, we can't tell you. At least not right away, especially if we don't have our own darkroom. If, by chance, we happen to be using black and white film, it will have to be sent to the one lab in America that still processes it. We'll know how everything turned out in about 2 weeks. We want none of the cheap, instant gratification of digital. It simply won't do. A good picture is worth waiting for because it's more than a good picture. It's confirmation that you finally know what you're doing.

With the passing of film cameras, so too goes the passing of an era where people were truly amazed by pictures. Nowadays, everything can be added or subtracted digitally, and being in the right place at the right time is now just a matter of aiming your camera phone. It's too easy. You don't have to know your subject. You don't need an appreciation of the way light behaves. You don't have to take the time to really see what the camera sees. And so the pictures we take now really don't say anything about us.

But not so with my F2. Every picture, regardless of how it comes out, is a labor of love. The fact that I've taken 20 minutes to set the shot up tells you that there's something in there that's pretty important to me. And the time I've taken waiting for the right photgraphic moment has given me a deeper apprectaion of the moments in between. Well, except the one time I was hanging out the window of a rental car, taking random shots of people on the side of the road. Those didn't say much about me. But they were funny. And blurry, too.

Eau De Cologne Por Homme
When Shawn hinted he wanted Dolce and Gabbana cologne for Christmas, “the kind with sandalwood in it,” I went online to discover what the name of this woodland cologne might be, and where it might be obtained for a reasonable cost. My own home-made cologne, brewed from leaves, roots, and assorted cactus parts, all of which could be found free in my back yard, mixed with the sporty, chlorinated essence of aged pool water, was likely to disappoint because there wouldn't be much time for it to ferment. Doubtless it would be ready for Valentine's Day, but that was no help now. Plus, I still hadn't come up with a name for it. Because it tends to fizz and froth when first applied, and because it was created by me, Bud Tocks, I thought of calling it "Pop Tocks." Then, because of the "mild tingling" sensation it produces, I thought of calling it "Bud's Fire Water." Now, however, because of the dark, earthy hue it's acquired, I may just call it, "Bud Tocks From The Black Lagoon."

But for now, I had a mission to track down Shawn's cologne. My first obstacle was discovering that "Gabbana" isn't spelled like "banana" with a G. Well, excuuuse me. The second obstacle was discovering that Wal-Mart, which does sell "Curious" by Britney Spears and "Spirit" by Antonio Banderas, doesn't sell anything made by Dolce and Gabbana. Neither does Big Lots (!) or my neighborhood Walgreen's. Who ever Dolce and Gabbana were, they couldn't be too popular if their cologne didn't share shelf space with the Olsen Twins or Jennifer Lopez.

Why doesn't anybody wear "Old Spice" anymore? It's a classic, and easy to find, too. Frankly, I don't think Americans need this much choice when it comes to personal odor. And since when does every woman semi-capable of shrieking into a microphone inspire a "fragrance?" Does anyone really want to smell like Celine Dion? Can she really smell any better than a $6.99 half quart of Jovan "Musk"?

Defeated, I returned home empty-handed and began to look for the cologne online. I found that for such an unpopular cologne, Dolce and Gabbana certainly thought a lot of themselves, price wise. What in the world could justify the price of this tiny bottle of smelly fluid? Luckily, I found answers. Most of them came from Epionions.com, a site where you can rate any product based on your own personal expectations, realistic or otherwise. If you're ever bored, I strongly suggest you visit this site and just read some random product reviews.

Dolce and Gabbana, it turns out, received the highest possible rating (5 stars) from a number of unique users. Join me now as I revisit some of the most convincing reviews.

"Zoorpa9" volunteers the following opinion:

Pros: It's nice warm undertone-base layer. More sophisticated than most.
Cons: Hard to find in rural America, if you live there.

This one is the core cologne of my arsenal of colognes. I wear it for day or night. It has complex top notes and a warm sensual base. I use Dolce & Gabbana regularly and the experience is great every time. People regularly complement me that I smell really good. It is great for upscale events as well as clubbing at South Beach hot spots. It may be a little more expensive than others out there, but it is worth it. I bought this on a whim while on vacation two years ago, it was that nice. I get positive vibes from most people anyway wearing nothing, but I like the positive reaction especially that I get from wearing it. There is not much to hate if anything.

Zoorpa9 sounds like a real "arsenal". Let's all send him some "good vibes" and move on to the next, no less compelling, review.

"gdog1982" wants the share the following:

Pros: Spicy scent, Designer, unique
Cons: Sprayer sprays very little

I have used this cologne many times and it has been excellent. The smell is very unique and would not be mistaken for any other type of cologne. I wore this all the time and would only need to use very little to have a nice smell. It is very lasting and can stay on for the whole day without reapplying. I got many compliments when using this cologne and i myself loved smelling it. I think it is a little pricey but that is expected because it is put out by a big designer brand. The bottle is basic shaped and does not have any special decorations. The box that it comes in has a velvety feel to it and is a very nice package. The cologne sprayer only sprays out small amounts when using it but a couple of sprays should be sufficient. The smell of this cologne is not overpowering like other lower priced or over priced colognes. If you are looking for a way to wear designer cologne and not drain your wallet this is the cologne for you. This cologne will also not annoy others who smell it because it has a spicy and pleasant smell. I recommend this cologne because it is unique when a lot of the other colognes out in the market have very similar smells.

He, himself, loved the smell. What more can one want? Let's read on and find out.

"Desimishu" says:

Pros: SEXY APPEAL!!
Cons: can be expensive

This is a great mens fragrance. An awesome olfactory experience for me when I first smelled it in a sample.The fragrance starts out with a beautiful freshness, with particular citrus notes or oils of bergamot, tangerine, orange and lemon. Hints of sage, tarragon and cardamom work beautifully. The ending smell or dry-down is very woody and rich created by the notes of sandalwood, cedar-wood, tobacco, musk and tonka-bean. A very romantic and sexy fragrance sure to attract the ladies.

This guy know the secret recipie...for attracting "the ladies." If, however, any one out there remains unconvinced of the tonka-bean's powers of magnetism, I offer this final, uncredited review:

5* - When I was in elevator, three girls came on other floor, they had detected my cologne. They told me they wanted to do me because of this cologne that drived them crazy.

Convinced that this complex, fruity, and sophisticated cologne was well worth the price, I bought Shawn some. After all, we all the know the axiom, "Be careful what you wish for." I'm not sure what Shawn will do with all the ladies this cologne will attract, but at least he'll have a "good smell" while doing it.

Love Thy Neighbor
“...Thou shalt Love thy Neighbor as Thyself.”
-Matthew 22:39

“I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me. And it’ll happen to you, too!”
-Abraham “Grandpa” Simpson


When I lived in an apartment in Boston, I had a downstairs neighbor who would call me up at 7 p.m. and whisper hysterically, “I can hear you sweeping!”
“Excuse me?” I’d say.
“You’re sweeping your floor. I can hear it.”
“And?”
“And I’ve recently had surgery, and I need my rest.”
“And?”
“Would you please stop sweeping?”
“No.”
I’d hang up on her, and continue sweeping. Then she’d begin to pound on her ceiling. Then I’d practice tap dancing in a pair of steel toed work boots. My phone would ring again, and then I’d grab the silverware drawer and empty it onto the floor. She’d resume pounding with a violence shocking for a woman recently incapacitated by surgery. Then I’d tiptoe very quietly into the kitchen and grab my one pot and a wooden spoon. When all was calm and quiet for a minute or two, I’d put the pot upside down on the floor and perform a percussion solo I called, “My Downstairs Neighbor is a Pathological Liar.” For over two years this woman claimed to have “just had surgery” and needed to rest, which means that either she was having major invasive surgery every two days or that she was, as my song asserted, a complete pathological liar. Everything I did kept her from “resting,” including showering, washing dishes, and walking on the floor. If anyone anywhere in the building was making noise, she’d call me, day or night. The phone would wake me from a dead sleep and a tiny voice weak with agony would demand that I turn my stereo down.
“My stereo isn’t on,” I’d say. “You just woke me up.”
“Someone is playing a stereo very loudly.”
“It’s not me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Well, who is it then?”
“How the fuck should I know?”

I hung up on this woman more times than I can count. I also slammed my door in her face more than once, after inviting her to call the authorities to have me hauled off for having pizza delivered after 10 p.m. Once I attempted to actually talk to her, and to calmly state that she couldn’t reasonably expect to never hear me walking on my floor or flushing my toilet. I assured her these were things I simply had to do. When she asked how I expected her to cope with it, I suggested she move far, far into the country, into a vine covered cottage nestled in a shady glen at the end of a long unpaved road. It was our one and only chat.

So I know that neighbors can be troublesome. I also know that one can reasonably expect to be inconvenienced by them from time to time. I am not what I would consider an “unreasonable person,” and I don’t expect the world to bend itself to my will every time I feel like whining. I wouldn’t mind if it did, of course, but I don’t expect it.

That being said, I must also say this: I hate our new neighbors.

I’d hate them even more if I knew who they were. It’s impossible to tell which of the dozen or so 15 to 20 year olds constantly coming and going at all hours of the day and night actually live in the house next door. They come on bikes, scooters, and skateboards. They come in tricked out Cadillac Escalades with neon running boards and Ford Escorts held together with duct tape. Spot any kid within a five mile radius of my house wearing a knit cap, baggy clothes, and a smart-ass smirk, and it’s a given that they’re headed to the house next door to hang out in the front yard, smoke, drink cheap beer, scream obscenities and be cool. Occasionally, they enjoy climbing up onto their roof to pass a pipe around while having a witty 3 a.m. conversation, every word of which can clearly be heard from my bedroom window less than 20 feet away.

Boy 1: “Hey dude, are you going to get food?”
Boy 2: “Yeah, so?”
Boy 1: “Will you get me a burger?”
Boy 2: “Where’s your money?”
Boy 1: “Come on man, don’t be a dick.”
Boy 3: “Ha ha ha.”
Girl 1: “You’re so sexy.”
Boy 3: “Thanks.”
Boy 1: “Where’s Damien?”
Boy 2: “Who the fuck cares?”
Boy 3: “Dude, I like totally had art with Damien.”
Boy 1: “Yeah, I know. Me too.”
Girl 1: “I totally love your art.”
Boy 1: “Thanks.”
Girl 1: “It’sexy.”
Boy 1: “Yeah, I know.”
Girl 1: “I, like, totally love Damien.”
Boy 1: “Yeah, he’s cool.”
Boy 2: “Me and Damien like totally threw up once.”
Boy 3: “Dude, I remember that! That was sick.”
Girl 1: “Damien’s awesome.”
Boy 1: “Dude, give me a cigarette.”
Boy 2: “Fuck no.”
Boy 1: “Come on man, don’t be a dick.”
Girl 2: “Ha ha ha.”
Boy 2: “Dude, I’ll kick your ass.”
Girl 1: “I totally love you. You’re so sexy.”
Boy 2: “Thanks.”
Girl 1: “Who’s car is that?”
Boy 2: “Is that Damien?”
Boy 1: “I’ll go see. How the fuck do I get down?”
Girl 1: “Ha ha ha.”
Boy 1: “Seriously, I don’t remember.”
Boy 3: “Just jump.”
Boy 1: “Fuck you, bro.”
Boy 2: “I’ll kick your fuckin’ ass.”
Girl 1: “You’re so sexy!”


If people want to drink, smoke whatever, engage in profound conversation and fall deeply in love, it’s really none of my concern. I don’t have the time to evaluate the motivations or personal choices of complete strangers unless they’re amusing. So why do I hate them? It could be because our dogs aren’t used to such goings on next door, and respond to every slamming car door and every scream of “Dude, I’m so wasted!” with a window rattling barrage of barking and snarling. It could be that I hate them because of the empty beer bottles left in our mailbox, or the trash that blows over from their yard into ours. It could be because a few of them actually live in a tent pitched in the back yard, or that our trash collection bins are always full of empty beer cans and covered over with old, stained mattresses. I could hate them for the nonstop noise, the cars parked along the front of our house, or for any one of inconsiderate, un-neighborly things they do that would have made my past downstairs neighbor collapse into the fetal position, whispering over and over “I’ve just had surgery...I need my rest...I’ve just had surgery...I need my rest...”

Or, I could hate them because I find myself saying, “Those damn kids next door are at it again.” Or because I find myself hanging out my bedroom window and shaking my fist, screaming, “You goddam kids better quiet down over there!” Goddam kids? Since when do I use the term “goddam kids?” Have I actually arrived at the point in my life when I let a pack of rowdy teenagers get the best of me? Am I actually old enough now to consider an 18 year old a kid? Have I become the uncool and grumpy old man who lives next door, constantly telling them to “knock that racket off,” “harshing their buzz,” and pooping on their party?

The oldest I’ve ever felt is when I found myself on the phone with a police dispatcher reporting that “those damn kids next door are being too loud and probably doing drugs.” I felt even older as I lurked by my darkened window, waiting for the cops to arrive so I could watch them bust up the party. Imagine my giddiness when not one, but two squad cars pulled up. Imagine the delicious satisfaction of suddenly hearing everything fall so quiet that I could hear “Shiiiiiit” being muttered under someone’s breath. A-ha! Take that, you punks! You hooligans! That’ll teach you to be young and free-spirited! Not on my watch, bucko!
While I was sad that the oleander hedge completely obscured my view of the two uniformed officers approaching the party now quietly assembled on the gravel of the front yard next door, I was, for once, glad I could hear every word.

Officer 1: “You kids having some kind of party over here?”
Boy 1: “No officer.”
Boy 2: “We’re just, you know, hangin’ out.”
Officer 1: “Is there a reason you need to be hanging out outside? It’s after 3 a.m.”
Girl 1: “We were just waiting for my friend.”
Officer 2: “And you weren’t climbing up on the roof there?”
Boy 1: “What? No, officer.”
Officer 2: “Then why did we get a report saying that there were people up on the roof?”
Girl 1: “Oh, well, they were up on the roof, but they were just waiting for me.”
Boy 2: “That was, like, just one time.”
Officer 1: “Are you kids doing drugs out here?”
Girl 1: “What?”
Boy 2: “What?”
Boy 1: “No officer.”
Officer 1: “Do you all live here?”
Girl 1: “I do.”
Officer 1: “You realize this is a residential neighborhood. Your neighbors don’t appreciate you outside being loud this time of night.”
Girl 1: “Oh my God! I’m so sorry. I had no idea we were being loud.”
Officer 1: “Why don’t you move the party inside?”
Girl 1: “Oh, God, we totally will.”
Officer 2: “If we get called back again tonight, you’re going to the only one in trouble since this is your residence. Understand?”
Girl 1: “I’m so sorry.”
Officer 1: “Keep it down now. We don’t want to come back.”
Girl 1: “Thank you, officer.”
Officer 2: “You all have a good night, now.”


I was disappointed. Clearly the punks were lying. Why weren’t batons smashing some skulls? Why weren’t pockets being turned out, evidence confiscated, and perps being wrestled roughly to the asphalt? No one even searched the house or looked into the back yard, where a beer can pyramid had toppled at the entrance to the tent. Where were the handcuffs and the Miranda rights? Where was the mace and tear gas? Where was the justice?

As the squad cars pulled away, Boy 1 said to Girl 1, “You totally played that off awesome.”
Girl 1: “I fucking hate cops.”
Boy 2: “Assholes.”
Girl 1: “How did they know about the pot?”
Boy 3: “Dude, they can totally smell that shit.”
Girl 1: “I hate cops.”
Boy 2: “Man, this one time? These cops were totally trying to hassle me and my friend, and we were all like, Fuck you man!”
Boy 1: “Man, I had the cops after me in Montana, and in Colorado, and in fuckin’ Oklahoma, but I was all like, Fuck you, man!”
Girl 1: “Oh my God! That’s so sexy!”
Boy 1: “I wonder who fuckin’ called the cops.”
Boy 2: “Assholes.”
Girl 1: “Fuckin’ neighbors.”

There was more, but it was much quieter, and it was hard to hear. I waited for a little while for one of them to do something loudly, so I could summon less forgiving authorities, but nothing happened. After a while I gave up. It was late and I needed my rest.

Nickelback Annoys Me
You might be asking, "Just what the Dickens is a Nickelback?" If you are, it can only mean that the rock you live under is heavier and more secluded than mine. You have my jealousy. It also means that you have less exposure to popular TV and radio than I do. That's no easy task. Without cable, my channel selections are limited to five Spanish networks, five Christian networks, and two home shopping networks.

Sure, these stations can be entertaining, but never intentionally. The best Spanish station features a dead-eyed and stoned-looking Latina chick bending over a used Hyundai in a miniskirt and stiletto heels while a leering mariachi band plays in the background. These are ads for La Familia used car dealership, and they go on for hours. The Latina chick wanders from car to car in the lot, suggestively stroking stick shifts and steering wheels, followed by a fat man with a mustache and a microphone. The production qualities are pathetic, but not as pathetic as the Latina chick's occasional attempts at erotic dancing. Raising her arms above her head, the Latina chick makes a feeble attempt at wiggling her hips but comes dangerously close to falling off her heels. Then she stares expressionlessly at the cameraman until he decides to shoot an extreme close-up of her belly button jewelry. And the band plays on.

My second favorite station always seems to be airing the same game show, also in Spanish. This show both fascinates and perplexes me. I just don't get it. True, I don't speak Spanish, but I still feel that I should be able to get the jist of what's going on. It works with Spanish soap operas, so why not a game show? The show features two Latina women, scantily clad and heavily made up. They are joined by a man with a silver cape and a microphone. They exchange a few words, and then music begins to play and the women dance. Then a man is pulled from the studio audience. I gather he is the "contestant." The contestant stands between the two women on stage, and exchanges a few words with the man in the sliver cape. Then the women begin to dance again, making sexy cooing sounds as the camera zooms in on various jiggling body parts. The dancing is interrupted by a fat man who runs onto the stage in a dress, and pretends to cry. The women run over to comfort him/her until someone in a gorilla suit appears and threatens him/her with a plastic novelty mallet. The gorilla chases the man in the dress off the stage, the man in the silver cape shakes the contestant's hand, and the women begin to dance again. The end.

When I tire of not being able to understand what anyone is saying, I turn to the Christian stations. While they do speak English, I still can't understand what most of them are saying. Or, more precisely, I can't understand why anyone would want to listen to what's being said. Did you know God doesn't want us to eat fatty foods high in carbohydrates? Did you know that Bible is not only the word of God, it's a cookbook? It's true. The televangelist I heard it from lost three inches from his waistline following a diet outlined by God. I also enjoy the frequent appearances of "celebrities" like Mr. T, Tracey Gold, and Kirk Cameron, all of whom claim to have been led to the brink of damnation by sinful Hollywood...as if any of them would know anything about Hollywood.

And then there's Jan Crouch, darling of the Trinity Broadcasting network. Aside from hosting Christian liposuction seminars and speaking in tongues, she travels the globe terrifying sick and underprivileged children in the name of charity and ratings.

From there, it's a short surf to the Home Shopping Network. It's easy to get the shopping networks and Christian networks confused, because they both feature scary women who urge you to get your credit cards ready and call now. The great thing about the shopping network is how unbelievably fake these women are, and I don't just mean their "youthful" appearances. One minute they're featuring Helga and her fabulous Goat Cheese Cold Cream, and the hostess says, "You know, Helga, I just love this product! I never use anything else!" Then Helga leaves, and Suzanne Somers comes on with her Seaweed and Raspberry Cold Cream. "You know, Suzanne," the same hostess shrieks, "I just love this product! I never use anything else!"

Given the options available to me, it should come as no surprise that I don't watch much TV. The radio stations down here are pretty much the same mix. Half Spanish, lots of country, several Christian stations, and a few top 40 stations. When Lindsay Lohan, Kelly Clarkson, and Ashlee Simpson start competing for air time it's time to tune out. I am proud to say that I have never knowingly listened to song by any of these "artists" all the way through. In fact, I can't listen to the radio at all anymore. It pisses me off.

Sometimes I'll forget myself while I'm in the car on the way to work, and I'll unconsciously turn on the radio. I'll hear a line or two of a song, get disgusted, and shut it off. Lines like, "If I could fly into the sky, do you think time would pass us by?" send me into sputtering fits of outraged ranting and steering wheel pounding. "Fly into the sky?" Where else would you fly? Flying underwater is called swimming, flying underground is called tunneling, and flying on the Earth's surface is called falling. Is the singer in an airplane or flying under their own power? Either way, flight has no effect on time; the two aren't related, except that "into the sky" and "pass us by" rhyme, albeit at the expense of logic. The question "If I could fly into the sky, do you think time would pass us by" is asinine. Who the fuck cares? Who wrote this song? Who decided to play it? Who's buying the album and why? It sucks! Doesn't anyone see that? Has the world gone mad?

So, anyway, for the last several weeks the line I always catch when I forget myself and switch on the radio goes like this:

"Look at this photograph,
Every time I do it makes me laugh."

It's innocent enough until you ask yourself this question: When was the last time you called a picture a "photograph?" I'll tell you when: never. Nobody says, "Excuse me, will you take a photograph for us?" or "Gee, this is a great photograph of you." No one calls their photo album a "photograph album" or a picture frame a "photograph frame." The word was obviously chosen for its rhyming capability with "laugh," but it's so artificial I can't stand it. It makes me crazy. Seriously. I fume over it. Why couldn't they have just gone with:

"Look at this picture,
Every time I do I snicker."

Refusing to turn on my car (sorry, automobile) radio no longer keeps me safe. In an innocent attempt to watch the Simpsons on TV (sorry again, I meant television), I was assaulted by the fist two lines of this damn song (oops...musical audio recording ) in a Verizon cellular ad (I mean, a Verizon Cellular Communications Corporation advertisement). It seems the music video performance of the song, called "Photograph" and performed by the band "Nickelback," is now available for viewing on your cellular telephone.

I'm familiar with the idom "you can't have too much of a good thing," but when "too much of a bad thing" becomes inescapable, it's time to head on out into the desert and look for a cave with a nice view. And that's why Nickelback annoys me. The end. That's it. I'm done.

Send in the dancing Latinas.

The New Year is coming at me faster than a sack of potatoes dropped from considerable height...say, from the top of the Stratosphere Casino, or off the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, the chances of me being under the Golden Gate Bridge when a person or persons unknown decided to fling a sack of potatoes off of it are pretty slim, especially since I'd have to be in a boat. I am seldom found boating nowadays, and I've never been to San Francisco. (Did you know that Arizona has more boats per capita than any other state in the union? It's true!) I've been to the Stratosphere Casino in Las Vegas, but the only thing that fell on my head there was rain. Actually, the whole "being struck from above by a sack of potatoes dropped from considerable height" scenario isn't very likely, which makes it a terrible metaphor for inevitability. I guess I'm just not on top of my game today, which isn't surprising, considering my mood.

I've discovered last year's list of New Year's resolutions. There are quite a few resolutions I haven't kept, each one a broken promise to myself and a personal failure. Some of them, like "Give more to charity" and "Eat healthier and exercise more," aren't significant blows to my ego. Everyone writes these down, but few of us really mean it. I know I sure didn't. I just felt like no list of resolutions would be complete without them. In fact, according to a recent survey, those are two of the top 10 most popular resolutions. Other top resolutions include quitting some unhealthy habit or another (smoking, drinking, voting Republican), getting organized, getting out of debt, getting educated, and the ubiquitous "enjoy life more." Whether someone who's just given up smoking and gone on a diet is going to enjoy life more while organizing the garage to make room for exercise equipment is doubtful to me, but perhaps that's just the negative attitude that's kept me from keeping so many of my resolutions.

What resolutions did I make? Which resolutions did I keep? Which fell by the wayside? I'm so relieved you asked. Frankly, if you hadn't, this blog would have ended awkwardly, and I'd have yet another personal failure on my hands.

The following is a list of resolutions I made late in 2004:


Be crowned King of somewhere or something.

Consider thinking about possibly maybe deciding to quit smoking sometime in the future.

Give up false modesty. I'm lousy at it anyway.

Stop snapping "Don't you tell me what to do! You ain't the boss of me!" every time my boss asks me to do something.

Respond to that jury summons.

Appear on cover of The National Enquirer, along with headline including the word "romp."

Sue The National Enquirer.

Give more to charity.

Eat healthier and exercise more.

Dust ceiling fans.

Buy Microsoft and change name to "Crazy Eddie's."

Stop flinging sacks of potatoes off tall buildings and bridges.

Remove "Kill Whitey" bumper sticker from van.

Stop ending blogs awkwardly.


Excepting the bumper sticker resolution, this list was simply carried forward from 2003, and most of those were carried over from 2002. I've been working with the same core list since I was 27. Perhaps my resolution this year should be to come up with new resolutions. Or, I can just add it to the list.

I'm not going to sweat it too much, though. After all, when all is said and done, cantaloupes and bananas.

Love Plumber
Ah, the words of love... Je t'adore. Ti amo. Te quiero (Taco Bell y tu, Senorita mucho caliente!). If you were Swedish and in love, you'd say to your beloved, "Jag aelskar dig." Isn't that sweet? It's almost like, "I dig you." If you were Srilankan, you'd probably say, "Mama oyata arderyi." Serbians and Serbocroatians say, "Volim te," but if you were Slovak, you'd say, "Volim ta."

If you were Thai, you'd say, "Khao raak thoe." I'd be careful to sound affectionate when using that one-it sounds insulting to me, kind of like, "You rank ho!" In Japanese, the words your heart are searching for could be "Watakushi-wa anata-wo ai shimasu," but you've got to talk fast if you want to cram that toe-tingler into a tender moment. You Klingons out there can get right to the point with "SoHvaD vIghajtaH," Germans have the efficient "Ich liebe dich" (I ain't touching that one), and Bavarians have the creamy "I mog di narrisch gern."

In any language, love is indeed a splendid thing. However, when love turns not-so-splendid, it's the stuff of some spectacularly bad language. And I don't mean swears (although they are, I've discovered, an intricate part of it). I mean poetry.

Any writer will tell you that when emotions are running high, words flow fast from the heart to the pen, completely bypassing the brain. Luckily, most writers have the sense to erase those words once they've calmed down. Others, however, do not. Others post them on the internet.

Today, I offer you a selection of poems written by angry young men who've had their souls cleaved by the icy blade of betrayal. Treachery, thy name is woman! And woman, thy name is...well, never mind. I'll let the poets themselves tell you.

Is every break-up poem "just another somebody done somebody wrong song?" Certainly not. That would be like saying every angry young man is like every other angry young man, which would only make them all angrier. And then they'd write more poetry. And none of us wants that.


While these poems were all posted on line and signed by their authors, I have abbreviated their names to keep it all from getting too personal. After all, if a poem is good, it speaks for and to legions.



Suicidal Cunt
By D. D.


The Beautiful Bitch is Depressed and
Seeing a Psychologist.
Maybe suicidal.


Oh, well,
Goodbye!
Have a Nice Slice.

When she forgot I existed,
I already imagined myself
drowned beneath a pond
and thought it was Beautiful and somewhat
Romantic,
in a weird way.

So if she kicks the bucket
I will also think
that's Beautiful
and clip out her Obituary
for posting on my Bulletin Board.

When guests comment on the strange artifact,
I'll say Oh
that was some crazy bitch I once knew...
playing Cool -n- Non-Chalant...

but black flowers will blossom in my mind
as I remember her
and it will actually be Classical and Timeless
like the Crypt of the Vampire Queen.


Wow. Give me a moment, my breath has been taken away. Such passion! It's clear this poem is far deeper than the pond the author imagined he'd "drowned beneath." Like that pond beneath another pond, this poem is multi-layered and impossible to grasp using only common sense. On the one hand, he denies the extent of his his anguish ("playing Cool -n- Non-Chalant..."), but on the other hand, he knows his bravado is a farce, and he is eternally enslaved to his "Vampire Queen." This "Bulletin Board," then, must be the battlefield on which his warring emotions are broadcast to the world. In fact, the poem itself becomes that "Bulletin Board." Yes, this one is sure to haunt you, "like black flowers" blooming in your mind.


Two Years Later
By A. S.


Life is a battlefield
Of choices made
And choices waiting
To be made,
Even if your choice
Is not choose.

And I have made
Some choices
That I sometimes regret--
Like opening up to
A total stranger,
Pretending to be
An aspiring writer,
Who took my heart
And stepped
All over it,

While I tried
To believe that
There was
Something greater
Between us.

The only thing
That I found is
That some people
Do not live
Their lives in the open,

Hiding some dirty
Past secrets that
Bring on guilt
And shame.

And they try to flush
Their past
Down the toilet, but
The lies just keep
Building up
And the toilet backs up,

And the plunger won't work
This time.

I wanted to be your lover,
Not your plumber to help
Your lies from interfering
With your social life.

Even back then
You kept saying
That you loved me
But referred to me
As some friend of
Your nonexistent
Norwegian husband,
And you never wanted
Anyone to know about
Your fatherless children,

As if your children
Are a source of shame.

And all I wanted was love
And openness.

But all I got were lies,
Lies and more lies.

Well, it's been two years
Now since you wrote me
That love poem, calling me
Your soft and wild
Lover and a clutter in
Your pink laws.

But all the softness
And wildness have gone
Somehow, after I returned
To Connecticut, dissolved
In all the fantasies
Of some ideal love.

And all I have are just
Old love letters and
Pictures of you and
Your children on my PC,
Fading in hollow dreams
That I could ever be a part
Of your family.

Well, go ahead and
Pretend that we never met,
Cringing about my
Bad breath, dandruff,
Receding hairline,
And social awkwardness,
While hiding behind the name
Of your nine years younger
Adolescent husband.

I suppose he's good at
Fixing your computer
Troubles because all your
Big writing career
Revolves around
Internet gossip and
All the things
You'd like others
To believe.

Well, I don't take
Myself as seriously--
I once believed in us
And our future together
Only to have my books,
Dedicated to you,
Thrown in the garbage
And have you deny
Ever knowing me.

As Bill Clinton
once said:
"I did not have sex
With that woman,"
Even though the
Evidence pointed
To the contrary.

Well, it's been
Two years since
I've been "that man"
That you choose not
To acknowledge,
And I'm taking my
Life back piece
By piece, refusing
To trash whatever
Tender moments
That we had together.

And we did have them,
Darling.

So, go ahead, and
Pretend that you
Never loved me,
Creating more
Lies and fictions.

It doesn't matter.

All that matters
Is that I'm true
To myself and to
My heart.


December 15, 2005


This poem saddens me, most of all because I wish the title had been "Love Plumber" instead of "Two Years Later." I can almost smell the salty brine of Norway...or is it the author's "bad breath?" Quoting a former President in a poem is always risky, but in this case, I'm sure you agree the risk paid off. What a tangled web we weave with "a clutter" of "pink laws." I think the moral at the end of the poem is good, if not a bit trite. It's not as haunting as "Suicidal Cunt," but it's definitely more revealing, and scores points for including the date it was written.

Well, that's all the time we have for today's "Angry Young Man Poetry Round-Up." Keep your eye out for our future feature, "Whiny Women Writing About Lost Love and Rain."

Auf Wiedersehen!

Burn, Baby, Burn
This captivating femme fatale is known in Marvel Comic circles as Dark Phoenix. But, at the same time, she is also Jean Grey (a.k.a. Marvel Girl). Jean Grey is a telekinetic telepath (she has the ability to move objects with her mind and the ability to read the minds of others), and she's one of the original founding members of the X-Men. Jean Grey becomes Dark Phoenix when The Phoenix Force takes over her body and consciousness. Just what the heck is a Phoenix Force, you ask? From whence does it come, and what does it want? And why's it picking on Jean Grey? I'm not exactly sure. I looked on line for a cohesive explanation, and this was the best one I could find:

"The Phoenix Force is the nexus of all psionic energy which does, has, and ever will exist in all realities of the multiverse. During its time as a sentient entity, it was known to possess the psyche of mortals (particularly those who happen to be telepaths) and thus amplify their psychic abilities to a cosmic (and in some cases, nearly incalculable) scale. Its primary form is that of a gigantic firebird."

Do you get it now? No? Me either. This is precisely why comic books only work as comic books. If the terms "psionic energy" and "multiverse" are part of your everyday vocabulary, chances are you're male and spend lots of in your basement bedroom wondering why more women don't wear spandex bodysuits and why none want to accompany you to next weekend's Sci-Fi convention.

"Hold on just a second," you might be thinking. "How can you judge these people when you, yourself, are blogging about things such as psionic energy and multiverses? Doesn't that prove that you're just like them? Aren't you being hypocritical?" And my reply would be, "No, I'm not. Now shut up."

I am not an expert on things such as psionic enery, multiverses, or the X-Men. In fact, up until about three years ago, I was oblivious to them. So why am I writing about these things now? What's changed? The answer isn't a what but rather a who. Shawn is an X-Men fan. And, being the warm and sensitive soul that I am, I like to take an interest in Shawn's interests. It began with the X-Men movies, and then came all 5 seasons of the X-Men animated series from the 90's, which Shawn has on pirated DVDs. Then there were a few reprints of the first of the X-Men comic series, to see where it all began. And then there were the two X-Men Legends video games. Regular readers of this blog will know that finding a video game that Shawn and I both enjoy playing is cause for some celebration. Yay. And, finally, there came the collection of X-Men Legends action figures.

None of this means that I'll be moving into a basement and sealing all my reading material into little plastic bags. I reject the ideals of the comic enthusiast and their sweatpants-wearing, Taco Bell-centric lifestyle. I have no desire to see the She-Hulk and Wonder Woman wrestle in a tub filled with radioactive pudding. In fact, I feel only pity for the cripplingly large breasted comic book super heroines whose creators send them charging off into battle with nothing more than an enchanted corset and thigh high boots (and, for the very last time gentlemen, a cape is not a daytime accessory). I, personally, don't have an "ideal woman," but if I did, the ability to lift a tank wouldn't be a part of that ideal. I also reject the notion that I'm perpetuating a negative comic book enthusiast stereotype. Have you ever seen a Gay Pride March? I'd be happy to swap stereotypes anytime. I'm not passing judgment here anyway. I'm just saying that spending my weekends playing Dungeons and Dragons in the smoke-free back room of a comic book shop, slaying evil trolls with my magical elf, isn't my idea of a good time. If it were, I'd attend more Gay Pride Marches.

About now, you might be thinking, "While this is all enormously fascinating, I'm not quite sure where this blog is going. Do you really expect me to sit here and waste my valuable time reading about some fictional flaming schizophrenic and Gay Pride Marches? Have you gone mad?" I'd probably reply, "I'm trying to set something up here, so just be quiet and let me think." And then you might say, "Well, I just don't find this kind of thing very interesting." And then I'd say, "So go write your own blog then." And then you might say, "Fine, I will. Your blogs suck anyway." And then I'd say, "Oh yeah? Then why do you bother to read them?" And then you wouldn't be able to think of a comeback right away. You'd think of a really good one hours later, but by then it would be too late, and I'd have already won this round. So there. Nyah.

Anyway, "The Phoenix Saga" began in 1976 and has since become one of the most recurrent, rehashed, revised and convoluted story lines in comic book history. You'd be surprised how much trouble a bird-shaped nexus of psionic energy can be, and how difficult it's made life for Jean Grey. In a nutshell, when Jean Grey is left to her own devices, she's Miss Pretty and Perfect in classic comic book do-gooder sense. But when the Phoenix Force possesses her, she becomes Dark Phoenix and a heck of a lot more fun- kind of like Olivia Newton-John's transformation at the end of Grease, only darker. Dark Phoenix is arrogant and vengeful and says things like, "I am fire and life incarnate." She can destroy an entire planet and its billions of inhabitants with a thought. She has the power to unravel the very fabric of existence, and has come close to erasing the entire universe more than once.

The photo that begins this blog is from "Phoenix:Endsong," a series of four comic books that endeavors to end The Phoenix Saga once and for all, thirty years after it began...even if it had to bring Jean Grey back from the dead to do it. Jean Grey's died a few times, but then, which of the X-Men hasn't? She's also had her mind controlled or wiped blank, spent several years at the bottom of the ocean in a cocoon, and been repeatedly dragged back and forth through both space and time. How else could she fight evil, side by side, with her daughter from an alternate future? All in a day's work for the X-Men.

And now we enter the very Nexus of this blog, where all things converge. Jean Grey, Dark Phoenix, Shawn, and Christmas (not Gay Pride Marches, though, we're done with that...for now) will all come together in a neatly gift wrapped blog package.

I mentioned that one of Shawn's hobbies is collecting X-Men action figures. Another hobby of his is having no response to the question, "What would you like for Christmas?" This is a direct contrast to the lists I have prepared for just such an inquiry, lists that leave no room for doubt, creativity, or frugal price-taggery. But this isn't about me, it's about Shawn. While we're out shopping, he might point to one or two things he sees in the store and might want, only to later change his mind and say, "You know, it's just not a fun thing to get for Christmas." Meanwhile, the item had already been bought and is sitting wrapped in my closet, and I begin to think of murdering him. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

And so, I began my Christmas shopping with no helpful input from the intended recipient. I also began it quite early, before Halloween. I began early because I had decided to get him an X-Men figure. What could be more fun than a spanking new figure to add to the collection? But I wasn't looking for just any figure. I was looking for Dark Phoenix. Since her first possession by the Phoenix Force, Jean Grey has taken to calling herself Phoenix. When she's being actively possessed, and therefore evil, she's Dark Phoenix. Shawn already has the Jean Grey/Phoenix action figure, so I figured he needed the Dark Phoenix action figure to complete the set. Since both figures are essentially Jean Grey, you may be wondering what the difference is. How can you tell if Phoenix is naughty or nice? Well, it's easy. Jean Gray/Phoenix wears a green outfit, and Dark Phoenix wears a red one.

The green Phoenix is relatively easy to find. Dark Phoenix, however, is a "variant." This means that there fewer of them made. Where does one go to find a rare Dark Phoenix? eBay, of course.

I will spare you the details of the fierce bidding war in which I soon found myself, assaulted from all sides by rabid collectors attracted to the phrase "mint in package." (It appears that these collectors prefer their action figures come to them in a virginal state. How creepy and old fashioned.) It was hell, but I persevered grimly, all the while reminding myself to make Shawn promise he wouldn't pose his figures like they are in this photo I found on the net. Just what kind of pervert poses his dollies and takes pictures of them? And what other pictures did he pose them in that no one else will ever see? Ewwww!

But it was about to get worse. Much, much worse. Remember when I said that I had started looking for the figure on eBay before Halloween? Are you wondering why I'm bringing it up again? The answer waits on the other side of the following empty space, but I must warn you. What follows may shock you. It may appall you. It might make you say "What the fuck?" It did all those things to me, and more. It inspired this blog.












Turn back now!
















It's not too late...save yourself!


















This is your LAST warning!

















OK, this is REALLY your last warning!

Ta-da! Yes, that's right; you, too, can be Dark Phoenix for Halloween. Or any other day of the year you've teased your hair and are feeling feisty. Bidding on this item began at only $399.99. Size: Petite. The ad stated that the outfit had been worn only once, "with undergarments, for picture taking purposes." Um, yeah, right. This thing just happens to be the perfect size for the woman wearing it, but it wasn't made for her? That's an interesting coinkydink. The ad also stated that there was a "hole in the feet for the heel of a shoe," but that "shoes were not included." So, ladies, you'll have to come up with your own pair of gold spiked heels.

For some reason, I think the line "I am fire and life incarnate" would be far more disturbing if it was coming from this version of Phoenix. I mean, we've already got a Phoenix and a Dark Phoenix...do we really need Kinky Suburban Housewife Phoenix? Don't get me wrong, this woman does scare me. Deeply and truly. To what nefarious end will she put the wall outlet there behind her? Does she have a Dark Electric Hand Mixer? A Dark Hoover? Somehow, it's just not quite the same, is it? Just for fun, let's do a side by side comparison, shall we?

Having a hard time telling which is which? I'll give you a hint: Marvel's Phoenix is the one that doesn't look like your mom on crack. I almost feel bad for mocking this poor woman, but at the same time, what was she thinking? As a 35 year old man with Simpsons sheets on his bed, I often feel hypocritical when I suggest someone might be too old for something. In this case, however, I'm fearlessly chucking stones from the front steps of my glass house. There is an almost enviable self-confidence in a person who's willing to have photos taken in this get up posted on the net, but then History is littered with the wreckage of misplaced confidence. Doesn't she realize there are people like me about, who thrive on mocking anyone foolish enough to make themselves an easy target? Speaking of targets, what, may I ask, is she attempting to accomplish in this next pose?

If her ass is a secret weapon, she needs to do a better job keeping it secret. But I will admit it's got powers. I can feel myself being repelled by a powerful force even as I write this. "Noooooooo!" I can't help but wonder if she came up with these poses all by herself, or if there was someone on the other side of the camera coaching her. "Come on, baby, you're Dark Phoenix! You're powerful! You're sexy! Show me powerfully sexy!"

After the shock, fits of uncontrollable laughter, and eventual dry-heaving had subsided, I began to think of the marvelous adventures Kinky Suburban Housewife Phoenix could have (and probably already did have, before she decided to sell the suit...ewwwwww!). This is what I came up with:

My verdict? Close, but no freakin' cigar. This Phoenix is going down in flames. Burn, baby, burn! In the end, the outfit never sold. I wonder why? Maybe photos of the outfit simply hanging on a clothes hanger would have improved its chances, but we'll never know. And in case you're curious, I did indeed win Shawn's Dark Phoenix action figure on eBay. It now sits beneath the tree, mint in package, awaiting his childlike glee come Christmas morning. The worst part has been keeping this blog to myself. I am dying to get it out there, to share my pain. It's almost too much to bear alone. But to post this before Christmas would spoil the surprise I've suffered silently to keep. I just hope Shawn appreciates the hefty price I've paid for his Dark Phoenix-not in money, but in nightmares.

Wrap This!
Manufacturers spend millions of dollars annually on developing packaging for their products. The packaging must be lightweight and inexpensive to produce and ship. It must also catch the consumer's eye as well as withstand the consumer's in-store poking and prodding and attempts at theft. No detail is so minute that focus groups and marketing committees haven’t hotly debated its virtue. Thermoformed plastic clamshell or injection molded plastic boxed insert? With or without a hang tab? Cardboard? Bleached chipboard or sleeved corrugated? What about Mylar? What kind of environmental impact will it have?

Fetching photos of the product must be taken. Models (hand, child, other) must be photographed handling and enjoying the product in attractive ways. Safety hazards must be considered and disclaimers positioned in very fine print. Graphic Designers spend feverish, sleepless nights agonizing over fonts, knowing that one misstep could open the door to one of thousands of other graphic designers clogging an overcrowded job market. Sensitivity committees must analyze every aspect of the finished design, searching for inadvertent sexist, racist, or Nazi-related undertones.

Whether it’s Pop Tarts or a plasma TV, a multitude of livelihoods turn on getting products in a box that arouses desire in consumers while preserving freshness. The line between functionality and seduction is mighty fine, and I wouldn't’t want to be the one walking it. It’s a thankless task to be sure, for who among us gives the box a second look once the Pop Tarts are gone? Do we stop for a moment to consider that what we’re discarding is someone else’s ultimate career accomplishment? We’ve taken the blood, sweat, and tears of these artisans for granted for far too long.

Why then, especially in this season of brotherhood, must we heap insult onto injury by gift wrapping all of these works of art? Would you hide a Picasso under gaudy wrapping paper tied off with a bow? (Don’t talk to me gift wrap designers...they’re no more artists than greeting card writers are poets.) Would you cover a sunset with, um, well, let’s see…

OK, fine. The truth of the matter is that I toss Pop Tart boxes out on a weekly basis with nary a second thought. This whole blog has been a farce, a desperate charade. The truth is the only thing I hate more than the psychological and financial strain of choosing and buying a gift is the epic struggle of wrapping it. When a simple chore evolves into a savage attempt to twist the laws of physics and geometry, I get cranky. How can it be that the scissors I was holding not two seconds ago have now vanished into oblivion? Why is losing the tape a condition of finding the scissors? Why can I only find the dull scissors that rip and tear at the paper instead of cutting it, especially when there are no less than four good pair somewhere in the house? When did they start limiting the tape in dispensers to approximately 3 inches? And why do I never buy more than one roll of tape?

I realize my results may not be typical. My epic struggle may be your whistling walk in the park. The fact that the finished product will ultimately end up in tatters only further dampens my already soggy enthusiasm.

Paper selection, or the lack thereof, is always a problem for me. Is there really much call for NASCAR wrapping paper? Why is Coca-Cola attempting to trademark the polar bear? Since when does Batman deliver gifts on Christmas Eve? Usurper! I refuse to pay a premium price for wrapping paper. It may look nice all rolled up, but it will very soon end up tightly wadded in a landfill. It's garbage. I refuse to pay $5.00 for a 10 yard roll of garbage just because it's sparkly.

This year I chose an elegantly understated Scooby Doo themed paper, and not just because I could get 300 square yards of it for less than three dollars. I feel that society needs a mythical cultural icon that embodies the jolly spirit of the season, around which traditions can be established and passed down among generations. It should be someone children adore and adults find charming. Who better than Scooby Doo?

And so it was, having chosen my paper, bought my one roll of tape, and located the dullest of our household scissors, that I sat down with a fairly good sized box at the coffee table and prepared to make some gift wrapping magic. I made a conscious choice to be as jolly as one can be while still retaining power of attorney.

I unrolled some wrapping paper, face down, on the table and placed the box, face down, in the center of it. I pulled one edge over the box and attempted to estimate how much paper would be needed to cover it entirely. I reached for the scissors, when suddenly our cat, Tuesday, heretofore known as the Lighted Receiving Tree Tipper, leapt from under the table where she’d been lurking and sank her claws into the paper overhanging the side of the table. As the box and paper slid off the table, she pounced on the roll, shredding it with her claws and teeth.

“You are a very naughty cat,” I said. “Now go away.” Or something like that. I don’t remember exactly. What I do recall is that the cat fled the room immediately. I was left to pick up several yards of newly “distressed” wrapping paper. I contemplated still using it, but I knew that accusations of being cheap were certain to follow, especially once the paper was removed and the gift was revealed. So I spooled out the damaged paper and scrapped it.

It was with a slight decrease in jolliness that I unrolled some fresh paper, face down, on the table and placed the box, also face down, in the center of it. Again I pulled one edge of the paper over the box and set to work measuring the proper amount of paper. I reached for the scissors, only to find that they were, of course, no longer there.

I knew they couldn't have gone far. Like most scissors, they had poor eyesight and little if any money. Yet they were gone. How? How? While I tore the cushions from the couch and upended the coffee table, I began to dwell on the purple handled scissors.

The purple handled scissors are the Holy Grail of scissors, at least in this house. Shawn uses them for cutting cloth, and he's said that they are never to be used to cut paper, which would dull them. Naturally, those were the scissors I looked for first. After a search of the entire house failed to turn them up, I began to suspect that Shawn had purposefully hidden them from me. Now, knee deep in couch cushions and loose change, I was convinced he had hidden them from me. I was convinced that he didn't trust me not to use them, and had them squirreled away somewhere for safekeeping. That bastard probably hid them in the trunk of his car, or rented a safety deposit box, or brought them to his office. They could be hidden anywhere.

A mental image of Shawn formed in my mind. There he was, under cover of darkness, burying the purple handled scissors in the back yard in an old mayonnaise jar. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and he was laughing, laughing, laughing. He was also slightly taller and dressed as an organ grinder. And if he was the organ grinder, who was he implying was the monkey? Me? It was, after all, his present I was wrapping. That bastard!

I was just about to return his present to the Dollar Store when I spotted the scissors I had lost, sitting inexplicably on top of the TV. I had no memory of putting them there. It was then that I noticed the purple handled scissors, sitting next to TV in plain sight.

Feeling slightly guilty, I reassembled the sofa and gathered my materials for another crack at wrapping the gift. I retrieved the scissors-the dull ones, not the purple handled ones which are not for cutting paper-and sat on the couch. Unfortunately, the roll of wrapping paper was also on the couch. I heard the crunch beneath me and knew immediately what I had just done.

So much for my economical Scooby Doo wrapping paper. So much for my gift wrapping magic. So much for my jolliness. Why, oh why was wrapping a stupid gift so complicated? Why must everything be a hassle?

It occurred to me then that the people who designed the package the gift was in had all put a lot of effort into it, and....

The War On Annual Gift Receiving Day
I don’t celebrate Hanukah. I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa. I don’t celebrate National Glaucoma Awareness Month, National Handwriting Analysis Week, National Home and Sports Eye Safety Month, or Western Samoan Independence Day. I refuse to wish anyone “Happy Honda-Days.” While these are all very fine Holidays, they don’t speak to me as an individual. I don’t celebrate Christmas, either. While I have nothing against celebrating the birth of Christ (after all, he’s the one getting his Christmas loot cut in half), the Catholic Church has told me time and time again that I’m not welcome at their reindeer games. If that’s they way they wanna be about it, fine. I’ll just take my myrrh and go home.

I am, after all, an American. Not only do I have freedom of religion, I also have freedom from religion, even if the President of these United States insists on calling non-Catholics “sinners.” It’s the least of his faults, and I don’t want to get caught up Bush-bashing; there’s no sport in it anymore. For all intents and tax purposes, I am a single white male between the ages of 21 and 35. While you will hear me whining about paying taxes for public schools and family housing subsidies I’ll never be able to use, you don’t often hear me whining about persecution. Until now.

As a productive member of American society, I demand that my beliefs be acknowledged and respected. It is especially important this time of year, when those celebrating conventional “Holidays” seem hell bent on trampling the rest of us. Catholics may have their Christmas Trees. Buddhists may have their Buddha Bush. The National Home and Sports Eye Safety-ists may have their Pointed Conifer of Many Hazards. So why do you refuse to acknowledge my Lighted Receiving Tree?

What’s this? You don’t know what a Lighted Receiving Tree is? Could it be you’ve never heard the story of Annual Gift Receiving Day? I’m not surprised. Annual Gift Receiving Day has, I imagine, been suppressed by The Man and bureaucratic fat-cats since its inception a few weeks ago. Yes, Annual Gift Receiving Day may be new, but it’s here to stay. Just look how fast Kwanzaa caught on. I assure you; our numbers are growing, and our voices shall be heard.

Since those celebrating Annual Gift Receiving Day are all about receiving gifts, not purchasing them and giving them, boycotting stores that refuse to acknowledge us may at first seem futile. But those giving us the gifts we receive have to purchase them from somewhere. With the high-end, big-ticket items we demand to receive each year, that adds up to some pretty big bucks. Frankly, there are too many relatives, significant others, and friends who will feel obligated to buy for us, no matter how obnoxious we are, for Madison Avenue to continue to ignore our outcry.

We realize Rome wasn’t built in a day. We must give retailers a chance to educate themselves on the ways of the Receivers. Therefore, we cannot outright boycott all retailers that refuse to wish their shoppers who may be browsing for gifts to add to their lists a Profitable Annual Gift Receiving Day. Those of you shopping for an Annual Gift Receiving Day gift for an Annual Gift Receiving Day Receiver must remember our cause. A panel of founding Annual Gift Receiving Day Receivers has, after much deliberation, issued a list of retailers approved by the Annual Gift Receiving Day community. To purchase a gift from any retailer not on the approved list is to undermine our cause! If you’ve already purchased a gift from, oh, say, Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store, which are not on the approved list, you should return it at once and inform them just why you are returning it. Don’t be shy, make a scene! The approved retail store list is as follows:

B&H Camera and Photo
Foto Forum
Macy’s
Saks Fifth Avenue
Best Buy
Robinson’s May/Filenes
J. Crew

The following stores have an “on item approval” status:

Target

Also acceptable:

Cash


Without solidarity, the very spirit of our season of joy is threatened. I urge you to preserve our fledgling way of life. You wouldn’t kill a puppy, would you? So why surrender to these Holiday fascists? Yes, the war on Annual Gift Receiving Day has begun and we are, all of us, on the front lines. Some of us are just a little further back than others. After all, someone’s got to plug in the Lighted Receiving Tree.

The 24 Days of Anticipation
Well, once again I seem to be guilty of infrequent blogging. To this charge I have but one response; What am I? Your bitch? I don't think so.

When last I blogged, the dogs had been fighting like dogs. What canine compulsion caused such calamitous commotion? Like foot fetishes and Ashlee Simpson's career, it will forever remain a freakish perversion I just don't understand. Or when advertisers refer to their products as products...I don't get that either. "Save on these exciting products!" Products, you say? I love products! Or the Flip Flop Shop. Can you really build a footwear empire selling cheap rubber sandals? I was at the mall the other day and the Flip Flop Shop was packed with Flopper Shoppers. Do flip flops really make great gifts? I don't get it. And why are people buying video games, t-shirts and toys based on Peter Jackson's new King Kong movie when all anyone has seen of it yet has been in car commercials? Are movies really anything nowadays other than commercials for video games, t-shirts, toys and cars? I just don't get it.

Speaking of getting, can you believe there are only twenty-odd days left until Annual Gift Receiving Day? Where has the time gone? I find myself in a state of crazed anxiety, making last minute preparations and lying awake at night and wondering if I've forgotten anything. Have I cleared enough closet space for the gifts I expect to receive? Is there enough room under the Lighted Receiving Tree for all my gifts, or should I remove more of the lower branches? Have I dropped enough subtle hints about what I want? Have I been too subtle? Is there anything about which I've forgotten to hint, with subtlety? I hate leaving anything to chance, which is why I've even rehearsed what I'll say as I open my gifts. I'm comfortable with my "Oooh's," but my "Aahh's" seem forced, and, for some reason, I can't seem to put an ounce of sincerity into my "You really shouldn't have's." My repertoire contains 35 responses for delighted surprise, twelve less delighted responses that nevertheless convey some form of satisfied acceptance (for gifts such as socks and undershirts), four vaguely dissatisfied reactions (including the standby "It's very nice, but I just don't know when I'd ever use it..."), and one flat out all-purpose "Where's the receipt?" The stress of improvising the additional exclamations of delight I shall doubtless require is almost enough to make me wish the day was over and I was standing in line at a returns counter. I'm really not demanding, you know, I'm just often misunderstood.

I try to relax. I try to enjoy the simple pleasures that go hand in hand with this special time of year. I put on my CD of Annual Gift Receiving Day carols and sing along with my favorite carols, "What? That's it?" and "Die, you cheap scumbag, die!" while I run through a mental checklist of all the errands and tasks I've already accomplished. My Annual Gift Receiving Day cards have already been mailed, with heartfelt tidings of peace and joy filling every postage due Fed Ex overnight envelope, along with pages from upscale catalogs on which I've thoughtfully marked items I want with cheerful Post It notes indicating the correct size, color, and quantity. I've emailed all of my casual acquaintances links to online stores with "Hint, hint" as the subject header. I've sent out memos at work with subliminal gift suggestions lurking in the clip art. What more can one do? Nothing but relax and watch Annual Gift Receiving Day specials on the Home Shopping Network. My favorite one is called "The 24 Days of Anticipation." It's about Raoul, the Annual Gift Receiving Golden Retriever, whose tail just won't wag on any other day of the year. The townsfolk learn a valuable lesson, though, when Raoul saves Annual Gift Receiving Day from an evil vanload of hippies talking about the true spirit of some communist holiday no one's ever heard of being all about love and togetherness. Realizing how close they'd come to being drawn into a sinister cult, the townsfolk rush to their telephones and apply for low interest Home Shopping Network credit cards so that they can shower Raoul with gifts of brand name electronics and designer sheets year round, thus making his tail wag happily ever after. It's a beautiful story.

But still, I can't get over the nagging feeling that the more something is built up, the more likely it is to disappoint. Just take Friday the 13th part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Jason's only in Manhattan for like 8 minutes. All the disemboweling takes place on a stupid dimly lit boat on the way to Manhattan! What a rip off! It upsets me so much I can't stand to watch it more than two or three times a year. Say, for lack of a more random example, that Shawn accidentally buys me less gifts than he intended. I'm sure his disappointment in himself would far outweigh my disappointment in Jason, and that's really saying something. I'd feel so awful seeing him struggle with all that disappointment that I'd have to have the locks changed, just to make sure he had enough alone time to heal. He'd be torn apart....emotionally. Imagine, blowing this one annual chance to show his profound appreciation for me with durable goods and preloaded gift cards. I assure you it would destroy him.

Luckily, however, Shawn has me around to give him constant reminders of mall hours and convenient ATM locations. But what about you, gentle reader? According to the counter, there have been over 1,600 hits on this website so far this month, which can only mean you're studying my personality and interests, looking for just the perfect thing to get for me. (P.S. Joanne, 34 SWF from PHX, AZ....I don't need any more topless photos of you straddling a Jeep... I might suggest that there's a rather lighthearted and jolly theme to this website that's escaped your notice.) Don't wait til the last minute to send your gifts! I can only get about 200 medium sized packages into the van, and I don't want to have to make 10 trips to the post office the day before Annual Gift Receiving Day. Such a thing would be a victory for Terror, which is now apparently an organized entity rather than a basic emotion. I'm looking forward to the War on Stupidity myself, but that's probably a long way off. Til then I'll have to content myself with organizing the gifts which should start to arrive any day now (HINT, HINT) under what's left of the Lighted Receiving Tree.

Love Bites, Love Hurts, Love Occasionally Necessitates a Tetanus Shot and Antibiotics

Dear Faithful Blog Readers,

As both of you may have noticed, it has been quite some time since my last blog. The reasons for this are intricately layered and richly textured, much like fine lasagna or an episode of Matlock, only not as cheesy (note to self: write a blog about cheese). First and foremost, the blame lies heavily on the shoulders of Cox internet service. In a nutshell, they blow big time. It is virtually impossible to update a website you cannot access. The technicians we entertain on a nearly monthly basis are reasonably attractive and well mannered, but I still don’t want them in my bedroom, which happens to be where our landlord had the cable jack installed. Tool belts and sagging jeans do nothing for me unless I’m the one wearing them. Every visit reveals a new service-interrupting culprit, and lately they’ve run out of wires to strip, change out, or bury, and so suspicion has shifted onto our equipment.

“Your modem’s confused,” a technician informed me last weekend.
“I see,” I said, struggling to decipher this highly technical jargon. How, exactly, was the modem confused? Was it trapped in a body of the wrong gender? Did it think it was possessed by a paperweight? Why was it thinking at all? The last thing I need is a modem with an intellect and an attitude problem.
“But,” I countered shrewdly, “this is the tenth time you’ve been called out here, and the problem has never been with the modem.” A-ha! Take that!
Completely unshaken, the technician un-holstered a Motorola 475 Magnum Modem, plugged it in, and smiled smugly as all the little lights lit. Touch?! “See? It works with my modem. You guys should really have one of these Motorolas.”
“But,” said Shawn, “you sold us our modem.”
“How long have you had it?” The technician asked.
“About a year and a half.”
“Oh, well, there’s the trouble. We only guarantee them for a year.”

Since then, we’ve been muddling through with our “confused” modem, which has sporadic moments of lucidity, usually very late at night when it thinks no one is looking. I’m afraid to buy a new modem because I refuse to be held accountable for my actions when the new one is diagnosed with confusion as well. For all I know, the technician’s fancy Motorola could have been rigged to light up even if it was connected to a toaster with string and a wad of gum. (Note to self: invent a toaster/modem.)

Second and not so foremost, it’s hard to type effectively without use of your left hand. Yes, I suppose true dedication would have found me single handedly hunting and pecking, or even hunched over the keyboard with a typing straw clenched in my teeth and look grim determination etched on my face, but why persevere bravely when you can lie about uselessly and complain? Oh, the pain! Oh, the trauma! Oh, the perfectly valid reasons to not show up at work! Why? Why? Why?

Perhaps you, like my modem, are feeling a little confused. Perhaps, like my modem, you are feeling a profound lack of incoming information, and are sitting there with your lights not lit. What happened to my left hand? Oh, nothing. No, really, it’s nothing. Hardly worth mentioning, really, although it was very painful, and perhaps permanently disfiguring. Really, I just don’t want to talk about it. O.K., fine, if you’re going to insist I guess I’ll just have to tell you.

I remember it like it was two weeks ago, although it was actually three weeks ago, which just goes to show you how fresh the horror of it all is in my mind. Shawn was in Kentucky on business (Yeah, sounds fishy to me, too. Who goes to Kentucky on business? Nobody, that’s who. I have always suspected that Shawn has been harboring a hidden fetish for slight men in stirrup pants, and the Kentucky Derby t-shirt he brought back for me isn’t so much a gift as it is damning evidence. Oh, betrayal most foul...possibly.), and the dogs and I were settled in for the evening, watching one of our favorite shows, Reno 911.

Suddenly, the dogs, who had been lying peacefully and drowsily on the floor, were up and snarling. It took me a second to realize they were snarling at each other, and less than a second later, they were literally at each other’s throats. They do fight occasionally, usually over toys or who gets the honor of chewing up yet another oven mitt, but I was confused because there wasn’t an oven mitt or squeaky bone in sight. To this day I have no idea what started it, but it was quickly escalating into the most vicious dog fight I’d ever seen. Yelling at them wasn’t helping, and when Dougal actually managed to lift Mesa up off her feet by her scruff and throw her into the coffee table, I knew things were getting very bad indeed. Dougal outweighs Mesa by a good 15 pounds, but Mesa is fast and she was up again in a second with her jaws clamped down on Dougal’s muzzle.

Since yelling was doing absolutely no good at all, I did what I usually do when they fight, which is to grab them both by their collars and pull them apart. It usually works. At least, it had until then. The moral of this story: Never, ever, attempt to break up a serious dog fight. I must admit I had heard this advice before, but I was convinced if I didn’t so something one of them would wind up dead. I don’t know which one of them bit me, but I got bit and I got bit good. I’m sure neither of them was even slightly aware of me, however, and they thrashed around the room, knocking into furniture, rearing up on their hind legs and knocking each other over. So I tried kicking them. Then I tried punching them. Then I tried throwing an ottoman at them. All no good.

I went into the back yard and got the hose, and dragged it back into the house, and I blasted them, along with everything else in the living room. This confused them for a second, and I was able to get them apart and put them in separate rooms. This also got them soaking wet, and it was hard to check them over through all that wet, matted down fur. I satisfied myself that both each had their eyes and ears intact and no one was limping, and then I washed off my hand. My thumb had three lovely punctures, one of which definitely required medical attention. The living room was dripping and wrecked, and I lost no time cursing Shawn for having the nerve to be away while all hell was breaking loose.

I saw my doctor the next day, who diagnosed the bite as a “boo-boo” and set his decade of college into expert motion. “Can you feel this? How about this? Does this hurt?” My doctor’s name is John Williams, and he is completely humorless about sharing a name with a famous composer. However, this doesn’t stop me from humming the theme to Star Wars while in the exam room. The bite, it turned out, was too deep to stitch, so instead a round of heavy duty antibiotics was prescribed. The bone was “probably” bruised and would “probably” remain tender for a while. As I was getting ready to go, however, he asked, “How long has it been since you last tetanus shot?”

I had to admit I had no idea, and I didn’t like where this conversation was headed. I hate any needle that isn’t loaded with tattooing ink. In short, I left the hospital feeling worse than I went in, which is usually the case, which why I don’t like hospitals. Not only did I have a swollen left hand with a purple thumb that was in perpetual hitch hike mode, but now it hurt to move the arm it was attached to. Again, I cursed Shawn as I drove home and then later via email and cell phone mailbox.

The hole in my thumb is almost closed now, and I can type comfortably once again. This doesn’t change the modem situation, however, and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get this blog posted. I still love my puppies, of course, and since they don’t actually understand human speech, attempting to make the feel guilty is futile. “Look there,” I’ll say. “See what you two did? You bit that hand that feeds you! That’s so clich?! I’m very, very disappointed in both of you!” Any conversation not involving treats or the words “outside,” “walk,” or “car” goes completely over their heads and I could see them losing interest before I had finished my second sentence. Instead, I have to go to Shawn, stick out my thumb, and say “See there? See what happened while you away on ‘business’ in Kentucky?”

Now life is going along as usual. But there are a few upcoming events, both here and at work, that will be supremely blog worthy. Stay Tuned!