A Bit of Everything

This blog will be something of a literary Full Metal Jacket. That sentence doesn't quite make sense, I am aware, so I'll explain. Under normal circumstances, I would alter the opening sentence to make it more digestible or just axe it altogether, but it seems like a perfectly good sentence - whether it makes sense or not - and good sentences are becoming increasingly hard to come by these days. So it remains, though an explanation, especially by this point, is overdue. 

The blog will contain nothing about war and its dehumanized soldiers. If in fact the blog was centered around war and its dehumanized soldiers, the whole Full Metal Jacket thing would have been too obvious. The better way would have been to do as Hemingway did, and make subtle comparisons between dead soldiers and the wasted meat of the stock yards. 

Speaking of Hemingway, I must relate a quick story. I wanted to know where Hemingway is buried (which I have discovered is Ketchum, Idaho). I went to google and typed "Hemingway burail" and hit enter. A simple typo. Google, as it is so prone to do, asked me if I meant to type in something else. I normally take these suggestions well because they route me to what I actually was looking for, or if they don't, they're at least understandable and provide ideas for future searches. But this time, Google brazenly said "Did you mean Hemingway boring?" And so I quietly cursed at my computer, and more specifically at Google, which was asking me if I thought Hemingway was boring simply because I misspelled "burial". No, Google, I don't think Hemingway is boring. As surprising as this may be to you Google, even though I made a simple spelling error, I do have the mental capacity to enjoy books that aren't about horny vampires.  

Anyways. This blog isn't about war, though we've now spent a good paragraph talking about war and an author who wrote about it. I promise you it isn't. 

I deftly employ the Full Metal Jacket comparison because I plan on having a similar sense of structure. It's a bizarre thing to take away from something so visual as a film, let alone to try and mimic: the structure. [I can only think of one other film where I remember how it was told more than I could recall what was told. But I couldn't use that movie because the entire story was told in reverse and that wouldn't work here, or maybe it could work brilliantly but I'm just too busy being bored with Hemingway to figure out a way to do it]. 

In Full Metal Jacket, the first half hour [maybe a bit longer - I can't remember exactly] could almost be a comedy. The early scenes mainly consist of a tough-as-nails Drill Sergeant [fun fact: the actor who plays the Drill Sergeant in the movie served in the marines as an actual Drill Sergeant for years] - and this guy just berates the hell out of a crop of new marine recruits. He's vulgar in the most creative and enjoyable ways. 

Quick example: 

DS = Drill Sergeant

PJ = Private Joker

PS = Private Snowball

DS: Private Joker, do you believe in the Virgin Mary?

PJ: Sir, no sir!

DS: Well, well Private Joker, I don't believe I heard you correctly!

PJ: Sir, the private said "no, sir", sir!

DS: Why you little maggot, you make me want to vomit!

[slaps Private]

DS: You Goddamn communist heathen, you had best sound off that you love the Virgin Mary, or I'm gonna stomp your guts out! Now you DO love the Virgin Mary, don't ya?

PJ:  Sir, NEGATIVE, sir!

DS: Private, are you trying to offend me?

PJ: Sir, NEGATIVE, sir! Sir, the private believes any answer he gives will be wrong and the Senior Drill Instructor will only beat him harder if he reverses himself, SIR!

DS: Who's your squad leader, scumbag?

PJ: Sir, the sqad leader is Private Snowball, sir!

DS: Private Snowball!

PS: Sir, Private Snowball reporting as ordered, sir!

DS: Private Snowball, you're fired. Private Joker's promoted to squad leader. 

PS: Sir, aya-aye, sir!

DS: Disappear, scumbag!

Well, as the boot camp comes to an end, the movie takes an abrupt and dark turn. And then they're off to war and the dark turn becomes even darker, almost horrifying. These once soft recruits are now hardened marines, and war is still war, just with new faces and names that it has claimed or will claim. It almost feels like two separate movies -- the break is that sudden, that clear. And so it will be in this blog. One story that will feel like two, though hopefully much less dark, and as we've now spent far too much time emphasizing, not about war and its dehumanized soldiers. 

That was a hell of a preamble, if I may say so. It has set the table quite nicely for what is to follow. 

Now let us eat. [A hell of a dinner analogy]. 

Being a bartender, like any other form of employment, has things about it that you love and then other aspects that you don't. [That was a hell of a truism, if I may say so]. The long nights can be a bit of a drag, but you get to sleep in [unless you open the bar the next day, in which case you get to sleep for a few hours and then re-fill ice tubs you just emptied a few hours ago]. The money is great, but often you're working so much that you rarely spend any of it on anything besides rent and caffeine. The environment is enjoyably relaxed; it's one of the few jobs where you can tell the customer to "fuck off" while your manager listens and not be disciplined. At it's core what we do is fun, or it can be. 

Like any job, the work comes at a cost. It's difficult to have a social life with non-bartenders, because people with normal jobs are at work when you're sleeping and then they're socializing when you're working. There's the unpredictable income [except the $2.13/hr], the unpredictable schedule [because of games, special events, public holidays], and the unpredictable people who come in to the bar who you make drinks for and whose generosity your income depends on. But at the end of the day, it's the hours that exact the steepest price. There is something taxing about sleeping away the days, unnatural at the very least. Especially when you've been awake at 5 am before, running along Town Lake as the city comes alive with the sun. When you've clipped in at 9 am on a lonely road on the outskirts of Austin and wonder how the hell you'll feel in six hours as you turn the pedals over for the first time. It's in moments like last night, where I look at the clock on my car radio as I'm driving home from work and see "5:12" -- and in that moment, as I look at the glowing numbers, as I get on the highway for the drive home, there's a feeling I can't explain. I should be running, I should be staring at a pool. I should be somewhere on that lunatic fringe. 

INSERT ABRUPT, BUT STILL SOMEWHAT CONNECTED TURN. 

I signed up for Ironman Wisconsin last year. It was going to be the breakout Ironman race for me. 2010 had been a breakthrough year in the short course distances. I'd finished top-5, competed with some guys who usually destroyed me. I was racing and competing with the best non-professionals in Austin and I loved it. But the promising year ended rather poorly with my second Ironman-distance race in Oklahoma City. I hadn't trained properly, and it showed for the first six or so hours of the race. I died in the swim and I faded in the bike. It was a four-loop bike course, and what had started as a five-minute gap between Joe and I on the first lap was well over 30 minutes by the final lap. As I started the run, I found something, and I ran like I've never run before. I was on pace for a 3:40 marathon. By mile 13, I had run my way into third place, still a ways off from Joe in second place. But I was running, smiling, finally. 

And then it fell apart. My left ankle went from a dull pain to a steady ache to a pulsating throb to an unbearable flash. The best I could muster was a limp-walk. It was after I started walking that I saw Dad, who was not doing well. His stomach had betrayed him again leaving his body drained of all the strength that it normally had. I saw him as he sat in the front seat of a golf cart, head wobbling with the bumps of the road, as he was being monitored by the medical staff. I stopped the cart and gave him a hug and asked how he was. Then the cart drove off and I nearly cried. It was one of those feelings you can't explain. I was walking while my Dad was being carted off.

Be an Ironman, I told myself. Do you think he would be walking?... Look at your arm. What do those words mean if you walk right now? Are you a quitter? Come on. Just keep on running. It's that fucking simple... And so I started running for a few hundred yards before I stopped again. I turned around to make sure Dad wasn't watching. 

That race came as close to breaking me as anything ever has. There were so many questions, so many holes that had been exposed. Anyone who knows me is aware that I can be prone to extremes. And so as I looked back on the race, tried to make sense of it all, I had internal dialogues.  

-"If someone had told you that if you walked during the race, they'd shoot Mom, would you have walked?"
No. I would have found a way to keep going.
-"Then why didn't you?"

I couldn't answer that, or at least I didn't want to. The answer lay entwined with words like quitting and compromise. Words that I battled daily to keep out of life. Why would you walk when you could run?

Would it have been tough to keep on running? You better fucking believe it. To this day -- and I've played football with a partially dislocated shoulder, I've broken my wrist, I've been knocked out cold -- that pain in my left ankle is close to the top. But the question still lingers. "Why didn't you?" The answer isn't that I physically couldn't run. We've established that if there was enough on the line, I would have kept on running. Death wasn't imminent. Then why didn't you?  (I found out later that the cause of the pain was severe ligament inflammation and damage, which took physical therapy before I could run pain-free again.)

Sometime after the tough race, after tossing around the questions I didn't want to answer, I signed up for Wisconsin. It was the race where I'd qualify for Hawaii, where I'd cross the line in under 10 hours as my family looked on. Where I wouldn't break. That was the plan. 

Well, Ironman Wisconsin is this Sunday, and I won't be racing, or even be there. My brother, my father, my friend and my brother-in-law (who all signed up the same time as me), they will be there.  They will be Ironmen again Sunday night. And I won't. And so I look at those electric-green numbers on my car clock as they tell me it's early in the morning and I think about what they're doing -- the soon-to-be Ironmen -- and about what I'm doing, what I've done. 

-"Quitter."

I could be out there. I'm just focusing on other things right now. 

-"They don't have other things to focus on?"
Of course they do.

-"You want to "enjoy life" -- that's what you're telling people, right?"

Something like that. 

-"I hope those beers and conversations were worth an Ironman finish."
I'll be back there again.
-"Will you?"
Yeah... I could have done the training, put in the miles.

-"Then why didn't you?"

We are of course prone to be hard on ourselves. And so the selfish part of me thinks of Ironman Wisconsin and I blush, almost ashamed that I was the one who didn't make it to the starting line. That I limped yet again on the big stage of the Ironman. 

But the other part is excited as hell for everyone who will be there, who are only a few hundred hours away from conquering those 140.6 miles. I wish I could be there, standing on a hill, cheering, offering a joke and a high-five. I so badly want to be there to hold bikes while they're having wheels and cassettes put on, to be around the dinner table for the hours and hours of conversations. I wish I could be there for the hug at the finish line. I wish I could hear Lilly as a spectator. 

Instead, I will be following neurotically from a computer and when I can, ducking out of the bar to call Amelia and get updates. I will be hounding everyone to take photos, to write race reports. 

And on Monday morning, as I drive home from a long and busy night of work, my thoughts will be off in Madison, Wisconsin, wondering what the water temperature was like, how the wind was, how smooth the roads were, and what the finish was like. 

A Park Bench

There is a park near our house, though in truth it isn't much of a park at all. The drought has turned the grass to dirt brown, and in other places there never was any grass to begin with and so what looks like dirt-brown grass is actually dirt and pebbles. The park is crowded with trees -- imagine a football field sprinkled with concrete pillars. While the scattered trees greatly limit your ability to toss around a frizbee, they provide much needed shade from the Texas sun [it's supposed to be 109 degrees this weekend]. And if the shade isn't enough, there's a public swimming pool next to the park, complete with a lifeguard and two lanes for lap swimming. And so in this quiet neighborhood, there is this quiet little park, next to a quiet little pool, which you'd miss entirely if you weren't looking. 

But obviously there are more than trees, dirt, and a pool in this park. The title gave that away. There is also a green bench. And on this green bench there is a simple plaque attached to the center which reads:

"In Honor of 

Molly Ivins

Writer and Neighbor"

I never knew of or met Molly Ivins. I've never read any of her work [though from her wikipedia page, it labels her as a "newspaper columnist, liberal political commentator, humorist and author."]. I stopped to take a photo because I've always thought things like this are a beautiful way to honor and remember someone. So are gardens, trees. Simple things. They say what gravestones and monuments never could. 

And so I sat on this bench, blanketed by the shade of the tall trees. I thought about writing, about what lies ahead, and about what my plaque would read if I were gone tomorrow. 

Things That Actually Exist, #8-10

There is no real method to finding these absurd things that I share with you. Sometimes, I hear about it in passing and research it later. Other times, a well-worded search on google will do the trick. Sometimes, like the figure-skating link on cnnsi, it just falls in to your lap. And most often, I start out looking for a certain topic and along the way I discover something much greater than I had hoped to find. I 'm telling you this because I'm sure many of you are wondering how I find these things to write about. The most obvious, and perhaps the best answer is: by looking for them.  


The internet, as has been said far too many times, puts an unhealthy amount of information at your fingertips -- especially if you know where to, and also have the patience to look. You must click on things you'd normally ignore, read chat forums about mind-numbingly boring topics. You must persevere because you never know when you'll unearth the next sexybandz, or see Blow-Up Barack for the first time. I'm sure to some, this is a tragic waste of time, and you're entitled to be wrong. Because I would argue that I'm following in the footsteps of men like Aristotle and Leonardo -- men who were determined to discover what existed, to know as much as they could about as much as there was to know. And so I share with you flojuggler, and everything there is to know about it. 


#8 - Flojuggler.com


Flojuggler allows you to track the periods of girls you know. As the flojuggler website so grotesquely put, it lets you "know if that red present has arrived, [is] almost here, or just leaving." I'm not sure how the program actually works, nor do I truly want to find out. I imagine it requires you to enter some information about the girls whose cycles you wish to be in tune with. Based on the information you enter, it will then do some calculations and tell you when their "red present will arrive." Gathering this information has to be quite awkward -- there's no real subtle way to ask about such things. "So, just out of curiosity Mildred, would you say you your period really started on Friday, or Thursday night? I need you to be really precise with me here." There are more covert ways, but I don't want to think, nor write about those right now.  


Why would you ever, ever want to spend time trying to do this, you might be wondering. Well, allow flojuggler's website to answer your question with another question (sort of). "What if you have two tickest to the big concert and you want to get lucky afterwards because... well... the tickets are $75 each so... you have a list of possible candidates but you're just not sure which one is on her flo..." This is straight from their website. The logic, if there is any, is stunningly flawed. It also brings us face-to-face to the revolting "juggling" part of flojuggler (the "flo" part seems painfully obvious enough). The website allows you to track multiple women's cycles at the same time -- thus enabling you to sleep with multiple women more efficiently because you'll be avoiding your fuck-buddy's "flo's" -- obviously the few days each month where they and their vagina are of no use to you. So in the case of our confused friend with the concert tickets, flojuggler allows him to pick one of his non-ovulating female friends to accompany him. It's in websites like these, when you step inside the average man's mind, that you understand why most women believe men are pigs. Flojuggler makes it hard to argue otherwise. 


Everything about flojuggler -- the concept, picturing someone taking the time to create this program and buy the domain name and code a website, the way they refer to a woman's menstrual cycle as her "flo", the marketing strategy of helping sleaze-bag guys get laid, the sleaze-bag guys who create accounts [yes, you actually need to create a personalized account] and partake in it all -- it makes one sigh; the way you sigh when you hear over the airport speakers that you're flight's been delayed another hour due to technical difficulties but the airline's doing everything they can and they appreciate your patience. You sigh because there's nothing that can be done, you just wish it didn't have to be this way. 

#9 - Mentally ill stuffed animals. 


When one is a godfather [as I am], you're always on the lookout for presents for your godchild. For Lilly's last birthday, I went above and beyond my godfatherly duties and gave Lilly a creepily life-like cat named Lulu [or as Lilly calls her, Woo-woo]. From the moment Woo-woo was extracted from her cardboard box, she was an instant hit. And what isn't there to love about Woo-woo? You can brush her with a plastic pink comb that also comes in the cardboard box, she purrs, cleans herself, and even rolls over like a real cat. And best of all, Woo-woo even sheds her synthetic fur like a real cat. Needless to say, Amelia and Jim were thrilled at my purchase -- even promising to "return the favor" one day.  Woo-woo's only downside is that she runs on batteries, which from what I can tell, Amelia hasn't always been on top of replacing. In fact, my suspicions were confirmed when Amelia sent me a text one morning saying: "Oh noooo....Lulu's batteris died and she takes 4 C batteries... so she's going to have to sit in the corner quietly shedding by herself." She then sent one of those emoticons of a little yellow man crying. But fear not Amelia. You can buy C batteries in packs of 72. Can somebody say: "birth-versary present?" I sure can. 


So when I met Dub the turtle, Sly the snake, Dolly the sheep, Kroko the crocodile, and Lilo the hippo, my first thought was of how they would make great gifts for Lilly, and be a nice compliment to Woo-woo. They looked colorful and goofy, which are two good qualities when shopping for gifts for you two year old niece. And there's just something sweet about giving a little girl a stuffed animal and watching her face light up, and then following the friendship they build together in their conversations that nobody understands but the two of them. 


You can then imagine my horror when I discovered that these particular stuffed animals were in fact designed to be mentally ill. Dub suffers from severe depression. Sly suffers from terrifying hallucinations. Dolly the sheep has multiple personality disorder [she thinks she's a wolf -- and in fact, if you turn Dolly inside out, she turns into a wolf]. Kroko has an irrational fear of water. And Lilo, from what I can tell, has a debilitating learning disability [he holds a simple wooden block puzzle in his paws, which according to the website, he's been trying to solve for the last few months without success.] Now that you know what to look for, it makes sense. All their eyes are cooky [what a flattering, and non-stereotypical portrayal of the mentally insane to give to a child], and Dub, the way he's sitting, does look like he's having a shit of a week. What I mistook for cuteness was actually mental instability of the most dangerous extremes. How silly of me. 


And again, I find myself wondering "where to begin?" 


I'm not even certain that animals have mental illnesses to begin with. And even if they do, are we really in a rush to educate our children about this, or about mental illnesses in general? Let's conquer the alphabet, multiplication tables and "don't to talk to strangers" before we start introducing manic depression and schizophrenia into their shattered worlds of innocence. Why can't all animals be happy for the first few years, and all people too? Later in life kids will learn otherwise and the world will be slightly dimmer than it was before. But let children have these few years when everything is bright and animals are just fun to pet and look at. 


Who gives this to kids? Honestly? Who honestly thinks this is a good gift? And if something's not a good gift, it's usually at least a funny joke -- but it's tough to joke about mental illnesses. You just never know. Actually you do know. You know that if you bought this as a joke and gave it to somebody, they'd force a smile and say "oh," in a way that you'd know instantly that their uncle or their best friend growing up had a mental illness and they don't find Sly very funny. So it's not a good gift, or a good joke-gift. So what is it? A terrible fucking idea. 


But, if somehow you do decide to eventually pony up the cash and buy these poor little guys, wrap them up and give it  to your child, conversations like this are sure to follow:


-"Mommy, why are Sly's eyes so big?"
-"Because he's hallucinating, sweety."
- "What's hallucinating?"
-"It's when you see things that aren't real."
-"Why does he see things that aren't real?"
-"Because he's crazy sweety. Crazy people see things that aren't real."
-"Is that why you say Daddy's crazy sometimes?"
-"No, Daddy sees too many things sometimes. Like his secretary. That's why Daddy's crazy."


And we're just talking about how it affects the kids. What about the other toys? Judy, Lilly's beloved little stuffed rabbit who's already had emergency surgery not to mention being lost in a closet -- and through it all remains one of Lilly's most treasured friends -- how would having to be around Dub all day affect her? And what about dear Lulu? She sheds enough as it is. i'd hate to think what the stress of these unstable new friends would do to her coat, let alone her temperament. 


Judy: I think Lilly's going to take us all to the lake this weekend. Think you could teach me and Lulu how to swim when we're up there?
Lulu: Yeah Dub! Could you? That'd be swell. 
Dub: What's the point?
Judy: In learning how to swim? I dunno. Just something I've always wanted to do. 
Dub: We're all going to die anyways. It's just a question of when and how.
Judy: Well I'd certainly like to know how to swim before I die.
Dub: You know you can die from swimming? Drowning. Sharks. Water moccasins. Bacteria. Stingrays. Why do you think Kroko's so afraid of the water?... I don't want to die swimming. Though it couldn't be much worse than this rat-race we're in right now. 
Judy: Forget it. Come on Lulu. Let's go help Lilo with his puzzle. 

And so I look at these dolls, re-read their descriptions, and I can't help but feel like the eternally puzzled Lilo with his wooden puzzle. No matter how hard I try, I just can't quite put the pieces together. 

#10 - A purse that looks like a penis.

I don't want to spend too much time on this one. The picture is... sufficient.  


I will ask these questions, though:


-How many of these have been sold to sober people?
-Who decided to hang the bell from the tip?
-Why the bumps on the testicles?
-Really?
-No, seriously. Really?

Things That Actually Exist, #1-7.

This is not a philosophical discourse on what it means to exist, nor is it meant to investigate whether it is possible for anything to exist at all. It seems obvious enough to me that things and people can (and in fact, do) exist. If you disagree, and somehow believe that our existence is actually more perception than reality, I'd recommend you find somebody with a masters degree in philosophy and talk to them about this. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to regurgitate some Kant, Aquinas, Rosseau and Descartes (but not Plato -- that would be too obvious) to you, and you could both be profound, deep, and scholarly together. And best of all, I wouldn't have to listen to any of it. Might I suggest as a way to spark this breathtakingly interesting and productive discussion, you pour boiling coffee on each other's laps, and then you could talk about how you both perceived those third-degree burns on your infant-sized genitalia, and how comically not-real they were. [Note: This blog is also not a discussion of philosophy lovers and their embarrassingly small genitals.]

Now that I've explained what this blog is not, let me explain to you what it is. Quite simply, this blog is a list of things that actually exist. I say "actually exist" because at times it is hard to imagine someone taking the time to create/plan what you are about to see. Or at the very least, wanting to take the time to create/plan/construct these things. Regardless of how surprising, or how seemingly pointless they might be, my primary concern is that these are all in fact in existence -- as real as cholesterol.

The format will go something like this: I'll show/explain to you the thing that actually exists, and then I'll follow up with some thoughts and questions that these existing things raise [in my mind at least].

So, without further ado, here are things that actually exist, no matter who tries to tell you otherwise:

#1 - This posting, taken from the "rants&raves" section on craigslist.org:

"Any American who is concerned with what is happening in this country should educate themselves first before forming any opinions. This country was only meant to benefit the rich, not the average guy. We don't live in a Democracy, but a Republic governed by an Oligarchy of the rich and special interests. If there was such a big difference between Democrats and Republicans, then why do things continue to get worse regardless of which party is in power? The ONLY color that matters in this country is GOLD! If you are a racist, then you play into the hands of others. Try reading "The Creature From Jekyl Island" and learn what the Federal Reserve Banking System is and how we are all slave-collateral to it. Go on the internet and read "The Iron Mountain Report" and learn what the Powers That Be have in store for all of us (even though it was published as a work of fiction to protect the authors' life). Don't believe anything the media presents, they are ALL owned by the Powers That Be. Stop fighting each other over petty crap like race and gender and start talking about what is going on and how to change it before it really is TOO LATE? Hope this stays up long enough to benefit people."

I started the list off with this excerpt from our anonymous author because not only was I

a) surprised to find a paragraph loaded with so many of these amazing, loosely-tied conspiracy theories coupled with a few recycled fear-mongering phrases from Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but I was also

b) floored at the idea of the person who takes the time to sit down, write this out, and then decide they must share this air-tight political warning with the online community.

Perhaps technically, this should be entries #1 and #2, for both the entry and the author, but for the sake of organization and brevity, we'll just keep it as one item.

For those of you who don't visit the "rants&raves" section on craigslist, all you need to know that it is a forum that allows anybody with an internet connection to post their "rants&raves" on any issue, and to be able to do it anonymously. And the result are contributions like the one above.

But once you get past the sweeping generalizations, the errors in punctuation, the unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, there is strangely enough, a level of skill in AA's [anonymous author] piece. In one not-too-lengthy paragraph, AA managed to touch on:

-Oligarchies, Democracies and Republics.

-Racism.

-The Federal Reserve Banking System.

-The "Powers That Be" and their ownership of the media.

-An author who has to publish non-fiction work as fiction on the internet in order to save his life.

-"Slave-collateral"

I think the term "slave-collateral" might be the highlight for me of this paragraph. It is just so beautifully paranoid and serious. I almost wish I knew what it meant.

I find myself reading this over and over again, laughing at the buzz words that drench these distraught sentence. All that's missing is a line about global warming and a warning about divine punishment because of gay marriage and you've pretty much covered all that's wrong with the world.

It's like a child who's heard adults use these important words before, and they so desperately want to sound smart by recycling these big and important words, but in the end it doesn't quite work, because they don't quite know what they mean.

And then I read over it once more, and I remember that AA has a vote.

#2 - Sexybands.

Where to begin with this one?

Sexy Bandz are, according to their website, "Silly Bandz for adults." For that sentence to make any sense, you need to know what Silly Bandz are. Silly Bandz became incredibly popular last year; the follow-up to the "Livestrong" bracelet phenomenon. Silly Bandz are much thinner than your typical "Livestrong" bracelet -- much more like your everyday rubber band. But what made Silly Bandz special was not only that they were colorful and cheap [and cool/hip enough to make the plural form of their word end with a "z" instead of an "s"], but before you wore them around your wrist they were shapes -- whether it be a heart, a square, a peace sign [at the UT Co-op, they even had Silly Bandz that were burnt orange and the shape of a longhorn]. Once around your wrist, they looked like any other colored rubber band [perhaps slightly wrinkled] -- but when you took them off, you could show your friends that you had a dinosaur, a star, and a seahorse all living on your wrist. As you could probably guess, Silly Bandz were marketed/intended for young adults/teenagers, who actually give a fuck about things like this.

Sexy Bandz, in their most basic sense, are shaped rubber bands as well. [I guess I should say, "shaped rubber bandz"]. But instead of the innocent seahorses and stars that you can find in normal Silly Bandz, Sexy Bandz offers you the chance to wear a penis, a butt, a set of boobs, a man with an erection, or a naked woman around your wrist. It's not hard to imagine where this million-dollar idea sprouted from. Some drunk guy, watching his daughter talk on the phone and play with her Silly Bandz, decides that the untapped adult market is begging for some adult-themed silicone fun. He cracks open another can of Natural Light, sketches a penis and a nice rack on a piece of scratch paper, and the rest, as I've never heard anyone say except when they say "as everyone says", is history.

The idea and product alone make this list-worthy. But like the entry above it, Sexy Bandz almost deserves two slots. One for the idea/product, and one for the god-awful animated commercial. The voice-acting is terrible. Their dialogue is painfully rigid. The animation is somehow worse than the voice-acting and dialogue combined. The background music isn't music at all, but rather some stoned guy tooling around on a $20 keyboard from Toys 'R Us. And the premise for this commercial -- that wearing sexual colored rubber bands will somehow make members of the opposite sex take notice and want to fuck you -- I mean, seriously?

Yes. Seriously. It all actually exists. The commercial. The bands. And they can be yours for $4.99. Plus, they glow in the dark.

#3 - Carlashes

This again should be another duel entry -- for the idea and commercial. The commercial itself is much better than Sexy Bandz [though I'm not sure how much of a compliment this really is]; it's still 80 seconds of unsteady camcorder footage and cheery music that should really be fifteen seconds at the most. I understand what your product is. I understand that it sparkles in the sun. You don't need to club me over the fucking head with it. Just give me a couple shots of the lashes sparkling, perhaps another shot of the eyelashes as you're driving, and then bam, go to black, give me some ordering information, and end with a catchy line. But no. Instead, you make some poor girl try and sexily pose on the hood of a red VW beetle in a t-shirt and jeans, while she smiles awkwardly and tries to draw attention to the eyelashes glued on to the car. The commercial needs polishing, for sure, but at least the music sounded somewhat professional, and thank god it wasn't animated.

Perhaps the best thing you can say about the commercial is that it's better than the idea itself.

It's not like the carlashes serve any functional purpose like real eyelashes do. They're not shielding the headlights from water or debris. They don't keep the headlight covers clean, or enhance your driving experience in anyway whatsoever. It's a fucking novelty item for people who desperately want to personify their automobiles. But the problem is that the only people who think of their cars as people are little kids, and guess what -- they don't own real fucking cars. At about the age of eight [or twenty-three if you're my brother], you realize that Thomas the Tank Engine was great, (and so were his buddies Percy and Gordon), but trains and cars don't have personalities nor eyes, and that in the end all they really are, are fucking inconveniences that cost you money and miserably pollute the earth we live in. Cars are things that break down, that get towed, that have parts you've never heard of, but cost $700 to fix when you finally do hear of them. They're not your fucking friend. You don't invite them for sleepovers. And you certainly don't buy it fucking mascara.

What market were these people trying to corner? I'm guessing not many truck drivers are desperately looking for ways to humanize or feminize their rides. And people who own economy cars and Pruises will drive twenty miles just to save ten cents a gallon on gas, so they won't be lining up to shell out for some decoration [which if you really think about it, could potentially hurt their precious fuel economy]. And oh yeah, we're in the teeth of a fucking recession where people are cutting every unnecessary cost they can -- and guess what ranks right up on the top of the "we don't really need this, do we?" list? You guessed it. Bedazzled artificial eyelashes for your car.

#4 - A book titled: "Easily Despook Your Horse In A Way It Understands Using Herd Dynamics And Its Natural Instincts" by Marv Walker.

In case you were wondering; No. I didn't just make that cover using Microsoft Paint. That, as far as I can tell, is the real cover, with the real title, in that very real font. I can't comment too much on the book itself, as I've never read it, but I will comment on the title -- all 16 words of it.

When you think of great book titles, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "The Grapes of Wrath" come to mind. There are more of course [another one of my personal favorites is "The Road" -- the title couldn't be anything else]. These titles say enough, but not too much; they allow room for the story. It goes without saying that the effectiveness and impact of a title hinges on the story that follows -- but still, I think we can agree there is an art to a good title. A title should paint a grand but ultimately incomplete picture -- one that gradually becomes clearer as you make your way through the book, but even at the end might still be not completely apparent.

One definition of a title is a "descriptive heading or caption" -- and I think the problem I have with Mr. Walker's title is that he leaned a bit too heavily on the word "descriptive" when creating his own. It's far too "nail on the head" for my liking, or I think for anyone's liking. It's as though he wanted to tell you exactly what this book contained as specifically as he possibly could, in as many words as he needed to. And while I applaud his effort, I would like to remind him that there is something to be said for leaving things to the imagination, for hinting instead of clubbing.

But still, somehow I'm intrigued. Are "spooked" horses really a big issue? How do you spook a horse? What are the symptoms of the spooked horse? And perhaps the ultimate question: if a horse can be spooked, how do you de-spook it?

So I dug deeper and went to Marv Walker's website looking for answers. On it, I found that he's published multiple books, has links to commentaries he's written on a wide variety of topics [Bible passages to herd dynamics], and has even filmed and released some instructional DVDs for handling horses. But alas, I never really got to the bottom about the whole "horse-spooking" business. I guess he saved all that for the book.

Before I end, I must share with you my favorite page on his website. I would offer more context, but I'm not sure when it's Marv talking, or when he's speaking for the horse, or this mysterious "her" fits in to all of this. None of that makes sense to you right now, and when you get to the end, it still probably won't. But anyway, I was surprised to find something like this existed, so here are the screenshots:

There you have it. Marv has his horse back, despooked and all. They're heading back to the trailer, a friendship re-kindled, trust re-built. Let's leave them alone for now. We have a president to sodomize.

#5 - Obama inflatable sex doll

Ever find yourself watching Obama speak at a press conference and wonder what it would be like to have sex with him? Or do you find yourself dimming the lights as you watch news-clips of the President to put yourself in the mood? Do you record the State of the Union address just so can you stare at Barack's milky features for hours and hours on end? Well, you're in luck. Because now a company sells an Obama inflatable blow-up sex doll [Blow-Up Barack], so when you're done fantasizing about the leader of the free world, you can pretend you're having sex with the President himself.

As the company that sells it puts it so delicately:

"Blow-Up Barack presidential love doll... He fucked the economy, now you can fuck him back!... He'll batter your bush... Visit his oval orifice... He's got a presidential-size power tool!... He's the clear winner in this year's presidential erection... He's got the biggest presidential staff ever."

[Insert Barney Frank joke here].

One wonders, "where do you blow to fill up Blow-Up Barack with air?"

So many roads we could go down here. But it might be best if we follow Frost and take the one less travelled -- we'll say nothing.

#6 - Spam Scultpures

Spam is "a canned, precooked meat product...with the labeled ingredients including chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as binder, and sodium nitrate as preservative." In other words, it's canned mystery meat, (and supposedly quite slimy to the touch). It's no wonder then, according to the SPAM website, on average 3.8 cans of SPAM are consumed every second in the US. Every second. 3.8 cans. It gets better. They've been canning this heavenly meat since 1937, and 70 years later, in 2007 [I had to stop and count for a second], they sold their 7th billion can. 7 billion cans of SPAM. Sounds like a title for a Dr. Seuss book. Speaking of titles again, I should probably pass along another title from the Marv Walker collection:

But we were talking about SPAM, not how to get into the psyche of a horse. If you have a hunger for some more SPAM knowledge [another pun bites the dust], there's a SPAM museum in Austin, Minnesota of all places, where you can plan group tours and explore and discover the history of SPAM as well as pick up some exciting new SPAM recipes -- like Creamy SPAM and pasta nachos... as real as cholesterol, my friends.

And there's also a SPAM sculpture contest in Chicago, with the photo above showing the finalists from the 7th Annual competition. To me, it's not even a question -- the SPAM Stonehenge is a runaway winner. It's braver, larger, and the most clever of the bunch. Despite my best efforts I couldn't find out which SPAM sculpture actually won. It better not be the pig.

As laughable as this is, I'd put this right up there with Andy Warhol's soup cans and Brillo boxes, perhaps even a level above -- it's much easier to mimic than to create, especially if the creation is out of nothing, or in this case, out of SPAM.

I'm not quite sure how this made the list. Maybe because it's such a creative, yet unfulfilling waste of time. Maybe because I've always looked at SPAM in the grocery store and wonder who buys it -- and now I'll look at it and wonder who buys it so they can then turn around and shape it to look like Stonehenge.

One final thought -- what does it say about your product, when people start calling e-mail abuse and the flooding of inboxes with unsolicited message by your company name? If you're SPAM, I think half the battle is trying to disassociate yourself with the horribly negative connotation associated with e-mail spam. And the other battle is trying to convince people that they should eat processed meat out of a can.

#7 - A figure skating page on cnnsi.com

On CNNSI.com's main page, there is a header on a drop-down menu that says "figure skating" which you can click on:

Which, once you've clicked on it, will then take you to this page:

The obvious question seems to be: why do they have a header for figure skating if they don't actually have any news about figure skating? It's as though CNN [perhaps I should start referring CNNSI.com as The Powers That Be -- after all, they are part of the media] feels obligated to at least have a mention of the sport on their site, but since they know nobody really cares about figure skating, they don't bother to update it. I'm guessing when they do eventually post something, they'll make an intern write about the intensity and courage the sport demands. Back to the point, not a single article is up there. Not one. There are about six advertisements, and not one piece of journalism. Did they delete all the articles that were written about figure skating? And if so, when did that take place? Or did they simply not ever write articles about figure skating? [and if that's the case, that brings us back to the question of why do they even have a header for figure skating in the first place?]

I'm even more baffled as to why there's not an archive of reports done during Olympics past -- the stories of Michelle Kwan, Nancy Kerrigan and the mentally unstable Tonya Harding (who subsequently became a not-so-successful female boxer). There simply had to be stories filed and published. But still,  not one story about figure skating during the Olympics on the "figure skating" page. [I keep bringing up the Olympics because if we're being honest, the Olympics are the only time anyone cares about this activity, which is certainly not a sport -- and if you disagree, you can read my blog about the criteria for sports here].

Anyways.

Those reports that had to have existed -- that were banged out on a typewriter and filed, and now got lost among the the tidal wave of information available on  the internet -- those reports remind me of an old set of silverware. When you're moving houses, you look at this set of silverware with little to no attachment, and you think that maybe you could get a couple bucks if you washed and polished them and then tried to sell them, but at the end of the day, it's just not worth the effort, so you chuck them and buy a brand new set instead. That's what figure-skating reporting means to me. 

To be clear, I wasn't actually visiting the site in search of figure skating news. But once I saw they had a page for it, I wondered "what goes on in the figure skating world in between Olympics, when the sport ceases to be relevant?" The answer, as it turns out, is nothing. Quite literally.


Funnily enough, if you go to the "Olympics" page on CNNSI, you'll find articles about figure skating -- but nobody employed by the Powers That Be has seemingly made the connection yet and linked the two, so the figure skating page remains naked. A fitting commentary on how relevant ice dancing is outside of the Olympics.

The empty page seems fitting in more ways than one, however. The page itself is straight out of a Joseph Heller scene: a website has a link you can click on, which once you click on it, tells you nothing about what you want to know, so you have to go back to the beginning and start over. And that somehow meshes perfectly with figure skating itself. We watch this bizarre sideshow on ice, hoping not to see a perfect run, but to see the most imperfect of runs -- ones where they wipeout at least once, twice would be better, and three times followed by an emotional melt-down would be ideal. We watch for their ridiculous outfits. We watch not to be inspired, but to see a fall and a reason to laugh. We go to their webpage not for information, but rather to see what there could possibly be to report. I guess the answer, for now at least, is nothing.

*Numbers 8-15 on the "Things That Actually Exist" list will follow in another blog.

An Opera House in Vietnam

Sitting on a corner of my desk is a framed photo of our family standing in front of an opera house. It was taken some years ago, when we celebrated Christmas in Vietnam. The frame itself is plain and square and I've had it for some years now [I seem to recall buying the frame at a Target or some place like it when I moved to San Diego]. In the picture, the three women are on the left -- Ellie, Mom, Amelia [in that order] -- and to the right is Dad, myself, and Joe. Behind us is the opera house and even though our bodies block the street, there is also undoubtedly the insanity that is Vietnamese traffic. It doesn't look to be a particularly sunny day, though it's not too cold either; we're all in short sleeves [though Mom is prepared for the worst, with a cardigan folded over her shoulders, and if I'm guessing, tissues rolled up her sleeves]. We're all smiling, though I'm the only one whose teeth you can't see [I think I still had braces at this point]. It captures us as a family: happy, abroad, together. I've looked at this photo hundreds of times, glanced at it thousands more. But today -- and I don't know why -- I picked it up, held it.

I noticed for the first time ever the Vietnamese [presumably] woman over Joseph's left shoulder. She staring right at the camera, maybe waiting for the dumb tourists to finish their photo so she can walk back to work. On this not particularly sunny day, she's wearing sunglasses, so I picture her as fashionable and somewhat high-maintenance. I looked even longer, until I found myself wondering who the hell took this photo. I've narrowed down the possibilities [either Chi or a passing stranger]. But whoever it was, they did well.

The captured moment brings back so much, tells a little more, and lets the mind wander. Follow mine. We'll go from left to right.

Ellie. She looks tall standing next to Mom [who doesn't?]. Building houses, immersering herself in Guatemala, teaching english in Thailand -- that's all ahead. But right here, in front of the opera house, there's just the desire to travel, to make a difference somewhere, somehow. Maybe the smile she wears comes from a knowledge that she'll find somewhere, that she'll figure out somehow. If you look closely, you can also tell that the smile seems to be mixed in with the tail-end of a laugh. As if she's just done something mischevious [how unlike Ellie], and is enjoying the response she got. Perhaps this is a second take, because the first one was ruined by her trademark "dumb face". Or maybe she made one of us laugh just before the photo was taken. Regardless of the cause, the smile is above all else, genuine. How could it not be? Ellie, the girl who lives to travel, is in Vietnam, being Ellie.

There's Mom, arms around her two daughters, wearing dark red lipstick [probably applied moments before the photo. A rule Mom always told me, that I've never put into practice: "Always put some fresh lippie on before a picture".] The word I keep coming back to with Mom is little. How can you look at her in this photo and think of anything else?... But there is something else. Her voice. I can hear Mom saying "Oh, Ellie!" a few seconds before the camera snaps this. That's why Ellie's just finished laughing. And then there's how healthy Mom looks. Though she'll never admit it, she looks fantastic in this shot. Tan and lean. She's adapted to the Singapore life quite well; at home with a people who are as vertically challenged as she is.

I look at Amelia and perhaps the first thing I notice is what's not there -- Lilly. But of course this is before Lilly, even before she married Jim. She isn't a mother yet, though the similarities to Mom in this photo are striking [the face, the smile, and they're both wearing white t-shirts and blue jeans]. I know what is ahead for Amelia -- an Ironman finish, a beautiful wedding and marriage, a bubbly and hilarious daughter [and another baby on the way!!] -- and her smile, like Ellie's, is as if she knows this already. That soon she will be an Ironman, a wife, a mother. And exceptional at all three. There is also a neatness to Amelia -- the hair pulled back cleanly, the silver necklace lying perfect on the shirt -- that isn't accidental. No, if you know Amelia, you know that it isn't accendital at all.

When I see Dad in this - surrounded by his wife and children - I think of something he wrote. It's one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite books:

"I used to wonder why I had to fight so hard just to get the basic things, but I determined that I'd never quit, I'd never be beaten. While I had breath, I'd succeed; nothing was going to stop me. One day, I just knew it, I'd have time and money, I'd race, and I'd make a life for my wife and children."

I like to think this is one of those moments he dreamt of. That this trip, this photo is part of the life he'd always imagined. That when he was earning nothing as a journalist, chopping wood to heat his home, riding his bike so he could pay for food, he closed his eyes and saw the six of us like this: happy, abroad, together. That's what I get from Dad's face, especially his smile: "we're here."

If this were a Leonardo painting, the fact that:

a) my hands are crossed in front of my body,

and

b) I'm not smiling with an open mouth

They would both symbolize a sense of seperation from the group. An implied isolation. But I think [or at least I'd like to think] that the truth is that I just didn't know what to do with my hands or my arms. I never really have. Yearbook portraits, family photos, those cheezy pictures couples take where one of them holds the camera in front with a fully extended arm -- basically any photo where you stop what you're doing and stare at the camera -- those have always felt somewhat fraudulent to me. Or at the very least, unnatural. And you can tell in this picture. When you factor it all in -- the closed-mouth smile, the hands folded in front -- I look terribly unhappy. But happiness has nothing to do with it. I'm simply not comfortable. I'd rather be the one behind the camera, telling everyone else to smile.

And on the far right is Joe. It starts with that worn Mets cap, backwards of course, and then the matching Mets-blue polo. I'm so used to seeing him with some sort of facial hair, so it's a welcome surprise to find him clean-shaven here in Vietnam. He looks young here [I guess we all do], but again, perhaps I notice his youth so much because of the absence of a beard [or his pedophile moustache]. Law school is still years away [or as Mom might say, it's still a little star twinkling in the night sky]. He hasn't yet raced in Penticton or Lake Placid. He hasn't had his heart broken in Austin, TX, and then found someone who can do much more than repair it. He hasn't been to Lebanon. Those are all still twinkling little stars as well.

And so now we've reached the end of the story of a photo that will never change. I'll forever look uncomfortable in Vietnam. And Ellie will forever look mischevious. And there's something comforting in that permanence. That no matter where I go, there is a small square frame guarding a small square photo. No matter where I go we will always be happy, together, abroad.