Monday, March 2, 2009
More stuff supposed to be awesome I just don’t get…
Frank Zappa
Phillip K Dick
Garrison Keiler
Gyros
Scones
Ginseng
Dick’s Last Resort – The food is good. I just don’t get the idea of staff rudeness being a selling point.
Cirque de Soleil
Phillip K Dick
Garrison Keiler
Gyros
Scones
Ginseng
Dick’s Last Resort – The food is good. I just don’t get the idea of staff rudeness being a selling point.
Cirque de Soleil
Friday, February 6, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Yadda yadda
Hi,
This is me writing. See, I wrote something today. Sure, it could have had a plot, a beginning, middle and end, but that gets done all the time. There, that’s three sentences already. Make it four. Ha ha ha, I could go on like this all day. It’s not even a challenge anymore. But it does take a toll on one. I am now off to rest.
More later.
This is me writing. See, I wrote something today. Sure, it could have had a plot, a beginning, middle and end, but that gets done all the time. There, that’s three sentences already. Make it four. Ha ha ha, I could go on like this all day. It’s not even a challenge anymore. But it does take a toll on one. I am now off to rest.
More later.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Cool stuff you may know about but I like talking about….
Anthony Bourdain – Guy is like Eric Bogosian on food. Author of a couple of great books with a great show on the Travel Channel.
In Vegas he wondered aloud what kind of noise armadillos would make if you drove over them. In Romania he feared running out of gas and knocking on the wrong door and getting butt-rogered by Tim Curry. A fear we all have shared even though we may not admit it.
Andrew Zimmern has a good show too with Bizarre Foods, but I can’t get past comparing it to Fear Factor except with Joe Rogan saying, “Hmmm, those gypsy moths have a delightfully rustic tangy flavor, don’t they.”
Trader’s World in Brockton- $4 used DVDs, where I picked up used copies of Shawshank Redemption, Anchorman and True Romance in a single trip.
The Raconteurs – Jack White’s band outside of the White Stripes. Most first bands aren’t this good.
Barstool Sports – Great paper and a great website featuring pal and comic Jerry Thornton. Updated daily. I hit this one every morning even before checking lottery.
Nick Zainno’s comedy blog
The Face Transformer - Put someone you hate’s picture in it. Change their race. Post it on your Facebook account. Yay!
Free movies online - Watch freebies online. Makes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull worth its price.
Needham Bowlaway – Cool, funky bowling alley. Tie-die, black light motif on the walls, TVs and good times. Check it out.
Chiller TV – The Horror Channel – Freddy’s Nightmares, Millenium, Night Gallery and a mix of really good and crappy ass movies. How is it that we thought of the Golf Channel first?!
the Nerdist - Great blog.
In Vegas he wondered aloud what kind of noise armadillos would make if you drove over them. In Romania he feared running out of gas and knocking on the wrong door and getting butt-rogered by Tim Curry. A fear we all have shared even though we may not admit it.
Andrew Zimmern has a good show too with Bizarre Foods, but I can’t get past comparing it to Fear Factor except with Joe Rogan saying, “Hmmm, those gypsy moths have a delightfully rustic tangy flavor, don’t they.”
Trader’s World in Brockton- $4 used DVDs, where I picked up used copies of Shawshank Redemption, Anchorman and True Romance in a single trip.
The Raconteurs – Jack White’s band outside of the White Stripes. Most first bands aren’t this good.
Barstool Sports – Great paper and a great website featuring pal and comic Jerry Thornton. Updated daily. I hit this one every morning even before checking lottery.
Nick Zainno’s comedy blog
The Face Transformer - Put someone you hate’s picture in it. Change their race. Post it on your Facebook account. Yay!
Free movies online - Watch freebies online. Makes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull worth its price.
Needham Bowlaway – Cool, funky bowling alley. Tie-die, black light motif on the walls, TVs and good times. Check it out.
Chiller TV – The Horror Channel – Freddy’s Nightmares, Millenium, Night Gallery and a mix of really good and crappy ass movies. How is it that we thought of the Golf Channel first?!
the Nerdist - Great blog.
Stuff that’s supposed to be awesome, but I never got
Jazz
Velvet Underground
Films directed, not acted in, by John Cassavettes.
Pai Gow poker
Clove cigarettes
Wolfgang Puck
Isaac Asimov
French cuffs
ER
Tom Robbins
Velvet Underground
Films directed, not acted in, by John Cassavettes.
Pai Gow poker
Clove cigarettes
Wolfgang Puck
Isaac Asimov
French cuffs
ER
Tom Robbins
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Request Denied
I got a Facebook request to add a friend last week from Joe, a guy I haven’t seen in 20 years. Twenty years ago we hung out together. Twenty years ago, we were friends. If I got a friend request from the man I was 20 years ago, I’d click the ignore button. Just like I did with the request to add Joe.
Joe’s calling himself Jose, now. He’s listing his profession as poet and described himself as a biker.
He lists college degrees I know he doesn’t have. He couldn’t finish anything, but he could usually bluff for the first fifteen minutes.
Through the conversations he’d posted on other friends’ walls, I gathered he had a daughter now, one he’d discovered 10 years ago. One he’s been in touch with only since she turned 18 two years ago.
She’s a tattoo artist in NH, he says and getting into trouble with the law occasionally.
He adds that if he’d raised her, things would be different.
Yep, I thought. She wouldn’t have a job at all.
He was nothing but trouble. Police chases. Jobs lost for bad on-the- job behavior. Letters from deans asking you to stay off college property. I was best man for him for one ill-advised marriage and its subsequent divorce. He was an accident waiting to happen and I was a witness waiting to see it.
I hung out with him because no one else would let me. He interpreted our friendship to be one of student and teacher. The only thing he could teach was how to be a loser. I was hungry for guidance and he took me under his wing.
We were thrown together by fate and we were both drinking so I didn’t leave. Until I stopped drinking and left.
He stopped a few years later, he said. There was no reason for us to stay in touch, really. Alcohol was the only thing we ever had in common. Tried to replace it with cleaning up together, but it was too late for any kind of a friendship.
I have a wife now who didn’t know me when I was that lump. I have a son who won’t even need to hear about it unless someday there’s a reason for me to tell him.
I’m not closing the door on my own past. That will always be with me. I just don’t need someone showing souvenirs of it to my family.
Click
Joe’s calling himself Jose, now. He’s listing his profession as poet and described himself as a biker.
He lists college degrees I know he doesn’t have. He couldn’t finish anything, but he could usually bluff for the first fifteen minutes.
Through the conversations he’d posted on other friends’ walls, I gathered he had a daughter now, one he’d discovered 10 years ago. One he’s been in touch with only since she turned 18 two years ago.
She’s a tattoo artist in NH, he says and getting into trouble with the law occasionally.
He adds that if he’d raised her, things would be different.
Yep, I thought. She wouldn’t have a job at all.
He was nothing but trouble. Police chases. Jobs lost for bad on-the- job behavior. Letters from deans asking you to stay off college property. I was best man for him for one ill-advised marriage and its subsequent divorce. He was an accident waiting to happen and I was a witness waiting to see it.
I hung out with him because no one else would let me. He interpreted our friendship to be one of student and teacher. The only thing he could teach was how to be a loser. I was hungry for guidance and he took me under his wing.
We were thrown together by fate and we were both drinking so I didn’t leave. Until I stopped drinking and left.
He stopped a few years later, he said. There was no reason for us to stay in touch, really. Alcohol was the only thing we ever had in common. Tried to replace it with cleaning up together, but it was too late for any kind of a friendship.
I have a wife now who didn’t know me when I was that lump. I have a son who won’t even need to hear about it unless someday there’s a reason for me to tell him.
I’m not closing the door on my own past. That will always be with me. I just don’t need someone showing souvenirs of it to my family.
Click
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Goodbye, Laz
Jan 4th marked the end of Bob Lazarus’ 4 year fight with a leukemia that had beaten on him as bad as it could. The disease and the cure had its way with this man who stayed funny to the end. He had done a set three weeks before at a ceremony honoring Steven Wright, whom Bob had opened for for the last 15 years. From all reports, in his final time on stage, he killed.A handful of this beloved man’s friends, the biggest names in the Boston comedy scene had held a reunion as a benefit to raise money to help Laz with his hospital bills. But the shadow overtook him and, mercifully, the battle ended. Facebook and other social networks and newsgroups were full of it in the days that followed. The shock of losing this terrific guy everyone loved segued nicely into grief and sorrow. From there, the stories came out. And there were lots of them.Here’s the first one that came to my mind. He and I were driving back from Pure Platinum, a Boston Comedy Company gig in the lounge of a bowling alley in Portsmouth. I was telling him about about the comic I’d just met who said she was and old friend of his. He asked if she still had a thing for collecting animals.I told him she’d said she did, boasting a house with four dogs, three cats, two birds, assorted rodentia and most recently, a monkey she was letting roam free about the place. “I’d like to own a monkey,” Laz said, exhaling. “But I’d be afraid it would bite me on my dick.” After that, I offered to drive the rest of the way home.
He got the light far too soon. He did a lot for a lot of people. He did even more every time he threw that smile at them.
Life isn't fair sometimes.
This time, it really cheated.
So long, Laz.
See you next time.
He got the light far too soon. He did a lot for a lot of people. He did even more every time he threw that smile at them.
Life isn't fair sometimes.
This time, it really cheated.
So long, Laz.
See you next time.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Wait 'til this year.
The year 2008 was one big kick in the cubes after another. I’m more than happy to have that year in my rear view mirror. Let’s review. I assure you, this will be as self-indulgent I get until the next buffet table comes along.
January – Laid off by Indymac Bank. Nostradamus saw that one coming; it was a bad time for mortgage banking. It was a great job, though. Money, work conditions, co-workers who could be co-worked with. Had great conversations with people on all levels of the job about 24, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and The Bronx is Burning. Was hard to let that one go.
February – Unemployment wringer. There’s no other way to put it. It’s a crappy process with a lot of paperwork, walking, waiting and hoping you’re earning positive judgments from other people. Just blows.
March – Weeks of pavement-pounding in winter cold made me aware of the labored breathing. It doesn’t seem as bad when you can actually see your breath coming out in front of you, that’s too be expected. The periodic stopping to catch your breath and dread of going up stairs shouldn’t be happening for another 30 years, though. Something is wrong.
This was originally a longer passage, but I don’t want to lose track of the punch-list format I have going, so I’ll shorten the tangent to: diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
In late March, one of my many job interviews led to a second interview scheduled from my hospital bed. This led to a job offer, which I accepted like a starving castaway receiving a Nilla wafer.
April – A week on the job and I get called by doctor after a follow up. We would like you to come in for a pet-scan. No problem, I get clearance from work since procedures on these are designed to inconvenience.
A few days later, the call comes that a team of experts have discovered something on my pet scan. Money well spent. Let’s take the results to another doctor. This doctor concurs with the others that there is indeed something on the PET scan.
A procedure to remove lymph nodes from under my arm for closer investigation of the something was offered to me in exchange for a day off of work and 25 percocets. I agreed.
My MD suggests I take the results to another doctor he knows who specializes in something. I take my results to her and she says the results will be sent to the Something Research Foundation which recently received a federal grant to delve into the cause, treatment and eventually cure of something.
This continued through most of the summer, although the Sword of Something dangled over us the whole time.
Melly worried about me, about losing me, and about how to manage without me. I worried about her.
Still, it was a summer where I saw Robbie play T-ball, join Cub Scouting, ride a horse for the first time, fly in an airplane to visit family in Pennsylvania, swim in the pool, play with a ton of new neighborhood friends and have a ball in summer camp.
In August, something was pronounced Hodgkin’s disease. Following a flurry of medical opinions, Wikipedia surfing and quiet terror, it was decided I couldn’t go through traditional chemotherapy for this because of the recent heart issue. Rituxin, it was decided would treat the Hodgkin’s without damaging the heart.
September - While the five half-day sessions of weekly treatments spent in overstuffed chairs watching Heat, Titus and Bourne Ultimatum in my mom’s portable DVD player were a nice break, I couldn’t shake thinking of why I was there. Most of the other folks in the please spare my life waiting room with me were all much older and had recently had their hair removed against their will. I had no symptoms to speak of save drowsiness after the sessions.
In October, I started on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds when it was pointed out to me that I was less than fun to be around. I was by now using a seven-day-a-week pill sorter like a grandparent. Insurance company is wondering where the hell I came from.
October and November were pretty ok and we needed the break from the drama. Robbie got settled into first grade and grew to love the blue and gold of his Cub Scout uniform.
Just inside of December, Melly was called into a human resources office and told she was being downsized. Times are hard, but she believes it is personal. Adding injury to insult.
She started 2009 by landing on her feet, going straight into a tax preparer job with H&R Block.
I started by getting up on January 2, mercifully devoid of any symptoms, and going to work.
Robbie slept in the same day. He’s six. And he knows he has two parents who will do whatever it takes to protect him and keep him fed and clothed.
So far, so good.
January – Laid off by Indymac Bank. Nostradamus saw that one coming; it was a bad time for mortgage banking. It was a great job, though. Money, work conditions, co-workers who could be co-worked with. Had great conversations with people on all levels of the job about 24, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and The Bronx is Burning. Was hard to let that one go.
February – Unemployment wringer. There’s no other way to put it. It’s a crappy process with a lot of paperwork, walking, waiting and hoping you’re earning positive judgments from other people. Just blows.
March – Weeks of pavement-pounding in winter cold made me aware of the labored breathing. It doesn’t seem as bad when you can actually see your breath coming out in front of you, that’s too be expected. The periodic stopping to catch your breath and dread of going up stairs shouldn’t be happening for another 30 years, though. Something is wrong.
This was originally a longer passage, but I don’t want to lose track of the punch-list format I have going, so I’ll shorten the tangent to: diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
In late March, one of my many job interviews led to a second interview scheduled from my hospital bed. This led to a job offer, which I accepted like a starving castaway receiving a Nilla wafer.
April – A week on the job and I get called by doctor after a follow up. We would like you to come in for a pet-scan. No problem, I get clearance from work since procedures on these are designed to inconvenience.
A few days later, the call comes that a team of experts have discovered something on my pet scan. Money well spent. Let’s take the results to another doctor. This doctor concurs with the others that there is indeed something on the PET scan.
A procedure to remove lymph nodes from under my arm for closer investigation of the something was offered to me in exchange for a day off of work and 25 percocets. I agreed.
My MD suggests I take the results to another doctor he knows who specializes in something. I take my results to her and she says the results will be sent to the Something Research Foundation which recently received a federal grant to delve into the cause, treatment and eventually cure of something.
This continued through most of the summer, although the Sword of Something dangled over us the whole time.
Melly worried about me, about losing me, and about how to manage without me. I worried about her.
Still, it was a summer where I saw Robbie play T-ball, join Cub Scouting, ride a horse for the first time, fly in an airplane to visit family in Pennsylvania, swim in the pool, play with a ton of new neighborhood friends and have a ball in summer camp.
In August, something was pronounced Hodgkin’s disease. Following a flurry of medical opinions, Wikipedia surfing and quiet terror, it was decided I couldn’t go through traditional chemotherapy for this because of the recent heart issue. Rituxin, it was decided would treat the Hodgkin’s without damaging the heart.
September - While the five half-day sessions of weekly treatments spent in overstuffed chairs watching Heat, Titus and Bourne Ultimatum in my mom’s portable DVD player were a nice break, I couldn’t shake thinking of why I was there. Most of the other folks in the please spare my life waiting room with me were all much older and had recently had their hair removed against their will. I had no symptoms to speak of save drowsiness after the sessions.
In October, I started on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds when it was pointed out to me that I was less than fun to be around. I was by now using a seven-day-a-week pill sorter like a grandparent. Insurance company is wondering where the hell I came from.
October and November were pretty ok and we needed the break from the drama. Robbie got settled into first grade and grew to love the blue and gold of his Cub Scout uniform.
Just inside of December, Melly was called into a human resources office and told she was being downsized. Times are hard, but she believes it is personal. Adding injury to insult.
She started 2009 by landing on her feet, going straight into a tax preparer job with H&R Block.
I started by getting up on January 2, mercifully devoid of any symptoms, and going to work.
Robbie slept in the same day. He’s six. And he knows he has two parents who will do whatever it takes to protect him and keep him fed and clothed.
So far, so good.
I haven’t really given any thought as to who might ever see these words. Maybe no one. Maybe someone who ends up here inadvertently while Googling Lindsay Lohan's ass.
Sorry if you’re reading this and are insulted by that but it’s not that I don’t think much of you at the time. That’s just the way it is with writing or any other kind of masturbation. You can’t think too much of where it’s going, it just feels good to get it out.
Sorry if you’re reading this and are insulted by that but it’s not that I don’t think much of you at the time. That’s just the way it is with writing or any other kind of masturbation. You can’t think too much of where it’s going, it just feels good to get it out.
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