Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Thanks to my fabulously connected brother, this weekend I will achieve my lifelong dream of singing the national anthem before a game.

The commentary on this soon-to-be accomplishment has been varied and occasionally bizarre:

• I didn't know you could sing. Yes. Long before I mastered the art of perching on a bar stool or turning chocolate cake into "dinner", I was warbling with the best of them. At one point I was singing in 5 choirs at the same time.
• Have you sung in front of that many people before? That many? No, but it's far from the first time I've sung for a large audience. Most of those pieces were all in Latin or being evaluated by judges or both, so there was way more pressure then than now.
• What anthem are you singing, ours? I'm astounded that I've heard this question more than once. The game is the Chicago Fire vs. the New York Red Bulls. What nations anthem would I be singing? "Well, it's a soccer game, so I thought maybe the Mexican anthem." Could someone please explain this logic to me? Since when does soccer = Mexicans to the exclusion of everyone else? Why not ask me if I'm singing the Italian national anthem or the Brazilian national anthem? And again more than one person asked me this.
• Wow! Are you nervous? Um, no, because it's Thursday. I'm singing on Sunday. The only thing I'm doing today is watching the Browns game at the bar. Nothing to be nervous about until Sunday afternoon.
• So, Let me get this straight: You can stand up and sing the national anthem in front of 15,000 people, but you can't order a pizza on the phone. That is correct. I have confidence that I can sing well, I do not have confidence that I can order a pizza without sounding like a jackass. The pizza guy might make fun of me; 15,000 people who can't imagine soloing in front of a stadium full of people will not.

In general, everyone seems pretty excited for me, especially my boss who was e-mailing clients in Minneapolis and Cincinnati to tell them about it and Gene Honda, who ran around for weeks telling everyone they had to show up even though he may end up missing the game himself for a vacation in (wait for it) Mexico. Mexicanos, al grito de guerrael acero aprestad y el bridon. Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra,al sonoro rugir del canon. ¡Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra,al sonoro rugir de el canon!

Sadly, This is Actual News

T.O. Practices.

Holy shit, stop the presses!

I Have Had It With These Motherfuckin Spiders In My Motherfuckin Car!

Samuel L. Jackson called me on Friday.

He told me I should stop dying my hair all kind of crazy colors and go see his latest film instead. He also called me from Heather's house which I thought was weird. I had no idea they were close. At any rate it was a demand more than a suggestion. He said if I didn't go see it he would "come after" me. I've seen Pulp Fiction; I know what he's capable of.

So Friday night I went to see it with Magic Hands. I've been trying to dream up a blog name for Magic Hands for weeks and sadly that's the best I could come up with. It's meant to be reflective of his being a massage therapist and it sucks less than Sir Rubs A Lot. Though not much. Anyway.

Snakes on a Plane is awesome. It's not a movie; it's an event. It kicks mad ass in its craptacularness. Below are my favorite moments. You need to highlight them to read it, since it contains spoilers and I wouldn't want to ruin anyone's joy.

• I invented a fun new game to play at the movies. It's called Spot the Product Placement. I came up with it when a guy who JUST got off a motorbike was inexplicably walking around with a Red Bull in his hand as a GMC truck pulled up. Try it, it's great.
• Snakes biting people's genitalia is always funny. It's even funnier when they actually yell out "Bitch! Get off my dick!"
• Another thing that is always funny is dead bodies falling right on top of unsuspecting Purell addicted germophobes. Though karma would come back to bite my ass later that night for laughing at someone else's phobias.
• Snakes on a Plane: now with more Snake-o-vision! I didn't know snakes saw everything in green like they have built in night vision goggles. Go snakes.
• Even better than I could have hoped for! A GIANT snake that wraps around this pompous English dude and crushes him to death. You even hear the bones crunching. But as if that weren't cool enough, the snake then does that thing where they can unhinge their jaw and it SWALLOWS THE GUY'S ENTIRE HEAD! Genius!
• The guy that plays Dick in High Fidelity turns out to be the resident snake expert, and his character is exactly the same as Dick, except he's a snake geek instead of a music geek. He's unintentionally hilarious.
• The ambiguously gay male flight attendant grabs a snake and exacts revenge by putting it in the microwave and blowing it up. Guts everywhere. Sweet as hell.
• The big line comes almost at the end of the movie, and at a point where it almost makes no sense. They just decided that the guy with the PSP should try to land the plane since the snakes ate everyone who had ever actually flown, and while everyone was calm and no snakes were around SLJ drops the line. WTF? Whatever, it got a huge hand in the theater.

I drove Magic Hands home after the movie. I'm pretty sure he now thinks I'm a total freaking asshole. We were stopped at a light and I was explaining one of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs, Spider. "I love this song! TMBG are insane. Shpidah! He is our hero! Shpidah! Get rid of! Shpidah! AAAHHHH! FUCK THERE'S ONE RIGHT HERE INSIDE THE CAR! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" As I'm singing my happy little spider song some movement caught my eye and I realized that there was a spider in my car, on the drivers side door, a whole 6 inches away from me. Seconds after I noticed it, it fell on the floor right by my feet. I'd explained my spider issues to him before, he thought it was funny and sort of cute. That is what everyone thinks until the first time they see me freak out. It always amuses me (much much later) how surprised they are. It's not like they haven't been warned.

Magic Hands sent me to the back seat to hide, and then went against all his vegetarian yay-for-nature principles and killed it for me. Also another one that he found hiding under my floor mat, waiting to eat my feet or climb up my pant leg. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to coax me back into the front seat. I don't remember what the questions were that I asked him. I know that they were all steeped in crazy. When he finally got me back in the driver's seat and I'd stopped hyperventilating, he said somewhat anti-climactically "I guess you really are afraid of spiders."

Yes. Yes I am.

If you'd like Samuel L. Jackson to threaten your friends, you can get in touch with him here.

Random Thoughts From My Lunchtime Walk

• The sign outside the Baskin Robbins clearly reads "31 Flavors" in giant pink writing. And yet when I go inside I count exactly 20 flavors. What gives exactly? I was promised 11 more choices. The Intern thinks we should sue.
• Speaking of ice cream, why the hell am I the only person who's ever heard of Superman flavor? Everyone always looks at me like I'm crazy when I talk about it, but it obviously exists. Or did.
• One thing I would not have done would be to start a car rental business and name it Alamo. The Texans lost that battle. Almost all of them died. Doesn't that imply that renting an Alamo car would cause you to die and/or get lost?
• We're on a bridge Charlie!
• It is a travesty that anyone should have to work on such a beautiful day. Especially me.

When It Rains, It Pours...

...then it strikes you with lightning, knocks a tree over onto your house and floods your basement.

Browns Center Ephraim to be Suspended

Maybe we don't really need a center. Maybe we can train the ball to snap itself.

For My Buckeye Fans

I'm laying on the couch in my living room, while my roommate the bartender reads me college football previews, followed by college football schedules.

"Read me the Buckeyes schedule," says I, "I want to know if they're playing at Northwestern this year."

"Yeah, the game is here. November 11th."

"Sweet! I'm totally going to go to that game. O-H!"

The Illinois native silently surfs the internet. The silence grows until he realizes I'm staring at him, looks at me and says, "Oh. Is this the part where I'm supposed to say 'I-O'?"

We're going to have to work on this.

Pity Party

My throat hurts. I can barely swallow. My head weighs 60 pounds and some asshole is blowing up a balloon right behind my eye sockets. Trains and walking induce nausea. It is obvious I am dying of typhoid. I hope to tell you all one last spider story before I die with what is left of my strength. But not right now.

On The New Subtitle

Our new subtitle comes to us courtesy of the great and powerful Wizard of MrSteve. We'd been sitting at the bar discussing television shows I'd never seen or heard of (MrSteve: It was on in 1973. Me: So I wasn't born. MrSteve: And then there was McMillan and Wife, in 1971. Me: So, I was even less born.) I was drinking Captain and Coke; the far more sophisticated MrSteve was drinking scotch.

A word about scotch: it's fucking gross. I don't understand this alcohol at all. I've had this debate with MrSteve a number of times. They always go something like this:

Me: I don't know how you drink that stuff. Seriously.
MrSteve: Here, try it.
Me: (Tentative sip. Explosion of hatred from my tastebuds.) Gross. It tastes like paint thinner, Steve.
MrSteve: What? You're crazy. You don't taste the caramel? You don't taste the wood?
Me: I taste the turpentine.
MrSteve: You're crazy.


My conversation with MrSteve somehow went from shows from before I was born to giving scotch to an 8 year old (don't ask). And this, inexplicably, led to MrSteve grabbing a lighter and trying to light his scotch on fire. As I sat watching this, several problems with this operation came to mind, to wit:

• He could spill the scotch all over the bar.
• He could drop the (borrowed) lighter into the scotch and ruin it.
• He could actually light the scotch on fire and burn down the bar.*

With these things in mind I eyed MrSteve and told him gravely, "I have not had enough rum to approve of that particular maneuver." The wise MrSteve dropped his arson-laced experiment and instead suggested I use that comment on the blog.




*While relaying this story to the bartender the next morning, he pointed out that there probably wasn't enough alcohol in the scotch for it to actually catch fire, but that attempting to light it on fire "could ruin the taste of the scotch." I don't really see how you could ruin that flavor, but it's an interesting point.

It's A Miracle I'm Ever Taken Seriously

A guy from the parent company and The Intern are standing near the back hallway talking. My backpack and I approach them on my way to the door.

Parent Company Guy: Here she comes!
Me: And there I go.
PCG: You're leaving?
Me. I'm tired. I need a nap. I make the universal sign of a pillow with my hands and pretend to rest my head on it.
The Intern: The carpet does look pretty comfortable.
Me: No, I'm going to take a nap right here.
The Intern: Standing up?
Me: Yes. I demonstrate the pillow again. I'm like a cow. Oh wait. Cows sleep standing up right?
The Intern: Yes. That's the whole point of cow tipping. You push them over when they're sleeping.
Me: Oh. Right. I remember now. Because I've seen cows that were sitting down you know. But they were probably just resting.
*crickets*
Me:I'm going to stop talking now.