Although it is not unusual for me to completely drop the ball w/r/t blogging, this might be the first time I have ever had a really, really, really good reason.
In a nutshell...
Two days after my last post, I spent the day in the ER and almost died because of the swine flu. But not really. I was in the ER all day, but it was not because of the swine flu. Not sure exactly what it was yet. I go back in for some more follow-up shiz this upcoming week. Cross your fingers.
I'd like to wait until then to broadcast anything more.
Anyway!
I thought I'd break back into blogging today. Why not? Thursdays are awesome. Not as awesome as Fridays, but they're pretty damn close, if only logistically.
For my first effort this round, I'd like to re-visit one of my favorite passive aggressive encounters of all time.
Once upon a time, I bought a margarita pizza from Maria's in Ferndale and it was delicious. I brought the pizza home and wanted to ensure that my abundance of leftovers would at least make it through the night and hopefully a few days beyond that. So. I left a note on the top of the box, on top of the stove and then went to meet some friends for drinks. This is the note:
When I came home, I thought to myself, "you know what would be really delicious right now? some effing margarita pizza."
I went straight for the box and opened it up to find it completely emptied of pizza with this note in its place:
You may or may not recognize the handwriting. It was Paul's. I became so insanely angry in one second that my head started hurting. I exclaimed aloud, "mother fucker! where is my goddamn pizza?! I KNEW IT!!! I swear to god and all that is holy... Mother F! Ugh..." and so on and so forth.
And then, when my cheeks were nice and rosy from my verbal fit of rage I heard laughter. I thought to myself, "oh, what in the holy hell now goddammit."
Paul came walking into the kitchen laughing hysterically. "I am so sorry hahahaha but you should have heard yourself hahaha and you your face hahaha oh man that was totally worth it hahaha i put your pizza in a bag in the fridge. i'm sorry hahaha i just couldn't resist."
"Wait. What? The pizza's in the fridge?!"
"Yes."
"Sweet!"
and now for something lovely...
I may or may not have posted this on here before. But that's ok because I love it so much. And you know, on second that, I hope this is at least the third time I've shared it. It makes me that happy.
Today is my last day of house arrest/quarantine. I still have the hacking cough but the chills and body aches are almost gone completely. Woo! I've watched a lot of Ugly Betty and a decent number of movies. It's kind of impressive when you think abut it, because I've also slept for what feels like 100 hours.
One of my favorite movies to watch is Best In Show. I've watched it three times in the past 5 days or so.
The above photo was sent to me by my mother a while back. It is in reference to the following scene:
Fun Fact: If you want to get tested for the H1N1, you have to go to a hospital.
Oh, and everywhere I checked, they were out of vaccines. Woo! So, if you're like me (and millions of other Americans) and you don't have health insurance, you'll be told that it's too expensive to get checked unless you feel like you're dying. Preventative medicine? Not so much.
It all felt very Children of Men to me.
Anyway! I'm getting better. I hope you are too or that you're not sick. You know the drill: wash your hands, don't touch your face unless you have, cough into your elbow blahblahblah. IF you do get sick, TheraFlu helped me a lot. And when I say TheraFlu, I mean the store brand version. Oh, and rest a lot. When you think you feel a lot better, rest for one more day and then you will for sure feel even better. Trust me.
Also... I'm almost done editing the band VLOG we shot on Sunday. I am still working on the Columbus VLOG series. Those should be ready by Monday.
A few months ago, my iPod adapter cassette thing took a dump on me, so I made a quick stop at a Radio Shack near my house before heading into work. The moment I stepped out of my car, I saw this parked next to me:
I am home sick today with the NON H1N1 flu. My entire body aches like I've been run over by a group of angry lineman.
Last night, I scraped myself out of bed to go to the store and pick up a few "remedies" like tea, TheraFlu and a shit ton of juice. As I was standing in line, I noticed some of the clever, last minute, impulse buys displayed near the registers.
There are Magic Gloves
What makes these gloves so magical? I have no idea because the packaging did not include an explanation and/or a list of features. But don't worry, because I could've just bought little Dora socks with feet already in them.
Way to take out the middle man, Ferndale Foods! And lastly...
Yes, you're reading that right: French Toast Children's Tights.
Location: Employees Only entrance at a downriver 7-11.
There are two sure fire signs that you are awesome at life (besides having a happy bunny keyboard).
1. You get written up for putting bottles and cans in the wrong boxes and/or 2. You take a page from the 7-11 manager Suzy playbook and you are bat shit crazy.
Also...
I heart random capitalization, and possessive cans. Kudos to Suzy for spelling "their" correctly on her second attempt.
Not too long ago, Clare found herself the victim of theft. Some sweaty bastard that she works with in NYC stole her Metro card right out of her jacket pocket. She suspected him almost immediately and "confronted" him passive aggressively. It went a little something like this:
CLARE: Hi. SWEATY BASTARD: Hi. How are you? CLARE: Shitty. Someone stole my Metro card today and I just put, like, $90 on it. Worst day ever! SWEATY BASTARD: Wow. That's terrible. I'm sorry to hear that. CLARE: Thanks. I'm so mad. I mean, why would someone do that? SWEATY BASTARD: I have no idea. [long pause] I don't even take public transportation. Not a bus or the subway or anything. I ride my bike. CLARE: [confused] Riiiight...
So, she got an empty card and placed it in her jacket pocket again with the cute little note pictured above.
I don't know about you guys, but I am still tired from this weekend. It was ridiculously busy, but soooo much fun. It was chock full of friends and family and music and alcohol AND! I crossed "meet Kelly Clarkson" off of my bucket list. I did not have "also, hug her" on there, but I added it real quick and then crossed that mother off too.
I would like to take this opportunity to announce that, contrary to popular belief, Kelly Clarkson is NOT fat. I repeat: NOT fat. She's short and curvy like most of the women in my family. If she is fat, then I am also fat. Seriously. She was gracious and lovely and sweet and down to Earth.
For as ecstatic as I was (and still am) about meeting her, I was also really bummed out. It really drove home the whole body image/low self-esteem bull shit that's constantly re-enforced on the teevee and newsstands and in theatres everywhere across America.
And you know... I understand that it's important to be healthy and that obesity is a serious issue in this nation. BUT, Ms. Clarkson looks normal and healthy. I feel like she only looks fat in comparison to her peers who are more or less twigs.
Take for instance, Brandi Carlile...
First of all, I adore her. I think she's a force of nature and quite possibly one of the greatest artists of all freaking time. But she is so damn skinny, that if she turned sideways, she'd straight up disappear. She looks so "normal" in press photos and videos online that seeing her in person had a jaw dropping effect. 5'3"-ish and 90 lbs. is not "normal".
But, hey. Maybe I'm way off here. What do you think? And please, allow me to preface the following side-by-side comparison with this: 95% of the women in my life are the same size, if not larger, than Kelly Clarkson. I can count the number of "Brandi Carlile"s I know on one hand.
Observe:
I guess my point with all of this is to say that:
1. I love Kelly Clarkson (with all my heart) 2. she is not fat and 3. for the love of all that's sacred, love your curves!!
And now onto what felt like a very appropriate photo-opp for today...
This one goes out to the bitches in the entertainment industry who make us feel like shit, to Mondays, annoying co-workers and to the people who ruin my life every day in the parking structure. You know who you are...
I found this in a nursing administration office. Something tells me, they do no not like their job and/or life.
You don't even want to know what was in the other fridge. Let's just say that retrieving the contents required a haz-mat suit and very thick gloves.
pump it like you mean it!
My mother emailed me this sign she found at a gas station. It should be noted that she found this in the same city as the COPYS sign. It has led me to believe that spelling and grammar are not exactly the forte of Trenton gas station owners and/or employees.
I submitted this to you suck at craigslist dot com, but they haven't posted it and I don't know if they will. So... Here's a little gem I found:
Looking for a guy that collects vintage/retro (ferndale)
Reply to:sale-s7dv8-1181385253@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] Date: 2009-05-21, 12:03AM EDT
what do you collect? This is the barter section, and we have a great space for display and selling of vintage, retro, collectible stuff in exchange for helping us out on a shift or two. Fun easy place to work, and we sell your stuff everyday, open everyday, and special events like the ferndale art fair and the dream cruise and pridefest. what do you collect? male anything retro? Looking for stable down to earth guys that are non smoker and drug free. addicted to garbage picking? garage sales? fine. No drugs. well, coffee and plenty of it.
Location: ferndale it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1181385253
Do you have a nicotine addiction? Go fuck yourself. Do you have an addiction to leafing through disgusting garbage? High five! Call me asap!!!
And "male anything retro"? What in the holy hell is that supposed to mean? At first, I thought: spelling error. However, "make anything retro?" is physically impossible. It has to exist for quite some time before it can be considered retro. You can make something retro-style or -esque perhaps. But to straight up make something retro is just ludicrous.
There are many, many photos of actual people and places and there's also a ridiculous amount of video footage to be cut down into manageable bites. I am still completely exhausted and if this gd headache does not go away soon, I will smackabitch. Or something.
Until the series of VLOGS is complete, this station will continue with its regularly scheduled programming.
not Benny & Joon's
Did I just get that "500 miles" song stuck in your head? No? How about now?
I found the following photos in a diner called Jack & Benny's right on the outskirts of downtown Columbus. We were promised a delicious breakfast and that is exactly what we received. It was the perfect hangover fix. They had vintage arcade games like Pac-Man and this request, posted just inside the door, next to the hanging clipboard we were instructed to sign in at.
This photo watched over us as we ate:
I'm hoping someone can help me identify this man and tell me why, what appears to be a newspaper clipping of his arm-less bust--a la Venus de Milo--is floating on top of a carton of eggs. If you have any information, please send it my way: i.stole.the.tv.blog@gmail.com . kthxbye.
My Dads like to leave notes (passive-aggressive and otherwise) all over the house. They leave them for themselves, for each other and for me. Recently, we had a plumbing issue in the house. The pipes were backing up, so a plumber was called.
Today, I received the following email from my Dad:
My darling daughter's, Today I rushed home to meet with the plumber so he could snake out the drain (thankfully that I have a job that I can do this). I have had to do this every couple of years due to the big maple tree roots that have somehow got into the main drain in the back yard. Mind you at a cost of $129 (thank god for yellow pages coupons or it would have been $151!). I had a lively conversation with both of them as they did their disgusting job but which is most appreciated by the general public. When I was expecting a bucket of roots to come out when they retrieved the snake from under the back yard. It ended up being a few of the affor mentioned "MUFFIN PLUGS". I have no idea how long they had been there or who did it, weather it was Elida or her friends, [redacted] or for that matter [redacted] when she was here for a day. For my sanity and the protection of your wallet ( I am actually only talking to you Elida other wise I would day purse).....NO MORE FLUSHING YOUR MUFFIN PLUGS!
Love DAD
P.S. This better not show up on passive aggressive notes.com
He never said anything about posting it on my blog. He sure paints a lovely picture, doesn't he? Turns out, Paul wanted to leave a sticky note in the bathroom that read:
NO MORE FLUSHING MUFFIN PLUGS!!! Love, Paul. :)
I really wish he would've done the latter.
Also, I have no idea what he meant by "day purse" and/or how that's a verb.
The video editing is coming along, slowly but surely. I'd like to have it wrapped up and ready to go for next week. I'm feeling especially short on words today. Shocker! Anyway... Here are some videos:
Found this last night in the Traffic Jam bathroom. This hand dryer comes with very specific instructions. They read as follows:
1. SHAKE EXCESS WATER FROM HANDS 2. PUSH KNOB - STOPS AUTOMATICALLY 3. RUB HANDS LIGHTLY AND RAPIDLY 4. TURN LOUVER UPWARD TO DRY FACE
Got it? Good.
Also...
If you haven't done so yet, check out The Laramie Project. Rent it, stream it, hit up youtube, whatevs. You need to see it. Last night I went to the Hilberry to check out The Laramie Project : Ten Years Later (An Epilogue). I've been sticking to the ridiculous lately, so I don't wanna suck all the fun out of, what I can only assume, has been an extraordinary tuesday for you. But it IS important, so read about it here.
Lastly...
I've watched this video maybe 28 times and it still moves me. Who's excited for fourth row KC on the 25th? (!!!) Life is good.
Another cube rat white board. Please note the other countdown to a wedding. The bubbly hearts suggest that it will be their wedding. But they also used the same hearts to DOT THEIR I's for Taylor's name. Who does that past the age of nine?
Oy vey.
Age of employee: 37 Photographic evidence of a child they might be taking to the upcoming concert: none. Creeper scale (1-10): 9.5
I spent a few months working at Domino Farms on a project for U of M. The office complex is ginormous. Seriously. It's nearly a mile long and I walked that mother effer every single day. Inside the massive structure, you will find a post office, radio station, convenience store, cafeteria, church, several clinics, offices, top secret labs and a Domino's Pizza store.
There are also plenty of bathrooms. Praise Jesus.
In one such bathroom, the women who worked at the Catholic radio station purchased what I'm guessing was "fancy" hand soap. At some point, the soap started disappearing, so the cute old ladies began striking the fear of God into the would-be thieves.
I was under the impression that the whole "happy bunny" craze was over. I was very, very wrong.
Please observe the keyboard of one of my co-workers:
Guide to being awesome at life:
1. buy happy bunny stickers (keyboard, standard edition) 2. await their arrival anxiously 3. they arrive, tear open package feverishly 4. take to work in super cool happy bunny tote 5. get to work, update facebook status ("at work. ugh! lol") 6. spend one hour placing each individual sticker on every. single. key. 7. collect paycheck 8. smile
She spends roughly three hours staring at her water bowl every day. Cats are smart like that.
Her other favorite thing to do is puke on porous surfaces regularly. She favors blankets, rugs, mats and pillows. Again, she is very smart. Either that or she harbors a lingering resentment for the people who feed her, give her treats and pet her. She leads a rough life.
So, one night she pukes (aka "yak"s) on the kitchen floor. Rather than clean up the cat yak, a paper towel was put in place to cover it up and then a note was attached.
I like to snack on pepperocinis. I eat them the way most people eat chips or pieces of candy. One night, I left out the little bowl I was using to put the stems in. I did so with the intention of disposing of them when I woke up the next day. Paul went to bed much later than I did and left me the following note:
Also, please notice that my little bowl was not the only item left on the counter that night. In fact, the glass right next to it is Paul's.
Last night, McMannus and I went to the Kings of Leon concert at the Palace. It still blows my mind that they played there as the headliner. I mean, seriously. That place is ginormous and they have ONE song on the radio.
They packed in a shit ton of people, although I suspect that a substantial portion of them were there to hear, either, "Sex On Fire" or "Use Somebody". My theory may or may not have been proven correct due to the amount of people that swarmed the exits after each song was played.
The show itself was alright. I think they'd do much better in a smaller venue. Maybe The Filmore or The Fox. No lie, I started falling asleep during their first encore song. I have no idea what it was called (i was part of team "all i wanna hear is "Manhattan") but it dragged on and on and on.
The bathrooms were super interesting at the Palace and at the Post bar across the street. Never mind that there were exactly 435-ish bump-it sightings, the bathrooms were the place to be.
your welcome!
In case you can't read the bubbly 14 year-old girl pen scribble, one thoughtful patron scrawled the following in a ball point pen:
I wright on bathroom stalls so you have Something to read while you pee! Your Welcome!
Worst e.e.cummings poem EVER.
She returned sometime later to add another blurb below...
Bill Nye would be sooo proud.
Hey I'm back did you know the Best hangover cure in the world is to eat pickles & drink water the next morning! try it - it works!
Somewhere between the shuttle ride across the street and a quick stop at the over-priced bars in the Palace turned some lovely bump-it sporting ladies into Jean Claude Van Damme/MacGyver rage-aholics.
It has been exactly 642 days since my last confession...
Seriously, it's been a while. How are you? I hope you're doing well. We have a lot to catch up on. Rather than expound upon every little detail or give a broad stroke account of the last 9 or so months, I'd like to simply change gears.
Let's just look at some photos, shall we? Great.
Welcome
Earlier this summer I was working on a project in a few satellite U of M buildings in Ann Arbor. In a tiny tucked away corner of one such building, I found a fantastic white board that the department staff had animated with a series of grievances and warnings.
"...so take off all your clothes."
It really was sweltering in that office. So hot, in fact, that I was dripping in sweat standing still.
exhibit A.
Seriously.
Umm...what?
This one set my internal danger level to orange. What in the hell was going on in that office? Cockroaches? Their entire families? Were they responsible for "killing" the fake plants? Probably.
yeah, that pretty much covers it.
hail mary, full of grace...
And last, but certainly not least... This little gem was taped to the side of a moving box at the Nissan development headquarters in Farmington Hills, MI. They really, really want you to be careful with the contents in this box:
This probably needs some editing, but i'm fired up/on a mission, so it's getting posted now...
Once upon a time, this girl (me) was trying to play it straight, when i found myself wandering through the DVD section in Target and i happened to come upon this gem:
Obvs i bought it and ran home and watched the entire season in maybe two days. I was hooked.
For me, the L word totally changed my life. I mean, this show, this one that i now loathe, made me feel like it was ok to be gay, like maybe, just maybe my options stretched beyond flannel and mullets.
Today (or really, yesterday) the series ended and I am so completely pissed off that the show has gone so completely off the deep end i can barely stand it.
No, i take that back. I can't stand it. I really can't. I think that Ilene Chaiken is a self-righteous asshole/terrible writer. She took a really amazing thing, which, ps, was totally her idea in the first place and let it mutate into something that i feel embarassed to associate myself with. The L word is now, to me, something i can barely stomach, like that god-awful Shot At Love show people keep telling me about. It's really an effing shame that it had to go like this.
The writing has gone so completely down hill that I cringe, literally CRINGE when i watch the credits and see: "WRITTEN BY ILENE CHAIKEN". Wanna know why? Because she is a terrible writer. She is sooo bad at telling stories it nearly makes my ears bleed.
I dunno. I guess I'm just pissed b/c I used to feel like the show stood for something, like i had this one great thing i could call my own that was an important representation of our "community". And now...
Tonight was the last episode, and thank g-d, because it was getting pretty rough. This entire season, and most of the last two seasons have been so bad i wanna gouge my eyes out. I kind of feel like they jumped the shark when they killed Dana/left Carmen at the alter. I mean... Really, Papi? Really?!
Who would leave her at the alter?
The answer is NO ONE.
Also, early thirty-something tennis pros do not get diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer and then die like, two months later. It just doesn't fucking happen. You know what else doesn't happen? Um... Transmen who are nearing the end of their transition do NOT get fucking pregnant, even if they have unprotected vaginal intercourse with their gay boyfriend. Which, i mean, HELLO! So much of that (second to) last sentence doesn't make any GD sense.
She should've lived.
He should NOT have been forced to sport ANY facial hair b/c we can all safely say that none of it worked.
Ilene! You are killing me.
Scratch that. You killed Jenny. Or maybe Sounder did. Although i kind of feel like Mark did b/c Jenny obvs stole his camera for her cute/ridiculous "farewell video" or whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, aka the vagina tease that showed 2.5 seconds of Carmen off somewhere being hot/NOT having sex with Shane. I mean, SERIOUSLY!!
This shit has gotten so bad i feel embarassed for everyone involved.
(makes me miss the soul patch and i never, EVER thought i'd say that.)
Tonight, my friends and i gathered to watch the show armed with a drinking game that was totally awesome and was basically the highlight of the night (thank you, Chelsea!). And it's sad, b/c the highlight should've been all the warm fuzzy feelings we had about a show that changed us all in one way shape or form, FINALLY coming full circle.
But you know what? The show didn't even kind of come full circle, unless you count the cute deja vu moment that happened when Shane was coming home in the AM and Tina and Bette were sitting on the porch just like they did in the very first episode. You know, back when the show used to be good.
There was absolutely no resolution. In fact, i would say, of the few shows i have ever seen all the way through, i feel like they left way more loose ends than they tied up. I mean, even the series finale of Arrested Development felt like it concluded in some fashion b/c they were at least (!!!) closing one chapter, leaving the possibility for another one to follow.
But tonight, they just started a whole mess of shit and asked a lot questions that were never answered and only alluded to Jenny's death. THE WHOLE ENTIRE CLIFF HANGER OF THIS G-D FORSAKEN SEASON WAS ABOUT WHO KILLED JENNY AND WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE HER DIE!!
I mean, who should i have blown to get a good story out of Ilene? Worst episode ever, except maybe the one where nothing happened. Wait... that was like half 12 episodes. Or maybe the one where they threw the baby shower and everyone was talking at the same time about birthing plans for no reason whatsoever. Or every single episode beyond giving Max facial hair, or after Jenny went mean crazy and not funny crazy. I mean, W? T? F? Ilene, Ilene, Ilene...
You killed me softly tonight. You really did. Thanks for ruining something i really loved. Thanks for ending a show that changed my life in the worst way possible. Thanks for being a vagina tease all these years. Thanks for mis-representing trans issues. Thanks for killing Dana. (Thanks for at least admitting that that was a horrible idea.) Thanks for never placing value on character backstories. Thanks for Papi. Thanks for writing horrible dialog. Thanks for changing everyone's personalities constantly. Thanks for sending characters into the vortex. Thanks for making all of us want to pull out our hair out every episode of late. And most of all, thanks for being really self-righteous about it the entire fucking time.
You are a horrible, horrible writer and i am very, very disappointed in the way you handled the "conclusion" of a really fucking important show.
When I was younger I spent a lot of time inside my head plotting grand schemes and adventures and predicting my future. I was the weirdo kid who drew up business plans, hand crafted musical instruments out of paper towel rolls, rubber bands and shoe boxes , sketched out the blue prints for the house I was going to build and took a mob-like approach to a lemonade stand that I ran for only one, albeit, very successful day.
I was convinced that I was fully capable of coming up with a flavor of chewing gum that would revolutionize the industry, that I would write an Oscar winning screenplay at the age of 12 and that one day my family and I (because of our infinite talents and irresistible charisma) would all be famous like the Kennedy’s, except w/o the curse part.
I was always taking notes; having started a journal in the fourth grade b/c my teacher told me it was a good idea. I noted the way my parents raised me, the decisions everyone made around me and I told myself I would learn from everyone’s mistakes, thus eliminating the hassle of making my own. It would free up an awful lot of the time necessary for achieving the laundry list of shit I felt was completely within my grasp.
As the years have rolled on, I’ve had the wind knocked out of me enough times to know that with all my high hopes, I am still capable of a lot of the silly ideas I had, but I am not however, exempt from making roughly one billion mistakes along the way.
Some of my greatest (aka, favorite) ideas i've had along the way are things that I still plan to do one day.
1. Build a tree house like the one in Swiss Family Robinson.
That movie changed my life in so many ways. Have you seen the film? I still, STILL love that movie as much now as i did the first time I saw it. They live in the most amazing tree house of all time. It is my plan, to one day, build a tree house exactly like the one in the movie.
I used to throw the movie on and pause it at the appropriate times so I could fine tune the blue print I was drafting. I drew side views and front views and planned where the furniture would go and studied our Atlas for potential uncharted islands where I could set up my little get-away.
Unfortunately, the sketches I made were lost in one of our moves. But I still plan to build a tree house like theirs one day. And it won’t be one of those stupid ones I keep finding online. It has to be half fort, half house and the coconut grenades will absolutely be part of the equation.
2. Run my own company.
Technically, technically, I have already done this one. Jarvis and I started up a film company that is still in existence. However, because we have yet to finish the two films we shot and because we rarely see each other anymore, I cannot officially cross this off my list, which is why it’s here now.
In my weirdo dreams as a tot I owned a fake company with my cousin David. We named the company D.E. Electronics and to this day I have no idea what we were pretending to sell. But in the lengthy infomercial like commercials we produced, you would think we had that shit nailed down. I produced graphs and charts comparing our company to our “competitors” and explained in clear plain English, that our company was simply the best blahblahblah. I should dig up those videos.
My point is, I was practicing for the two jobs I would hold one day. The first being my job for Valassis, aka corporate America, aka the man, the second one is my current job at BPI Information Systems, which, ps, I have a hard time explaining to people just like I did w/the fake electronics company I had when I was 13.
3. Be in a band.
Ok, technically, I also did this one too/am doing it right now. BUT, since I am not in a band called Hanson, this one is also technically not completed yet.
I started guitar lessons when I was maybe 5 and then I started piano lessons maybe a year or so later that would continue for more than a few years. I have since forgotten pretty much everything I ever learned on the piano and regret that I didn’t stick with is. But, I only half regret it b/c I picked up the drums a few years after and I like the drums a lot more, so whatever.
Anyway, I was obsessed with Hanson when I was younger. They rocked my world like whoa, and I will always, always, always love them for that.
When I was younger I would very frequently cancel plans with friends or tell them I couldn’t hang out cause I was “busy” so that I could escape to my room of handmade instruments. I already owned a midget guitar, or wait… sorry--a "little people" guitar--but I needed a bass so I made one out of shit I found around the house and then made a drum kit out of pots and pans and banged on them with the handles of wooden spoons.
I had a boom box that I would record my songs on and often times I would force my sisters to play along b/c it was pretty much impossible to play all of the parts by myself and all at the same time. Oh man! I forgot about my Casio keyboard! That thing was, I am not kidding, the coolest thing ever. I also used that for my fake band and cursed my sisters for not possessing the necessary musical talent, the desire to play music with me in the first place and the dream of one day being on TRL.
Sidenote: I loved TRL when it first started. I used to tape the show and study it for my other future career…
4. Be a host on TRL and/or a radio DJ.
The boom box did double duty and also served as a tool I would use to make my own radio shows that I would spend two weeks writing, recording and producing. I would then force my mother to listen to it on her way to work and force my dad and my sisters to listen to it on our way to his house on the weekends we'd spend with him.
I would include weather forecasts and hot news stories and little anecdotes that I thought were very clever. I wasted roughly 10,000 trees drafting and revising my scripts and the different components that made it up.
I also wrote, produced, directed and edited a fake TRL I made with my BFF from middle school. We took turns hosting and there was a period of time when I was obsessed with speeding up and slowing down the film, during which time I may or may not have aimed a fan at my BFF for a fake hair product commercial.
Also, this dream will never come true b/c they cancelled the show. Boo.
5. Own my own newspaper.
Around the holidays I used to put out newsletters. And when I say “put out”, I mean I would show up at my grandma’s house and race into the den to start work on it. I would write, edit and print out exactly too many copies of my newsletter and then force everyone to read it after dinner. They always had clever titles like the “Gobbler Gazette” and the one I did at Christmas time that I can’t recall right now, but was probably equally lame.
I’d put in word searches and word scrambles and articles about whatever holiday it was inter-spliced with fake advertisements so they would know I was legit.
Ho hum.
I may or may not continue this list. Right now, i have to get back to "work". In the meantime, what were some of your crazy ideas and do you plan on ever crossing them off your proverbial list?
Hello. Hi. Sometimes I make jokes/make fun of people, places and/or things. You might think I'm being mean, or maybe you'll even think I'm mildly funny. At the very least, please know that I am only kidding and I don't mean any real harm to anyone. Thanks.
