Black Smoke Factory

What's been up?

2009-06-23T06:20:00.001-07:00

So what’s been up? Well, the obvious answer is: I’ve been busy.

-I finished the play about racing. You know, the play itself was so-so. The cast was pretty freaking fantastic, talent-wise. So a mediocre script was propped up by 9 good actors, in my opinion. And it was fun. I laughed a lot. I played cards a lot. But for the most part, I sat around in the back of the theatre reading. Paid to read. I think maybe I’ve been going about this acting thing wrong all these years. Instead of shooting for the longwinded/ look-at-me parts, I should have been shooting for the parts where the guy comes on stage, drops off a glass of wine to the main characters and then leaves. Then they sit in the back for two hours. That’s the life.

-I put in my notice at work. Yep, I’m getting out of the office world in favor of doing theatre as my regular gig. Now, truth be told, my new gig is educational theatre, which in the artistic world is probably just above being a mime or doing a Six Flags stunt show. But you know what? I’ve been in a crappy cubicle for the last 10 years. So talking to broccoli about how many nutrients it has can’t be any worse than what I’ve been doing. I’m nervous and excited and am hoping for the best. There are a couple of things I’d probably change if I had my druthers but hey, nothing is perfect. So new material for Hayder may be harder to come by.

-Directing a show. That’s a nice change of pace. I think I’d be more nervous about it if I had had time to be nervous. But I didn’t. I pretty much leapt into it after the racing show. When I was a kid, my pal Charlie had all the coolest toys. GI JOE. Transformers. He-Man. That giant Godzilla and the Shogun Warriors. And a swimming pool. All the stuff I didn’t have. Anyway, that’s what directing these guys is like. I’m getting to play with all their toys. All the toys I don’t have. It’s fun when you look at it like that. But I’m trying to be conscious of letting them play with their toys too. And, if I were being honest with myself, I’d tell you I’m not an optimist. But I’m very optimistic about this show. I think you’ll like it. It’s called Fingertips and it starts at Dad’s Garage on July 10th.

-Won an award for Mojo the other night. That was cool. It seemed kind of unfair because everyone in that show was so good and the set was so good and the costumes and lighting were soooo freaking good. So it was pretty easy to come in and just do the thing. But it’s nice to be recognized. Nice to sit around with friends and drink. I’ve had a nice 3 year run for getting the best actor award for shows at Dad’s. I think next year I won’t be so lucky because I have nothing on the horizon with them, acting-wise. But this looks like it will be a good year anyway. Lots of good stuff in the works.

What about you? How are you?
Xo,
mmyers

Bachelor Party

2009-06-19T07:07:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile but daddy still loves you.
mmyers

Lord I love this

2009-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

And that boxer is Paulie Malinaggi, The Magic Man. If you remember me telling a story about a guy who got a hair weave before he fought and they ended up cutting it during the fight, that's him!

A Hellish, hellish audition

2009-05-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I think the opportunity has been missed so I think I’m safe to talk about this now.

I auditioned for Second City on Wednesday. I didn’t get a callback and that’s OK. However, and this is the way I’m trying to look at things these days, it was a hilarious experience.

I think they just opened the doors and let whoever wanted to audition in. I think that’s how things are marketed now: interest will be drummed up by letting a bunch of people audition and let all those people create buzz based on their own excitement. And ineptitude.

Anywho, I loved this audition. It wasn’t a good one for me, per se, but it was a great character study.

First, you walk into the main room and there’s a bunch of folks standing around, waiting to go in. There’s the normal posturing and nervousness. I’m fine with that. That’s pretty much any audition for anything. Then they call you into the room. It’s like a dance rehearsal room, mirrors on the wall, no windows, and a table with Second City folks and Alliance people. They politely nod while they sift through headshots and resumes and try to match you with your shot. I should add that the invitation into the room involved the intern standing at the door with it open and standing there looking at everyone like they’re assholes, which we kind of were. Anyway, him giving us attitude for not knowing that standing at the door meant we’re supposed to come in set the tone. We were not welcome. They were tired and tired of looking at people.

So we go in (3 guys, 3 girls) and we do a couple of quick warm-ups. Zip-zap-zop. Connecting with your scene partners by saying ‘hello’ and other phrases, really basic stuff. But some of the folks were already thrown by this. Bad sign number 2.

Then we have to line up and say one thing about ourselves. And bytheway, it can’t be related to theatre or performance. One lady said she was also a singer and song writer and writer. Um, OK, that’s sort of not related. The girl beside me said that her cat was just killed by her neighbor’s dog. She also added that she ‘didn’t have anything else about herself that wasn’t related to theatre.’ This is sad on many levels. One, her cat died. That sucks. I loves the animals and feel great empathy for them. Two, she had NOTHING in her life besides that cat that wasn’t related to theatre! That dog single-handedly removed her anchor to the outside world. She’s now spiralling into a theatrical oblivion with no connection to the rest of the world. Like The Flash when he was lost in time. Please, girl, find a hobby or a love interest or a TV show or a person in prison to become pen-pals with. Because theatre and performance are cool but you can’t show a life on stage if you have no life that doesn’t involve the stage. Get it?

Next we did short scenes. I should let you know, I’m not awesome at improv. I’m passable. I can be in a scene with a good person and do allright. I can be in a scene with a bad person and keep my head above water or sink horribly. That’s about it. I’m a B- improviser who probably didn’t deserve to be there. So first off they say two person short scenes. This means no involvement from a third or fourth person. So in the first scene, one lady immediately joins the scene, thus making it a three person scene. Bad omen numero 3. I liked this choice because I got to watch the people at the table makes faces. They were hilariously shocked. I’d be willing to bet they saw a graphic battle of bad improve that whole week, but I’d like to think we were a little better than the worst.

For my VERY FIRST SCENE, I got paired with the singer-song writer-writer. I decided to drink a cup of imaginary coffee. I make a slurpy noise to show I’m drinking. I hold my fingers in a way one holds a mug handle. I’m not Marcel Marceau but I get by. Anyway, she walks up, points at my hand and says, ‘what’s that?’ Now we’re experiencing a Pandora’s Box of bad omens. And so it went. She asked me what I was doing and what I was looking at until the scene mercifully ended. Singer? Maybe. Song-writer? Possibly. Writer? Doubtfully. Improviser? Unquestionably not. One of her scenes, she asked the dead cat girl to give her report on Barrack Obama and proceeded t just ask her questions about Barrack. Woo, that’s some good-bad improv.

Let’s just say the rest of the audition went about the same. One woman opened the scene by
yelling at me, “NO! NO! NO! NO!” and pretty much kept that motif through the rest of the scene. I hadn’t even done anything but hold a mimed gun (when I’m scared, I start scenes with mimed items, and these people scared me to no end). I don’t even think she saw the mimed gun. She just started screaming at me. And one point, she took the mime gun then gave it back to me and screamed No! Oh yeah, and one scene she just wanted to dance. I tried to start a convo with her but she just wanted to dance. So we danced.

There were two guys in my group who knew each other. They had chemistry and experience together. I didn’t share that chemistry with them but I thought they did pretty well together. My last scene was with one of them but he and I couldn’t get on the same page. We were supposed to be backstage at an opera house. When I saw him, I got excited and asked for his autograph to which he said, “Why, because I’m the guy who designed this building?” He might have felt pimped because I tried to make him into an opera singer and he didn’t want to do that. I dunno. Things had pretty much tanked for me anyway.

Still, a couple of ladies I know made it to callbacks, and that’s cool. And my friend Jo-Jo reminded me that it’s cool to audition for Second City if nothing else. And now I have this keen story about being stuck in the third level of Dante’s Inferno, which is being stuck in a room with no windows and watching bad improv and being forced to perform it.

Site gag

2009-04-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

xo,

mmyers

New Year's Resolutions- Late edition

2009-04-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

With April almost gone and May right around the corner, I can see a clear pattern emerging for the year. I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year due to how depressing how I accomplished none of the previous year’s resos. With this in mind, I think of New Year’s resolutions I should have made for this year and how on track I would be to accomplish them.

-Smirk more. I find myself smirking a lot. I blame Harrison Ford in BladeRunner’s special edition that I just picked up. Nobody looks more satisfied after a good smirk than Harry Ford. Plus I’ve had a lot of smirk-worthy moments over the last few months. I may have to switch sides that I smirk on so the right side of my face doesn’t get too built up.

-Eat more unsatisfying foods. I can’t seem to win with my comfort foods lately, and believe me, my comfort foods aren’t really that special. KFC and Pizza Hut top the list and both of them have just been terrible. What gives??? Usually fast food gives me a weird sense of shame, but now it’s giving shame and disappointment. Colonel and um, whatever Pizza hut’s guy is, get back in the game! I need comfort food and a bit of shame and you’re falling short.

-Have more mysterious ailments. I can’t seem to turn my head lately without pulling a muscle in my head, neck or back. Suddenly, I’m fragile.

-Almost get hit by lightening. Was 20 feet away from a telephone pole that got hit yesterday. It was like that scene from The Natural. And it scared the shit out of me. And it made my left arm feel tingly.

-Grow a crazy beard. Usually before my beard can get too crazy, someone tells me to cut it. However, no one is telling me to cut it so I’m growing a crazy beard. I wanted to get a haircut (and have the theatre pay for it) so I’ve just let my hair go and my beard go, but so far, everyone seems fine with it. Is it only a matter of time before the wilderness calls me? Is it only a matter of time before I start sleeping with bears? Um, I mean the animal, not burly gay men.

-Watch an ironically depressing movie. Done. Mission accomplished. Superheroes: We work for tips. Anyone catch that one? It’s about people in Hollywood who want to be famous so they dress up as superheroes in front of Man’s Chinese Theatre and take pictures with people. I guess it was supposed to be very nudge-nudge, wink-wink, but instead it just struck me as incredibly sad. The folks in it have the “I want to be famous at ANY cost” bug (that weird spacey creepiness of reality show people) and are slightly (or more than slightly) delusional about it. The positives I got out of it were my love for the crazy Batman guy who has more holes and gaps in his life than Crisis on Infinite Earths and also that now, when I see a camera somewhere, I act like I’m going to ‘get discovered’, even if it’s a camera at the bank or someone taking a picture of a building.

-Lose all respect for the Miss America contest. Not that I ever respected it, really. And not that that blonde haired box of rock’s comments on gay marriage did it either. It was the fact that that waste of space Perez Hilton was one of the judges. How exactly is he qualified for that? What has he ever done but leach onto famous people? I’d have more respect for him if he dressed up as a superhero in Hollywood.

-Learn to love Battlestar Gallactica and Heroes. Got the first seasons of both of those. Battlestar, after years of people telling me I’d love it, and so I do. A cool balance of real and fantasy. As for Heroes (another show people have told me to watch for years now), well, I’m trying. It’s not quite clicking but I’m only two episodes in, and I’m guessing it’s one of those shows that takes a bit to find its legs.

-Write more, sleep less. For better or worse, this would have been a great resolution. I always seem to write a lot when I’m tired. And there seems to be no shortage of stuff I need to write. On the upside, my play Spoon got picked up and will be performed in 2010, so that’s a good thing.

Hayder- Wasted Time

2009-04-15T11:15:00.001-07:00

xo,

mmyers

April Fool's Day 2

2009-04-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

This is dedicated to my coworkers, who are very serious about their April Fool's pranks.
mmyers

April Fool's Day

2009-04-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

Happy A-Day.

mmyers

You CAN go home again, you'll just need a map

2009-03-30T07:54:00.001-07:00

Had to go to a funeral this weekend. Never a comfortable thing. Oddly, the funeral was in my old stomping grounds of Warner Robins, where I lived the first 8 or so years of my life. A couple of funny observations:

-I still remember my way around the town. We got lost. I took a wrong turn. It was at night so most of the places were closed. My wife spotted a closed store and said, “Roses. I wonder what that place is.” Well it turns out I knew exactly what Roses was. I used to get Star Wars action figures there when I was a kid. And it was still there. I said, “If there’s a Krispy Kreme up here on the right and a movie theatre on the left, we’re in Macon and need to turn around.” Turns out they were still there and we were in Macon. Not bad for not having been in that area in 25 years or so.

-Byron, which is the area I spent the majority of my time, looked completely different on the outside but was exactly the same on the inside. Something is off about that area. I mean that in a great way. That area is off like I’m off. I stopped by a Target to get some sinus meds and everyone in that place was not quite right. This culminated into this obese young boy with thick glasses walking up to me and saying, “Hello, sir” and that was it. These are my people. My weird, the hills have eyes-like people.

-I got lost several times while I was there. I brought no instructions other than some hastily scribbled stuff on the back of a daily calendar page. So stuck in the middle of nowhere (central Georgia is sort of a geographical anomaly like that, in that you’re always in the middle of nowhere) and unable to find a gas station to ask directions, I saw a little bar called “Friends” with nothing else around it. It was packed. I told my wife to stay in the car and lock the doors and wait while I went inside. This incident echoed a similar time in Ireland where we got lost and I stopped at a bar for directions.

Anywho, I went to the bar and asked the bartender for directions back to the interstate. She said, “It’s too loud in here,” because it was karaoke night, “let’s go outside and I’ll tell you.” Now I thought the bar was one of those ones where the bar area is lower than the seats around the bar. So I waited for her to step up from behind the bar but she never did. She was exactly that height. Probably about four feet tall. And dressed as a catholic school girl. Reminded me of the Britney Spear’s “Hit me baby one more time” video if the vertical hold on your TV was screwed up. Anyway, she got me back on the interstate. For a tiny person, she was very pretty.

-While driving through Macon, I drove past a bar called 8 Ballerz. 8 Ballerz featured airbrushed pictures of Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg and Too Short out in front of it. It was pretty shocking. All I could manage to think was “Why Too Short?”

-Ritz soda. I’ve never seen it anywhere else but Byron. I used to drink a Ritz soda (they come in all sorts of flavors) that was Pina Colada all the time. It had little floaty bits of coconut (maybe) in it. It was SUPER sweet. Anyway, stopped off at a convenience store (I’ll tell you a story about that store next) and they still carried it! I couldn’t bring myself to have one again, though. It is a creepy looking drink, all murky with bits floating in it.

-Stopped off at the last convenience store I went to when I lived in Warner Robins (which sold Pina Colada soda). I was 8 or 9 the last time I was there. All of our stuff loaded into my grandparent’s farm truck, I was very upset to leave Georgia for Florida. My mom said I could get a comic book from this store while we were fueling up with gas. I loved Iron Man so I grabbed the latest issue of it. It was set during Christmas and Tony Stark (alias Iron Man) was a horrible alcoholic and spent the whole issue pretty much staggering around the town. It was DEPRESSING. Iron Man wasn’t even in the damn thing. And that’s what I read on the way to Florida at 9 years old.

Well I checked to see if they still sold comic books but they didn’t. They did sell Big, Black and Beautiful, though. If only my mom had bought me that way back when. What a different trip that might have been for me.

-A shout-out to my mate Daniel who has moved on from this mortal coil. He was my wife’s cousin. A really cool cat; very animated and excited and intense in the best possible way. He loved writing and music and landscaping and movies. I really liked talking to Daniel at AC’s family gatherings. He was just jazzed about everything he was into and was a freaking whirlwind. He always wanted to talk to me about making films and screenplays he was writing. Met a bunch of his friends this weekend and they were all such nice dudes. Very befitting of a guy who had a lot of soul, sometimes a troubled soul, but always a good soul. He loved intensely and was loved intensely. RIP.

Speaker warnings

2009-03-18T17:57:00.001-07:00

I just bought new speakers for my computer. They came with instructions and a series of very cryptic warnings. Pictures, I mean. Not understanding what the warnings meant, I wrote the company and now have official explanations for the pictures. In case you buy new speakers and suffer the same confusion, I've included the translations. Word.

You may have to click on it to see it better. More word.

xo,
mmyers

Hayder presents the return of Office Speak

2009-02-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

Have a nice weekend,

mmyers

Another tiny Mojo review

2009-02-25T06:17:00.000-08:00

Here.

If you look closely, you'll see a quasi-review of our show at the end. I described it as being used as the stick to beat up another show. A big backhanded compliment. But hey, I guess any compliment is a compliment, back-handed or not. Brent, one of the younger guys in the show, said, "Can't someone just give a straight forward compliment in this town?" and Scotty said, "No."

It's the last weekend of this monkey. Come see her if you can. Some good work happening out there. Then a brief respite and I'm back at it again.

xo,
mmyers

15 albums that changed my life

2009-02-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

My gal-pal Gayle said to write down my 15 albums that changed my life in ten minutes or less. It really puts the pressure on. Anyway, I did it and then I went back and made a little note about each one.

I should add that my criteria for 'life changing music' is stuff that I heard and blew my mind and made me want to make music. Also, they created a style that others tried to imitate but had difficulty doing it. All of this list isn't hip, but it did shape my music tastes. You should do it too. I'd love to hear it. Onward!

1. Pavement- Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Heard this in my friend Jason’s car in high school. I didn’t like it at first because it was ‘so weird’, but then it grew on me. It was so smart and economical with words and sounds.

2. NWA-Straight outta Compton
Living in the taint of Florida, I had never heard songs from this perspective. Catchy and angry. A weird mix. We listened to it everyday after school.

3. Elvis Costello- My aim is true
I went the opposite direction of most folks with Elvis. I knew the singles. Then I bought the reunion album with the Attractions. Then I started getting the back catalogue. This was Elvis at his best. Fiery, young, and with a sharp wit. It all clicked for me. I thought, "Wow, I totally get why people love this guy."

4. They might be Giants- Lincoln
Most friends I had at the time hated TMBG. This album was so weird. They were smart and simple and sometimes funny. This one blew my mind and made me rethink what I expected from songs.

5. Tom Waits- Frank’s Wild Years
I’m dim-witted sometimes. Often times. Tom Waits didn’t click for me for a long time. And then one day he did. My pal George said (when I didn’t like Waits) that he paints a picture then he takes you inside it (I’m paraphrasing a tad). This album did that to me. I was like, “Ohhhh, I get it.” And then everytime I listen to it I get something else.

6. Lemonheads- It’s a shame about Ray
I like happy music. I’m not ashamed. And it spoke to me at a time when I needed speaking to. It said, “Have fun. Life is short. Appreciate the small things.” And so I did. It was also a gateway album. He made drugs sound fun.

7. Ben Folds Five-self-titled
This album made me go out and buy a chord organ. Why? I dunno. Ben didn’t play one, but it did let me know that you can rock with any instrument you choose. And the lyrics were so personal in a hilarious way.

8. Guided by Voices- Alien Lanes
The best albums change your gears. I hadn’t heard much low-fi until this album. In much the same way The Ramones inspired people to start bands, this album showed that there was low-hanging fruit. Of course, when you try to do what they did, you realize how great they were at it.

9. Beatles-White Album
Everyone loves this album and if you don’t, you’re a douche. The End. I grew up on the Beatles cartoon and the ‘love me do’ era, so hearing this was really weird. My mom always sounded like she felt betrayed when the Beatles went psychedelic. It blew my mind.

10. Wilco-Yankee Hotel FoxTrot
I was a decent Wilco fan before this album but became a HUGE fan afterwards. It’s pop, it’s rock, it’s mellow. It’s the deconstruction of music and rebuilding of it. It blew alt-country out of the water and made it seem narrow-minded to me.

11. Descendents- Liveage
I was never a good punk rocker. This was the first album by the Descendents I ever listened to. I loved how funny they were and self-deprecating and sweet. It was the first punk that really spoke to me. It was punk but it was personal.

12. Decemberists- Castaways and Cutouts
I described this album, when I first heard it, as sounding like something you found under the floor boards of an old cabin. It made me miss playing (or trying to play) music. Smart stories and great instrumentation. It was exactly what I was missing that I didn’t know I was missing.

13. Public Enemy- It takes a nation of million to hold us back
I was scared when I first heard this. No shit. I really thought there was going to be some crazy revolution. Very intelligent, thoughtful, and angry in a focused way. It became my measuring stick for intelligent hip-hop. I quoted from it constantly in 9th grade.

14. Simon Joyner- Room Temperature
Caught this guy live back in 1994. It was my first exposure to punk-rock folk music. I wanted to play guitar fiercely after that. Caught him a few more times and completely nerded out on that guy. Come on, he wrote a song about how the world was going to Hell under Reagan-omics and all he wanted to do is play Defender. It spoke to me like nothing else. And it apparently spoke to Bright Eyes as well.

15. Alan Sherman- Hello muddah, hello fadduh
My parents had this on 8-track. I can’t say I understood all of it (and I had no idea what a Jew was) but I knew one thing, he was hilarious. I couldn’t believe my parents listened to things that were funny. We all laughed as a family and I knew I wanted to make people laugh like that. It also exposed me to parody for the first time.

Honorable Mentions: De La Soul's "Three feet high and rising", David Dondero's "Spyder, West Myshgen", The Pixies "Trompe Le Monde", Ice Cube's "The Predator", Frank Black's "Teenager of the Year"

Penis related spam of the day: "Make her talk to her friends about you."

2009-02-17T09:18:00.000-08:00

26 Things that show I'm self-absorbed

2009-02-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

Hey, there's a mild review in the Sunday Paper for Mojo. Mainly I think we're just the stick used to beat up some of the other shows around Atlanta near the bottom. But whatever. Any publicity is sort of useful publicity.

Oh yeah. Folks have been doing the 25 things around Facebook, so I eventually acquiesced and wrote my own. I may put it up on Facebook even, provided that I can remember to do so. Send me yours too, if you want. I like to read stuff at work and can't get into Facebook there. Ok, here goes.

25 Things about Me

1. I have Synaesthesia. That means I taste shapes. This generally only happens when I’m tired. Very tired. Only once or twice have I ever thought I might choke on the shape in my mouth.

2. I wanted to go into advertising until I found out I probably wouldn’t get to make up stuff until after years of paying dues and fetching coffee.

3. My Dad kidnapped my brother and I when we were kids (otherwise it would have been adult-napped, I suppose) and we lived in Pennsylvania for a while. Of course we were eventually returned to our mom, but we totally ran from the law in a Jeep for a time.

4. I fell in love with theatre while watching The Super Medics wrestle the Wild Samoans in Pensacola, Florida when I was 9 years old. I sort of knew it was fake but then I didn’t have a problem with that. It was theatre at its most awesome.

5. When I was a kid and wanted to go to sleep, I’d often envision I was crushed under a lot of rocks or that I was sleeping on the roof of a moving car. Sometimes thinking about sleeping on the roof of a moving car still makes me go to sleep.

6. The most scared I’ve ever been for a short period of time was nearly driving off the bluffs in Pensacola because the cars brakes went out. I was in a car full of people on acid. It was nuts.

7. The most scared I’ve ever been for a long period of time was getting laid off in 2007. I was out of work for 4 months roughly and I don’t think that feeling of fear has left me since.

8. The angriest I’ve ever been was probably the night my wife got robbed in front of our apartment. The robber guy ran off before I got to her but I swear I would have murdered that guy with my bear hands if I got ahold of him.

9. I’ve had alter egos all my life. These have included: Gibney the Alien, Mr. Ahowdi-do, Flavio De Martini, and Mr. Tai-bo Croco (whose theme song would be sung by Dave Matthews).

10. My brother used to tell me I was retarded and that everyone didn’t want to tell me because they wanted me to feel like other kids. For awhile I totally thought this was true. When I got tested for the Gifted Program (PATS) in 3rd grade I totally freaked out because I thought they were taking me to be in the retarded kids' classes. Subsequently, I did not get into the Gifted Program.

11. I credit my brother’s best friend Ricky Halgen (aka Rockin’ Rick Nugent) with convincing me to be an actor. He said he wanted to be a racecar driver and then one day he showed up at our house with a racecar and then he went and raced it. I thought, “Say something ridiculous then go do it. I didn’t know you could actually do that!”

12. I think the most important characteristic in other people is genuineness. It’s more important to me than talent or humor or what the other person can ‘do’ for me. Even if a person is an asshole, I appreciate them more if they’re a genuine asshole than a fake asshole.

13. The term ‘fake asshole’ makes me think of Will E. Coyote when he paints a fake tunnel and Road Runner is able to go through it but Will E. isn’t.

14. I don’t enjoy children. There are a few rare exceptions.

15. I never, ever thought I’d have a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. I just thought they were too expensive and it was pretentious to own them. Today, I uncomfortably admit I own a pair. They’re pretty beat up, though. Take that, Marky Mark and Cindy Crawford.

16. In college, my professors told me that I’d probably be miserable as an actor and that I should try to continue writing instead (I wrote a lot back then). I balked at that and worked extra hard to be an actor. On sulky days I think they may have been right.

17. One time I called my grandpa up and was bitching about how my life is completely busy all the time and wondered how he (a guy who was in WW2, came home and bought a farm and farmed during the day and worked at a paper mill 40+ hours at night while supporting a wife and 3 kids) did it. And he sighed and said, “You just do it” and said it so I felt like the biggest whiner/cry baby ever. Anyway, on days when I think I may crumble under the pressure I wear one of his hats, generally the beat up brown one. This hat is also known as my ‘bourbon hat.’ However my grandpa doesn’t drink.

18. When I first saw my wife, she was 16 (I think, maybe 17) and I sang “There she goes” by the La’s while I was working in the coffee store. She was breathtaking then and gorgeous now.

19. I’m fairly certain that most of my idols would be assholes if I met them in real life. This has spawned me saying, “Respect the art and not the artist” more times than I can remember.

20. Heaven is: a cabin in the woods with my wife and dogs and a fresh pot of coffee on the pot. Maybe some salmon on the grill.

21. I never wanted another animal after my poodle Muffin died. He was 15 years old and my mom couldn’t bear to put him down so she made make the decision. I promised I’d never have one again. AC showed up with a Rottweiler nine years ago and I’ve had a house full of animals ever since. Now my dogs are my pride and joy.

22. I have few regrets but a growing one is never getting to see the people I love very often.

23. If I had a car just for kicks (and not for any sort of practicality), it’d probably be a late 60’s Nova or a Plymouth Valiant. My brother’s second car was a Valiant and he hated it. I loved that car.

24. I used to LOVE dancing at clubs. I would try to sneak into bars to dance. Sadly I’m too uncomfortable with myself to dance anymore. I’d rather drink or not be there at all.

25. My perfect birthday gift these days would be a nice glass of scotch (on ice) and a good cigar.

The reviews are starting to trickle in...

2009-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Here's the one for Creative Loafing. It's not glowing but it's not a destruction. I can live with that.

That being said, gosh I don't like this picture. I have a gigantic non-gay but slightly gay love for all of these dudes, but come on, they're all a lot better looking than this in real life. Well, maybe not Ed. That's a good picture of Ed. But the rest of us? Nah.

Curt does give a nice shoot out to the trailer. That's good.

"She'll be amazed at your giant pecker"

2009-02-12T08:44:00.000-08:00

This was today's piece of spam.

xo,

mmyers

Toasty and Mr Creeps

2009-02-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

This one came to me in a dream, as comics often do. Of course it was in a stripped down form but I always like the ones that are already there for me.

Hey, I'd like to give a shout out to a mate of mine who passed away this weekend. His name was Jim Royal, although we always referred to him as Jimmy Royale, or after Pulp Fiction, Royale with cheese. Jim was a good bloke and funny as heck. He was a comic book artist, working on Catwoman and StarMan and I think Green Lantern as well. Jim and I were buddies through college and awhile after. We sort of lost touch when I moved here, but I did see him a year or so ago at a show mutual friends of ours were playing at the Earl. Anyway, Jimmy isn't here anymore and the world is a little dimmer knowing that he isn't out there somewhere, bumming drinks and making a scene. Jimmy, I hope you found the peace you were looking for, brother. RIP.

mmyers

Preview for the show I'm in

2009-02-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

It runs until the 28th of February at Dad's Garage. Come check it, playa.

Random notes from Leadership class

2009-01-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

-The phrase 'well spoken'. No one ever says about a white person that they are "well spoken". I remember a Chris Rock bit where he was saying that white people refer to all educated black people as 'well spoken' but I thought it was a joke. Turns out it was not a joke and some people really do utter that stupid phrase with sincerity.

I'd really like it if someone called me 'well spoken', though. Chances are, however, it ain't gonna happen. Probably because I use the words 'ain't' and 'gonna'.

-If you say, "you like to think outside the box" then you're thinking inside the box. Because 'outside the box' is the new 'inside the box'. It's like, everyone can't say that they're different from everyone else because that in fact makes them just like everyone else. Make sense? Even if it doesn't, note to office folks: please stop using this phrase. It is used at least 4 time severy class.

I, personally, would love to think 'outside the box'. Sadly, the only two places I'm allowed to think at work are (a) in my cubicle and (b) in the bathroom stall. But those are both, you guessed it, 'inside of a box'.

-We discussed a piece of clip art for 10 minutes. No kidding. It was a piece of clip art that was of a man at a microphone and he looked nervous and we all discussed how we would feel if we saw this man getting ready to give a presentation. And people legitimately discussed maybe there was something wrong with him or if he was on mediciation and perhaps we could learn from him if he was. He was a freaking piece of clip art.

It didn't occur to me until just now that I should have said, if I were faced with meeting this clip art man, that I would have a lot questions about how a clipart man came to life. How did I get transported to this Cool World/Roger Rabbit of clipart? Dang that would have been funny. It would have been hard for me to not laugh, though.

-This has nothing to do with anything except that I think it'd be good. When I have to 'punch-out', I'd like to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out in order to do it. That'd make me really look forward to getting off work.

Happy Lunar New Year! Monday wrap-up.

2009-01-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

Using my propensity to over-commit myself, I’ve been busy as crap the last few weeks. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been learning lessons, so this is what I’ve learned over the last few weeks:

-There is no good way to tell other men in the men’s room that they need to get their prostate checked, but fellas, some of you need to. There’s some sad sounding urination going on out there. It doesn’t sound at all fulfilling. My faucet drips more liquid when I’m trying to keep the pipes from freezing. Fellas, you gotta get the finger.

-I’m rehearsing a show where I have a cockney accent. This show is so immersed in my thoughts right now that, at times, I’ve found myself thinking in a cockney accent in my day-to-day life. I’m hoping that once the show opens, my cockney will go flaccid. That’s right. Puns.

- I’ve been taking a bunch of lame personality tests for a management class I’m doing at work. It’s filling up the time as I merge with my desk chair. One thing it has taught me is that I’m a Rational, personality type-wise. I won’t go into all of what that means as it’s only barely interesting to me and I imagine would be even more uninteresting to you. However, the teacher said that Rationals and Idealists make the best mates. Again, so immersed in the cockney show am I that my brain immediately thought of ‘mates’ as the word for ‘friend’. And anyway, who would ever call their significant other their ‘mate’? It sounds so clinical. Animals ‘mate’. The salt shaker’s ‘mate’ is the pepper shaker. Anyway, thinking of human’s being mated or mating makes me think that this class may be being taught by aliens.

-I enjoyed a Souper Meal. That’s right. A Souper Meal. A Souper Meal consists of: Ramen Noodles in a big bucket. That’s about it. I was a little disappointed that something with such an awesome name could be so awesomely disappointing. Where was this Improved Flavor the cup bragged about? Were the mushrooms part of the 'vegetable medley' or merely a serving suggestion.

My mouth was set for a boring old meal until I saw this little baby: The Finishing Touch Flavor Enhancer. Now this little packet of magic has very specific instructions (not unlike the Gremlins did): do NOT apply the Flavor Enhancer until you are ready to eat the meal. After all, it is the Finishing Touch.

I made my noodles. They smelled allright. They were warm. But then I applied the Finishing Touch Flavor Enhancer. Well, let me just say that I was invited into a world of flavor unlike any I’ve ever tasted or seen (that’s right, the flavor was so intense and vivid, I could actually see it floating in the air). Well, I was too curious. What was the secret of this little Flavor Packet? And I did the unthinkable. I saved some. Yep, I practiced restraint.

Yes, I didn’t use the entire Finishing Touch Flavor Packet. I got on my bicycle and rode around with it, sprinkling it in all around. I sprinkled some on Mickey Rourke's career. Check it out. He was back! I sprinkled some on the economy. Poof! Gas prices went down! I sprinkled some on Prop 8 and conservatives admitted that gay people may be humans and have human emotions and feelings (hey, Finishing Flavor Enhancer can only do so much). Well I was sold. This magic dust was a miracle wrapped in love, coated in joy, drenched in sodium.

Well, I was too curious. It was Pandora’s Box, and like Pandora’s Box I had to open it, and like Pandora’s Box I had to take it to one of those clinics where they’ll test anything (usually paternity results) and find out what was in it. I should clarify that Pandora was a stripper I used to hang out with back in the day. That probably will make the Pandora’s Box analogy make a bit more sense. Wait, there was a myth about another Pandora’s Box? I wonder if Pandora the stripper had ever heard of that? Well, they were both filled with evil.

Anywho, they tested the Finishing Touch Flavor Enhancer. I eagerly awaited the results. What could make this ordinary bowl of Ramen into a MEAL? Moreso, a SOUPER MEAL? What could give flavor to the flavorless? What could save the world from itself?

Let the truth be told. The little packet of Finishing Touch Flavor Enhancer is actually filled with…stem cells. What else could it have been? Well, they’re not only making great strides in medical research, they’re also delicious on Ramen. Thank you, Stems.

Just enough time to rip off Will

2009-01-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

Hi kittens. I'm a little swamped by life for the moment but I thought this was pretty cool so I'm reposting it from Shark Fin Hat's blog (link is in my links, yo).

The incredible Neko Case has a new album coming out, and you can download the new song "People Got a Lotta Nerve" here:http://www.anti.com/media/download/708

For every blog that re-posts the song, she and Anti- are donating $5 to a the Best Friends animal rescue group. If you do the iLike thing, they'll donate $1 for everyone who iLikes it. If you're the blogging type, please re-post. More info on the group is below, and you can read more about the whole effort here

Jogging my memory

2009-01-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

I have two favorite kinds of joggers. I know it’s weird to have favorite types of joggers but I spend a lot of time in my car and I’ve become a connoisseur of people on the side of the road (don’t even get me started on people at the bus-stop). And in the morning, there are joggers. This morning I spotted one of my favorite types.

This type of jogger is the “I just woke up and decided I needed to start jogging right this second!” jogger. These joggers are very popular in the New Year. They flourish in January and tend to be hibernating and watching E! again by February. They also appear at the gym for a brief time. I like them because, unlike people who decide they’re going to get really into something and go out and buy ridiculous shoes and warm-up suits and heart monitors and do some research on running, these folks are out there in jeans and a t-shirt, huffing and puffing in the arch-murdering shoes they walk in everyday. It looks like they’ve come running out of a burning building and then decided to just take it up as a hobby. Also I like them because they have no concept of pacing themselves. They’re going to jog 5 miles on their first day. From completely sedate to running a marathon in the time it takes to get dressed. I think it’s this hardcore approach to jogging/running that explains why their lifespan as a jogger is so short. It’s like watching a star burn out: bright then gone. Poof.

The other favorite jogger I have is the paranoid jogger. The paranoid jogger looks like they’re also running out of a burning building but act like the person who set the fire may be behind them. They’re hot on their trail (pardon the pun). This is what I think their story is: the paranoid jogger always knew that a day would come where they would be involved in a foot race for their life and they’ve trained for that day. They’ve been preparing for a footrace for survival for years. But they’re not so confident as to stop looking backward and in every direction to make sure they’ve got a handy lead. Lot of nervous glances over the shoulder. Or maybe they’re stretching their necks alot. I dunno. It looks like nervous looks, though. But one thing is for sure, the people who are chasing them do not know what they’re in for: a long, boring, exhaust sucking stroll down Cobb Parkway. Also, the paranoid joggers check their watch a lot. It might be one of those things that counts your footsteps, but I prefer to think of them as racing against time because that’s what someone in a movie would do. Not enough movies about people running to stay alive.

For the record, I hate running/jogging. I’ll do an elliptical machine twice a week and that’s only because I can read while I do it. I experience no “runner’s high” or endorphins or anything else ‘running addicts’ speak of. What I do experience is occupying myself with some task (reading trashy books or watching trashy TV) while I do something else (movement) that I don’t pay attention to. Is it satisfying? Not really, but it does give me just enough audacity to make fun of people jogging on the side of the road, and that’s what really matters to me.

Hayder: Accountant joke

2009-01-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

Shuffle Poem

2009-01-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

Good pal Will posted a thing awhile ago about putting your iPod on shuffle and then writing down the first line of the first 20 songs and making a poem. The 21st song is the title of the poem. Pretty cool, right? Well, I got an iPod finally and I was superjazzed to try this out. Unfortunately, in my zeal, I thought you used the first 12 songs from your playlist (I may be dyslexic). And then I didn’t remember the title thing either. Well, it seemed like my iPod was possessed and came up with this semi-coherent, incomplete, mish-mash. Later on I realized that I my poem was incomplete but when I started it up again, well, some songs repeated and it wasn’t the same. Anywho, here’s my poem, incomplete as it may be.

I really love the RL Burnside Bad Luck City into Harry Nilsson’s Bang, bang, shoot ‘em up.

On the first day of our love
Things are getting just too cozy for me
Jackson Crosses stretch to Heaven
I’m a nothing man
I’m not afraid of anything
It was a beautiful day
The name of the song is Bad Luck City
Bang, bang, shoot ‘em up, destiny
Everybody’s talking about me
Oh, baby, don’t it feel like Heaven right now
Who knows your birthday?
Officer you got me wrong.

Hayder: All white people look alike

2008-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

XO,
mmyers

The VagBlasta

2008-12-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

I hate the holidays, well except for Thanksgiving. Still, I can’t fight the feeling of getting a little nostalgic and thinking about the important people in my life. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a person who has quickly become very important to me: the vagblasta.

See, I play online poker frequently. No, not because I’m overweight or a shut-in or because I have delusions of being in the World Series of Poker one day. I play it because it’s fun for me and because of…the vagblasta.

The great thing about the internet super highway, besides the wealth of older men masquerading as cute young girls, is the anonymity. Sweet, sweet anonymity. It allows people to adopt personas they would never have in real life. Don’t believe me? Go check the comment sections on youtube. You’d never have to suffer through such rascist, retard spewing drivel in real life because these people would be quietly mumbling to themselves in line at Circle K waiting to get their Mountain Dew and Barely Beaver mags. But oh, the internet. See, in real life, I’m a fairly outgoing, friendly guy with friends and acquaintances, and we chat about weather and work and love. But get me on the internet and I’m completely silent and angry. Not a peep. I drink a beer and sit quietly and fume, completely unlike real life. Sweet freedom. Now I can quietly leer at people and mumble to myself about them. And I have a name, too: Srgt O’Brian.

This leads me to: the vagblasta. The vagblasta plays poker too. Well, when he isn’t blasting that vag. Boy, he’ll put a hurting on some vag day and night if you let him. Blasting that vag like it owes him money. He’s all about it, and playing online poker. Now you may think that this person wronged me in some way, made me angry in my alter ego of Srgt O’Brian. Actually, quite the opposite. He intrigued me with his name and that was it. But, using my Srgt O’Brian personae, I didn’t engage him as I would have done in real life. Instead I watched.

The Vag Blasta (and I’m hoping he pronounces it ‘vadj’ with that mysterious ‘d’ that people often put into the word ‘vagina’) played some decent poker. Immediately upon seeing I was at a table with him (or maybe ‘her’, I suppose), I said aloud to my wife, “Anyone with the name the Vagblasta has neither had ‘vag’ nor ‘blasted’ it.” But then I thought about him some more. What if he was a VagBlasta? A ball of human sexuality, perched behind a computer monitor? What if this guy was like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones and if you opened him up, he’d glow and all these souls with blasted vags would come pouring out and I’d be yelling, “Close your eyes, Marion!” and that dude’s face would melt and I’d have nightmares?

He was playing decent poker, man. So that means maybe he wasn’t a complete liar. But then there’d be long breaks where he wouldn’t be playing. What was he doing in there? Oh you know. Blasting. Blasting vag. Or maybe he was drinking protein shakes. Good grief, how does he have any energy left??? He’s got to power up. Come on, he’s only human. A human vag destroyer. A veritable Road Runner of Wile E. Coyote Vag. A George W Bush, shocking and awing the vag. A fully-operational Death Star with all its weapons pointed at Alderan, a peaceful vag planet. They have no weapons!! Sorry Princess, but you better throw on that slave girl bikini because that vag is getting destroyed.

See, this is what vagblasta does to me. Not only does he inspire me to destructively make silly metaphors and similes, he inspires me to examine my own life. And it makes me realize that I’ve had the wrong personae all along. While I’ve been lurking and sulking and playing cards, this guy has been out living life, working hard, playing hard. And blasting that vag like every vag was the last vag. Makes you think.

So in the New Year, maybe it wouldn’t hurt us, all of us, to maybe have a little vagblasta in us. I’m not saying you should go around blasting every vag you see. Come on, go easy. Pace yourself. And maybe the love you make may be equal to the love you take.

And the vag.

Tuesday wrap-up

2008-12-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

-Christmas Carol has come and gone, so if you didn’t see it, you missed it. I’ll spoil the ending for you, though: Scrooge did it.

I had a lot of fun in that show. Honestly. Good peeps. I’m sort of a mixed bag right now on whether I’m happy or sad it’s over. That may just be the season talking though. I’m not usually a happy camper during our holiday season. Anyway, those dudes went a long way in keeping me upbeat. I may have some pics from it soon which I will share with you.

Oh yeah, and send a good thought to our stage manager who had some emergency surgery there at the end of the run. Good vibes to the Maggzilla.

-So I took the time today to write up my theatre resume. I carry a resume on my headshot but it always seems lame to clutter it up (I know, I’m anal retentive) so I drop off certain shows as I put new ones on it. Thusly, I have forgotten how many shows I’ve done and what some of them are. But curiosity won out, so I started scowering the internet and my own ramshackled brain to write up what shows I did and when. God bless the internet. Part of this stems from the thought that January 2009 will mark 10 years officially in the ATL (or outlying region thereof). I’m a bit nostalgic these days (again, probably from the season and partially from hanging out with young people with tons of potential) and this leads me to:

42 shows in 10 years. Wait, I just went to the bathroom and remembered another show. 43 shows in 10 years. I’m fairly certain a couple more may have fallen through the cracks. Still, not too bad. 4 shows a year on average. And when you consider that most shows rehearse for roughly a month and run for a month or two in some cases, that means I’ve been a busy boy. This also doesn't include any movies or film stuff and a couple of other exclusions.

I’m still deciding whether this fact should make me happy or depress me.

Looking over everything, it’s funny to think that there’s only been a few shows I’ve absolutely hated and for the most part, I have a positive memory regarding them, some more than others. I won’t go into what shows I’ve hated but I will say the most fun I’ve had was probably going to New York and working at the Fringe Festival, so thank you for that fine memory, Mr. Katinsky (if you’re out there).

-Got my wife a CD player for her car the other day for Christmas. A funny thing: I got a great deal on it with installation and all but the two guys who worked there were almost exactly like the two guys who take Cameron’s Dad’s car in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I really loved those two guys in the movie but handing your keys off to them and leaving, well, I can see why Cameron was nervous.

When Cameron was in Egypt-land, let my Cameron go.

-Looking forward to seeing family. I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen my own family. August it looks like. Man, this acting calendar thing I made today is really coming in handy! I can see gaps in my life where I wasn’t rehearsing and actually had a life momentarily.

I’m craving some comfort food.

-It’s official: I love The Life and Times of Tim on HBO. I know its animation is crappy, but I look at it sort of like the Ramones. Sure they only played three chords but they inspired a whole generation to pick up instruments and play badly too. And that, my friend, is what Christmas is all about.

-Probably won’t talk to you much or draw nothing new for a bit, due to schedule-insanity, but Daddy loves you.

Early Happy Holidays

2008-12-19T08:19:00.001-08:00

Hayder: And one of them shall surely die...

2008-12-17T05:57:00.000-08:00

xo,
mmyers

Toasty and Mr. Creep Giddy-up!

2008-12-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

Stolen from zombiesitcom's blog

2008-12-11T08:52:00.001-08:00

But too funny not to post.

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Hayder- The Review in review

2008-12-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Tuesday wrap-up

2008-12-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

- No matter what happens in the world, I think we can all take solace in the fact that somewhere out there, a truly hot person thinks you’re hot for no apparent reason. I firmly believe that.

- I love people on Prozac. I really do. There used to be a dude who came to the coffee shop I worked at, an older dude named Bill, and he would tell these crazy stories about working for the mob and killing people and all that. They were pretty insane. And he would sum up these stories by saying, “But now I’m on Prozac and everything is better.” Also, sometimes he would say, “I still think about killing people, but now I don’t have to.” How’s that for a slogan, Prozac? When you’d ask how he was doing he’d say, without fail, “Top Shelf” or “Any better and I’d have to take something for it.” But he was taking something for it. Prozac.

Not too long ago, I went to my God-daughter’s birthday party and someone asked if I still hated my job (yep) and I said something about it being depressing. A woman who I’d just met sprang up (literally ‘sprang’ out of her seat) and asked if I was on Prozac. Nope, said I, and she went on to extol the virtues of it in animated fashion. I tell ya, it almost made me go out and get a prescription. There was a definite air of “the treacherous waters in my soul are being held at bay by a tiny pill” about her.

But here’s the thing about me: I don’t like being doped up. I don’t like not being completely present, no matter how unhappy I am. I’ll drink, sure, and that takes some of the edge off of me, but I’m still on the ride. I’m fairly cognoscente of what’s going on. Most drugs I’ve taken make me feel removed from the situation, like those late night convenience stores with the bullet proof plexi-glass barrier. Everything is all murky and it’s hard to hear them in there, but inside is a person trying to find your Cheetos or figure out what Cheerwine is. That’s what I feel like on drugs. I totally believe in chemical imbalances (believe me, I TOTALLY believe in them; I’m not a scientologist or anything), I just don’t think, if I’m disappointed in the choices I’ve made with my life, it’s a lack of certain chemicals in my brain that’s making that happen. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to happy with my life. So, if I’m actually going to be content with myself and my life, I don’t want it to be because the receptors in my brain have cut off my ‘discontent valve’ and are pouring on the happy. I’d rather it be because I’ve looked at my life and fixed the things that were driving me insane about it. Now if my reasoning for being unhappy seemed unrealistic (like Bill at the coffee shop wanting to kill people), then I’d say “bring on the meds!” I’ll keep you posted.

- Watched one of my favorite boxers get destroyed by another of my favorite boxers this weekend. Sad to watch. I don’t think there’s any sport that shows when an athlete has dropped off more dramatically than boxing. In football and baseball, as a player ages, you say, ‘well, he’s lost a step here and there’ but they still find ways to use the person effectively until they don’t renew their contract or whatever. Same for tennis and sports of that nature. The athlete just isn’t quite as fast as they once were. But in boxing, when a guy falls off, he falls hard, and you see just how far they’ve fallen written all over their faces in bruises and cuts and swelling. Boy, Oscar De La Hoya got his ass handed to him. He could not throw an effective punch to save his face. It doesn’t help that Oscar is only a year older than I am and, in boxing terms, is considered washed up. Still, when all is said and done, he’ll probably make about 35 million dollars (or more) for that hellacious ass whipping. And that’s net, baby, not gross. I imagine folks like you and I will take bigger ass whippings (emotionally and metaphysically) over our lifetimes for a lot less money than that. Still, thanks for the memories Oscar, now go home and enjoy your money and your wife and your kids.

What do gangster mice eat?

2008-12-08T08:22:00.001-08:00

More Toasty and Creeps

2008-12-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

More Good news/Bad news

2008-12-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

Good news: Well today, my work attire consists of a wrinkled shirt and an unshaven face (pants are optional). This makes me feel very Fight Club-ish, in that I think I look like shit but can’t drum up the interest to care. And, having seen the movie, the plan is all laid out for me to get the company to finance my own personal Fight Club. Or maybe a Sandwich Club (RIP Mitch Hedberg). Or a Billy Club (RIP Matt Murdock). Or a Culture Club (VIP Boy George).

Bad news: I’m not sure exactly who my boss is. That means I’d probably have to work my way around the building, punching myself in the mush trying to find out who that is until finally someone will say, “Can this wait until the regional manager is in from Chicago?”

Good news: I have insurance again (through my wife), which means I can once again attempt to injure myself in ridiculous ways.

Bad news: The wrestling school isn’t open right now, so I’ll have to find new and more stupid ways to injure myself.

Good news: It’s election day…again. At least here in Georgia. I like Saxby because his grandkids call him Pee-paw or something like that and because his chicken is delicious. I like Jim Martin because that name is about as vanilla as it gets. It sounds like a witness-relo name. If he’s in witness relocation, he’s not doing a good job of keeping a low profile.

Bad news: That means I have to use my lunch break standing in line again. I can’t imagine the lines being long, though. Folks are kind of short sighted on the local elections.

Good news: Christmas Carol is open. Which one? All of them, I think. I think there’s enough Christmas Carols or versions thereof playing right now that we could have a softball league made up strictly of teams composed of people in different Christmas Carols. Our’s, Dad’s, the Alliance’s, um…whoever it is that’s doing Queer Carol (I’m not kidding), and I think there’s another one too. Heck there has to be a few community theatres doing it too. And dance studios doing interpretive dance with it.

Bad news: The market is kind of saturated and with Christmas starting as early as Halloween these days, by the time December 1 hits, folks have just about had it with the C-word.

Good news: Had an idea for two new comic strip characters, Toasty McGhostly and Mr. Creeps. I really love their look. Toasty is based on (ripped off from) someone’s avatar that I saw, and Mr. Creeps is from those Day of the Dead figurines that you find in Mexico. I’ve had the name Mr. Creeps in my head for nearly 8 years. Now it has a home.

Bad news: Jotted down a few more ideas for comics for them and all of them are negative. Not sure I want/need another negative outlet. Tell me, mmyers, why do you drink? Mmyers, why do you smoke? Why must you live out them comic strips that you wrote?

Elvis Costello talk show!

2008-12-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

Happy days!
Mr. Sweeney sent me a link to this little nugget, Elvis Costello's talk show premiering on the 3rd on Sundance. Hot diggity. Check the clips with Elton John. Looks pretty entertaining.

Toasty McGhostly and Mr Creeps

2008-12-01T09:05:00.001-08:00

Q and A

2008-11-25T05:43:00.000-08:00

Q: How do you know I'm really tired and hate my job all at the same time?

A: Two co-workers were just talking about our (now) ex-boss (who got transfered to another department) and one of them said, "I called her and told her that she'll always be our boss." I, walking by at that moment, almost said, "Boss of my nuts."

It made sense to say it in my head. It got past the first set of internal censors. It got far enough for me to get "Bo--" out of my mouth. Definitely need to get some sleep. Some weird, internal justification going on right now.

We're all friends here, right?

2008-11-24T12:07:00.000-08:00

Well then, here's some self-indulgent crap I wrote.

Helped write a show awhile back called “On the Road with Jack”. The premise of it was stories inspired by Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’. I came into it a little late in the process but I wrote a few pieces for it and was happy with the results. The great thing about the show was that that’s a pretty large canvas to paint on, things that are inspired by that book and travel in general. My downfall was that I didn’t think about it enough and am still coming up with ideas for it 2+ years later.

One of the untapped niches in it, for my taste, was the Beat style. There was a couple of Beat pieces in it and some poetry stuff. I wrote a Beat-ish piece called Postcards, which was postcards to different towns I’ve visited, referring to the towns as if they were people. However, I would have liked to experiment with multiple voices going simultaneously. I wrote this today, thinking along those lines.

It’s made for four voices, male and female. Once one person completes their ‘beat’, they begin repeating the last words (think “Row, row, row your boat”) until the end of the cycle comes with everyone repeating their last line forming the sentence “Walking after midnight whistling a tune about my baby, trying to get home before the sun comes up.”

It’ll probably never be performed or used so I figured I’d throw it out there. It’s poetry, but it’s Beat poetry which is sort of forgivable, right?

"Walking after midnight whistling a tune about my baby, trying to get home before the sun comes up."

VOICE 1:
Stole a pack of cigarettes from out my mom’s brown purse,
Crept out through the window like a President’s black hearse.
Wind colder than vinyl seats in a pick-up out December,
Twisted my ankle on a dirt road path; I swore I would’ve remembered.
Only myself, the moon and air and no other care there in sight,
And the cherry warms my face up, when I’m out walking after midnight.

VOICE 2:
Runny plate of eggs, abetted by a stringy black hair,
Worked morning until evening and after dark still didn’t care.
And the diner is all quiet, just the clink from plates being washed,
Then Sally took off her hairnet, cleared her face off with a toss.
She asked if Derrick’s coming, and he answers, “I may be,”
I’m sitting by myself, whistling a tune about my baby.

VOICE 3:
He staggered out the backdoor, and fell off into the ditch.
It was afternoon when he went in, but now it’s strictly pitch.
And he went in with a longing, and left without it filled,
If there’d been oncoming traffic, he’s likely to be killed.
No job or name or no ID, a relative unknown,
Armed only with some sadness, just trying to get home.

VOICE 4:
Smelling sweeter than some honeysuckles, doused in Parisian perfume,
Decked out in my red dress, probably why he came too soon.
Check myself in a mannequin window, breath left where I had stood.
Can’t bring myself to use my jacket, even though I know I should.
I suppose I should be true to my lover, I feel like I’ve had enough,But I guess I’ll do this forever, if I’m back before the sun comes up.

Even Hayder pt. 2

2008-11-21T05:22:00.000-08:00

Thursday wrap-up

2008-11-20T05:16:00.000-08:00

-Saw a little kid driving yesterday who looked like he was about 12 years old and maybe going through chemo. I felt a little bad for him but then I dug that he was out driving and then I got a little scared: was this his ‘make a wish’ dream? To drive a car in heavy traffic? Again, I’m totally cool with the ‘make a wish’ folks, but Atlanta traffic isn’t the place to have that wish fore-filled, unless you are looking for a death or near-death experience. Eep!

-Gave up on the novel for Nanowrimo. I couldn’t keep up and memorize a gajillion lines for Christmas Carol at the same time. Too much and I’m spread too thin as it is. Christmas Carol is fun, especially since it’s a three person version with me and another actor playing everyone but Scrooge. Having a conversation with yourself while operating a puppet that has a third voice is a bit, um, confusing. But fun. Bytheby, the director called me crazy the other day. And not like that Martin Lawrence “You so crazy” but like, “You are an unbalanced person” crazy. This because I was able to carry on a credible conversation with a puppet that I was also speaking for. Some call it crazy but I call it commitment.

-I’m auditioning a lot lately which is great, but I’m getting turned down a lot which is not so great. I have an audition this weekend that I thought I wouldn’t have time to do but turns out I will. It’s for the Buddy Holly story. Now I’m not auditioning for Buddy Holly, or Richie Valenze (sp?) or even the Big Bopper. By the way, how bad ass is it that his name is the Big Bopper? No one EVER calls him by his real name, Biggle Bopperwitz.

Anyway, originally when we spoke, they were like, “Oh you’ll audition for the radio dj or the manager guy” which are both non-singing roles. I’m cool with that. However last night they emailed and said, “You’ll be auditioning for the bassist of the Crickets.” OK, now I’m a little worried. Yep, I played bass for a few years and yep, it’s on my resume. However, I was thinking I’d just come there and read some stuff and that’d be it, but now I have to come in, sing, play guitar and play bass. Le sigh. And I’m auditioning for Julius Caesar and trying to get my lines and accents down for Christmas Carol. Oh yeah, and I’m still working my shitty job.

FYI, auditioners for the Big Bopper do have to do the “Hello ba-bay!”

-Favorite person’s name I’ve seen recently: Margarita Colon. I think the only way to cure Margarita Colon is to put salt on the rim.

-In an effort to sabotage myself, I’ve begun hiding my keys. Not sure why my subconscious is doing this to me but I’m hiding them all over the house and causing myself to be in a panic before I have to be somewhere. My wife suggested it might be a devious pixie that was hiding them instead. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to make me feel better, though: my lighthouse for rational thought telling me I’m either going crazy or that pixies are real. Addendum: had an audition yesterday morning and wrote down the wrong time for it. Definitely working against myself for some reason.

-All in the same week at my job: a bunch of folks got laid off, I was restructured under a new management team who aren’t quite certain what I do, I got a 6 month review (3 months late) from a person who doesn’t know what I do or have done, had to attend sexual harassment training (watch out, ladies…and gentlemen), and have had to attend multiple meetings with people who aren’t quite sure what’s going on. I’m hesitant to write this out loud but here goes: as 2009 rolls around, I won’t be working in a cube anymore. This could mean several things.
-I go to work somewhere like a grocery store or work security.
-I work as an actor in any capacity I can.
-I never work again and my wife, dogs, birds and I end up homeless.

I’m rooting for the second option. My wife is fearful of the third option. Somewhere between the first and second option seems most reasonable. But we’ll see. But I have moments of complete exhilaration thinking about it and then moments of complete horror. You know that moment in Pearl Jam’s “Even flow” video where Eddie Vedder falls off the balcony? Some say he jumped but it was more of a ‘let go’ than an actual ‘leap’. Anyway, that’s how I feel. Come January, or December maybe, I’ll let go and hope 1000 grunge kids in flannel shirts and Converse All-Stars will catch me.

-Oh yeah, we got another bird to keep Mr. Bram company. Her name is Angelou. She likes to sing. Get it?

Even Hayder must be happy sometimes

2008-11-19T05:55:00.001-08:00

More Spam

2008-11-07T06:50:00.001-08:00

I'm busy as crap with Christmas Carol rehearsals, work, line memorizing and trying to stay on top of Nanowrimo. But I saw a bit of spam I couldn't resist. If you're not familiar with spamusement (I think it's dead now but still there and great), he drew little cartoons based on spam titles. That's pretty much it. So the title of the spam I got was "Horny girl gets fucked." This is my cartoon interpretation.

Have a good weekend,

mmyers

7 things about me you may not know

2008-11-05T07:25:00.001-08:00

Evel said I should do this and so I have, 7 little known facts about me.

-I was on my way to Boston when I stopped in Atlanta. I planned on being here a year then going to graduate school for playwriting at BU. None of these things ended up happening and 10 years later, here I am.

-I was in a band called SuperZero for two years during college. We sucked. I played bass and sang. After that I was in a two person folk band called Don’t Fuck with the BabySitter (any nerds know what that’s from?) playing a chord organ and guitar and singing. And I played some solo acoustic shows too. My hands would shake so badly that I’d shoot guitar pics all over the place.

-I never wanted to get married. I had every intention of being with my wife forever but never having a ceremony or being husband and wife. Marriages don’t really work well in my family and I always thought it was a crock of shit anyway, not ever being worried about ‘living in sin’. Anyway, while in NY doing a show I realized that Anna-Claire would always have a lingering doubt that I wasn’t committed to our relationship and loving big parties (and my wife to be), we got married. I’ve never regretted it.

-I’m not blown away by Barrack Obama. I know I’m supposed to be but I’m not. I have a ‘wait and see’ attitude toward him. Still, things couldn’t get any worse than the way they’ve been for the last few years so that’s liberating. I do think he could do a good job of reversing the recession because optimistic people spend money and scared people do not, and believe me, in my office, folks are Opt-O-Mistic. It's been awhile since folks have been optimistic.

-My grandfather is my hero. I wear his coats and his hats and when I’m in a jam, I think about what he would do or say. He’s a retired farmer, paper mill worker, and military officer and he’s one of the level headed/funniest people I know.

-I applied for a job in a mailroom but was not qualified to sort mail. This led to temp jobs which led me to a permanent job as a file clerk which lead to small promotions in that company which led to a job as a collections auditor which led to complete misery for me. All because I wasn’t qualified to sort mail.

-I’m terrified of public speaking. My voice breaks and my hands sweat, I hear my pulse in my ears and I’m in complete panic the whole time, which causes me to look down and literally shuffle my feet like that shy dog from Bugs Bunny when he says, “Nope, nope, nope, nope.” I assume I’d be over that, having to perform in front of people semi-regularly, but I’m not and am getting even more uneasy about it as I get older. This is also starting to infiltrate my psyche in regular social situations. No idea what is changing for me.

Now I'm supposed to also peg 7 folks to do this as well, but I don't want to lay that trip on you. If you wanna do this, I'm all for it though.

Dracula ends...

2008-11-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

-Got a review at the very last second. It seemed OK. Can't say I disagree with what he says.

While digging up the link, I noticed that there was a comment from a reader. A nice shout out from whomever, although it does make me a tad uncomfortable.

-I also am now the proud owner of the bird from the show. I named him Mr. Bram and threatened to eat him (on stage) on a nightly basis. Anyway, he's mine now. Last night, while returning emails, he threw bird seed at me.

This is him riding home in my car. My wife says he needs a friend.

-I'll throw up some more show photos as I'm able to weed through them.

Favorite Spam title of the day

2008-10-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

I get a ton of email Spam since my email system changed over and I can't seem to block it. On the upside, it gives me access to all the lastest stupid Spam titles. Today's was:

"Office Slut works hard."

This makes me happy. See, is she an Office Slut? Yes. But does she work hard? She does, in fact. She's not the Office Slacker, no sir. She puts in an honest day's work. Who knows what the Office Slut has got going on at home? Maybe she has a kid. Maybe she's taking on-line courses when she isn't slutting it up in the office. Maybe she's got dreams of being the Management Slut. Or maybe she just works hard at being the Office Slut. Maybe she does spreadsheets ('spread' sheets, get it?) and holds strategy meetings to see how to slut the most efficiently.

The fact is, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that the Office Slut works hard, so if you work in an office with a harding working slut, give it up for her, because she's giving it up for you.

Oh yeah...

2008-10-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

While trying to find out what I was doing last year, I stumbled on to this pic from True West (circa '06). This must be how Benecio Del Toro felt when he saw himself in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Saw this on another blog...

2008-10-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

And decided I'd do it too. Maybe if you're bored, you should too.

What were you doing 20 years ago?
-I was in 8th grade.
-I had a massive crush on a girl named Melissa. I sent her flowers to school and she told people they were from someone else. Years later we became acquaintances. I named the man who had a sex change after her in the film ‘Groping for Luna.’
-I shaved my head and dyed the stubble blue on the last day of school.
-I was pretty miserable in middle school and gearing up to be miserable in high school.
-I loved comic books, pro wrestling, and rap music. These things have not changed.
-My brother’s best friend moved in with us for awhile and ate everything we had. We were all pretty unhappy.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
-I had just graduated college.
-Still living with my mom.
-I was in a band called SuperZero. We were terrible but I miss those guys. We were a mix of REM, Danzig, and The Germs, both in sound and appearance. Yeah, I told you we sucked.
-I was preparing to move to Atlanta and then move to Boston to get an MA in playwriting.
-Did a show at my old University for old-time's sake and became reconnected with an old friend during the show. We started dating during that show and three years later got married. Before her, it was a year of dysfunctional relationships and messy break ups.
-I was working at a punk rock record store as an assistant manager.
-I would paint everyday, fall asleep on the floor for awhile, wake up, make a sandwich and start painting again. Literally, I did this nearly everyday I wasn’t at work or hanging with friends/girlfriend. It was as nearly perfect as my life has ever been.

On 9/11/01
-I came into work and a bunch of folks were huddled around a radio and said a plane had hit the WTC. I assumed they meant it had knicked it or something. Anyway, by about 10:30 the office was buzzing. I called my wife and we both started trying to contact our friends in NY (like everyone else). Around 1:30 the company decided that if anyone wanted to go home, they could but they’d have to take vacation time to do so. I took the vacation time and went home to hang with the wife and watch CNN.

What were you doing 5 years ago?
-I had a shitty job in Human Resources while doing plays at night. The upside was I could come and go pretty much as I pleased.
-I was getting pretty burned out on theatre and not seeing any sort of real rewards from it. Saw a show called Howie the Rookie and it flipped the script for me. Fantastic play and it reaffirmed for me why I do what I do.
-We were in the throws of filming the 2 ½ year long Groping for Luna. Simultaneously a great and terrible experience.
-Lived in a one bedroom loft apartment with the wife and a Rottweiler.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
-Had just finished Drove, which I co-wrote and performed with some great pals. Turned out to be one of my most proud moments in theatre.
-The axe was preparing to drop at my crappy HR job, unbeknownst to me. By December, it’d be gone. In the end, it was fine as I had lost the ability to come and go as I pleased and was generally starting to hate everything.
-2007 wasn’t a happy year for the most part. I’m starting to feel that I may be on an upswing again but 2007 was the beginning of a dark tunnel.
-We got Penelope, the wonder dog. She was part of the down swing. She’s getting better too though.

What did you do yesterday?
-Had a Dracula matinee.
-Auditioned for “If you give a mouse a cookie”.
-Came home and watched Dexter and ate a fajita with the wife.
-Read some “Fables”

What will you do today?
-Work.
-Call back for “Give a Mouse…”
-Exercise (hopefully).

What will you do tomorrow?
-Work.
-Audition for “Christmas Carol”-Exercise (hopefully).

Friday Wrap-up

2008-10-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

-Looking over account notes, I just found this gem. When asked if the debtor was there, someone responded, “No she’s not in here” and hung up. Is that weird or is it just me? I could understand “She’s not here” but “She’s not IN here” leads me to believe that they’re being held captive in some box with a toilet and a telephone (apparently). The visual I’m thinking is Buffalo Bill’s hole in Silence of the Lambs. “It answers the phone and takes a message.”

-I have never, to the best of my knowledge, laughed in someone’s face. I always hear folks say that. “I laughed right in his face.” That is an exaggeration, though. They laughed in their presence, sure, but not directly in their face.

Well, I just laughed in someone’s face in the breakroom. CNN plays in there non-stop and this often leads to heated political conversations and unsolicited opinions from people looking to speak for no reason. So one lady was in there and she asked me what happens to unspent campaign funds. I responded I did not know and continued heating my meal. She said she was VERY surprised that the story about Obama’s campaign being funded by terrorists hasn’t been picked up by anyone other than the ‘website she went to’. Bloody hell, I laughed. Right in her face. She’s a close talker. I couldn’t stop. I’m usually pretty good about entertaining crazies. I think that’s why crazy people like me. I’m tolerant. But boy howdy, when she busted out with that, I couldn’t help it and I burst into gales of laughter. I’m certainly not trying to influence anyone politically but good grief, that’s ridiculous. She’s lucky I hadn’t just taken a sip of my drink.

-After that conversation, I went back to my desk and scribbled the words, “I’m surrounded by dangerous people” in my notepad.

-Went looking to see if there were any reviews for Dracula on-line and stumbled on to an old review for a different show. I preface this by saying this is my favorite review of a show I was in ever. The year was 2005 and the show was Take me Out. My friend Bill sent it to me a few years ago and but I hadn’t stumbled on to it in years.

Is it nice to me? Nope. But it’s so funny and great that I laugh all the way through it. No idea who the guy is. No idea what his qualifications are. I’m not even sure about the site itself. But make no mistake, I love everything about this review and “Bill Smith” who wrote it.

What’s fantastic about it is the meticulousness that it rips up our show while countering that at every turn with the positive attributes the other show had and their superiority to our show. And I love that we’re pitted against one another, one on one, in MORTAALLLL COMBAATTTTT! It’s sort of the Superfriends versus The Legion of Doom. I’d like to be Solomon Grundy but I’m betting I’m Sinestro.

Here it is. You’ll have to scroll down to Take Me Out in 2005 (the Bill Smith one), but my goodness, it’s delicious.

If someone asks me this one more time...

2008-10-24T07:08:00.001-07:00

A man for all seasons, a boy for a lifetime

2008-10-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

Welp, auditioned for A Man for all Seasons yesterday. It went fine. It's always hard for me to figure out how I did. Of course, everyone I've spoken to who auditioned said they felt really good about their audition. That's a testament to the director that he can create that kind of environment. Most actors I know feel like their auditions don't go very well or that they could have done better. But apparently everyone was pretty satisfied with how they did.

It's a cool show, if you've never read it. Here's a clip from the film. What I think is great about this clip is that it tells you everything you have to know in the shortest amount of time. Like you could drop in on any moment of this play (or film) and have a pretty good idea of what's going on and the dynamic. Good writing executed perfectly. I love More's brief breakdown near the end.

Boxing this weekend

2008-10-20T09:24:00.001-07:00

If you don’t know me, you should know this: I love boxing. In fact, many of my philosophies on life are related back to it. Yep, I’m one of those who watches two guys punching each other mercilessly and sees a metaphor for life. In life, I view myself as a counter-puncher. A counter-puncher waits for people to punch and then takes that chance to create an opportunity to punch back, looking for openings. I wait for opportunities and then try to make the most of them. It’s my little way of being ‘safe’. Some people lead with their face and charge in, sometimes get knocked out and sometimes getting knock outs and it’s always fun to watch because they’re swinging for the fences. That’s not me. I swing for the fences when I get opportunities but often don’t look to create my own.

Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about this weekend’s fight. This weekend, an undefeated middleweight KO artist named Kelly Pavlik, 26, got in there with a boxing wizard and defier of time named Bernard Hopkins, 43. That means there’s a 17 year difference between the two and in his last fight, Hopkins already looked old. He was slow and sluggish and exhausted by the end of his last fight. Everyone had said, “OK, B-Hops is getting old and it’s time for him to retire.” That’s not a bad thing. Fighters age rapidly, or at least it appears they do. This stems from getting older and there being 6 month gaps between their fights, so when you see them again and they don’t look different on the surface, their bodies have started to get tired. It’s like running into someone from high school and thinking they got old over night because you haven’t seen them in forever. So everyone expected Hopkins to cash out with this fight against the young up and comer and pass his torch. Here’s the thing (and one of the things I LOVE about boxing): that isn’t what happened. Instead, this 43 year old man boxed that kid’s ears off for 12 rounds. Pavlik couldn’t put punches together and that 43 year old man worked him for 36 minutes. Hopkins used every trick at his disposal to frustrate and punish that kid.

Pavlik was (and still is) a top prospect and will earn tons more $$$. He punches hard, he’s humble, and (sadly this is the way of boxing) he’s white and white fighters seem to get the benefit of the doubt more often (see Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope). So Pavlik has a future. He’s not ruined. But make no mistake, the school bus was pulled up and Pavlik got on and Hopkins showed him ever trick in the book. I recall getting the crap being beaten out of me by my big brother (who is 5 years older than me) as a kid and eventually getting so frustrated that I couldn’t make a dent in him that I just gave up. He was just that much bigger and better than me and I’d go off and cry. Well that’s what Pavlik looked like at the end of that fight. Mentally taken apart.

To top it off, after the fight (which was staged at a ‘catch weight’ of 170 lbs, 10 lbs above Pavlik’s normal fighting weight), Hopkins pulled him to the side and gave him a huge pep talk (on camera) about how Pavlik was a great fighter and he needed to stay at 160 and rule the roost. So he was schooled in the ring and he was schooled afterwards. The whole time the 26 year old had a ‘yes, sir’ hang-dog look on his face.

So all that to say, 40 ain’t death. Beyond 40 ain’t death. We don’t have to stop fighting, we just have to fight smarter.

Steve Dracula and the 100th post

2008-10-17T05:35:00.000-07:00

Dracula is open. Come see it. I hang upside down.

I discovered the other night that Dracula's first name is actually 'Steve'. But Count Dracula sounds better than Count Steve or Steve Dracula. Also, as Renfield, I'm Mike Renfield. It really takes alot of the oomf out of the story knowing our names like that. I mean, how gothic is the name Mike? That Bram Stoker. You figure he'd be more imaginative with the names.

Also, this is my 100th post, which means I'm very self absorbed and can't seem to stop talking about myself and things that interest me. Still, thanks for all the folks who visit and read and comment and all that good stuff. It makes my work day go faster.

And stay tuned for more comic strips and meaningless speculation.

EDIT- Actually this is post 84. Oops. I was counting drafts and unpublished stuff. Silly me. But Daddy loves you anyway.

Hayder- Review time

2008-10-16T08:09:00.001-07:00

Mmyers' clickable comic about hate, HAYDER.

Happy Thursday.

VERSUS! Kissing Drunks or Smokers

2008-10-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

We return for another spine-tingling edition of VERSUS!

Today we match up two types of people in head to head MORTAAAALLLL COMBAAATTT. Actually, to be more specific, we match up two types of people in a particular situation, and that is:

Kissing a Smoker versus kissing Someone who’s Drunk.

Having been kissed by both types of people (both male and female) in my lifetime and having kissed people while being drunk and after having smoked, I am an expert. So here goes.

-THE SURFACE-
THE SMOKER-
There are a few types of smokers. There’s the Social Smoker. The Social Smoker only smokes in social situations, which means they are constantly bumming cigarettes off actual smokers because they constantly find themselves in social situations.

Then there’s the Steady Smoker. The only real difference between the Steady Smoker and the Social Smoker is the Steady admits they smoke semi-regularly and buys their own cigs. Steady Smokers are your “I smoke when I drink” and “I smoke during a good conversation” and “I smoke on my smoke break” smokers.

Lastly, there’s the Human Chimney. And the Human Chimney is always smoking or thinking of a way to smoke. These guys will smoke half a cigarette walking from their car into work and smoke the rest later. They’re dedicated to finding the time to smoke.

THE DRUNK-
There are also a few types of drunks, particularly those who will try to smooch you up. There’s the Light Weight. The Light Weight is buzzed off wine coolers or a Mojito and is usually pretty lovey because they don’t drink very often. These people are looking for an excuse to work outside the box (their normal comfort zone) and if there’s a person they’re wanting to smooch up or saying something personal to, they’ll drink just enough to sneak that thought passed mental security and entrap you with their innermost thoughts.

The Social Drinker. Like the Social Smoker, this person only drinks around others and also like the Smoker, they are always looking for an excuse to be around others. This person is also likely to lay a smooch on you because, you know, they’re celebrating something. I dunno, whatever the group is celebrating.

Lastly, there’s the Shit-faced drunk and this category is divided into two sub-categories. There’s the Happy Shit-Faced person and the Unhappy Shit-faced person. Happy Shit-Face loves you, has always loved you, and would like to express this opinion with a kiss on the cheek or hand and before the night is through will attempt to work their way to your mouth. Unhappy Shit-Face is upset about something (a break up, a loss of job, etc) and will also go for the smooch in a more pathetic, “My mouth aim is off but I’m trying to touch our mouths together” kind of way. This person needs some love at that moment and, should they remember their pathetic attempts to get kissed the next day, will hide from you in shame for a period.

-WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT-
Well, they aren’t really fighting. To clear up the argument though, drunks never win fights. Never. Not even against other drunks. It’s a stalemate.

But head to head, as far as smooching one of them, it goes like this.

TASTE-
Smokers taste like smoke. It’s that simple. I know they try to chew gum and eat Altoids but it doesn’t stop the fact that they taste like smoke. Meat eaters taste like meat. Drunks taste like sweet, sweet alcohol. If someone has a habit that you don’t do and your nose/taste buds aren’t adjusted to, you can tell it. Of the two of them, smokers taste the worst, especially if you’re engaging in some major tonsil hockey. A closed mouth smoker can keep some of the guys on the bench but when they open their mouth it’s a smoky slobber knocker. Alcohol breath isn’t the best of breath but generally it’s sweet.
EDGE: Drunks.

TECHNIQUE-
Drunks of varying degrees have lost motor skills. It’s a fact, no matter what you think. The Shit-Faced drunk is barely aware of what their hands are doing, much less their face. This can lead to having your nose licked or their tongue accidently being stuck in your nostrils. And drunks think most anything involving their face feels good. That’s why they blow bubbles with their mouth and vibrate their lips. Why? Because it feels good. It feels good if you’re drunk, but this lapse in judgment is what leads to people having their lips helicoptered by someone’s tongue. Smokers have their motor skills and they’re still in control of their sanity.
EDGE: Smoker.

KISS SIGNIFICANCE-
No smoker ever woke up and was like, ‘Oh my God, I smoked so many cigarettes last night, what did I do?’ Nobody has ever tried to make out with their best friend from smoking Marlboros. Nobody has had a gay experience from a Virginia Slim (although, if you’re smoking Virginia Slims, you probably are gay and no amount of cigarettes or alcohol will change that fact). However, most “I can’t believe I did that” moments have alcohol in the equation somewhere. Kissing a drunk may mean nothing or it may mean everything to the drunk person. Maybe it’s because you were available or maybe it’s because they’ve always loved you and always will. However, smokers are pretty serious folk. They KNOW their breath smells terrible and that the chance for rejection is higher, but they’ll risk it and not have any excuse afterwards. They’re jumping out of the airplane and there may be a hole in their ‘shute. A smoker kisses like they mean it.
EDGE: Smoker

Conclusion:
It’s probably better overall to kiss a smoker. Who would you rather ride home with? A smoker. They’re only killing you gradually instead of one big blaze of glory like a drunk. Who takes ‘no’ for an answer? Probably the smoker. Unless he or she is a date rapist. But that’s not cigarette’s fault. They were fucked up before they ever puffed. Kiss a smoker, hug a drunk, don’t ride home with a weird-o. Rules to live by.

THE HYBRID
Oh the smoking drunk. To be honest, smoking and drinking go hand-in-hand. A few drinks turns the Social Smoker into a Human Chimney pretty quickly. And with this Hybrid, they usually have imbibed enough to where they don’t care how their breath smells. Very rarely will you find a smoker in a social situation (bar) who hasn’t got a drink. This person is dangerous. I repeat: DANGEROUS. To themselves and others. A drunk-smoker is usually very confident in themselves and their opinions, absorbing the coolness from having a cigarette in their hand and the lack of social filters from the alcohol. If they want a smooch, they’re going for it and if it doesn’t go according to plan, they’ll probably follow it up with “What’s your problem?” if they’re an angry drunk or uncontrollable sobbing if they’re an unhappy drunk. If someone is getting dragged away from the bar, they’re probably a Hybrid.

(PS Much obliged to my lovely models Eve and Will and Elizabeth for lending me their likenesses. If any of them ever try to kiss you, do me a favor and let them.)

Whiskey soaked mustache

2008-10-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

Bless all the bartenders who know you by name,
Bless all your friends who forget all your shame,
Bless all the pickups and unwinding on a Saturday night,
Bless the song on the jukebox that gets you feeling just right.

And God bless my whiskey soaked mustache.

Bless gas station hot dogs and self set bowling pins,
Styrofoam coolers, and trading the weekdays for weekends.
Bless having a good woman, and cold feet under cold sheets,
Fork and spoon wind chimes, and grills cooking hot meats.

And God bless my whiskey soaked mustache.

God bless Tennessee Bourbon, Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias,
Bless 50 cent pool tables and flirtatious waitresses.
Bless when it starts to get cold and guys telling terrible jokes,
Sitting on the back porch, a good cigar and thick smoke.
And God bless my whiskey soaked mustache.

Thursday wrap-up

2008-10-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

-I have been going nearly nonstop for the last two weeks in a schedule that basically goes work/work/sleep, rinse and repeat. For me, when I get tired, rational thought is the first thing to go. So last night I was thinking about how I finally get to sleep in on Saturday. I have dogs and the dogs often will keep me up due to (in no particular order): They heard a noise, they have to pee, they’re thirsty, they are itchy, they are sleeping on top of a bone and think other dogs are trying to steal it. This makes the sleep portion of the work/work/sleep equation disjointed and often unsatisfying. So the thought occurred to me, “I should take a sleeping pill on Friday night, just to make sure I get some good sleep. Maybe I’ll drink some beer too, just to really knock me out.” What could go wrong, right? For about a minute this seemed like a completely rational thought. So the moral of the story is, don’t trust me to watch your kids or do anything important until I’ve had a good night’s sleep because I’m obviously not thinking sensibly. Otherwise, I may give your kid booze and sleeping pills to sleep or let them play with a live firearm to keep them busy.

-On my way home from the theatre, I’m covered in blood on a nightly basis. There’s no shower at the theatre and the soap doesn’t really do the trick. So last night, soaked in fake blood, I envisioned myself getting pulled over by the Po-po. What would I say? Children have ruined the “I was only doing a play” defense. Isn’t that what kids say? “We were kissing, sure, but we were rehearsing a scene from a play.” I next envisioned myself locked in a prison cell screaming, “I was rehearsing a play!” along with a bunch of murderers who are also screaming how they were rehearsing a play. Coincidently, there would probably be some dudes practicing the kissing scene as well. And that one ass-rape play.

-The dude who runs the theatre and I got into a big discussion about weird superheroes of the 70s. His favorite was the Son of Satan. Anyone remember him? What a hilarious premise for a comic. You know, what does the son of Satan do all day? I bet he fights demons.

So that nestled in my head, during the show last night I got distracted by the thought of a comic book called the Sons of Dracula. See, Dracula has these three sons and they all get a portion of his powers. One can turn into fog, one can turn into 90 dog/wolves, and one can turn into a bat. And they go around solving crimes to try and make up for all the horrible things their dad did. Waitaminute, a bat? One of them, his only power is he can turn into a bat??? Yes. Tell me it wouldn’t be hard to get that guy to join your superhero team.

It’s a pretty stupid idea but I have a history of coming up with stupid ideas that suddenly pop up other places. So I’m putting it out there, World. The Sons of Dracula. Someone start writing it.

-Found out the Lipton Green Tea I’m drinking has sodium benzoate in it so I’ve been walking around unable to tell a lie for the last hour. Then I realized that sodium benzoate wasn’t actually truth serum. I have a lot of apologizing to my coworkers to do.

-I gave up fast food and hamburgers for the last 8 days but then fell off the wagon last night. I immediately got an upset stomach. But that Dr Pepper was the bomb. The subsequent visit to the toilet was not the bomb.

-Interviewed with Scooby-Doo last week to be his PA. That statement is mildly coded but I think you get the point if you know me. Anyway, Scooby was much more depressed and tense than I thought he would be. And Scooby was very upfront about the job sucking, there being no opportunity for advancement, the pay being terrible, and basically being the office gopher for the rest of my life, if I was offered the job.

Then Scooby pulled off my optimistic/happy mask and revealed me to be crotchety Old Man Myers, the disgruntled office worker. And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids (and their terrible wages and general horrible outlook).

I have a man crush

2008-10-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

I ain't ashamed. Good pal Zombie Sitcom posted a bit about this dude awhile back but after roaming around his site, I stumbled on to this gem. His name is Dave Perillo. Check it the freak out.

And then I was hooked. Check out his Watchmen stuff and Power Man and Iron Fist. Yes sir, a mad man crush.

Records and the case of the curious sample

2008-10-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

I’m a pretty big nerd about hip hop. I’m mostly from an old school mentality but there are still a few hip hop artists that I follow today. VH-1’s Top 100 Hip-Hop Songs got me thinking (since when is Vh-1 then mecca for hip-hop, anyway? What happened to Rap City and Yo MTV raps??).

The funny thing about hip hop culture is that it’s based a lot on *ahem* ‘appropriating’ from other artists. This manifests in a couple of ways. The most obvious is sampling, using another person’s music and manipulating it so that you can rap over it, and also by using whole phrases and words in your songs. Back in the day, anything Rakim said pretty much was sampled in someone else’s track at some point. Sometimes it’s fantastic the results that this yields and sometimes it’s just terrible. I won’t even go into the legalities of ‘borrowing’ other artists music.

Also, hip hop cannibalizes itself, with MCs using phrases that other MCs have used before and changing certain words to fit their purpose. The other day I listened to GZA (from Wu-Tang) do an entire song (“Highway Robbery”) using the same frame work and flow of Big Daddy Kane’s “Ain’t no Half Steppin’”. It was so obvious that I’m guessing it was considered a tribute to BDK. Here’s an example. GZA says: “How come so much rap shit sound so similar, It’s so confusing for you to remember the Originator, paint sprayer, crafts innovators.” Big Daddy Kane said: “You have MCs coming out sounding so similar, It’s quite confusing for you to remember the Originator, and boy do I hate a Purplatrator.” Similar, no? And it’s like that throughout the song. Of course, in hip hop, “Ain’t no half steppin’” is pretty famous so I’m sure Gza knew when he wrote it that others would know it. This happens often with phrases but rarely have I seen whole versus go like that.

Sometimes MCs get ‘dissed’ because they do this without giving credit and this is called ‘biting’, which is kind of funny that artists that have built themselves on using other people’s beats and music and phrases would get mad when someone ‘bites’ their material. That is considered cheap and uninventive.

Anywho, I digress. Some hip hop groups chose really weird songs to pull from, which is often disorienting and awesome to hear someone rap over an unexpected beat or chorus. I’ve created a list of some of my favorite examples of unexpected samples.

1- "Blazing Arrow” by Blackalicious. This contains, of all things, a sample from Harry Nilsson’s “Me and my arrow”. I personally love Blackalicious and Nilsson so the marriage of the two is great to me and I flipped out the first time I heard it, but what a weird choice for sampling. The song is actually from a cartoon called “the Point” which Nilsson did the music for and wrote the story back in the 70s when everything made sense when you were high. Around the same time I heard Blackalicious’ version of the song I also heard Jurassic 5 sample Nilsson on J5’s song “Future Sound”, which samples the word “Two” from Nilsson’s song “One”.

2- “Diss You” by King Tee. King Tee is very underrated in my opinion. In the 80s and 90s, he sort of fronted the happy pimp/drug dealer attitude out of California. He’d talk about guns and things but he was also very funny and lighthearted at times, often attempting to have sex with a friend’s mom or something. In the early 90s, he came out with “Diss you” using the Rolling Stones’ “Miss you” as the music and rhythm. It had the same high pitched “doo-doo-doo”s but instead of Mick Jagger singing “I sure miss you”, King Tee said, “I should diss you”. Again, a lot of people probably found this blasphemus, but it was great and fun to me. I think it’s out of print now, possibly because he got sued or something.

3- “Say no go” by De La Soul. Speaking of lawsuits, De La Soul earned one by sampling Hall and Oates’ “I can’t go for that” and apparently they couldn’t go for that (no can do) and sued De La. Still, “Say no go” is a very dense song with multiple samplings going on all through it (thank you, Prince Paul) and something great that didn’t really happen much back in the day: a hip hop song with a story. I’ve always waited for someone to rap over Maneater, but so far that kiss hasn’t been on their list.

4- "Sometimes I rhyme slow” by Nice and Smooth. The backbone of this song was Tracey Chapman’s “You’ve got a fast car”. What?? Yep. And they made that track slam. Well Smooth B did. He tells the story about a girl he dated who was addicted to drugs and he tried to help. Greg Nice tells a story about…um, I don’t know. He kind of did free association rapping before it became popular. Favorite lines of the savant-like Nice in this is “I’m sweeter and thicker than a chico-stick, here’s an ice cream cone, honey, take a lick.” Yeah, didn’t make much sense then either, you know, beyond the sexual aspect. But yeah, Smooth B talking about the girl who was ‘riding the white horse’ really makes this song memorable.

5- “Take a look at my girlfriend” by Gym Class Heroes. Well, Supertramp. I love Supertramp. I’m learning to love Gym Class Heroes. I wonder how many folks had never heard that song before these guys dusted it off and made it their hook. What’s odd is that it sounds like someone else is singing it, not “The Tramp”. I respect in hip hop band that rhymes slow, because like say a distortion pedal in rock n’ roll, rhyming fast and muddling words covers mistakes. But rhyming slowly and clearly, you can hear bad lyrics and bad flow and you just can’t take shortcuts. Props to these guys for doing all that.

Now surprisingly, not every song ever written has been rapped over. So I offer a few missed songs that might be cool.

-Ben Folds' “Brick”. Sure Folds is using the brick analogy for the sinking feeling and feeling dragged down, but imagine how gangster it would be to talk about how you’re going to hit other MCs with a “Brick” and then you’ll be “Drowning slowly”. Whoever uses this sample can also say they abort MCs like fetuses. Hells yeah. Gangster shit. Sad, sad gangster shit.

-Jim Croce “Operator”. Sure, “Bad, bad Leroy Brown” is the obvious choice but no, “Operator” is the way to go. “Smooth ('Operator, can you help me place this call')”. Or maybe the song could be about a stripper who the guy wants to call or something. I don’t know. I don’t have any answers, but “Operator” sure is a great song and someone should crap it up.

-“Blood Roses” by Tori Amos. Am I a Tori fan? No. Is this song 'gangster'? Yes. I don’t think she needs someone to rap over it, she just needs a cameo on it. Maybe Busta Rhymes or Common. Who would Janet Jackson have? Maybe Q-Tip. I dunno. But this song is gang-ster. Maybe she could have Yo-Yo or some female rapper on it. Anyway, this song has it all. Sex, gay bashing, diamonds, and chicken heads. If you don't know what a chicken head is, you need to listen to some Project Pat. (Seriously, though, you don't need to listen to Project Pat.)

Birds do it, Bees do it...

2008-10-01T11:05:00.001-07:00

Monday wrap up

2008-09-29T06:16:00.001-07:00

-This weekend I was completely worthless, missing a good friend of mine who was in from out of town and also the opportunity to watch some good French horror with other good friends. And whose fault is it? Dracula. Dracula and work. Both are kicking my butt and giving me just enough energy left over to search for gas and toaster my strudels. I’ve had the sinking suspicion I’ve been about to get sick for the last two weeks. So far, I’ve held it at bay but it’s been coming and going. Lots of vitamins and sleep.

-Speaking of Dracula and searching for gas, the two collided this weekend. See, we’re in rehearsals right now and that often means a lot of sitting around. Sitting around for me usually means (once I’ve got my lines memorized) reading comic books and goofing around trying to entertain myself. On Sunday, I was sitting around for an hour or so and started searching the theatre and found face markers for little kids. You can mark your face with them and wash them off (I presumed). Anywho, I gave myself kitty whiskers along with a flower on my forearm and the words “Renf” and “Ield” on my fingers. So when my hour and a half wait was over, I went on to hand Dracula a briefcase. No words, just a briefcase hand off. When he looked at me and smiled I meowed. Ha ha, time passed. Mission accomplished.

After rehearsal I begin my hunt for gas. One of the guys said there’s some on the edge of town so away I went. And there was! And only a minimal line! So I wait and eventually get a spot. Now I was so excited about finding gas that I didn’t pull up as close to the pump as I could have. I was close but no cigar. Unfortunately I was close enough to the car beside me that it would have been a tight squeeze for a car to get by me. A guy pulls up behind me and can’t get by. I wave and mouth “Sorry about that.” He waves back, sticks his head out the window and says, very friendly-like, “No worries, take your time.” I finish, wave, say ‘Thanks’, and with a huge smile waves back.

Now this is pretty rare right now. Everybody is pissed and on edge. Fist fights are happening at the pumps and gas stations with gas are hiring police officers to regulate people and are starting to use people to direct traffic because drivers don’t understand the idea of forming a line and waiting your turn. As I described it yesterday, when a crazy person meets an inconsiderate person, there’s going to be fireworks. But this little interaction went great. I get in my car and drive away.

Halfway down the road I realize I still have my kitty whiskers. Hey, who can get mad at a guy with kitty whiskers?

-Funny quotes recently.
Director gives the instruction to several ladies (Dracula’s disciples, the Vixens) in the cast: “The vixens do it on the ground.” I turn to my pal Steve and say, “Oddly, I have that bumper sticker on my car.”

A couple of minutes later, I kill an attendant, the very same attendant (Steve) who wheels us on and off stage. So he falls down dead and I say to him, “Hmmm….how are we going to get off when you’re dead?” And Steve says, “Oddly that’s what my bumper sticker says.” I know, I have the humor of a frat boy and a 5 year old mixed together but I laughed about it again today and smile everytime I think of it. What a creepy bumper sticker that would be.

-Speaking of comic books, just got finished reading “Fables: 1001 nights of snowfall.” Overall it’s a great book and fills in nicely some of the gaps left by the normal Fables series. But one guy in particularly blew me away: John Bolton. No, not the Republican guy, but rather the artist John Bolton. He has a realistic painted style similar to Alex Ross, but only slightly less hyper-real. He illustrated a story of Snow White and the Prince after that had been together and before they split up. Here’s a pic from it, taken from Mr. Bolton’s website, johnbolton.com.

For Andrew

2008-09-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Managed to catch the birds in my beard out for a stroll.

The 9 stages of my wife being away

2008-09-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

I never figured myself for the co-dependent type but when my wife is away, I ride a mental rollercoaster. Oddly, I've noticed a lot of people who live with someone else experience these same stages. I think I’ve locked down the stages that we go through when we have the house to ourselves. I’ve chronicled them for your viewing/reading pleasure. It ain’t pretty. You’ve been warned.

Stage 1- “Party!”
This involves me making bratwurst and other smelly foods that would probably make my wife throw-up if she were home. Also, I drink crappy beer. One time I totally gave myself food-poisoning from eating food that was way too old to be eaten. I don't read expiration dates in this phase. This is also known as the “free wheeling bachelor” stage, and sometimes being a free wheeling bachelor means you throw up and wallow in your own filth.

Stage 2- “Quiet”
I’m usually sitting in the dark a lot during this phase, trying to figure out how to entertain myself. This stage involves me watching lots of wrestling, reading comic books, and exercising. As an aside, totally wrenched my back Sunday while exercising. Do you see a trend forming? When she’s gone, I hurt myself accidently a lot.

Stage 3- “Insomnia (also known as the “sitting in my underwear playing video games” phase)”
Pretty much what the title and addendum describes. I can’t sleep. I don’t shower. I play video games. And I sometimes wear overalls with no shirt. I have the urge to do productive things but not the energy to actually perform them.

Stage 4- “Paranoia”
Having someone else in the house, when you hear a noise, you can ask “did you hear that?” and “dial 9-1 (waiting to dial the other 1)while I go check it out.” When you are by yourself, however, you have to depend on your own senses. I also depend on dogs barking but they bark at EVERYTHING which makes me more paranoid because I think they’re hearing something I cannot, like a chainsaw murderer. Dogs can hear someone trying to crank a chainsaw.

Stage 5- “Dress up the dogs”
This is where things get a little weird. You’ve seen the dogs with their hats on, right? It’s like that, only a little bit worse. This distracts us both from the looming chainsaw murderer. And if the chainsaw murderer breaks in and sees Yoshi in a nurse’s uniform or Penelope with a ukulele, well how could he hack us up?

Stage 6- “I’m going to do everything!!!!”
This is where I decide to get focused and do everything that doesn’t get done while my wife is home. This includes: writing a play, playing guitar, weed-wacking the drive-way, flossing.

Stage 7- “I’m gonna get drunk!”
Stage 6 quickly dissipates and gives way to stage 7. Sometimes this means I’ll call folks to go get drunk with me and sometimes it means I’ll sit at home, get drunk and call people only to annoy them.

Stage 8- The “oh crap, she’ll be home soon, I gotta get this place cleaned up” phase. This is where I realize she’ll be home in a day or so and clean up all the fast food bags, pizza boxes, discarded socks in front of the couch, and wash the dishes. Sometimes I vacuum even. Also I feed the fish finally.

Stage 9- She's back.

She finally comes back and I take a shower and get a good night’s sleep, for once.

Hayder in 'Beast of Burden'

2008-09-22T06:16:00.001-07:00

There was a time when I made happy comics.

Best,

mmyers

Mike said do it so I'm doing it.

2008-09-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture

VERSUS!!!!

2008-09-19T05:42:00.003-07:00

Here’s a little column I like to call Versus, where I take two similar things and lock them in MORTALLLL CCOMMMMBBAAATTTT!

There is no mercy in these battles to the finish. To prove this point, I’ll start by pitting two of my favorite things against each other: me versus me. That’s right, it’s my 2004 headshot versus my 2008 headshot and it’s a heads-up battle between good and evil…or good and good 4 years ago. Maybe it’s just a battle of time itself! Yes! A battle ripping the very fabric of time and the fabric of cotton. Permanent press cotton!

The Surface:
Well, on the surface, the differences are obvious. In 2004, we didn’t have color yet. It wasn’t invented. Baseball games were played in super fast motion and fatty Arbuckle was the king of comedy. The days of yester-year. In 2008, Technicolor reigns. Yes, rain is now in Technicolor, as is everything, as am I. Unfortunately, with this addition of ‘color’, I have become gray and aged, taxed to the max by the coloration process. Also, I wear a coat now. The coloring of the Earth has created another Ice Age, and I am forced to wear a jacket now, a red corduroy jacket to be precise.

As far as what has not changed, well I still hold my hands in front of myself, forming a finger cage around my genitals. It protected my privates in 2004 and it still works today. If I’m out on the street looking contemplative, you know I’ll be forming my finger cage.

Who would Win in a fight?:
AGE: 2004 Me
-Well for obvious reasons, I was 4 years younger so of course 2004 Me would have the advantage. There’s no way I’ve become younger in the last 4 years. Sheesh what a stupid question.

STRENGTH: 2008 Me
-Definitely stronger than I was then. I weigh about 20 pounds more now with 10 pounds of it being exercise strength and 10 of it being combo meal #1 at Krystals and Dr Pepper. Oh, in 2004 I was doing a show where I wanted to be smaller so I probably would have been drained.

SKILL: 2008 Me
-I went through a period of wrestling a lot in 2007, so yeah, I’d totally take 2004 Me with a StoneCold Stunner, yo!!

OPTIMISM: 2004 Me
-2004, I was hitting on all cylinders. Things were really taking off. Little did I know that 2008 would be a dandy kick in the balls. 2007 was no bowl of peaches either. But in 2004, I was hitting my stride.

Financial: 2008 Me
-Oh that’s me allright, but that’s because I’m working a lot more. Good grief, I work a lot. But I have a house now. And two more dogs. Now that's living. And my old dog has to eat special food now. You think I could have afforded that special food in 2004? No way, Jose Conseco.

THE RESULT:
If it’s a battle of strength, it’s 2008 Me, but if 2004 Me zeroed in on 2008’s exhausted/fragile mental state, I think he’d win by TKO as 2008 me would start crying from watching Ric Flair’s retirement speech.

IF THEY MET:
Warnings 2008 Me would give 2004 Me:
-You’re going to lose your job in 2007. It’s a shitty job, but you’ll lose it nonetheless so start planning for that so you can go out on your own terms. Of course the severance will be nice but the subsequent panic after the severance will turn your once bouncy and luxurious brown hair thinner and greyer.

-Don’t collide with Logan at wrestling practice. It’ll give you scar tissue over that eye and just plain suck in the middle of you losing your job.

-Don’t expect Deadwood to end in a way that you’ll be happy with. Enjoy the ride but skip the ending.

-P Diddy’s Vote or Die campaign will have absolutely no bearing on the election.

Things 2004 Me would say if he saw 2008 Me:
-Lay off the fast food, huh? That jacket isn’t hiding the fact that you’ve chubbed up, beardy. Bytheway, you’re kind of starting to look like the dad from Family Ties. Is that what you’re ‘going for’?

-Wow, our hair just keeps getting shorter and shorter, huh? I don’t need a fortune teller to see where this is going.

-Do the Star Wars movies ever get any better? ….oh.
A cartoon spin-off?! That sounds awesome!...oh.

See? Pretty brutal.

A small thing

2008-09-18T05:10:00.001-07:00

My pal Justin and I are writing a little story (about a guy in space) and I'm a nerd who loves little tidbits so this is a piece of the story I made that has tickled me over the last few days. Enjoy.

I think you can click on it to make it bigger. That's what she said.

Alabama fine dining

2008-09-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Took a little trip this weekend to visit my mom in Florida. If there’s one thing I love about visiting Florida, it’s driving through backwoods Alabama. Alabama convenience stores are a huge draw for me. I don’t know of a state that takes more pride in its gas stations. You can buy denim jean there and boots and assorted hats, along with boiled peanuts and fried chicken. I honestly love stopping off there and it usually adds some time on to my trip but it’s well worth it.

Another thing to love is they always have tester products, stuff that they’re thinking about releasing to the general populace but they want to see how it sells in Alabama (and possibly if someone will die from ingesting it). I also can usually find Cheerwine (if you don’t know this soda, do yourself a favor and go to a convenience store in the middle of nowhere and get one) there and I usually opt for a mystery soda. Peanut butter Chex mix, Almond MnM’s and pickle flavored potato chips all started in Alabama convenience stores. And Alabama gave them a passing grade (like they do with all children who attend school) and now we can have them too. However, worlds collided when I found this little nugget:

Dr. Wham. You know how I feel about the surnamed sodas, right? Well, I saw this little treasure and had to get it. I wanted to know what the next step in the Dr-Mr Pibb-Pepper evolution would be. So I bought it and drank it.

It tasted terrible. It tasted like melted Nerds. You know, the Willy Wonka candy? It was like that in soda form. I don’t expect to see Dr. Wham making a big splash anytime soon. The only positive I can think of for it is that it gave me an excuse to sing Wham songs and George Michael songs, which I’m always looking for an excuse to do. “Careless Whisper” got me to Brewton. “Wake me up before you go-go” to Flomaton. A weird side-effect was wanting to stop off at a rest area and pick up some dude, which is pretty dangerous in Alabama, Dr. Wham or no. But I fought that off with some Bob Seeger. I ‘turned the page’ so to speak.

Final Verdict: If you’re confident in your manhood and don’t need an excuse to sing George Michael, avoid this soda.

You should listen

2008-09-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

This makes my heart hurt.

CD Swap

2008-09-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hey guys and gals,
So, a thought. At one of my old favorite haunts, stripcreator.com, we did a thing called a CD swap, wherein we would make compilation of songs we dug and trade them with folks who you may or may not know. Then we'd all mail the disks to each other. Then you'd get some new CDs in the mail, and getting mail is fun no mater what anyone says and new tunes are even more fun.

So I've got mates from a couple different spots in the world, although I think most friends who read this are Georgians, so what does everyone think of a CD swap? You'd have to burn a couple copies of your disk, or heck, send it to me and I'd burn off a couple copies and send them out. It's a great way to be exposed to some new tunes and it's fun to see what people are digging on. If the group got too big, which I doubt it would but if it did, we could divide into groups so you're not burning 10 copies of your CD. Groups of 4 was how the stripcreator did it. I dunno, mull it over.

If it's something that sounds fun, shoot me an email over at matt@mr-pixel.com.

Random stuff plucked from scraps of paper around my desk

2008-09-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

-Today I’m wearing my Spider-Man shirt. My wife dried it and she hung it with a clothes-pin on the right shoulder. Unfortunately, it stretched it and now I have a weird hump there, small and pointy. So I now I need to go to the gym and work out that particular muscle so the shirt won’t look weird. So if anyone knows what that muscle is over the right shoulder and what I can do to work it out and bring it to a spiny point, I’d be grateful.

Oddly this shirt might be cursed as it had a toothpaste stain that didn’t seem to want to go away. Now that it has, I have a pointy hump.

-After watching so much political crap I’m beginning to think that the only thing America exports anymore is sarcasm.

-I’m a connoisseur of sodas with sir names. Dr Pepper and Mr. Pibb (now deemed Pibb Xtra because being a Mister and not a Doctor wasn’t X-treme enough) being the leaders, but I enjoy the knock-offs more. Of them, I’ve enjoyed Dr. Thunder (Wal-Mart brand and nickname for Thor), Dr. K (Publix, and lesser known brother of Julius Irving), Dr. Chek (Winn-Dixie I think, and Czechoslovakian discount surgeon), but undoubtedly my favorite is Piggly-Wiggly’s Mr. Pigg. I like it because Mr. Pigg demands your respect, like Sidney Portier in In the Heat of the Night. “They call me MR. Pigg.” I couldn’t tell you if it’s any better than the others, ingredient-wise, but the joy I get from it is 10-fold better. A pig who’s a doctor, what a country!

Good luck finding a Piggly Wiggly, though. Fortunately there’s one by my pal Steve’s place, so Mr. Pigg in the house.

-Current word I’m enjoying: recalcitrant. I think because I’m feeling a bit like that, although I’d much rather be compliant, I think. I’m just bad at it.

-Current phrase in a book I’m hating: “It was like nothing she had ever felt before.” That’s just lazy. And bad. Instead of wasting my time reading that sentence, why not write a sentence that explains how she DID feel? Silly.

-Horrible name of the week: Nicewonger. It isn’t ‘Nice-wanger’ fortunately, but it’s just a bad sounding last name. Not that you can do much about your last name but still, go into Witness Relo or something.

Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch...

2008-09-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you a secret. I don't think it's a secret anymore however...

I'm directing (next Summer) a little show called Fingertips. The premise being that playwrights write songs inspired by They Might be Giants' series of songs called Fingertips, 21 short songs. Maybe I'll tell you more later. I don't want to bore you.

Anywho, I've been emailing with their manager. That may sound like nothing to you, but for me, and this is gross, after my last email I went and took a nervous poop. Yep, that's how excited I am. He seems like a cool guy so I went ahead with the question, "Is it cool if we do this show?" Now I wait. I'm not sure what I'll say if They say no. I think it's already planned as part of the season, but the idea of sneaking by doing the show seems...wrong. So I asked. Now I wait.

Hayder

2008-09-10T06:36:00.001-07:00

Life imitates art imitates stupid.

xo,

mmyers

Too Fast for Love (The Fasting part 2)

2008-09-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

September 5th 9:05 am- Am starting to add up how long until I get to go back to sleep. In sleep, no one can hear you scream. Or your stomach grumble. In sleep I forget I'm hungry.

10:36 am- Beginning to think that I could reenact that scene from The Fly with all of the stomach acid that is building up in my system. Grapefruit acid+lemon acid+orange acid= a mutant power for me. Is there a hero who spit acid? Hunter S. Thompson?

11:12 am- Have to keep reminding myself that I’m not drunk. Seriously. It feels like being drunk and I’m carrying this bottle of weird tasting stuff around. Keep thinking I’m giving folks the ‘alcohol-breath’ and covering my mouth when I talk to them.

12:00 pm- Time has lost all meaning. I blink my eyes, it’s 9 o’clock, then again and it’s 1:30. I am a time traveler. A hungry, hungry time traveler. I should go back to the day they invented corn dogs. Note to self: Google that. And to the guy who invented grape fruit juice and spit acid on him.

11:45 am- Went back in time 15 minutes and tried to tell myself to Google who invented. Had problems communicating with myself because we both covered our mouths thinking our breath smelled like alcohol. Gave up and went back to the present.

2:07 pm- Went back to the gym. Much more tired today. The line of what I’m trying to prove is getting blurry, along with most other lines.

3:42 pm- Things are much more ridiculously funny when you’re loopy from hunger. It’s a wonder that all those people in starving countries aren’t laughing themselves silly all the time. This conversation just occurred a few rows over and I’ve been trying to stifle laughter for minutes upon minutes.
Boss: Hey Adrian... Adrian: Yes? Boss: (giggle) "Yo Adrian!" (pause) You probably get that alot with a name like Adrian. (long pause) Adrian: It was a good movie.

3:45 pm- Supposed to read folks for the show tonight. If my attitude persists, I shall be very difficult to read with tonight. Maybe actors aren’t divas. Maybe they’re just fasting. Starving artists!! It all makes sense.

4:40 pm- The big mistake seems to be talking about food instead of reveling in the euphoria that starving causes. My coworker just brought by MnMs for me to smell. She was getting me back for drawing on her cream of wheat box. I drew a little talking bubble coming from the chef’s mouth that says, ‘This stuff tastes terrible but Nikki likes it anyway.’ I suppose I deserve an ‘MnM-by’ (which is like a drive-by except they’re walking and instead of a hail of bullets it’s the smell of MnMs).

6:15 pm- Went to read possible future candidates for the next show (Mojo). Started off by letting possible co-workers now I was hungry and they’d get nothing from me. Flat, lifeless readings all the way. Called my friend Brent “Brett” multiple times.

7:35 pm- Like the hot-button debate “When does life begin?” we engaged in a hot debate about “When does the fast end?” The wife thought the fast began at 10:00 two nights prior when we took our last bites and ended at 10:00 as well. I thought it began when we had digested our food in the night and began to be hungry. That would tack another 6-7 hours onto the fast. I went and played video games to take my mind off of food.

9:00 pm- Decided the fast would end at 10:00. Got dressed and went to get sushi.

10:00 pm- Everything smelled so potent. Best ginger salad I’ve ever had. Best Miso I’ve ever slurped. Best FutoMaki I’ve ever soaked in wasabi and soy and ate. Best napkin I’ve ever wiped my mouth with.

September 8th 8:30 am- Now that it’s over it’s nice to be able to watch commercials again. Dang a lot of fast food commercials come on when you’re hungry. I dropped 4 pounds pretty quickly but I imagine I have them all back now that I’m enjoying this fine toaster pastry. Still it’s good to remind yourself how good you have it now and again and it’s good to let your body rest and process all the caked on crap that hangs out in there because we’re too busy to pass that junk.

Time goes by so very slow while you are fasting

2008-09-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m fasting. I won’t get into the logistics of it but I’ve done a couple fasts over the last few years. Anyway, this time, I’ve decided to keep a little diary about it. I know it will get weird before it gets normal.

September 3 10:00 PM- Had last bite of baked ziti and finished off a tasty beverage to bid myself bon voyage to food for a few days.

September 4th 7:00 AM- Woke up earlier than normal. Also woke up hungry which is weird because I’m usually not hungry until I’ve been awake a few hours. Doesn’t bode well.

8:00 AM- Begin drinking the bile-like solution that will sustain me the next few days. Think my stomach is beginning to sense something is amiss.

10:45 AM- OK, my stomach is not pleased and is now aware that food isn’t coming. Stomach growling beginning to make some sort of weird sense. Excel spreadsheets, however, are starting to make less sense.

11:00 AM- It’s really amazing how I live from one meal to the next. One ends and I immediately begin planning the next one. It would be great if I could utilize the time I’m saving by not eating but I think I’m going to be losing energy and coherency soon.

11:16 AM- Getting a headache. Is aspirin considered food?

11:44 AM- Reviewing the account of a girl named Krystal. Why did her name have to be Krystal and why oh why is it spelled like the hamburger?

12:15 PM- Normally I’d be taking my vitamin right now. Are vitamins considered food?

12:45 pm- Someone got McDonald's. Considered having sex with sandwich while they were away from their desk but am afraid to lose any more bodily fluids. Oddly in this case, eating WOULD be cheating but having sex with the sandwich would not be, disproving the old adage, “Eating is not cheating."

1:15 pm- Ridiculous idea to go and exercise on my break to keep my mind off food. Handles of the elliptical look vaguely like chicken legs.

3:00 pm- Coughed up hastily scribbled letter. Presumably written by my stomach. Stomach is threatening other organs if food isn’t forthcoming. Mentions how he never really liked the gallbladder.

3:55 pm- Beginning to ask myself ridiculous questions like, “Is Food considered food?”

4:15 pm- Someone popped popcorn. Creamy beige. Think my olfactory senses are shutting down for self-preservation.

6:00 pm- The misses, who is also fasting (except with carrot juice instead of the bile-esque concoction I’m drinking), and I have an argument about who is having the easier fast. I feel she has the edge on easiness because her carrot juice have bits in them. Bits of carrot but bits nonetheless. She thinks mine is easier because I’m at work where there isn’t as much food.

8:30 pm- We both begin to realize how much the other looks like food. Hers is much less ominous as I look like tofu-steaks and veggie patties. Mine is more scary as she looks like a rack of ribs, a slice of pizza, and oddly a Campbell’s soup can.

10:15 pm- Watching politicians talk frightens what’s left of my appetite away and I figure I should run to bed while I’m not hungry.

11:00 pm- Watch a documentary on Sgt Slaughter. Why does he look so much like a pickle?

September 5th 7:30 am- Toothpaste has never tasted so delicious.

7:45 am- Locked myself out of the house.

8:10 am- Hit my head on refrigerator putting my juices in.
This is day 2. I’ll keep you posted.

Political Madlib

2008-09-04T12:01:00.001-07:00

Hey all.

I've been watching a good portion of the political conventions as of late. I'm not going to get all politically on you but I will say that I've invented this fun little Madlib to help you out if you're planning on giving a speech at any of these conventions. It's fun and easy.

Greetings my fellow (political party). I met a (gender noun) the other day who was down on their luck. You see they used to work at a (noun) in (city known for hard workers). They said to me, “Jack, my name is (normal sounding name). I’ve got (number) kids. I’ve been out of work for (number) years.” They said to me, they said, “Jack, you’ve got to help us. I used to be an (adjective) (job), (verb)ing for an honest day’s work, until those darn (opposing political party) came in and start taking all our (noun) jobs.”

You see, the (opposing political party) seem to love (adjective) spending. They seem to enjoy making you pay for (noun). Everytime we think of a (noun) to help people, they shut us down and expect (adjective) government to step in, and expect (nouns) like you and me to pick up the bill for their (adjective) spending.

We say no. We (our political party)s see opportunities, not necessarily (verbing) for oil, but rather using (adjective) resources. We don’t want to (verb) terrorists, but rather use (adverb) (nouns) to stop anymore terrorist attacks. We say, let’s work together, unlike the (opposing political party), who seem to want to (negative verb) us. They’re content arguing like (dated pop culture reference to couple who split up in a public way). We say No. We say, “Let’s build up and stop tearing down,” and let’s make sure the (normal sounding name from the beginning)’s of the US can insure an (adjective) future for their (number) children.

Quiche me, quick

2008-09-03T09:30:00.001-07:00

I’ve been playing a little experiment at work. You see, in our office refrigerator, folks steal food. It’s usually small things that I guess they think no one will miss but if you’d like to see me pissed off, steal my jell-o cup with fruit in it. That’s like taking the Pissed Off Express, no waiting.

Anywho, once this little ritual was established, I decided to test it abit. What would someone deem worthy of stealing and what would they by-pass. Well, we have a winner in this refrigerator battle royal and it is frozen quiche. Yes, the frozen quiche has been deemed unstealable by the discerning tastes of my office.

For the record, the frozen quiches aren’t bad, you just shouldn’t microwave them. Oven all the way, baby.

I’m fascinated by the quiche, actually, because the box claims that it has a ‘hint of nutmeg’, which is very funny to me because, although I’m sure the implication is supposed to be that someone’s grandma is pinching that nutmeg and throwing it in there, the reality is a machine pinches that nutmeg and throws it in the vat of quiche fixin’s, just like Mom used to.

Well, curiosity overpowering me, I tracked down this machine, the Nut Meg Bot 5000 and got an interview with it because I wanted to know what makes it tick. Here’s the transcript:

MM: Thank you for joining me, NutMeg Bot 5000.
NUTMEG BOT: It is a pleasure to be here with you, mmyers. Greetings to the internet nerds who enjoy your self-indulgent musings. Would your tasting senses enjoy a pinch of nutmeg?
MM: Um, no, that won’t be necessary. So how did you get started in this…business?
NMB: I was created in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh’s dialect is made up of Scottish-Irish, Welsh, German, and a pinch of Central and Eastern European.
MM: Really? I didn’t know that. What about you? What are you made up of?
NMB: 57% steel and aluminum alloys, 22% plastic and metal wires covered in plastic, 15% hydraulic tubing with steel reinforcement, and a pinch of electronics.
MM: I see. OUCH! (at this point in the interview, NutMeg Bot pinches me) What the hell, dude? What the hell???
NMB: Your human skin is not covered in a single article of clothing composed of the color green.
MM: No, dude, I’m not. Good grief, I think you broke the skin.
NMB: It is St. Patrick’s Day. This is the day humans are required to be covered in green adornments. You are not wearing green.
MM: Are you kidding me? It isn’t St Patrick’s Day, you freak!
NMB: Kiss me.
MM: What?! Why?
NMB: I am Irish, therefore it is imperative that you kiss me. Perform this task or I will pinch you again.
MM: Wait, wait, wait, OK, look. You seem to be a little confused on humans and St. Patrick’s day. It is not today. Humans are not REQUIRED to wear green on that day even if it were St Patty’s Day. And you are not Irish.
NMB: Kiss me, human, for I have been programmed to be Irish. See, human? (At this point, NutMeg Bot picked up a mug of green beer and poured it in the direction of where a mouth would be, if it had a mouth. It also slung some at me.) Drink up, human-Irish drinking buddy. Let us become intoxicated and make human females uncomfortable with speculations on what they would look like purged of their human garments.

Everything degenerated from there so I ran away but not before Nut Meg Bot 5000 tore off my pants. Or rather pinched them off.

Old stuff

2008-09-02T19:19:00.001-07:00

Found this while net searching. If my dialogue sucks, it's because I was improvising, as was everyone else. If you look closely, you'll see Zombie Sitcom.

Promises, promises...

2008-09-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

I work in the exciting world of debt collections. I don’t talk about it much, except in comic strip form, because it sucks donkey balls. I’ll go into the sucky bits of it at a later date. However, every now and again, something will come to my attention that collection industry folk take for granted but makes for an interesting case study about the underlying tactics of collections.

When you owe money (and who doesn’t) and are late on paying, they generally outsource to a company who does the collections for them. Sometimes the debt collection company buys the debt from the company that money is owed (student loans, credit cards, medical expenses, anything that’s owed that people can refuse to pay back) out right, under the assumption that they can get the person who owed the $$$ to pay it back better than the original company.

Anywho, I don’t deal with that side of things. I audit the accounts, listening to these collectors on the phones and checking their accounts to make sure no laws are being violated. It’s tedious at best, nauseating at worst. When I first started working there, I thought of a short story where a guy finds a radio with a radio station that tunes into Hell. All it is is people screaming and crying, begging for mercy. That’s what monitoring calls is like. For me, at least. Some people seem to enjoy it, but there are probably also people who might enjoy Hell or at the very least listening to it. (The story turned out not to be as great as it sounded and also was a little too similar to a Kurt Vonnegut short story from Snuffbox for my tastes.)

So this brings me to the funny part. When a collector speaks to you and you say, “Gosh golly, I’ll pay $100 by the end of the month on my late account” this is called a PTP, or a Promise To Pay. They’re not requiring you to send in checks (yet) or put payments on a credit card (yet). They assume that you’ll hold to your promise and pay your bill from now on on-time. Of course when you don’t pay and give them the slip, this is called a ‘Broken’ Promise. This suddenly implies a level of intimacy in the ‘relationship’ of collector-debtor. See before that, you were just that jerk who owed money (and a lot of times they have no problem telling you something to that effect), but then you became friends when you fessed up to owing and ‘promised’ to get back on the straight and narrow. You guys were buddies, hanging out and going for drinks and then that ‘friendship’ went down the tubes when you broke your Promise. You didn’t pay when you said you would.

I love that! I love the implication that the collection industry is now the victim, all because the debtor has broken their promise. I’m not a guy who thinks people with debt are ‘victims’ by any means. Hey, I got debt. Parts of it occurred when I needed something immediately that I didn’t have cash for and couldn’t survive without, like new tires or dental work. That stuff makes sense. It’s a ‘gotta-have’. But not all my debt is that kind of selfless act. Some of it was ‘wanna-haves’ like a Playstation, or some comic books, or fast food. Therefore, if the Four Horsemen of the Debtocalypse come down for me, I’ll know that I deserve the reaming that’s coming my way. But I wouldn’t call the collections industry victims by any means. More like mercenaries.

Anyway, this leads me to the fact that some accounts say ’15 broken promises’ or even more, which says that the collection industry is not only your friend but your friend who you keep screwing over. I thought it’d be funny if there was a chart for all humans that said how many promises you’d broken in your lifetime, as if that was the worst thing you could do to someone. It’s very childlike but simple and pretty in that way. You broke your promise= you are a bad human being. Simple and direct.

We better hope God isn’t a debt collector.

I wish real life was like this

2008-08-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

I adore Andrew Bird, and here he is as Dr Strings.

Little nuggets

2008-08-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Had a friend point this out to me. It's the Sunday Paper's awards dealie. Nice little shout out in there for "Indulgences" and for the kid. Just seeing the word 'inexhaustible' near my name makes me tired. I certainly don't feel inexhaustible, particularly during that show where I nursed a cold/flu the whole time, but I'm glad he bought it.

It should be noted that this same reviewer thought an improvised show I did awhile back was scripted, which just shows to go ya that you can't win 'em all. I looked for that review online to see if I could link up to it again but it looks like it's been removed, except for last year's end of the year awards where he took one more pot-shot at the show by saying improvised or rehearsed, it still wasn't funny.

Hayder in Clowning Around

2008-08-27T13:45:00.001-07:00

Improv and the curious itch

2008-08-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

The two things I’m probably most irrationally frightened of are heights and doing improv. The fear of heights is a pretty easily explainable one: I envision someone throwing me off the side of something high. With improv, it’s the same way. It’s like being thrown over the side of something high. You’re completely out of control and there are no guarantees how you’ll land. And you’re just flapping in the wind. In improv, like say tennis, it’s easy to see who is messing up as well. You can’t ‘blend into the background’ and let the other person pick up all your slack. You can’t ‘fake it.’ And everyone sees this. It’s terrifying.

So I had an offer to do some improv (or ‘prov as I’m sure some douche bag somewhere calls it) next week so I figured I’d scout it out this week. I think the last improv I’d done was October of last year. It’s been a minute and I wasn’t all that good at it then. However, some folks weren’t able to do last night’s show and I was asked to jump in. So I did. It all happened so quickly, like being thrown over the side of a rail.

Well, it went about like you’d expect. I wasn’t very good. And that’s OK, because even if I had a week to prepare myself anyway, it probably would have been the same result. But watching those folks on stage, doing their thing, it made me realize a couple of things:

-Just because your tall doesn’t mean you should play basketball.
People always want tall people to play basketball. Heck, they’re closer to the basket which is half the battle. But it isn’t ALL the battle. See, you need coordination. You need to know the drills. And you need to be able to pass the ball and know when to shoot. Otherwise you’re just some tall asshole on the court. For me, not being afraid on stage is my ‘tall’. Well not being afraid in the sense that I don’t freeze up and gawk at the audience when I’m scared. But that’s not enough. And if you want to see Harlem Globetrotter-esque improv/ball play, go to Dad’s and watch them do the games. It’s awe-inspiring. I was awed to the point where, during both the ‘improv-games’, I completely froze. No response. This leads me to…

-The guys in Billy Bob Thornton’s band hate him.
Why would Billy Bob’s bandmates hate him? I mean, he’s Billy Bob, isn’t he? He’s the meal ticket, for goodness sake. But make no mistake, they fucking hate that dude. And why? Because he’s passing through. He’s ‘dabbling’. He’s dabbling at something that they have dedicated their lives to, and to me, that’s a bit degrading. It’s like saying “That thing you do? That thing you’ve worked so hard to get better at and sacrificed for and studied? Yeah, I just walked through the door and did it.” But the thing is he didn’t ‘do it’. He stumbled his way through it. He faked it. He plays guitar on the weekends while sitting in bed or on the porch while drinking a few beers, but he doesn’t play 80’s metal covers at The Doc or do a set at Smithe’s on open mic night to buy a PA or pay for gas money for the van. He’s just some guy who dreamed of rocking out and doesn’t pay the dues and walks to the front of the class on a sellout tour. And that’s sort of my take on getting up there and doing stuff with real improvisers. It looks and feels uneven and disrespectful. Like that squirrel on water skis.

-This is why musicians smash guitars.
I’ve never heard a musician asked why they smashed their prized guitar. I guess it’s a thing we all assume because they’re ‘rock gods’ and that’s what rock gods do. They were soooo caught up in the moment that they were overcome by emotion and had to smash the guitar. I bet if they were honest, though, they’d say that they were having an off night and tried to fix it, couldn’t, got pissed, and took it out on their guitar. This is the gayest thing you’ll hear me say all day but: As a performer (on stage, in film, on the street corner, etc), you have one instrument. It’s broken into three parts: mind, body, voice, but it’s all stocked in the practice garage we call our bodies. Your mind let’s you think on your feet and envision and create. Your body executes the plans and half-plans. Your voice is an extension of the creation and helps support. Artists are notoriously cruel to their instrument. I’m no exception. I eat like crap, making my body not perform to its peek. I drink, which kills brain cells and makes me dumber, and I very rarely do anything with my voice but sing in the car and order Combo meal #1 at Krystals (with cheese, yum).

In short, I have no guitar to smash when I get frustrated. But I do have my body. So I smashed my metaphysical guitar and wrecked my voice by shouting on stage. Totally didn’t protect my voice. And hey, shouting equals good acting, right? Well, not really. At least not for me. Pointless and reckless.

So will I do it again? Maybe. Probably. I dunno. Once my courage gets up again, maybe. My mutant power is the ability to forget getting humbled and looking foolish, so once that kicks in, who knows, but for the moment, color my ass ‘Soundly Kicked Red’ and I’ll crawl back into my hole for a bit. Until I get cocky again…

I’m totally not a ‘leave it to the pros’ kind of guy. I think you should be free to fail and be innovative and explore new stuff. But there should be a respect for what you’re doing and an appreciation for the folks who have worked hard to be in the spot they’re in and be as good as they are.

(Addendum: Daniel Johnston smashed his guitar once because he thought the devil was playing through his hands and fingers. OK, that’s a good reason to smash your guitar. Paul Simonon, what was your excuse?)

Wrap up of the last week or so

2008-08-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

-There’s a fine line between a cool, exotic tattoo and a trashy cheap looking one. And that fine line is…a fine line. We took a little gambling boat excursion down the brackish waters of…um, somewhere in Savannah and into international waters where a man and a horse can marry in privacy. The bartender was a very pretty young lady who had a giant dragon tattooed across her back. Pretty hot, right? Not really, because it was all smudgy and prison looking. Maybe at one time it wasn’t. Maybe it was crisp and sharp, but time and sun light (I’m guessing) made it look like a Big Foot photo stamped across her back. She was a perfectly nice bartender but I went back to our room that night and had dreams of getting really crappy tattoos through the night.

-I’ve become mildly obsessed with the word ‘vanish’ over the last two days. I go through phases of getting into certain words for little reasons. ‘Vanish’ is pretty great because it has a connotation that I think would be hard to explain beyond the cookie-cutter definition. It’s not really different from ‘disappeared’ or ‘got lost’ in meaning, but the idea with someone ‘disappearing’ is that they can ‘reappear’, and someone who is ‘lost’ can be ‘found’. ‘Vanish’ is a little more sinister though. Vanish is a little more ominous (and maybe this is my own connotation of it but I don’t think so), meaning that someone has gone and it’s not explained and may never be explained. And they may never come back. No one really ‘unvanishes’.

-Someone bombed the Savannah City Hall right down the road from us. Well, I think it actually turned out to be an electrical problem, but apparently there was an explosion and, although no one was hurt, the rumors began to fly about about what had ‘actually happened’. And the next day everyone told the stories of where they were when the explosion went down for an event that we were all there for anyway. I think folks were getting their “I can’t believe it happened to me” story polished up. Anyway, I think everyone was disappointed when it turned out to be some electrical thing.

-Went on a haunted pub crawl. I was pretty jazzed. The wife is a huge ghost story fan and I’m a big fan of beer so we were pretty stoked as our favorite things were in the offering. However, the tour degenerated into a bunch of drunk people all talking at once. The culmination of this was one woman at a pub interrupting the story-dude and yelling how he sucked as a storyteller and she was going to ‘tell some real storiezzz’ and other drunk people yelling for her to shut up. Oh yeah, and some drunk middle-aged lady tickled me. It was madness. Who’dathunk that an organized drinking excursion could go wrong?

-Oh yeah, I also enjoy names of people and I just stumbled onto this one: Acquanett. Someone's first name is Acquanett, or as I'm presuming it's pronounced, Aquanet. I wonder if Acquanett is really good at staying in place. I wonder if she's good for the environment. I wonder what hair product her parents used.

Side Bet

2008-08-19T05:27:00.001-07:00

So I made a little promise/challenge to myself that I would try to write 1000 words a day. It's not nearly as difficult as say NaNoWriMo was (which paces out at about 2000 words daily). Anywho, I wrote this yesterday and was kind of tickled by it. I won't bore you with the whole deal but this is an excerpt. The office that she works in has very low lighting that is shifting around the office (think of those streetlight poles that turn on and off to conserve energy).

"If one person benefited from the eye-straining conditions of the office it was Mary-Alice Jewel. Not in a work capacity, of course, as everyone’s work seemed to be staggered by the office’s slow strobe and Mary-Alice was no exception. No, Mary-Alice benefited in a physical sense. You see, Mary-Alice wasn’t attractive in the least. She is what old southern women would call ‘homely’ and would say ‘bless her heart’ when matters of physical attractiveness arose. Her face was round and flushed, as though she had been running a great distance even though she had only been sitting at her cubicle looking over the receipts and breathing loudly. Her hair was greasy and waved, hugging the sides of her face like wet seaweed on the sides of a battleship. Her nose had dried bits of skin around it and the flakes would drift down like snowfall when she knuckled it while in deep thought. Lastly, her clothing was frumpy, not flattering in the least and had faded to moppish colors from overwashing with cheap detergent. Her jackets gave her the shape of a weather-beaten fire hydrant. Yes, under sunlight, night light, candle light, street light, club lights, bus lights, grocery store fluorescent lights and library study room lights, she was not pleasing to look at in the least. However, under the yawning glow of a computer monitor in a darkened room (and only there), she was a vision."

I've always been fascinated by what I call 'bar pretty', which is the idea that some people look completely ravishing under bar lights and cigarette smoke and with loud music blaring, and completely unattractive outside of that element. It's like being a solar-powered calculator except low lit bars are the solar power. Anyway, I shifted this idea a tad and made her 'office pretty', under very extenuating circumstances. As I said, it tickled me.

Best,
mm

My pal Zombie Sitcom showed me this...

2008-08-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

Thought of an Olympic nature

2008-08-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

While watching the Olympics last night a few things occurred to me. I should state upfront that I don’t care about the Olympics. I know I should, or I guess I should because people say I should, but when I hear touching stories like the little Chinese gymnast who was taken from her family at age 5 to be part of the program and she only sees them once a year and she cried and begged to come home and they said no because she was their ticket out of poverty, well that pretty much summed it up for me. It’s a lot like dog racing except with humans as the dogs. Still, I can sit back and entertain myself with it (my wife loves it so I watch and comment in a positive way). So here’s my thoughts.

-That Phelps dude wins his 10th Gold medal. That’s crazy. More than anyone else. Even my man Carl Lewis. So he wins and then they go to commercial. And it’s a Visa commercial. And Visa congratulates him on his 10th medal. OK, a little odd, but I’m sure they saw it coming. But it’s Morgan Freeman doing the voice. OK, so Morgan Freeman was in a bad accident a week or two ago. Now, I’m 99% positive that they didn’t bug Mister Freeman at the hospital or at home as he was rehabbing to record “Congratulations Michael” in a commercial which means that Visa had the forethought quite some time ago to see that Phelps might, just might, win 10 medals. It takes a little while to make a commercial.

This led me to wonder what else Visa had in the can for Morgan Freeman to say. So that’s what I did the next 10 minutes or so, walked around the house using my Morgan Freeman voice and thinking of ridiculous things that they could be ready to happen so he could say it. Fortunately my wife is tolerant and able to block me out so her Olympic experience was unaffected. “Michael Phelps, congratulations on beating that team of terrorists that were trying to blow up the Olympics with that awesome kick-off the wall you do.” “Visa sadly acknowledges that Michael Phelps was beaten brutally after a team of seal hunters mistook him for a seal. Visa’s thought are with you.” Somewhere, deep in the bowls of Visa is a vault of unused audio goodness. We must find it.

-Watching the women’s gymnasts, I suddenly felt very sad for them. No, not because they have dedicated every waking moment of their lives to a split second that involves them losing because they stepped slightly over a tiny white line. Not because they are going to be completely at a loss when their Olympic careers are over and they have to interact with people who are neither dedicated to one single goal nor really watch the Olympics. No, I pity them because they’ve probably never had a Frito with French onion dip on it. I of course thought this while I ate a Frito with French onion dip on it. And who knows, maybe one day they will eat one and realize that they could have been eating them all along instead of sleeping, eating, smoking cigarettes, and doing gymnastics every waking hour of their youth. Maybe it’s like sour-grapes and I envy them and am a hater. Or maybe it’s like lazy-grapes because I’m a lazy and that looks hard. Or maybe it’s Frito-grapes because Fritos are good.

-Volleyball. Really? Olympic volleyball? Well, one thing I can say is that those guys will be playing that game forever. Unlike the other sports where there is only a small window to perform your sport at the highest level, you can sit on a beach and play volleyball and drink beer for the duration of your life. I’m from Florida. Believe me, there are guys who are the leather bound edition of themselves who have been hanging on the beach playing volleyball and wake boarding since the 70s. This is a sport with longevity. Is volleyball fun? Yes. Is it Olympic? Um…well, let’s see. Is Ethiopia likely to have a team? Or Latvia? Probably not.

-Speaking of Latvia, what about Latveria? You know, the mythical place that Doctor Doom rules? Can you imagine a bunch of Doom-bots taking the field??? Yes! Of course you know that people would boycott the Olympics in Latveria. Why, because his name is Doctor Doom and he’s a tyrant??? If China can have super-children bouncing and flipping around then Doom can have Doom-bots out there. Pfff, Paul Hamm, you ain’t shit till you beat a Doom-bot and yell, “It’s clobberin’ time.” There, I said it.

-Also, why isn’t gym-kata in the Olympics yet?

Tuesday wrap-up

2008-08-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

-It occurred to me the other day that I was probably close to the halfway point of my life. This is considering that I’ll probably be experiencing some form of dementia in my 60s and 70s, so that pretty much negates that portion of my life, although it may make for a little more fantastical (is that really a word? Spellcheck seems to think so, although it does not think ‘spellcheck’ is a word) life. Anyway, this thought plagued me most of last week. I blame work.

-I watched Tropic Thunder last week and finally saw the new Batman movie this weekend. Both are mighty fine and have given me a small glimpse into having a life. I think they were going to revoke my nerd card if I didn’t go see Batman in the theatre. Fortunately it looked like the staff thought I was probably a guy who had seen it many times so they didn’t jump me.

I actually saw the movie by myself, which is something I rarely do. I went early on Sunday and you know what? People don’t shut up at the matinees either. I thought it would be a quiet, low-key affair but sure enough, some dude and girl chatted through a good portion. Also, the guy asked questions right after a character had just asked the same question. Here’s an example: Office toady tells Morgan Freeman he wants 10 million dollars a year for the rest of his life. Morgan Freeman says, “10 million dollars a year?” followed by, about 5 seconds later the dude two rows back repeating, “10 million dollars a year?” This happened several times. Maybe he was watching the movie with a delay.

This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why I hate concerts, live theatre, and the movies now. Daddy is getting old.

-Heading to Savannah this weekend. For the sea food, you ask. No. The ghost tours? No. For the fact that you can drink booze out in the streets with getting arrested? Nope. I’m going to rent the movie Savannah Smiles, sit in a hotel room and watch it over and over.

There was a summer where Savannah Smiles was on alllll the time on HBO. Does everyone have a story like that? Where you were a kid and HBO played the same movie over and over and you watched it every time? Man, I don’t know how many times I watched the Incredible Shrinking Woman (starring Lily Tomlin) and Superfuzz (starring no one of note) growing up. Those movies were always on.

-We just had August 8th, 2008 on Friday. Why is this important? Well because it’s 08/08/08. Again, that seems relatively unimportant but, when I was a lad, my grandmother pointed out to me that some particular date (I’ve since forgotten what that date was) was that day and that that configuration of numbers would never happen again in our lifetimes, so now, when I see a date that has some special numerical value, I think that this is the only time this will happen in my lifetime. I think she meant it to be a ‘live life to its fullest’ sentiment but generally it just depresses the shit out of me. Still my grandmother was pretty bad ass so it’s good to think of her, regardless of the circumstances. Remind me to tell you the story about her dropping a wood post on a snake repeatedly to kill it sometime.

-I was supposed to go to auditions for Mojo this weekend. I’m already cast in that mug so I was supposed to read with potential scene partners. I have to admit, it’s very cool to already be cast and come in to read with folks. The pressure is completely off.

FYI, for auditions, a lot of people get dolled up. I have, in the past, gotten spiffed up for auditions, but then I realized it makes me feel unnatural and I don’t read very well because of it. So I’ll clean up a bit and then dress comfortably nice. However, some folks dress UP. A lot of actresses (inexperienced ones mostly) wear really tight clothes and low cut tops. This is funny to me as a lot of directors are female or are gay males (not all, to be fair) so why the director would want to see their boobies is a bit beyond me. Anyway, in the few times I’ve been pre-cast (which is funny in itself and many industry folks hate that term, ‘pre-cast’, more on that some other time), I show up like a complete slob. I look like I’m on a bender and I just showed up at the theatre by coincidence. I don’t know why I do this. I guess because I can. It makes me feel good. Anyway, the auditions were canceled so I sat home like a slob instead and made sloppy joes. I did read some scenes with the dogs, though, and put them in low-cut tops just for authenticity.

-Went to a meeting for the wrestling school this weekend too. I love hanging with wrestlers and would-be wrestlers. It’s like living in a comic book. We’re all chatting seriously about masks and where a good place to get spandex is and it’s just awesome. We started looking at tentative blast-off dates for the fed(eration) and hopefully that will start rolling soon. Daddy misses the wrestling like the deserts miss the rain and the desserts miss the chopped nuts.

An experiment...

2008-08-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

In my never ending quest to try to make something out of the crappy tools at my disposal, I've created this little video. It's actually my rough attempt at something a little more ambitious, but I just wanted to see what Windows Movie Maker had under the hood when mixed with my favorite MS Paint. I had intentions of recording my own dialogue but a sad drawback of Movie Maker is that it only has one audio track. In a way, I kind of like the 1920's style of the dialogue cards. It's crapp-ily charming, which is the name I'll probably call my memoirs one day (Crappily Charming, the mmyers story). I think I've thought of a way around that little audio speedbump, but anywho, this is what I made this weekend.

I played with a lot of different music but then settled on this nifty little track by Satie. Gymnopedies No.1 seemed a little bit too much of a bummer and if you've watched the video already you know it's a bummer enough. Gymno No. 2 (my favorite of the set) is a little jauntier and fit well with my little story about love. Sad, sad love. I played with some Django Reinhardt and the Mills Brothers but always came back to Satie.

Anywho, hope you enjoy it and here's to more experimenting.

Pete Rose by any other name...

2008-08-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

I really have a lot of respect for people with complicated names. When you think about it, how much of their lives must be spent correcting people on the correct pronunciation of their names? Probably a lot. And people with complicated names seem to relish the correction process. “Actually my name is pronounced Ash-LUND, not Ash-LAND.” These are most likely the same people that enjoy correcting people’s grammatical errors as well, using the same ‘lean in-just between you and me” technique with the tone of “I just don’t want you to look stupid”. Oh yes, they’re very thoughtful people.

I sat in front of a kid who’s last name was Nassef (pronounced Nas-iF) from middle school through high school. On the first day of school every year, the teacher would butcher his name, and often for the rest of the year. It got to be where other people would correct the teacher before he could, just to get in on the fun. I really think the teachers eventually broke his spirit. I mean, at what point do you just stop caring and say, “You know, when she calls Nays-Sef, I’m just going to answer to it.” To his credit, he was not nearly as douchey about it as he could have been. I guess the thrill wears off eventually.

Still, I envy the instant superiority one receives from correcting someone at the beginning of a conversation, especially on the first introduction to them. I’ve never had that thrill. Nothing too complex about my first name, although I am called ‘Mike’ by more coworkers and casual acquaintances than I’d care to admit.

So with this in mind, I give you my nominees for complicated names I wish I had.

Marquess of Frankenberry-
This one has all sorts of landmines set for potential people who will meet me. One, there’s the Marquess of Queensberry, the guy who invented the rules for boxing in the 1800s. Two, there are those who would call me “Marcus of Frankenberry”, which is incorrect and I will relish telling them so, “It’s not Mar-Cus, it’s Marquess.” Then there are the people who will want to call me Marquess of Crunchberry or Smurfberry or some other cereal of their chosing. But you see, it isn’t their chosing, it is mine, and the cereal is Frankenberry…or maybe Booberry. I haven’t decided.

Magneto-
Some will call me Mag-net-oh, some Mag-Neat-o. Still, they will all be wrong. It will be Majnuto, all one word without clear syllables. Also, I imagine people having problems remembering which X-Men villain I’m named after, so that will allow for more corrections. Introductions like, “Have you met Mr. Juggernaut?” or “Sarah, this is that guy from work I told you about, Unus the Untouchable.” Then I will be forced to beat them up, using Marquess of Frankenberry rules, of course.

Whitey McAssBeater-
Ah, who am I kidding. EVERYBODY would remember that name. Heck, you’d find excuses to say my name if it was Whitey McAssBeater. And you wouldn’t just call me Whitey, either, you’d say the WHOLE name. I’ve met two guys with the name or nickname (I never asked which) Whitey and both worked on cars and were awesome. Of course I’d probably get sick of hearing it pretty quickly as people would be saying it all the time.

Uni, the last unicorn-
Again, this probably wouldn’t require a lot of correction (well, maybe Une-nee versus You-nee, but that’s about it), but I think it might let people reflect a moment on God’s little retarded horse, the unicorn, and how we killed them all off for their delicious meat and aphrodisiac qualities attributed to their horn.

Hand jive

2008-08-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Looking at my gouged hand, it suddenly occured to me that the palm reading layout of my hand had been altered. Having no background in palm reading, I didn't know what any of those lines on my hand meant, so I went to that bastion of learning, the internet, and now I know everything. Thank you Wikipedia and that weird guy with the hand fetish site.

As it turns out, my fame line has been drastically extended, so whereas before I was only destined to have a minor amount of fame, now I'm destined for a lot more minor fame. I'm guessing that fame is not going to come as a hand model as I will probably have a scar. Unless hand models with scars because vogue. Heck, maybe I'll be the person who starts that and that will be my fame. What about a Shane Company commercial where it shows a woman with a scarred hand and the tag is, "Your heart and hands may be flawed but our diamonds aren't."

So then I thought, well heck, if spikes on a fence can alter my future this much, maybe it's better to take a more proactive approach to my future, so with the help of my office box cutter, I'm now destined to be really rich, marry 30 beautiful women, and possibly die from blood loss. Science rules!

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away...

2008-08-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I got home from work, got out of my car and walked to my mailbox. Beside my neighbor's mailbox, I noticed, was a crazed looking dog, all wet and intense. Well, I'm a dog guy. I've got 3 of my own. I know that dogs wig out when you wig out, so I remained non-wigged and reached for my mail. However, I noticed that that movement pushed the dog into first a smile and then a snarl, then that weird rippling lip snarl that angry dogs like to do.

As I mentioned, I have my own dogs and although I know most dogs are fairly good intentioned, I also know that a scared/pissed dog is bad juju. Then I noticed that he had a friend. As luck would have it, his friend was pissed too. Some sort of bad mailbox history for those guys. Fight or flight kicked in. It's very misleading when they say fight or flight, because it leads one to think that maybe they be able to fly, which I wasn't, so I ran. My pal Yoshi and I will reenact this scene for your viewing pleasure.

So I huffed it out, jumping the fence into my yard. Now our fence has tines on top of it (Good Tines, ain't we lucky we got 'em) but I was not lucky because they ripped my hands to shreds and tore my favorite work pants. The gray ones? You know 'em? Well, they were cool.

And the dogs stood at the fence and barked and snarled. Scary.

Anyway, my neighbor shows up a little bit later and it turns out it was his dogs. I didn't recognize them because they were wet and crazed and I was attempting to keep feces inside my body. My wife recounted the story to him as I stood there with a stunned look. Anyway, he was unimpressed, saying he wasn't sure how they were getting out. I guess I should have told the story myself and used my bloody hands as emphasis.

The wife bandages my hands and then I'm off to the theatre.

So while at the theatre and doing a show, we're in a blackout and I'm laying on a couch. The two guys who I'm doing the scene with are jokesters and I can feel one of the tickling my hand in the dark. I flutter my hand to get them to stop but they're commited. So when the lights come up, there's a fucking cockroach on my hand. Not cool. Now I know my wife has an insane fear of this little creature so Jazz legend Max Roach and I will perform the reenactment instead.

Scary, right? What if he hits me with a drumstick? Ooh, but what if he has an ice cream Drumstick? You can see how I would be torn, right?

So the audience gasped and I tried to think of something witty to say but I had nothing. It was all I could do to continue the scene and not wig out. And I watched the little critter scurry away under the audience.

So apparently I'm some sort of poor man's Dr Doolittle now.

I wish I had a payoff to these stories but I don't. Sufficed to say, it's probably better not to stand close to me when animals are around for the next little while.

Two new characters

2008-08-01T08:29:00.001-07:00

This comic goes out to Cesar for suggesting Cthulhu, my wife for suggesting introducing Violet, and the poor, poor girl who sits besides me who has to live out Violet's existence and gives me material unknowingly.

While my pop tart gently sweats...

2008-07-31T11:38:00.001-07:00

OK, what the heck is up with my poptart? It's sweaty...or something. There must be a sniglet for this.

Stuff-date

2008-07-31T07:21:00.000-07:00

-So 2009 will mark my return to the director’s chair. I haven’t tried to direct something since…hmmm, 1997 I guess. I’m a little overdue, don’t ya think?

Yeah, I just agreed to direct next summer. I’m not sure I’m at liberty to give details yet, as I don’t think the season has been announced yet, but let’s say I’m excited. Let’s say that this project gives a lot of wiggle room and coolness for the rag-tag band that is being thrown together. I’ll tell you more as I know more, but yeah, I’m jazzed.

-Oh yeah, I just signed on to do a show (as an actor) that I have loved since the late 90s called Mojo. It’s credited with inspiring Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, so that can’t be bad, right? That’s in 2009 as well. So for those keeping score, it’s Dracula up next, then Mojo, then directing, I think. I’m trying to only do shows with one word titles. So far, so good.

-My wife is now an RN. Officially. So that means I can f’ myself all up and she can patch me up. Or if you have a friend who is OD’ing, heck, bring ‘em on over. She’s on the job market now, searching for nursey-type jobs. This is quite similar to my job search of early in the year, except that she actually has a useful skill and is very smart. I was a guy with a wrinkled shirt and 9 years experience in a field he didn’t want.

Cross your fingers that everything quickly falls into place and my little world suddenly turns into a happy place. Hey, maybe Hayder will suddenly become very happy.

-Last weekend for the show. It’s been a good run, actually. I’m not always excited about seeing the cast and doing the show but I love being around these dudes. I actually look forward to it. And the show clocks in at an hour which gives me time to go home and watch the Simpsons, drink a cold drink, pet the dogs and kiss the wife.

-Many thanks to pal Cesar for suggesting a character for Hayder. I, at first, couldn’t think of what I would really use the character for but then I drew it yesterday and fell in love. Silly stuff. He’ll debut very soon, Ces.

Boiler Room

2008-07-28T08:59:00.001-07:00

Playback in the day

2008-07-24T18:03:00.001-07:00

Just had the 1 year anniversary of this little nugget. I haven't wrestled since January when I f'ed up my eye, but I miss it more than Sandy Duncan misses her eyeball. Ah well...