Hand jive

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...

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

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...

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

Stuff-date

-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

Playback in the day

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...

More Fwd stuffing

Well, we're 1-1 on the reviews thus far and only six more shows. Check the Creative Loafing review and check out the horrible face I'm making. Also, CL has some stuff about us on their podcast dealie.

Little experiment

Hey kids. Inspired by Jeffrey Brown, I pulled a comic from my journal and scanned it in. It's not an exact science (yet) but I figured I'd give it a go. Please forgive the shodiness.

Good News/Bad news

Today we’ll play a little game I call Good News/Bad News.

Good News: The National Black Arts Festival is going strong in the ATL right now.
Bad News: It had nothing to do with Harry Potter or Snape or any sort of evil magic at all.













Good News: I ate at Checkers the other day and it was delicious as fast food with no actual dining area can be.
Bad News: Several teenagers thought I was someone called ‘Tisler’, which turned about to be a teacher of theirs. This has shown me that I apparently look like a teacher now and, even weirder, one who is off work.
Better News: Apparently ‘Tisler’ was one of their coaches, so at least if I’m going to look like a school teacher, it’s the coach.

Good News: My old middle school PE coach, on rainy days, would let us watch the Planet of the Apes movies. He was a huge fan of the movies (also a championship bull-rodeo rider guy) and so we’d go to a classroom and watch ape movies.
Bad News: As fun as those movies are, I watched them at least 50 times and now have absolutely no interest in watching them again.


















Good News: A reviewer from the AJC came and reviewed our show.
Bad News: They tore us a new asshole.
Good News: I now have two assholes.

Good News: One of the playwrights of the show got some more press for us with this super swanky interview in Creative Loafing.
Bad News: The article is accompanied by a picture of said playwright with his shirt off and a horrible mustache.

Good News: It occurred to me the other day that, as I age, I may be able to be in Krapp’s Last Tape one day in the future. I had the offer last year to be in it and I just felt waaaayyyy too young to do it. After doing Waiting for Godot, I’ve been creamy to more Beckett stuff, and hey, if I keep it in mind, maybe one day I will.
Bad News: Most older male actors I know have horrible HORRIBLE memories, which means, by the time I’m actually convincingly old enough to play Krapp, I probably won’t be able to keep the lines straight.
Worse News: When I do play it, I’ll probably look like a gym teacher.

Good News: Started listening to World War Z on audio book.
Bad News: Nothing big. But someone has a terrible fake Asian accent. But the audio is awesome, otherwise.