FlameThrower vs. FlameExtinguisher

A fiery duel between two angry devils.

J.Biebs

It's like his hair is made of hypnotic tractor beams. I can't look away. Even when he's dancing so awesome I can't stop looking at his brown mane. Why is that?


Justin Bieber - Love Me
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Cheerio

On the eve of my sixth wedding anniversary I found myself in a situation I rarely experience. I was at Big Justy's bachelor party and I was one of the eldest statesmen when it came to marriage. Most of the guys there were either single or newly married. A few guys asked me if I had any advice on marriage. They were drunk. I was caught off guard because I'm the one usually asking this question to my older friends. I thought about it for a bit and my answer ended up being simple.

Be your spouse's biggest fan and cheerleader. So when your spouse works up enough courage to share with you a dream/hope/idea your default response should be, "I love it. How do we make it happen?" Don't jump to conclusions about costs (money, time, inconvenience, sacrifice). Jump to solutions. It takes guts to talk about dreams and hopes out loud. Honor that courage. Be an advocate. There's a surplus of critics.

"How To Be Alone" a poem by Tanya Davis

I'm not good at reading poetry. It takes me a couple reads to really get it. This video was good the first go around. The second was even better.

My friends are Benja-mins and the Franka-lins

Do you ever wake up, look out your window, past the ripened fruit, thru the bird-ravaged screen, and see something that gives you the sense that you are the richest bastard to ever live? Doesn't this scene make you want to turn up the Black Eyed Peas, spritz mosquito repellant in the air, and pour champagne all over your hillbilly hound as she swims ten foot laps? You're a dirty liar if you say no.

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Opulence, I has it.

I loves it.



(via r.c. moore)

Magic Hour

Drive along a country road thru cornfields and tiny towns at 3pm and you’ll think, “This is cute I guess.” Make the same drive at 8pm in the summertime and you’ll think, “I would buy this painting. I would bottle this dusk-induced nostalgia. I would pay someone to make a movie of when we rode bikes, played baseball, ate popsicles at this same hour, years ago. I would download the country song about this strange feeling I have when the sunlight shines thru the bug carnage on my windshield and fills the Jeep with its heavy warmth.” We may have to suffer through oppressive humidity in the summer, but our reward is the magic hour. Why does this time of day make me feel so strangely good? Am I the only one?

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Sneezy Pooh

Stopher Day sent this my way. Sneezy bears are cute. They're just like us. They sneeze. Then they take naps and dream of lollipops. Yeah right. This video ends right before this coke-head bear murders the videographer looking for more toot. More white pony. More sneeze powder. More yay-yo. This cute little fiend probably went bearnanas when all he inhaled was the cameraman's blood, fat and muscle.

The Day I Officially Became a Reds Fan

It’s happened. I officially joined Reds Nation. It started yesterday at the Tri-County Mall. Over lunch I went there to scope out my hat options. I found out that the hat I’ve been stalking for years doesn’t fit my huge dome. It looks fine forward but not backward. I almost cried. I decided I would enlist the help of J.P. Tyler, a fellow hat lover, and my wingman to the game that night.

We met at Neon’s downtown. I didn’t take this photo, but wanted to show how sweet the patio is. They have bocce courts as well. So cool.

We walked down to GABP in hopes of scalping tickets. It was sold out, the scalpers thought it was late October and were unwilling to be reasonable. So we went to O’Malley’s for a couple innings.

In the fourth inning we emerged thinking we’d now be in a buyer’s market. Not so. People were still coming to the game, the scalpers were still sillybrains. Eventually we found a guy who came down from $50 each to $20. We felt victorious. The perfect set up for THE DECISION. We went to the team shop at GABP. Tyler helped me with THE DECISION. I’d like to announce...wow, this is hard...I took my hat talents to the official on-field home cap of the Cincinnati Reddies. See how happy I am?

We walked to the gate and I felt for the first time like I belonged to the family. But then we found out we bought used tickets. My new cousin, the ticket scanner, apologized and turned us away. We got scammed, son. So we went looking for the lousy jerk but he wasn’t waiting around for us to come back. I chatted up a few real scalpers and they told me the dude was part of a shady crew who buys people’s tickets as they leave the game and sells them to nice, gentlemanly, good-looking dummies. Honestly, who leaves in the fourth inning?

We went up to Fountain Square to watch the game on the big screen knowing that the MidPoint Music Festival Indie Night was going on. It ended up being sweet. We saw this guy. He was a one man band rocking a motorcycle helmet. He sounded good and he was funny. He kept telling people to buy him liquid applause.

The couple in the video below liked Helmet Head. They were dancing fools. The dude kept tempting his lady with popping off that wifebeater. He’d pull it up his stomach all sloppy and seductively. I think she would’ve liked it. He’d fall into his chair just as you thought he was gonna go for it. Tease.

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Luckily, Fountain Square stopped playing the game just as Votto smacked a homer. Instead of having to watch that trash we got to watch some weird music video advertising something. I think? We left and went to The Righteous Room. This is where I first thought I was becoming a Reds fan back in May. So it seemed right for this momentous day. We walked in just in time to see Heisy (I think?) jump up and rob an Atlanta Brave of a homerun. Tyler’s sister, Meghann Tyler happened to show up and we all watched the Reddies lose together. I blame Brian Kelly.

The Similarities of Waterskiing and Collaboration

(photo by natshaw)

Every time I waterski I am reminded how much I love it. So you'd think I would look to get out and ski whenever I could. I do not. It's easier not to most of the time. It takes a lot of "work" to get to the good part. You have to wake up early in the morning and leave coffee and morning papers behind to lug 30 pound gas cans down a spiderweb covered path. Then you uncover boats and try to convince a cranky, sleepy engine to wake up. All with the end goal of jumping into cold water before the fish even wake up. Despite how wonderful skiing is I can't tell you how many times I've chosen comfort and boredom over the "hard work" of the skiing process. It's just easier to eat buttered toast and read the Dispatch over a warm mug of uppers.

I'm in the middle of working on a new screenplay. The collaboration that goes into writing is one of my favorite things. But it's not easy work. It starts with an idea. Then I talk about that idea with a few people. They either add to it or tell me it's dumb. I'll start writing and when I finish I send it around to a diverse group of readers. Every single one of them has a different take on things. I look for similarities in what they like, hate and if there's connections between their diverse views. This is a process that always always always provides great results and I'll do it with every draft. But I've had to learn to get over myself to go through with it. We all want people to love us and love what we make. So it's terrifying to invite people to tell you they don't. It'd be easier to not involve any other voices but my own in the writing process. But collaboration is where the good stuff happens. I find it thrilling when other people add to "my" idea.

I'm not saying anything new here but that doesn't make it any less true. You gotta carry two heavy ass gas cans a half a mile thru the woods thru cobwebs and stinky mud if you wanna enjoy the good stuff of waterskiing. You gotta trudge through the negative critiques and lose the ego that tells whispers "you don't need anyone" in order to enjoy the good stuff of collaboration. The comfort of doing your own easy thing over toast and a coffee is fine. But fine is boring.