A Couple Things IV

--- I had an experience yesterday at a backwoods bar. details soon.
--- I know everyone wants me to tell them what to think about this new Kanye. Track by track review coming soon.
--- I think one of my old landlords is leading a double-life as one of the IT guys here at the Times. details to come.

A Couple Things II

Still havent been able to sit down and blog anything substantial lately. But I'm headed to St. Pete tomorrow for some more orientation and I'm gonna have the tech guys look at my laptop. Meanwhile, a couple things...

--- check out this story in the Washington Post. It's about some caucasion New York hipsters that throw Kill Whitey parties. Interested to hear some feedback.

--- me and the new hire out here in hernando went to Club Applebees after I finished my football stuff Friday night. This Applebees is ridculous and sad, but more on that in a future blog. The classic happening of the night came when our waitress took our order. First of all she was shaped like the Boss-lady from Monsters Inc. and she had a glass-eye. Anyways, my man Dave orders a Quesadilla burger and it comes with a side of mexican-ranch dressing. I order the same (even though I hate copy-cat orderers). I want an extra ranch w/ mine, as does Dave. Only, I want one Mexican ranch and one regular Ranch. Dave wants two Mexican ranches. So here's how the conversation goes...

Me: Can I have an extra ranch with mine?
Glass-eye: Sure.
Dave: Me, too.
Glass: OK.
Me: OK, but I want one mexican and one regular.
Dave: I want two mexicans.
Glass: Are you guys talking about ranch or people. Cause we gotta couple Mexicans in the back, too. You want them? They're washing dishes.

...then she winked her glass-eye.


Yesssss!

A Couple Things

Part of the reason why, in situations like this where my home connection is shaky and I actually work at work, I don't blog as much, is because I feel the need to write novels every time I post. Novels take time. What I needed and need is some forum to post the quick random thoughts that pop in my mind frequently. But I wanted a name for these posts.

My man Bill Simmons on ESPN.com calls his 'More Cowbell' a cool play on the Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken skit on SNL where Walken was a music producer and continued to urge Ferrell to play the Cowbell more and louder, when it was clear that there was no need for any more cowbell. Well Simmons writes novels like me, so -- on his site -- there is really no need for extra posts either. Smart.

I'm calling mine 'A Couple Things'. It's an ode to my first professional boss, Cathy Foley, who also happens to be my favorite boss of all time. She hired me when I had about 5-months of professional experience and no degree for a gig that called for years of experience and a degree. And then she patiently waited as I grew into the position -- and screwed up in the interim. She allowed me to tweak my schedule a little bit to start going back to school again. In essence, she had confidence me and invested a lot in me.

Anyways, she was a little squirt of a woman. 4'11, 90lbs at best. And she was a young Vice President, too. So here she was, a tiny, young, liberal-leaning woman, often dealing with big, old, good-ol' boy republicans. But she demanded respect based on talent and knowledge...but she had to fight for that respect. Seeing her upset was always kind of comical to me. She'd turn red, squint her eyes, get these terse lips and you could see that she meant business, I just thought 'Does this 60-yr-old CEO millionaired think she means business, too?" Often they did.

My job was to help her keep our department running smoothly, which usually meant a number of things. Which is why many mornings, I would wake up, make my coffee, turn on my computer, log onto my work email and see an email entitled 'A Couple Things'.

Cathy kept ridiculous hours. She's be up at 5am sending me emails. So when I'd wake three hours later (ensuring I'd be late to work), I'd have this email in my inbox that had about 10 different things I needed to do. And she listed them bullet style:

- call john doe and make sure yadayada
- who's coming to the meeting?
- make sure Derek is on track with the blahblah
- give me an update on where we are w/ all the budgets
- where are you guys with the meeting books?

Sometimes she'd have 10 things in these emails. Sometimes they'd be a one-sentence question. Other times a paragraph explanation of something that needed to get done.

Then I'd come to work and find a way to be inept and fail to complete half of the tasks.

Anyways...here are A Couple Things that have been on my mind.

*************************************

--- when I stub my toe I turn mad at the world. Back when I was young and didn't control my tongue like I do now, I'd stub my toe and for that 5-second pain rush I'd be the meanest person in the world. A sibling could ask if I was OK and I'd respond with something like, "Yes, stupid!" I still want to do that today, but I just think it instead of saying it. Sometimes it'll go deeper. I got hit in the head with a football yesterday and it hurt and a football players asked if I was OK and I just looked at him and thought, "Yes, you stupid meathead. Your life is going nowhere quick. This is the pennacle of your pathetic life. A backup noseguard for some hillbilly highschool in Florida. Have fun at WalMart tonight."

--- You all really have to get hip to The Office. It's not as smart as Arrested Development, but I think it's funnier. Steve Carrell from "40 Year Old Virgin", "Anchorman" and, of course, "The Daily Show" is the star and he's an absolute riot. He's the biggest jerk character ever. A huge ball of insensitivity, but not curmudgeon insensitivity like Archie Bunker or d-head insensitivity like Al Bundy -- this is just ignorant insensitivity. The writing is magnificent. The dumbest, most irreverent stuff is throughout this show. If it weren't for TiVo I wouldn't even be on it, but it's like that. Check it out, new season late September.

--- I cannot stand this SportsCenter series they have where they go to each state. It's so corny. Nobody cares what goes on in Montana. I don't care about some stupid Cornhusker Fair in Nebraska. Middle America -- who needs it?

--- Bobby Brown was in a race-car the other episode and said, "I'm about to win the Kentucky Derby!"

--- Chicken or the egg: Is it that white people have little rythm and can't dance or is it that the music they like has weird rythms and causes them to dance awkwardly. I was at a going away party in Orlando and the white people were doing there usual thing where it almost makes me blush to see them dance. But listening to the music, I don't know if even the smoothest most rythmic black or hispanic could get out there and look cool. White people have rythm. I know they do. Not as much as black people, because our descendants invented rythm and its in our soul, but white people can learn rythm. So why are they so clueless on a dance floor? I think it's the music. If they grew up listening to James Brown and Franke Beverly and EPMD and Prince, then that rythm and soul will get in their bones and they'd be straight. But they listen to hair metal and Smashing Pumpkins (great group), that music isnt really about dancing, at least not like dancing that doesn't look stupid. This quandry puzzles me. The next time I go to a white party I'm gonna bring my own personal party mix and see if the dancing improves.

Speaking of Landlords: I forgot to introduce you to Rich and Willow...

You guys are getting to know my landlord Mary pretty well and it'll continue for the remainder of my lease. But as I was cleaning up the blog I came across my unpublished post about my stay in Orlando. You've read some of it: my post-internship takes on Jemele Hill and Rick Maese...but there are other parts of it that remain. Now seems a good time to post what I wrote about Rich and Willoughby, my Orlando landlords.

As always, the following is unedited and appears exactly the way I wrote it that day.

MY LANDLORDS: Oh the stories. Where do I begin? Perhaps, I should start with the fact that they have six cats. SIX! It was torture. Or perhaps I should start with them, Rich McKay and Willoughby Mariano. Both reporters, but oh so different. Rich was a 40+ white guy from rural Massachusetts, maybe 90 miles from Boston, with a grad degree from University of Michigan. He had 7 siblings, one was a fraternal twin. Willow was a 27-year-old Asian gal from Chicago, with a degree from Yale. Wealthy parents, three sibs. these two were some of the most intelligent people I've met and they both have admirably diverse interests

Rich is easily one of the 30 most interesting people I know, if only because he's weird, but in a fascinating way. He doesn't walk, he shuffles, always with his shoulders hunched and a grimace on his face. When he talks, he whines. He's comic book geek. At the entrance to my room, one can find a miniature spider-man figurine hanging perilously from a ledge. What's he hanging on to? White dental floss of course, because it accurately depicts the spidy-web. Rich has a garden. He grows everything from sage to cilantro. And he employs all of his spices and homegrown tomatoes whenever he cooks. Even if the recipe doesn't call for thyme, rich is throwing it in the pot...Because he grew it. Rich wears velcro sneakers. gray velcro sneakers. To tell you the truth, I can't possibly conceive where he kopped these joints. It's like he went to Wal-Mart and said, "show me your least fashionable sneaker" or "I'd like to buy sneakers that you'd normally find on the feet of retards". Rich waited on Willoughby hand and foot. The sight of this older, balding, velcro-sneakered white man with this pretty young Asian woman was always hilarious, but I can see why Willoughby is engaged to this dude -- he's nice. But I mean NICE. He cooks, cleans, gardens, fixes everything and is extremely complimentary. Just an all-around swell dude. Oh....Rich was a boy scout. One time we could not locate a can opener and Rich opened my tuna fish can with his Swiss army knife. I tried to do the same thing the next days and blood came gushing from index finger

Willoughby is a bit of a princess. I can recall multiple stories like, "one time my mother sent me to New York for three days with just $100 because she didn't get money out of the bank in time and ohhhhhh it was horrible" Or "I hated working for the paper in Stamford because I could feel how those rich people were looking down on me. I just wanted to tell them, 'look at that f*&^&*g Yale sticker on my car mother****%*! You think you're better than me?" Willow did yoga. Willoughby didn't do much housework. Willoughby rarely cooked. But Willoughby was the life of their dinner parties. That was until Rich would go off on a 10-minute tangent about his adventures following a treasure-hunter in Argentina. He's writing a book about it. ultimately they were great landlords. fed me all the time, flexible with when I had to pay rent.

Two memorable people.

***************************************

When I went back to Orlando the other week for a going away party, Rich and Willow were out of town. And I was bummed. I found out that I missed my old landlords.

Mary left me a note

So it's around 11am and Mary is making her semi-weekly unannounced visit. At least it's not 8am or some ungodly early time, but I want to condition her to call me first, or I'm not gonna open the door. My car was in the driveway, so she knew I was home, but I didn't answer the door on purpose.

So, as usual, she leaves a note. It said:

I'm at Stella's (her sister's crib around the corner). 546-8989. Call me, I need to see you.

Mary.

Well, it was Sunday, so I had my religious meeting to attend and afterward I was invited to a dinner gathering, so I didn't call. I got home at around 8:30p and she had left another note. This one was a doozy...

Vince,

It's 5:00 and I've been waiting at Stella's for your call.

Thanks for nothing,

Mary

In a minute

Still trying to get my computer situation fixed at the crib. I let my sister have my old harddrive and threw out my old monitor, so I'm basically working with my work-issued laptop, which is cold as ice, except it's not working with my DSL service too cute right now. So I'm stuck with the slooow Times service which I refuse to use unless I'm hoppin on line to send a quick email or mapquesting directions, IMDBng, or all-musicing something random.

So, I haven't been able to sit down and knock out some novels lately and I apologize (I'd also like to express thanks to all of you that actually emailed me wondering what's up with the no-posts, glad to know your reading and enjoying what you read).

But, by far, the worse thing about my crib-internet situation is that I have to get to work earlier than I like. I like waking up, handling some biz on my computer and then getting to work late morning or early afternoon. Sun, I was at work by 9am on three occassions last week (granted, two of those times my landlord Mary woke me up at 8am anyway, but let's not split hairs).

Anyways..as you'll see below...I got some things in the works that you'll enjoy. It could be any moment.

What does my TiVo think about me?

So much...or should I say, so little. I'm so many things to my TiVo, most of which are untrue.

Saddening details to come about how TiVo views my TV viewing habits.

Bird and Anglo piracy

Clint Eastwood produced and directed a biopic on Charlie Parker back in the late 80s, called Bird, Parker's nickname. I saw it again as an adult and hated it. Forrest Whitaker did an admirable job playing the American music icon, but Eastwood was as lame as it gets as a director.

My problems with this film is what it chooses to dwell on, what it miserably fails to depict and what I like to call, "White Piracy", which is a term for when white people take credit for things they shouldn't take credit for.

Details to come...and yes, this will be offensive...

Juan, I owe you one

Well, a good slice of normalcy has just reentered my life down here in Hernando County. No, my fam or friends didn't move down here. No, I didn't come across an upscale soul-food restuarant. No, I didn't see anyone between 20 and 35-years old that was attractive or upwardly mobile.

Screw all that.

I finally saw a Hispanic cleaner. Granted, it wasn't a Hispanic cleaning-lady, it was Juan. Juan looks to be in about his early 30's and he's 5'3 tops. Lovely mustache, too. And he spoke that "how is he surviving in an English speaking country" spanglish. But homeboy was mad cool, even though I couldn't understand him and he couldn't understand me. We just took turns laughing and smiling at what each other said.

He could've very well been saying things like,

"Wow, they let spooks like you report news? Some country."

To which I'd have smiled and chuckled. That's how these conversations go. But, I enjoyed it, because it's not America unless a Hispanic emptying the office recycling bins. Like Phil Collins said, "That's just the way it is."

Down here though..geriatric caucasians do everything. They take your money at the toll booths, bag your groceries, work at the Gap. It's all unsettling. But nothing reverses the spin of my world more than seeing Granpa Joe mopping the tiles of the bathroom floor -- slowly of course.

I was here at the office late one night when I heard something that sound like garbage bag rustling. So I peeked over my my cabinets and saw Grandma Geezer bent over emptying the trash. I frowned and almost fainted. Was I alive? Is this my Bizarro World? What gives?

That night on my way home I saw two 70+ men in a security car, patroling the WalMart parking lot. What were they gonna do? Not fight crime? And definitely not prevent it. "No, no, no son...don't do that. Put that purse back in that woman's car please." Gimme ten breaks.

So you can imagine the inner calm I felt this morning when I waltzed into work peculiarly early (around 9am) and Juan wiping down tables in our little courtyard. I wanted hug him, actually.

But that's me right now. Regaining my wits one Hispanic at a time.

Six Feet Under

We're in the midst of one of the best seasons any show has had. I'll wait for the last episode to post my thoughts.

RIP my dude Nate.

Settin up shop in Fla

Arrived safely in Florida. But no internet at the crib yet, so the blogging will remain sparse till, probably, early next week.

I got tons of Pops Stories to tell...so please stay tuned.