Yesterday I went to a friends house to write.  I like to try out new locations in hopes that every novel (pun) place I whip out my laptop may be the elusive "perfect writing environment" I'm looking for.

It this particular instance, I chose the friend's house in question both because she's awesome and, at the moment, she and her family are caring for 7 vizslas and 2 goats.  Yes, they have a fenced in yard.

First the goats.  The goats live outside.  Goats will eat pretty much anything , and in this case they're primary function is to consume any and all poison ivy on the property.  Goats are the Honey Badgers of eating whatever.  They no give no fucks.  No fucks at all.  My friend's goats hop along the wooden railing along the outside of the porch so as to avoid being harassed by the multitude of dogs they occasionally share the yard with.

My friend has had two female vizslas since I met her years ago, Bounce and Fi.  About 6 months ago, Fi had puppies, and from that litter, they kept two of her girls (Kitty & Ms. Hudson).  About 2 months ago, Bounce had puppies. Seven more rugrats tooling around the house.  Two of those little boogers have already been adopted, leaving five soft sacks of puppy energy are still wiling around the house.

Sometimes you start with a group shot and end up with dog butt

Hey loyal readers.  This post is to direct you to my new guest post on Bridesmaiding.com! I have decided to *ahem* strongly suggest to parents that they  . . . chill the hell out.  I ask you all to remember me well.  When I started this project, I don't think this was the untimely demise I was expecting . . . but isn't that always the case.

PARENTS: You Gotta Chill The Hell OUT!  



I also voted for:  Parents Just Don't Understand

DJ Jazzy Jeff 4 Eva.

Today was my day in court.

If you recall, in late October I had a number of unpleasant run-in's with the Pō-Pō regarding my car's inspection sticker. In particular they took umbrage at its expired nature.  If you'd like to refamiliarize yourself with the case that they gave me, those pieces are here and here.


Court was scheduled for 9:30am, so I woke up early to reread my blog posts (after all, what's the point of writing recaps of life events if not to remind you of exactly what happened when you've forgotten over a month later).  Next, I went upstairs to craft the perfect court outfit -- I am soooo Elle Woods.

The choices I made in my dressing room this morning resonated inside me.  Every other morning I throw on a t-shirt, dark jeans, and a hoodie.  Maybe a vest on top.  No hoodie in my ensemble today, however.  Collared shirt, khakis, and a tie.  It should be mentioned that when I finally made it to court, I was amused to see three other guys waiting along with me who were ALL wearing the exact same semi-formal combination (down to the blue shirts).  The only difference between us was our individual tie choices, which it was clear was the product of a dearth of options all around.

I love Taylor Swift.  How could I not?  I'm sure if I were a younger man, say like, 14 or so, I'd be standing neck-high behind a velvet rope somewhere screaming at the top of my lungs how I would slaughter my little brother for the chance to touch Taylor's arm.  Thankfully, my more ancient Swiftiness manifests as a hidden shame and then peaks right where the motivation for this SNL gem of a fake commercial came from:


My Taylor love exposed, I still am sick to death of hearing Shake It Off getting overplayed on the radio.  Just like Pharrell's Happy and Gotye's Thatsongoftheirs before it, Shake It Off is the drill bit in a jackhammer being repeatedly pounded into the national consciousness without even buying us dinner first.  Taylor, I'd be happy to go to dinner with you, just ask!  Then you can gladly pound me into oblivion with your vocal abilities.

I get it.  A catchy pop song with a message of upbeat joy only comes around . . . every month or so . . . and everybody feels better when they are bopping along on their merry way.  If only the music machine could come out with all their #happyhappyjoyjoy songs at the same time, then perhaps DJ's could concoct a more palatable long term rotation. Until that time, I will patiently await Ariana Grande's future single, Jubilation! (the punctuation mark being part of the title of course), and it's predictable three months of overexposure on 92.7 FM.

I'm a bourbon guy.  I'm big into bourbon.  If you were to check out my Facebook feed at any given time, chances are there would be a picture of some sort of bourbon bottle scrolling on my screen.  I believe they call this a hobby, and it's a delicious one.

As I dipped my toe into the online world of trading and selling bourbon, it has been impossible to ignore the uncomfortable dichotomy between two types of bourbon enthusiasts.  On the one hand, there  is the group of white guys, and I'm generalizing here, that search out rare and old bottles of bourbon to enjoy and drink and trade according to taste and monetary funds.  Sure these guys sell some of their rarer bottles to pay for the next release, but the goal of the hobby is firmly planted in the acquisition and consumption of the very best versions of this American spirit.

The other group of white guys, and this time I am not generalizing save for maybe one or two women, may consume whiskey but that's not their passion.    First and foremost this group pours all of its time and resources into buying out all of the hard to find bottles of whiskey in any given area, in order to immediately resell those bottles online for a profit. They don't just stick to one area either, but will actually fly all over the country to get the jump on the competition.

"These are not the Pappy Van Winkle's you are looking for . . .  Ok, never mind, these are them"

A wonderful example of this "flipping bottles" mentality is currently playing out in Kentucky, simultaneous to the release of this year's much sought after Pappy Van Winkle bourbon.  It starts with people lining up all night in front of liquor stores.  All night they wait to get their hands on as many bottles as possible -- Grown men queuing like teenaged girls for a Taylor Swift concert.  When the doors finally open, these guys grab the most expensive bottles and run to the check out line. While waiting in line to purchase their $250 bottle of Pappy 23 year, they snap a quick picture of the bottle in their sweaty meat mitt.   Before they've even made it to their cars, they've resold the bottle on Facebook or Craiglist or wherever for a cool $1150.  That fast.  These guys may drink bourbon, but what they love is money.

(originally post 6/3/10)

Pull up a seat kiddies cause im's a bout to preach a bit--and help ya'lls relationships.

I give you: "the 30 minute rule."

I'm not gonna lie folks, and I'm not gonna front--I believe I actually saw something to this effect on a Sex and the City Episode. No, i will not see the movies. Ever.

When you get home from whatever you do during the day, may it be school or work or some combination of those things or no combination of those things, but when you come home, you are utterly and unchangeably unable to focus on any new problems. Home is where we retreat, it's our safe space.

Interestingly, part of what makes home our safe space is that our significant others (may) live there with us. This is almost always wonderful. The pesky thing about living with other humans, however, is that they have needs. And because of these "needs," when they see the person they care about most walk through the door, they want to share all the day's hopes and dreams and frustrations and anger and questions and stories with that loved one. Unfortunately, when you come home, you are utterly and unchangeably unable to focus on any new problems (or hopes or dreams or frustrations or angers or questions) other than your own. You need to retreat first. Power down. Relax.

This often creates conflict, as the partner that has been home vies to connect with their partner at the end of the day while the partner just coming home vies to get some space to decompress from their own day.

All it takes is 30 minutes.

I wish everyday were my birthday, and not just for the cake.  Though the cake is nice.  I mean, who doesn't like cake.   Of course, when your birthday falls on Halloween, as mine does, there is already a cavalcade of candy coursing through your system, rendering the cake a smidge less essential.  Just a smudge.


Today I'm writing in a tea shop.  Old school.  Hundreds of shiny sliver tubes, all labelled with their worldly dry tea leaves, sit on shelves built to house the canisters. There is a shamisen playing on the hidden speakers up in the exposed wooden rafters. It's a mellow place.  On not my birthday, I type as much as I can before getting distracted, and then fiddle around online for a few minutes until I can get myself back on track.  This is not the most productive way to be productive.  It is MC Scat Cat productivity: three steps forward, two steps back.

But on my birthday, I waste much less time.  I get distracted, click over to Facebook, read eight messages of good tidings from long lost friends from high school, Israel, Japan, Australia, even New Jersey -- and that love focuses me back to the task at hand. Apparently getting a constant barrage of online loving for 36 hours (time zones!!!) is an affective counterbalance to the solitary nature of writing.

Which means the only logical conclusion is to find a way to make it my birthday everyday.  If I parcel out each date to my Facebook friends, I should be able to get at least 2 or three good threads going by midday, everyday.  I'll have start working with the volume turned off on my computer to avoid the noise pollution of my Facebook indicator chiming endlessly at the commentary rolling in.  Oh what a life it would be, if everyday were my birthday.

Who wants to take November 1st?

I had just finished writing Fuck the Police Part V.  Just.   After getting my verbal warning on Sunday, on late Wednesday afternoon I was driving home to post my recent police encounter on the blog and then be done with it. You know, cause, fuck the police.


When the now ubiquitous blue and white lights began flashing behind me, I was on the same road on was on the last time I got pulled over.  I was going 30 mph, just like the last time I was pulled over.  Three days ago.

When the short stocky police office sauntered over to my driver side window, I figured, "Yay, this again. What a waste of time. At least I can just explain to the guy what happened and this experience might not even be worthy of a blog entry."  As you are reading this, you understand that this is not how things went down.

At this point, when I see the police lights alight behind me, I almost get giddy at the bountiful harvest of a blog post I know is about to unfold through my car window.  Almost.

This is a REAL photo I took this past Wednesday

As I mentioned recently, I get up early on Sundays to beat the church-goers and brunch-getters on my way to go swimming.  If I can be in the locker room before 9am, I am pretty much guaranteed a lane to myself for the duration of my workout.  That's the dream, that's why I'm setting my alarm on the weekend.

This past Sunday, I fed the dogs, stuck them back in bed with their slumbering mom, and voyaged out into the morning, right on schedule.  About five minutes down the road, I see a cop car with its lights going.  A recently pulled over driver is still awkwardly leaning over the center console to find their registration.

"The cops are out this morning," I said to myself, and kept cruising down the street.  Ten minutes later I see another cruiser in an alcove to my right.  I going 35.  Maybe 35.  "That cops really are out today," I  think, as my car shuffles past.


Then the lights and the pullout. This is when I would be giddy if I werent trying to get to the pool early and if it wasn't 8:30am on a Sunday.  This is the most important use of police resources.  Sigh.  Here we go again.  I honestly have no idea why I'm being pulled over this time, but the anticipation is palpable as I start surfing the web, knowing the police take 45 minutes to come to your window.

When I was growing up, I did not use the downstairs bathroom. Ever. That was the guest bathroom, and it was only for guests.

Welcome to the Days of Repentance.  It's a Jewish thing.  If you don't know what they are, I suggest a quick google search. For a lot of reasons.

I would argue that The Newlywed Game, when it debuted in 1966 with Bob Eubanks at the helm, was the first great reality show.  While The Dating Game may have pre-dated the production, dating is, by definition, and series of lies and half truths.  That thirty minutes was a just a litany of sexual innuendoes and bad choices -- more akin to a 1960's The Office than The Real World.   The Newlywed Game, by contrast, revealed a brief glimpse behind the curtain of hundreds of ostensibly happy couples' lives.

YouTube.com is still rife with clips from old shows, the contestants' clothing immediately transporting you back to an era before the Game Show Network, where husbands and wives inadvertently let intimate private information about how they "make whoopee"slip to a syndicated audience.  (At the time it was the closest our still somewhat moral culture came to a nud3 c3l3brity pic dump.)

"Get me the human father on the line"

When it comes to writer's block I am lucky in two ways.

My first real job out of college was bartending in NYC.  I was the "new guy" at two different establishments and got all the shitty slow shifts to suffer through.  I was overworked and underpaid.  Then 9/11 happened and I had no work with no pay.

I Got 99 Problems and the Neighbors are 3 of Them

I got some sad news today.  It happens.  Hell, if you turn on the news at any given point in the day right now, you'll get a pretty heavy dose of tragically depressing news.  If you aren't getting that coverage by the way, and I'm primarily talking about Ferguson here (though the Middle East and ISIS are closing fast), you are watching the wrong news.  That's just a little unsolicited advise.

Many of you know I'm writing a book.  If you didn't before, you do now.  Its genre is comedic non-fiction. This detail is important because as someone invested in his everyday funniness, getting bummed out in the morning does not facilitate a productive work day.  So, off to Facebook I went to find just the right flavor of cheeriness.  I found this:

This Vine Of A Tiny Piglet Prancing Through Grass Will Be The Best 6 Seconds Of Your Day

Check it out.

Badminton is neither "bad," nor a "mint" nor is it "on" anything. Discuss!  Somehow this lawn game turned gym class requirement has followed me like the rope climb on my travels around the world.


The first time I was introduced to "slow tennis" was after we completed the handball curriculum in middle school.  Even at 13, I could tell that the school staff was reaching to find every possible non-contact activity that involved competition, a ball, and a lack of expensive equipment.  With one long-ass net stretched across the entirety of the gym and replacing the handball wall, we instantly transformed the gymnasium into six badminton arenas.

It should be mentioned that most young teens are not intrinsically motivated to play badminton.  While it is way better than the wrestling mats, the only real enjoyment our immature minds could foresee was saying the word "birdie" a lot. Flippin the birdie. Birdie on a wire. Bye Bye Birdie . . . And when we grew tired of saying that, we started in on "shuttlecock."  That usual got us til the end of the first class.

There are two parking spaces along the curb just outside the coffee shop.  In the summer, the establishment sets up small tables and chairs so people can sip their lattes while enjoying a warm summer's day.  You also get a front seat for any parking dilemma that might occur at street level, a mere 6 feet away.

In today's episode a woman in her late 40's or early 50's was getting into her Audi station wagon with her two female companions after exiting the coffee shop.  Their car was parked in the space furthest forward.

Meanwhile, smiley-McParallel-parks-for-no-reason has slid his sporty BMW into the rear space, only to decide that he wasn't close enough to the curb (he's totally close enough to the curb) and thereby began procedures to re-parallel park his vehicle to get those final 3 inches of flush wheel to curb goodness.  It was all pretty ridiculous, and when he glanced directly at me, sitting with my coffee looking back at him, all I could do was return his ernest smile and give him a thumbs-up meant to communicate that the parking fiasco he has found himself in will last only as long as he decides to keep the engine running.

Mercifully, he turned the ignition key and his car audibly exhaled from the stress of over parking.  As the OCD parker, a guy in his 50's, exited his vehicle he crossed paths with the woman leaving and struck up a quick conversation.  It turned out to be glorious:

Here we just call this car a "Prius"

I love these news reports more than all others.  I actually light up when I see headlines such as the one that lined the top of my nbcnews.com screen today:  "Drink Up? Toledo Mayor Says Water Now Safe After Scare"

Check it out.

This news report makes my insides go "yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes."

Why you ask?  Because this is the absolute ultimate "put your money where your mouth is" situation for a public figure.  More accurately, it is the perfect "put your mouth where your rhetoric is" situation.

"Hey mister Toledo Mayor.  How you doin? Cool cool. What's that? The water which you recently called toxic and asked just under a half-million people to avoid drinking or bathing in is now, like, totally safe.  That's cool. That's cool.  Here's the thing though Mr. Mayor.  I'm still freaked the fuck out.  You know, about the toxic, potentially poisonous, water that recently had our whole county in a clusterfuck to visit relatives.  Soooooooo, if you wouldn't mind . . . hows about stopping by the house this Wednesday and just downing a glass or two from my tap.  You know, just to be sure.  What's that? Not enough time to come to everybody's house.  Understandable, understandable.  How about we pick one lower-middle class household at random, and you can do a mini-press conference there, showing everybody how safe the water is now by chugging a liter of it on camera for all Toledoans to see! It will be a public relations coup!  Unless that is . . . you're reluctant to drink up?  You're not scared to drink the water you just declared safe right? Cause . . . that would be pretty screwed up.  A public relations nightmare."

"Looks like it's time to put your mouth where your mouth is and drink up or shut up."

Let's go back.  Back in time.  I am a wise-ass, tightly wound, over-achieving high school student.   My dad, at that time, is a tightly wound oncologist who hates, above all, being interrupted by telemarketers.  Especially during dinner.

Context.  This is a time when cellphones don't exist and the constant interruption from phones was not yet the norm.  This is before caller ID and knowing ahead of time not to pick up an "Unknown Number." Especially during dinner.

And so, when my father did, on occasion, pick up the phone to find a well-enunciating young man or woman asking him personal questions with no lead in, or telling him about the marvel that is so-and-so running for lieutenant governor, he let em have it.   There were definitely a few different tactics that he employed.  There was the pointed dressing down, where the fact that he wasn't screaming made it all the worse.  And then there were the more seldom, but much more fun to watch "sprint and slams." These are where he says one line about the fuckery that is calling people during their family meals and then says BYE! and slams down the phone.

Context.  Now, when i say 'slams down the phone', I don't mean an iPhone was thrown down on a table.  This is way back when phones had two pieces, the base and the receiver . . . AND THEY WERE CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER!  And there was this wonderful empowering feeling that could be had by violently returning the receiver to the base, thus ending the call with a slamming sound on the other end.  the bases were pretty much built for that impact.  These were the good ol days i tell yah.

They are out with their signs today.  Big poster-board signs protesting one or both sides of this seemingly intractable conflict in the Middle East.  Some of the signs are new, using recent language like "war crimes" ripped from the headlines and onto the corner of Amity and Main St.  Others are used to the point of yellowing, a testament both to the length of Middle East conflict and this person's unwavering protest over how it's been handled.  And no, I'm not even going to dip a toe into the vast ocean of real problems going on over there.  This is about the individuals holding the signs, those people walking around with their heads held so high that to the rest of us they just appear to be a gathering of up-raised chins.  And that's kinda what they are.

They weren't out on that corner protesting yesterday.   Not on that intersection or any other around town.  And you would think that with the recent escalation in the use of force abroad, there would have been even more angry voices yesterday, publicly denouncing Israeli or Hamas's violent actions.  Probably both.
But it was super hot yesterday.  So humid and sticky that after I took the dogs for a walk and I had to change my underpants (no, I didn't poop in them).  Truly unpleasant.  Though one might understandably argue that the current high heat index seems rather benign when you consider the conditions of the citizens you are purporting to give a voice to.  I mean, I would expect people who believe deeply in this cause to be out there hitting the pavement with all the cardboard and Sharpie markers they can find.

Protestin ain't easy...

It is time for utility belts.  The time is now.

When I was a kid, utility belts were all the rage in my comic books.  Every new iteration of Batman, from the live action TV show to the various cartoons, unveiled new and exciting game-changing devices which all came compactly stored in the Dark Knight's pant holder-upper.  Sure, his was bright yellow, a particularly difficult shade for most of us mere mortals to pull off (I realize that Batman is literally-speaking mortal, but come on).

Batman: Inside the Belt

But the larger problem isn't one of color, it is one of coolness.  Street cred.  The closest American society came to starting down the slippery slope toward utility beltdom, was in the creation and execution of the cell-phone belt clip.  These nifty little pieces of plastic stay hooked to your waist, allowing you to instantly snap your phone up to your ear like Quick-Draw McGraw.  Draw, flip, talk.  It just felt so right.

I have one remaining grandparent. I say that now facing down the fact that it is a truth about to be erased.  My incomparable Grandma Rita is in the waning moments of her raging river of a life, and while it will be cathartic, in time, to tell tales of her deeds and accomplishments.  I'm gonna take this moment to do it one more time, in life:

Grandma Rita was the only person in my immediate family growing up that smoked.  For those people that grew up in a time where smoking made you look "healthy" and "strong," it was a very gradual transition into stigmatization.  First there were pro-smoking billboards.  Then no smoking ads on TV.  Next, smoking may cause cancer.  It may be related to lung specific cancers.  Later, much later, those became facts.  And then, much later after that, they became facts that were accepted by the population and media as truths.  And like a frog put in a pot of lukewarm water that is slowly brought to a boil, until the bitter end, the stigma was never stronger than the addiction . . . until they were "hopelessly" addicted and had spent multiple decades inside that boiling pot.  Then they got the news it was killing them all along.

My Grandma Rita got the news it was killing her one day about 20 years ago.  All those cigarettes, which to me growing up i associated as part of her identity, had caused some damage to one of her lungs. Eventually, it would require surgery.

I hate Kanye too ya'll. Put him in the context of an awards show, a Kardashian, or pretty much anywhere there is a camera, and I'm all, "turn the channel."  Sure, he is a musical genius, but that doesn't make him a good person.

All rules have their exception, however, and Kanye's came the day the levees broke in New Orleans. Kanye found the lens of the camera as he joined numerous famous people to request donations to assist the ailing boot of our United States.  And then, standing next to Canada's own Austin Powers, he dropped this bomb, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people."  Here is the video if you missed it.


The immortal words of The Dude have never been more relevant. To paraphrase, "Your not WRONG Kanye, you're just an asshole."

This past weekend I briefly returned to the hustle and bustle of New York City.  With such a mass of humanity packed together, there is a genuine sense that the whole "melting pot" idea for this country originated on a New York stove.  As I negotiated Central Park and various Subway closures, I took a moment to appreciate the racial diversity around me, a past luxury i took for granted, only internalizing its value when it was gone.

All of this aside, there really is nothing like returning to "the city" and, as the first passerby approaches in the opposite direction, making sincere eye-contact and smiling.  Cause, like, that's how we do things up here in the Happy Valley.  Of course, the person I smiled at always has a completely different set of facial reactions.  The first two moves are almost imperceptible.  The faintest flicker of a reflex smile begins, and in the next micro-second, disgust pulls down on his previously-thinking-of-upturning lips.

Me in NYC

Then the eyes get into it.  Widening.  Who IS this guy? Why is he smiling at me?  Is this some sort of new gay signaling that I don't know about?  Should I be scared?  In the next moment, his tough guy persona is right back up. The true New York outfit: One size fits all.

I'm not saying that everyone wearing these boots deserves your respect.
But, dollars to donuts, they probably do.  These are work boots.

Hardcore footwear, hardcore beer bottles.

Sure, an über rich obnoxious white dudes could just have grabbed a few pairs to go oystering in while on the Cape. But, they don't.  Both because they wouldn't know where to begin looking for oystering footwear and because you can do that particular activity barefoot.

I have a mark on my face.  Pretty much right smack in the middle of my chin.  It looks like this:

At least that's what it used to look like to me.

And so, because people are alternately worried about me or  completely invasive into my personal space, I have gotten a number of questions regarding how I came to get my face torn up.  I mean, it looks tough.  I look tough.  Unfortunately, the true origin story of this battle wound is that it is a stress sore.  Please remember I'm not a medical doctor when I tell you that as best I understand it, every once in awhile when I'm stressed, a patch of my skin starts excreting a clear viscous juice.  Sexy, I know.  And the first day the skin looks totally normal and it just juices and juices like some constantly pus-filled zit.  By the time I go to bed, usually I can see the faint outline of where I will be marked the next day.

So.  Give me a bit of rope on this one and I'll pay off.

Let's go back in time to when people weren't the highest rung on the species totem pole (judged solely by our preeminence at destroying the planet for everyone). Let's go back to the dinosaurs …

(because this was the tagline to about 50% of the TV I watched as a child, I image some 80's music and  a fade constructed of multiple laser beams.)

Now, imagine I appear as a human surrounded by the Mesozoic Era in all its splendor.  I'm wearing khakis.  The dinosaurs seem to ignore me and also seem to be getting along quite well considering most are on each other's menu.

As I look around, I see a great variety of shapes, sizes, and species of dinosaur as well as many other unclassified crawly-thingies.  I can only imagine that even back then there were some version of dinosaur cliques.  Maybe not, like, middle school style cliques, but more like, "this group of dinosaurs believe the world is flat, while this other group of dinosaurs is convinced its triangular."   But, you know, they've got dinosaur problems, not Homo Erectus problems.  And if you've learned nothing from Jay Z, you should at least have gleaned that everythangs got problems.  Even dinosaurs.

It's World Cup time on this planet of ours, and during this global sport standstill, I wanna take a second to discuss the most difficult aspect of the World Cup for me.  And let me begin by quickly pointing out it is NOT the soccer itself that has me befuddled.

Though, if you listened to any sports talk radio in the past 3 weeks, you would be sure it had to have something to do with how Americans just don't like, enjoy, understand, or appreciate soccer.  And the DJ's on these stations, to be clear, blame the game itself.


"Does anyone even play soccer growing up?," asked one particularly obtuse white male voice?

"I'm pretty sure lots of kids do play soccer as kids.  My daughter is in a league," says the slightly more informed colleague.

"Sure," the moron continues, "But when do they all stop. Cause they all stop. And why do they all stop?!" Answering his own question, "they stop because it is not a popular American sport!"

"I think most stop when they go to college," the voice of reason calmly explains. He continues, "I think that's when most people stop playing organized sports, when they aren't good enough to make it on the college level."

One of the most difficult parts of writing a book, for me at least, is editing out all the excess verbiage that doesn't move the story forward.  Pretty much any time I write the word "verbiage" I go back to do some editing, realizing that the word "verbiage" is probably the number one culprit of my (any) writing getting too wordy.  I know, it's very meta.

Thankfully, what is bad for the book is fodder for the blog.  And considering my most heinous cuts revolve around extended tangents, I've found that many of these edited out bits make interesting stand-alone reads.  So, in an effort to both tease my book in progress, and also provide you with some amusement, I give you two small clips that are no longer in my featured work.

Eh . . . Eh . . .

Transformation: A process that pertains only to butterflies and losing a large amount of weight

The Soul Coughing inspired title of this blog is a belabored attempt to announce the forthcoming arrival of . . . . . MY WEBSITE!!!!!

And I know what you're thinking . . . isn't this already your website?

Oh hilarious luddite.  I too once shared that misconception.  Like so many things American, the definitional distinction between 'my website vs. my website' seems to be tied directly to online capitalism.  To wit, I don't "own" this blog address.  I rent it from Blogspot. That is why the URL starts with the website name and then is followed by the host site (e.g.  www.mattitiyahu.blogspot.com).

In order to have your own website, you have to buy a domain name yourself, then load your content onto that new web address.  Well, I know how to do exactly 0% of those tasks on my own, therefore I enlisted the help of web wizard Ryan Wilson at ryangwilson.com to be my spirit guide through this binary dreamscape.  *drumroll*

Everything old is new again. Even 1980's fashion.  sigh.

I now am the proud owner of a brand spanking new web address:

Tell all your friends.  In a matter of days the content of this very blog will be lifted (unaltered) to be set down in its cozy new location inside mattitiyahu.com that was built just for it.  It will look different.  And by different I mean much much better.  The design is easier to read, navigate, share, and follow.   I'm even getting high resolution head shots done so . . . yah . . . it's kinda a big deal.

If things on this site get wonky over the next week or so, don't fret,  that's just the transformation taking hold to be reborn as a half-phoenix half-butterfly.  This girl is on fire.  Stay tuned for the imminent rebirth.

There is an incredibly irritating song on the radio these days with the refrain, "How'm I gonna be an optimist about it . . . oh . . . how'm I gonna be an optimist about it."  I'm only pretty sure those are the actual words, but that's what they sound like to me, and they are the only lyrics to the song that stick in my head.  The reason those words literally and figuratively resonate inside me is that more and more often I'm faced with situations that, even when looked at through rose-tinted glasses still seem permanently shit-stained; having a needle driven into your eyelid and having your eye sewn shut both qualify under this rubric.

Last Thursday I found a whole new previously undiscovered section of a hellish living nightmare.  Incredibly, the whole situation began with my friend and I lounging on my porch, having a beer; My two pittie puppies on a long lead attached to the fence.

A few minutes later a neighbor and her son came walking by, the young boy riding his small bicycle.  Our puppy, Falcor, is not a huge fan of bicycles.  Also lumped in this category are walkers, wheelchairs, and push carts.  They just freak him out.  But, firmly attached to his lead, I didn't think  much of it when Falc began to bark.  In fact, the mom and son continued along our fence, closer to the house.

At some critical juncture, Falcor felt that this bicycle may be parking its terror in his lawn and he ran at the passerby's, and, yanked back by his leash, still managed to put his paws on the bike/boy's shoulders and mouthed the child's arm.  Not awesome at all.  At this point every adult present was up and taking action.  I was putting the dogs away as the mother comforted her son.  Because a 60 pound pit bull, no matter how cute, is a lot of dog for a small child to handle.

A few months ago at the bar, a 25-year-old friend of mine rolled up looking deflated.  Upon closer inspection, the lack of life in his face reflected a particular brand of dehydration that I most associate with hangovers.  "You don't look so good," I mentioned.  Stating the obvious.

"Yah.  I have a huge friggin headache.  Just massive."  "Can I tell you something?," he mused, "Back in college, I used to drink twice as much as I did yesterday, and I would never get headaches like this the next day. It's like, as I get older, the hangovers get worse.  Is that a thing?"

Cue air-gasping laughter.

"I'm sorry to tell you this my friend (I wasn't sorry, I was giddy), but not only does it get worse, it gets exponentially worse.  I can't even have two drinks at age 35 without waking up to the munchkin horde hammering away inside my temples."

His reaction, a mixture of shock and terror, really tickled me.
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Tuesday was the first game of my summer Co-ed Drinking-League Softball season.  Unfortunately I was running late for the game and pulled into the parking lot during the bottom of the 3rd inning.  Due to a lack of players, by the time I got my shoes tied, they were already hurrying me in the direction of first base.  I took a few warm-up tosses from my infield, and dropped every single one.  My new teammates playing shortstop and 3rd base glancing worriedly at each other.  "Can this kid catch anything!?!," said their eyes.

By now, unless you actively ignore any news that is sport and/or race related, you've probably heard of Donald Sterling.  For those of you who haven't, I will give you the five sentence run-down.

Donald Sterling and his estranged wife Rochelle own the L.A. Clippers basketball team, as well as a continent's worth of other holdings.  Donald also has a long track record of racism, including being sued for racially profiling potential tenants for his residential properties (oh, the wife may be estranged, but she's a horrible racist too fyi). Recently, Donald was chatting with his half-Black half-Mexican mistress about how he firmly disapproves of her posting pictures of herself talking, walking, or in any way associating herself with Black people.  And not just "run of the mill" Black people either. We're talking famous sportsmen such as Matt Kemp (LA Dodgers) and Magic friggin Johnson!!!



The catch here, as you might imagine, is that the mistress, V. Stiviano (yes, she changed her name to "V period") decided to record this 15-minute conversation chocked full of some of the most elaborately spun webs of old-timey racism with just that perfect soupçon of "I'm not a racist" modern racism.  If you still want more information into the background of this crumbling empire, read about it here.

But I'm a solutions guys.  I have no interest in looking backward at the offense, I want to move forward into rectifying this hullabaloo.  And I'm not the only one.

It's hard to tell who is the most offended by Donald Sterling.  The players on his team (almost all Black) certainly rank right up there.  His African-American coach is on the list as well.  The NBA.  The fans.  Pretty much everybody believes that the only way to seek justice in this case is to force Sterling to sell the team.  The problem with that solution, unfortunately, is that the NBA's executive structure, much the same as Wall St., insurance agencies, and the NCAA, is rigged to protect the richest investors from almost any and all sanctions.  Which leaves us at our current impasse.


Which I've solved.  Your welcome.

I've been sick for three days now, so I thought I'd bless ya'll with another one of my favorite blasts from the past.  For anyone who ever wanted to play a Fantasy Sport without having to actually care about sports in the slightest, this one's for you.
_________________


So once again, this is either brilliant or deranged.  Let me know.

As fantasy baseball season is gearing up (no, i will not talk to you about it--this isn't Guantanamo), I realize that one of the things that people like about fantasy sports is the perceived control over the things that they have interest in.  Fantasy baseball, for instance, allows you to be the General Manager of your own baseball team.  That's cool yo.

My grandfather-in-law passed away a week ago last Sunday.  And while I only had the privilege of his company for the past six years, he left an indelible mark on both my heart and my life.

In a multitude of ways, James Grew Wheeler was lucky.  The man I always knew as "Gramp" (and not  Gramps, James, or godforbidyoucalledhim 'Sir') lived until the age of 90 at his home outside Boston with the love of his life, Emlen. They've been married for over 65 years.  And to say that Gramp had his wits about him until his last day would be to understate how brazen and brilliant the man was. I have a video of him dancing a jig with my wife a few weeks ago during his 90th birthday celebration.

But in many more ways, I was lucky to have Gramp. Not having had the pleasure of knowing my biological grandfathers, I am forthright about the fact that I have an elderly-man shaped hollow in my emotional lexicon.  A few mentors have spent moments filling portions of that negative space, most notably a brilliant and caring professor from back when I was an undergraduate.  But gaps as vast as missing relatives almost never get filled, especially as I got older and the number of senior men in my life became comparatively less abundant.

I rarely talk about pot on the blog because it is increasingly becoming a non-divisive issue, and I like to dig into meatier issues.  But, to fully understand the glory of the story I'm about to tell, you need to know a bit about the mindset I was in.

And here it is.  My mindset was very stoned.

The wife and I were running some Sunday errands, and the next stop on our list was the pet supply store.  The extremely pet-friendly pet supply store, which is conveniently located adjacent a Whole Foods (duh) and therefore allows my wife and I to divide and conquer.  She gets to run in and grab the ingredients for dinner (aka. browse the cheese and wine selection), while I grab dog treats and poop bags (aka. pet every furry loveball in the joint).

Something horrible is happening.  At night.  While we're sleeping.  And it's the subtle kind of Soylent Green madness that, were I not to bring it up here, may go on unnoticed until it's too late.

The opossums are committing suicide ya'll. In force. To wit, I have personally seen the remnants of 8 such vehicle-assisted suicides in just the past week.

What is happening to depress the northeastern opossum? I am worried for them.

Look at those cold troubled eyes.

I guess the first question is, what the hell do opossums even eat? Thankfully, my friend google had the answer:

There are some moments in time that defy understanding.  The moment in question that you are about to witness was akin to a bird shitting art on my face when I looked up to glance the sky.  What began as the most irritating rage-inducing side-chatter, when engaged, became a performance art piece beyond anything I could have previously imagined.

I have only edited the following Facebook update/liveblog for grammar and closed parentheticals.

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• Paul  and Casey Elizabeth  like this.
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler The girl just full on laughed in the guys face about something he said for 15 seconds, then reeled it in and said, "no, actually i like it."

  42 mins · Like
• 

  Casey  Kelly with an I, I think. Kelli. Or Kellie.

  38 mins · Unlike · 1
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler If someone reads this, and I have already put these too out of their winy complaining over-privileged misery, remember: they really had it coming.

  38 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler The girl: "I hear she has a bit of a Dad complex. AND SO DO I. I have Daddy issues!"

  37 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler Oh, this just turned into a liveblog bitches

  37 mins · Like · 2
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "Oh apparently he moved out of his house because he wanted to start his pot business"

  35 mins · Like · 1
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "I mean. I've never met a guy so, like, crafty. Like, the merch he made for our band. No matter how you look at it, that's amazing."

  35 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "The aesthetic is so, like, spot on. He like, " I am the utilitarian punk"

  34 mins · Like · 1
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "(Paraphrase: They are arguing which state of their origins (Vermont and Washington State) have a bigger heir of self-importance regarding their drug culture."

  31 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler  (re: washington state) "As soon as you go over the Cascades in your rig. Oh, they call em rigs. Like, "What kinda rig you drive?"

  31 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "I just wanna chill here this summer and I can't tell if this summer program is gonna be, like, you know, a good experience"

  30 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "I think its totally rad. Most of the places where i grew up, were so, like, whatever. And I'm like, I don't want to do architecture now. I want to do it went I'm like 30 or 40. But you have to plan for that shit. Like, go to school for it"

  29 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler Talking about inventing low cost cars/houses for Ethiopia: "It was basically like a square box and wheels cause like, you have to give them a design they can build"

  28 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "My sister's friend was talking about her village back home and how they outsource materials from india. "

  26 mins · Like
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  Mattitiyahu Zimbler reply, "Yah, i've seen a lot of that." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  26 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "See this is the problem, I just want to be doing it instead of fucking talk about it" (no sense of understand the irony here)

  25 mins · Like
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  Mattitiyahu Zimbler Guy: "and thats the problem with hampshire, there's no one who knows how to like, build buildings. you know. and I'm building, like, real structures. And she's giving me like art critiques saying, that will fall apart.  Here, here, and here.  And I'm like, whatever, I need someone who knows how to build!"

  24 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler Girl: "I want to build "Earth Ships"

  24 mins · Unlike · 2
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  Mattitiyahu Zimbler wow. that last one almost made me laugh out loud and blow my cover.

  23 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "How long do you think it takes to get to Hampshire from here.? 8 min? You have class at 12:30? Yah? Cool, I'm just gonna roll this then . . ."

  22 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "Those growlers you got man, that is mad shit insane." Who got them? That dude Astro-dude? ASTRO-dude? woo.

  21 mins · Like
• 

  Mattitiyahu Zimbler "I think he's a great guitarist I just hate what that music is."

  21 mins · Like
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  Mattitiyahu Zimbler  (con) "It's just dense, like a lot of sound going in your ears."

  21 mins · Like
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  Mattitiyahu Zimbler AAAAAAAAAnnnnnnnddddddd scene. They just left. with 13 min. to get to class.

  20 mins · Like