(This is my current phone b/g – I am all in on CLE basketball.
Also, this post was edited, cause it was even worse before, if you can believe that.)
So I’ve been on a few airplane rides over the past week, and on the longest of them, I spent time sitting with a girl who spilled whiskey on my leg.
She was a lot of fun, I asked if I could call her Sara, and we became best friends for 4+ hours.
We told our cool stories about our lives, and analyzed the personae of everyone around us in the most stereotypical manner possible.
After a bunch of time doing that, it was the part of the airplane ride where Sara spilled the whiskey on my leg.
I screamed, “OH NO THERE’S WHISKEY ON MY LEG!” over and over until the airplane waiter came back and asked what was wrong.
I repeated, “Oh no…there’s whiskey on my leg…” except quiet and sad this time, so Sara could see the different kind of inflections I could make my voice do.
Last year, for reasons of my own, I taught my nieces a new mantra for Easter.
It was a simple and joyful, “EASTER IN YOUR FACE!”
They were three at the time – in retrospect, perhaps it was immature of me to do this to (for?) them.
Being that they’re almost four, it’s time to tell them how adults celebrate Easter joy with a new phrase, “EASTER ALL NIGHT!”
It’s not so much a phrase as a party anthem.
Imagine the Black Eyed Peas taking these words and turning them into a song, and you’ll get what I’ll be going for.
Like Fergie sings the first part and the Waylon or Wilbie or whatever their names are sings the after-shout portion.
EASTER ALL NIGHT! (EGGS)
EASTER ALL NIGHT! (EGGS)
EASTER ALL NIGHT! (EGGS)
EASTER ALL NIGHT! (EGGS GOTTA GET EM)
Like all their songs, that’s all there is to it, and it goes on for ten minutes and sells a zillion copies.
I’m told that last year EASTER IN YOUR FACE! came out at completely inappropriate times, and this is why I’m the best uncle ever, and probably shouldn’t consider fatherhood anytime soon.
If you’ve read my stuff for any length of time, you know the vividly horrific story behind my shoulder tattoo, and my embarrassed self-loathing I do at myself whenever anyone sees it.
If you’re new or whatever, this is it, all oiled up and stuff for you.
The time has come, at long last, to finish this mistake once and for all.
I’ve talked to people several times over the years about what to do about this monstrosity.
The removal options are bad – since it’s been done three times already and there’s scarring to boot, it just won’t look right.
I asked one tattoo artist about putting a roman numeral XIV over it, the rationale being that I could make up different stories every time someone asked me about the deep, hidden meaning of my ancient number tattoo.
This wasn’t going to be doable either, and every other tattoo artist suggested things that just wouldn’t work for me.
I always make this clear before these conversations – my number one option would be for it to not be there at all anymore.
Starting from there, I’m not sure how these people come to, “How about like a cool snake that’s on fire and goes from your shoulder all the way around your chest, and then is flowing into a skull that’s on your back, and it’s the skull of a naked booty stripper?”
Anyway, after many years and much thought, I am giving up…and that’s what this new version of the tattoo will represent.
Inevitably, someone will try and make it artistic or special or whatever.
No, no, nay, nay, booty.
I don’t want it planned or artistic or meaningful – I want it to look like someone scribbled over it in frustration…like which is what I feel about it with my special heart that is inside me.
(If you don’t follow the NBA pretty closely, you probably need not bother with this post.
To make it relatable to all, I’d have to do a lot of explaining.)
I’ve been reading a lot about how offended everyone is about Cleveland being allowed to re-sign Z in what was clearly an unspoken understanding about the Jamison trade.
“Look, we have a chance to pick up Jamison for nothing if we pretend we don’t want you anymore and you take a 30-day vacation. Good? Good.”
It was likely never said outside the Danny Ferry Excitement Bunker, but everyone “got it”.
The great lengths the team has gone to removing Z’s image from the arena, and how Z’s agent is pretending to romance other teams – it’s all funny, at least to a Cleveland fan like myself.
What’s odd is how aghast people are about this now, when it’s been going on for years.
Now, we all know what the aghastedness is about: anything that helps Cleveland win the title brings LeBron one step closer to staying, which means the national media won’t have anything to write about.
Even my unbiased side doesn’t think he’s leaving anyway, and certainly not for the Knicks – historically, how many league MVPs have left one of the best teams in the NBA for one of the worst, and taken less money to do so?
If people would stop hoping for the sensational story and start looking at the facts, it might help. Don’t forget, he could’ve left three years ago if he’d wanted to.
In any case, the point of this post is that nobody is talking about this: what Cleveland is doing is an amazingly great example of something.
Here you’ve got a small-market team, in a city that’s shrinking and losing jobs, in a lousy economy…gaming the system.
Isn’t that what everyone complains that the Red Sox and Yankees and Knicks do? Just spend money rampantly and buy a winner? (Well, the Knicks don’t actually accomplish that, but you get the point.)
Yes, having LeBron is a variable that won’t fit in anyone else’s potential template, but the little team from Cleveland becoming the economic bully of the NBA is point that should be celebrated in some fashion, not criticized.
Talk all you want about the system being broken – I’d say the people running the teams (GMs/Owners) are simply bad at their jobs in many cases.
This is about more than just a few robbery trades – Gilbert has built a first class organization, and Danny Ferry has done a fantastic job.
Remember when he played hardball with Varajao, refusing to overpay for him? How many other GMs would’ve just ponied up $10M/year for six years without thinking about it?
Call it hometown pride, but that’s the good story nobody’s taking from this. Smart owner willing to spend, smart GM willing to make tough/smart deals, build yourself a winner.
(To your right – from the cover page of what I am writing at right now.)
A lot of people ask me the classic “what kind of music do you listen to” question when they’re trying to date me.
This is not info I disclose readily – it has to come out in an organic fashion.
For example, from the following, try and figure out if I listen to the 3 musicians named in the title of this post.
Brian: Hey soul sister is on again wtf
Brian: Who sings this I hate it so much
Girl: Train
Girl: Lolol
Brian: Its so girly lol
Brian: Like is Girly Rock a genre now
Girl: Oh mon brion lol
Brian: I blame the Goo Goo Dolls – they started this back in the 90s lol
Girl: Omg themmm
Brian: Hey Jealousy!
Girl: I love that song!!
Brian: when did that come out
Brian: I think it was like 94?
Girl: I don’t know brian I was like [redacted] then
Admittedly, there’s a lot more interesting stuff than musical taste happening in that exchange, such as relationship-based math.
Here’s another go at music.
Brian: Lolol that Pink song “I’m comin up” is on
Girl: Oh god lol
Brian: I haven’t heard this in a long time
Brian: It’s terrible lolol
Brian: Everybody’s dancin and they’re dancin for me!
Girl: Horrible
Brian: I’ll be your operator you can all anytime, I’ll be your connection to the party line!
Girl: We should remember what year it came out and then use that to compare our ages again
Brian: : /
Last one.
Brian: I was at this party one time and Coldplay came on and this dude LOVED them like in a really hipster/snobby way and I kept saying they were originally called Coldburst
Brian: He made me go read their Wikipedia page he was so pissed
Brian: And I was like “yeah they must’ve had it taken off so nobody would find out”
Girl: I don’t believe you
Brian: You weren’t even born yet when they were Coldburst lol
Seriously, Pink has been famous for almost a solid ten years now. I’m trying to think who she compares to historically – like how will she be remembered 20 years from now?
I don’t thunk her music has really transcended anything, but obviously they still play it now and then, and she’s been in the cultural zeitgeist for a good chunk of time.
What does zeitgeist even mean – I’m in over my head again. Did I just call Pink a Nazi?
So upon return from my big-time Twitter/Facebook/whatever hiatus, the question becomes, “what now?”
To answer this question, I need to make a bullet-point list, and then put the bullets in little digital disguises that make them look like numbers.
For example, take these bullet-points:
*
*
*
Once I’ve finished getting their espionage clothes on them, they’ll look more like this:
1)
2)
3)
You see?
As the alleged numbers explain the positives and negatives behind why I should and/or should not be an avidly aggressive Tweeter, nobody will even know that they’re really bullet-points, and that’s how the logic starts to come into place?
Anyway, in the two weeks I was gone, I wrote a complete screenplay, two full movie treatments, did good on the other thing I do, and got in six fewer I’m-Tweeting-while-driving based car wrecks.
Take that for what you will, and please let me know where to buy little hats for those bullets, because that will look so cool on them when they’re doing their spy work.
Some Wyoming trivia/realizations based on this screengrab from an ESPN.com poll:
1) They don’t care much about the NBA.
2) If you’d asked me before looking at this where Wyoming was, I don’t think I could’ve pointed it out without using process of elimination.
3) I can’t name one city in Wyoming.
4) I’ve not known anyone who has lived in, visited, driven through, knew about, or thought about Wyoming.
5) Looking at this map – and I don’t know if I’m just outside my own head right now or what – it just doesn’t feel like Wyoming is a real state.
This isn’t meant as an assault on this fictional place or the two people who pretend to live there – these are real thoughts I had while waiting for this Stoudemire-to-Cavs trade to happen.
So I am very close to getting my Nexus One SuperPhone, and in preparation for that – as well as recuperation from WSM? – I am going away for a couple weeks.
I also have a script to finish that requires some underwater research – eliminating all distractions and not getting electrocuted is essential.
No blog posts.
No instant messaging.
No Facebook.
No Twitter.
I even deleted UberTwitter from my phone – frankly I need to rethink the manner in which I personally use Twitter altogether.
Anyway, I’ll see you on or around Monday February 22nd – of course I’ll have email, but like I might be deleting every third message just as a kind of sport or game of chance with myself.
Hey so I don’t read anymore because of my paranoia I didn’t tell you about, but I wanted to expose you to two books – one I have actual light involvement with, and the other I am el friends with the author.
First on tap is Rob Gokee’s In the Belly of the Fail Whale: How Twitter Changed My Life in One Year. (Here’s a link to buy at it on Amazon.)
While the title might be a bit long, it also saves me from having to tell you what the book is actually about.
Rob was also cool enough to ask me to write the foreword – you may remember he was the one who actually pushed/shoved me to get on Twitter.
An excerpt from what what I put inside:
“Sigh,” I said to myself out loud, admiring my new haircut.
Anyway, if you’re into Twitter or into Rob or into books or into whatever, maybe go pick this up. I’ve read it – it’s worth taking a look, and also has my name on the cover, as noted above.
The other book is by Dr. Natasha Valdez, who was an Associate Producer on WSM? with her life-pal (nay, husband) Charles Solomon, Jr.
I’ve known both for years and have spent time enough to know that her new book A Little Bit Kinky: A Couples’ Guide to Rediscovering the Thrill of Sex (Amazon link) will likely do exactly what it says it’s supposed to.
Now, I don’t do that sex stuff anymore because of my paranoia about catching bronchitis, but when I read this I was like, “Wow, maybe bronchitis will be worth it, cause like this rediscovery does sound pretty thrilling.”
For example, there’s one chapter that I can’t talk about here on my PG/PG-13 blog website, and that’s a chapter that will help me for sure if I ever want to get bronchitis.
In conclusion and furthermore, while I can’t say either of the titles of these books are quite as descriptive and exact as my own Prelude to a Super Airplane – which tells you exactly what it’s about – I can tell you that these are both worth reading, should you have the urge to do reading at something.
Last year, for reasons of my own, I taught my nieces a new mantra for Easter.
(If you don’t follow the NBA pretty closely, you probably need not bother with this post. 
(To your right – from the cover page of what I am writing at right now.)
(I fully support the picture to the right.)
So I am very close to getting my Nexus One SuperPhone, and in preparation for that – as well as recuperation from 
