What is love?

To keep this blog from getting too long and boring, I have the TV on. Now and then, I may comment randomly with my thoughts, no sensoring. Believe it or not, my brain surprises me too with the shit it comes up with. These moments will be preceeded by two asterisks (**)

I got a call from a friend who has fidelity issues asking how I knew I was in love with Em, and knew she was “the one.” I started rattling of some stuff about being in love with her, and not caring about anyone else, and he cut me off with “Well, haven’t you been in love before her?” Yes, I had. And I’d still say that I loved those women very much. But this is different.

So anyway, what is love?

It’s a question that has inspired works of art (Sistine Chapel), pieces of music (“God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys), literature (Romeo and Juliet), murders (the guy who shot Lennon; Jesus Jodie Foster, what’s a brother gotta do for some love?), suicides(again, Romeo and Juliet…that’s a two-fer!), wars (Helen),  basically anything good, and anything bad  can loosely be tied back to a search for what it is that we love. Money, power, the other gender, the same gender, beauty, nice stuff, food, whatever it is, somebody loves it.

**I think kd lang looks more and more like a boyishly cute man. Put a short sleeved shirt and cargo pants on her, and the transformation is complete. I know a few lesbians that actually dress that way, and I admit I’m confused. You’re attracted to women, are a woman yourself, but you dress like the sloppiest of men. Meh…

Now as a product of a divorced couple, and having watched my mom go through a second divorce and my dad getting close a few times, what love is and how do I know has been a question on my mind. As most of you know, I just got engaged. This means a marriage is pending, and has refreshed the question on my mind.

Growing up, I always told myself that if I did get married it would be for good. I was always a bit embarrassed as a kid to have divorced parents, reinforced by attending a Catholic school from 1^st to 7^th grade. Turns out Catholic God frowns on my “failed parents.” What a sweet thing to tell a child. Anyway, I’ve dated more than one woman who told me that they could never see me getting married, and as much as you just want to shrug that kind of shit off, it still sticks with you and rears its ugly head when momentous events like my engagement arise.

**The Geico cavemen are like a gay teen in Montana. (Yes, it’s ok to smile at a “beaten to death” joke. I won’t tell)

So with my parents being totally misguided in their teachings on love, were do I turn next, my peers? I mean, I grew up in a generation whose “greatest” and most quoted “I love you” came from a fucking Tom Cruise movie.

“You complete me.”

Any Shel Silverstein fan (yes I am!) knows the search for what completes us is inherent in our souls. But Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger? Ugh. And everyone remembers the line, but when was the last time you watched that movie? He didn’t come up with that line. He stole it. Off of another couple. And the guy saying it was deaf. And Tom Cruise made fun of him before Renee translated the sign language. So basically, the biggest “I Love You” came from a movie starring a creepy borderline midget who makes fun of deaf people and then steals their eloquent way of saying “I’m better at life when you’re around” so he can re-bag a woman who looks like she’s either looking at an eclipse, sucking on a Tear Jerker (hey kids, remember those??!!) or walking through a really potent fart. Actually, her look is really all three. And then she rifles back “You had me at hello,” meaning “It doesn’t matter what you say or why you came back…I’m so desperate that just you walking through that door washes away how you mistreated me, what with you being attractive and wealthy and me being a mousy-at-best single mom who lives with her kid and sister and has weekly bitch sessions about why the boys on the playground don’t want us with some other dumpy broads.”Anyway, what kind of lesson is that?

The only movie as big as “Jerry McGuire”  when I was in high school was “Titanic.” A poor kid bangs a rich girl and gets to act rich for a day or two, at which point the boat sinks, the poor kid drowns after getting the rich girl safely onto some floating wood, and she lives a long, fulfilling life with her rich friends while smiling about that poor kid she had sex with once. You know what that teaches me about love? Nothing. What it did teach me was that no matter how fulfilling life is that, from age 16-22, rich girls love to disappoint their fathers…and I lived in an affluent suburb and later went to a private University where I drank a lot and was in a band. Awesommmmmme!

**ShamWows are awesome, but that sales guy kinda scares me. He’s like the guy at bar close when everybody’s hammered comes over to your house and starts doing lines off the coffee table and talking about how much he wants to fight a ninja or cook you an omelet while you’re just trying to pass out. And what’s with the Britney mic? Talking out of the side of your mouth like that makes you look like you had a bout of Bell’s Palsy.

So let’s recount: My parents didn’t work out, the movies I grew up on offered me no realistic help. I read a lot, but I read too much nonfiction and Vonnegut/Thompson/Klosterman. It sours me. I just switched to MusicHD on cable, and there’s Dashboard Confessional singing “Screaming Infidelities.” Incidentally, I think their singer Chris Carrabba is much too pretty to really be that unhappy…but therein lies love’s rub. The search for love can even make the prettiest of the pretty, the modellest of the models cry in their cocaine and lettuce lunches.

You wanna know why weird art house movies and discordant (that word should have the root “chord” in it, but spellchecker disagrees), indie bands flourish? There’s so much money to be made off of people’s hope that somehow, some way, someone out there will figure it out for them, and the lesser known and more obscure the better because then there’s a greater chance of it being their own personal truth. Everyone wants someone else to do the leg work for them; tell them how to figure the tough stuff out so their love won’t be so hard. Well, that and some people have shitty taste.

**Boondock Saints was a good movie, but does not deserve the “Greatest Of All Time” status that it’s legions of fans give it. I know, “Da boiys arr from Oierland ahnd ya haff ta cheer for da boiys when derr foitin’ fer der honor”, but Willam Dafoe’s detective being gay is the most unneeded plot twist in history, and the story’s not that great. It’s good, but I’ll take “Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels” or “Snatch” any day over “Boondock Saints.”

You should see the lengths I’ve gone to in my quest to find a song for our wedding! Let me put it to you this way, the singer’s so unknown that I sent him a message on myspace and he personally wrote back. With notes and ideas. Now I’m not a guy who sat and dreamed of a wedding, but when it comes to the music you KNOW I take it too seriously, and after having 2 of my personal faves sniped by friends, I had to go off the radar.

I don’t think we ever really figure out love until we’re in it, and even then it’s hard to explain. Right now, if you asked me, I’d tell you that love is holding back from smothering Emily with a pillow while we watched a horror movie. She has the flu, and I spent my day off taking care of her, cooking food for her and running to the store to get her everything she needs...things which she would do for me and I really enjoy doing. She wanted to watch “The Strangers,” a tense, creepy thriller based totally on the premise of surprise, and then coughed violently through the entire thing. She was like an added layer of “Holyshitthatscaredthecrapoutofme!!!” going on in addition to the movie. Like her virus was aware of the plot and forced her to cough every time it was tense and something was about to happen.

**John Cougar Mellencamp has a son named Justice. Justice Cougar Mellencamp. Fucking phenomenal. I bet his cum is 100% eagle sperm. Taste the freedom, ladies.

But if you asked her, I bet there’d be a part of her that wanted to say love is not killing me after she woke up this morning to find me sleeping in my winter coat and boxers (JUST my winter coat and boxers) on the couch and a pile of puke in the middle of the living room floor, about 7 feet away from where I was sleeping. It was the first time I’ve puked from drinking in like 5 years, not counting the time Wes Yoakam accidentally put a cigarette out in my beer and I drank it until the butt hit my lip, so you know the state I must’ve been in upon arriving home. She definitely made me clean it up wearing what I was wearing, but that’s love not hating on me all day for it.

So if I had to say something, I guess I’d say this: Love is the act in its entirety. Love isn’t just the vacation, it’s the year of saving and penny pinching leading up to it. It isn’t the awesome concert, it’s the line you waited in for tickets (before the refresh button ruined it) and the traffic you waited in to get there. Love isn’t just listening to “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, it’s the painstakingly long nights in the studio recording it, and the mental breakdown Brian Wilson had because of it. Love is work. Love is a job--but love is also the paycheck.

What do you think out there?

So it’s been a little while…

Since I last blogged, I’ve filmed my first music video, I took a shot of Vietnamese liquor that was seasoned with cobra and scorpion venom, and we (thankfully) elected our first African American president. For those of you that are Lindsay Lohan fans, that’s the socially acceptable way to say your word “colored.”

I also was the roastmaster for John Fierro’s 30^th birhday roast. For those of you that couldn’t be there, it was fantastic. It turns out that although I’ve lost weight, I’m still fat. Also, it has occurred to others that no one really knows what I do for money at bars. I have DVD proof if anybody wants to see it, but I’m gonna need at least 37 more views before I give it up.

After doing that rosat, I’m fully convinced that I need to get back up and start doing comedy again. It’s so addicting, hearing that laugh. People talk about the first time they do heroin feeling this intense, beautiful warm glow wash over them. That is how getting your first big laugh feels. I can only hope now that I’ll become a prolific comedian, delve deeper into my need for laughs, become a self-loathing celebrity because of it, and end up blowing my head off in my Seattle greenhouse with a shotgun my wife and best friend bought for me. Listen to me now class, laughter is harder to kick than cigarettes DIPPED in heroin.

So in the past month, I’ve found out that more than one friend of mine is in an open relationship/marriage. It’s weird. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do what makes you happy, and I know that all of my desires are not of the purest kind, but I think it’s weird when you bring your friends into the openness. Your friends are there to talk to, get advice from, hang out with, and say the offensive thing to that could normally get you arrested in 17 states and Puerto Rico. But there’s a layer of stuff you share with your spouse and your diary and your confessor. That is it. When you bring friends into it, things get weird…because once something is out there, as Eddie Vedder said, “Some words when spoken, can’t be taken back.”

My Sex And The City ladies will know this as the butt sex quandary (Yes guys, I’ve watched every episode of Sex and the City, and it wasn’t bad. Fuck off.). When a boyfriend throws the “let’s try anal” question out there, if it doesn’t go over well it will remain a dark cloud looming over a relationship until one of them breaks. It remains that card-up-the-sleeve that either person can play when they’re out of points in a fight and want to go for blood. She can play the “You’re just mad because I won’t…” or the even more dreaded “Well you’re the  sick freak who wanted to…,” and he can also bring the pain with a “If you weren’t so repressed maybe I wouldn’t be so sick of you…”

So as a friend, when you tell me that you and your husband are in an open relationship so you can sleep with anyone you want, I don’t want to be around you anymore. It’s not that I think I’m that unstoppably desirable (even though I totally am), it’s more that I don’t feel the same. Now when you’re shitfaced and you put your arm around me and say “I love you so much, Ben!” It’s not the platonic, safe kind I hear. It’s the “I’m sad and need someone else’s penis to take that momentarily away,” kind. The kisses on the lips that used to be friendship pecks now seem gross, all of it.

I can go on about how I think that “open relationships” are usually only open for one person and it’s the mix of codependence and emotional abuse that keeps it together, but I don’t really want to go on about it. To put it best, it’s like our friendship was a steak, and your open relationship admission was a big, steaming poop on top of it. You can eat around it if you really want, where it’s not touching, but you’ll still know that you’re kinda eating poop.

For the record, I don’t like eating poop.

That does remind me, I got to overhear another one of the greatest sentences ever spoken last week. I was walking through Block E in downtown (site of the most beautiful visual ever, “The Fat Girl Crying While Eating Delicious Ice Cream”) and two VERY heavy African American women were eating. One pulled out a big piece of cake and, sans silverware, just grabbed it and started stuffing it in here cavernous jaws. As she forcefully two-fingered the cake into her mouth like she was shoving a pillow into a 20 oz water bottle, the other woman exclaimed, “Ooh Ida Mae! You eat dat cake gurrl!!!”

Ahh. For all the Ike and Tina (nee’ Ida Mae) jokes that my friends and I have made, it just felt so right to hear in that situation.

“Oooh Ida Mae!!”

Sometimes I wish I was a morbidly obese black woman, just so I could say things like that correctly. Sigh.

The premiere of the music video “You’re The Terrorist Pilot Of My Heart’s Airplane (My 9/11 Girl)” by my band Schaivo Hungry will be on Thanksgiving Eve at the Ugly Mug/Dive Bar 10pm CT. If you cannot make it to the Black Wednesday party that night, search it on youtube.com, break.com, or funnyordie.com on Thanksgiving Day. Show your family, send the link to friends, then tell everyone you know.

 I’m gonna need about 15 minutes…

BQ

Update Q-Point-Oh!

First of all, let me get this off my chest. I think the vocals on David Archuletta's song "Crush" are sublime. That song makes me wish I was back in high school, making up reasons to call Her. Chris Brown's "Forever" has the same effect on me, but Archuletta's vocals sound more…honest? Is that possible for a kid who's a product of the PR Juggernaut that is Americal Idol? That show makes stars out of nobodies better than the Hiltons, the Lohans, and the Hills put together. Listen to "Crush" and smile about someone from back in the days when we could pass notes and extra credit could fix everything. 

Second, let me update you on why I've been so absent. I love writing as most of you know, but I'd love it even more if I could get paid for it. So I've finally sacked up and started putting together things that could really sell. My first project starts filming a week from tomorrow, and your homework sometime in the next month will be to watch the video. I'm going Funnyordie.com, youtube.com, and break.com. It's prime BQ offensiveness, but more than anything I've ever done, I'm really proud of this baby. It feels good to be doing something that I think has a chance…unfortunately it doesn't leave me a lot of time to blog. I'll try and be better.

Quietdrive's CD release party was last Thursday night, and words don't begin to describe how proud I am of them and their new album. Everyone should buy it and then buy a copy of it for everyone they know for Xmas…CDs make great stocking-stuffers!! Also, buy Kings Of Leon's new CD. It's delicious. 

It was pointed out to me last week by Jeremy Hoyle how odd it is that I've been so quiet about the election. Here is why:

In the year 2000 I was a junior at St. John's University, and a major in Political Science. There was not a minute leading up to the election that I wasn't running my mouth about how there was "nofuckingway the American people are stupid enough to elect George Bush. " 

And they were.

Then, in 2004, I did the same thing. I made an election night CD, we hosted a party at the Lodge, I volunteered to work a call center leading up to it, and again, I ran my mouth all autumn about how "there was absofuckinglutely nofuckingway that the American people are stupid enough to reelect George Bush."

And they were.

So this year, they can't reelect him. Yay. I really like Barack Obama (but I am slightly apprehensive) and I don't hate John McCain. But just when I was thinking, "Wow, we actually have two candidates that I don't despise," the Republican Party pulled a Bush on me and picked Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin does for intelligent women what gangstas on the corner of 7th and Hennepin do for my black friends, and the worst part is that she uses the eame excuse gangbangers use to the cops. If they arrest a gangbanger, they all shout racism. When she gets exposed for her stupidity she cries sexism. Her masking of incompetence with folksy remarks appealing to idiots makes me want to throw up. And unfortunately, it's also brilliant. I'll explain…

Fiscal conservatism appeals to the independent and capitalist ideals that America was founded on and has thrived because of. Social liberalism appeals to the society-minded intellectuals that believe that our world cannot move forward without all of us moving forward; including the poor, the sick, and those in need of help. They both are good, and can coexist forming a centrist policy that can appease both. The problem is that social liberalism got linked with lobbyists and greedy politicians that see pocket lining in every government policy they fund, and fiscal conservatism got a mix of stupid and god. 

What no politician will admit is that Americans are fucking stupid. You think this financial meltdown came out of nowhere? Ask anyone, ANYONE, who knows about real estate for their thoughts on subprime morgages. We let this happen. You thought we'd really be in and out of Iraq, waving our flag to Lee Greenwood, when they haven't had lasting peace there in 4,000 years? We as a nation are unfit to govern ourselves, which is why we must pick people to do it for us. The problem is most people in America don't want to learn, don't want to read, and don't want to NEED to pay attention.

Propaganda chiefs throughout history have recognized that the key to victory lies in the sheep. Whether they're running a church or a mosque, a kingdom or a nation, the idiots are the key to power. The true intellectuals will split generally down the middle because they recognize that you need a little of both conservative AND liberal to really make it work. But the greed that festers on both sides want us to polarize, thereby creating sides. What Sarah Palin does (and why this may be a brilliant move for Republicans) is pit the masses against the intellectuals. By patching together religious fervor with "Aw shucks, I ain't one of those smart fellas in Washington" with a pinch of animosity for the rest of the world, it's like blood in the water for the Stupidshark. 

I was on the BBC website yesterday, and they were playing a clip of people shouting "TERRORIST" and worse at every drop of Obama's name thanks to Ms. Palin. The rest of the world is watching, waiting, and saying "They reelected that idiot twice, but there's absitively posilutely fuckingnofuckingway they're going to put this 'tard in office…will they?"

So I guess this election, my superstitions are getting the best of me and I figured if I only speak about it to those that ask and keep it out of my blogs, maybe I'll get lucky and for once America will stand up and recognise that stupidity is NOT a virtue, and keep folksy for your friends and family.

But I should admit also stealing time from me in the blogoshpere is my new job. I took a managerial position with Premiere Restaurants, and am currently working at turning The Ugly Mug and Dive Bar downtown into a force to be reckoned with. I'm also still booking bands for  the Milwaukee Bootleggers, and traveling there once a month to make sure they keep crushing like they are. 

It's been a really great experience working with people that care about success and about the people that bring that success. I was driving with Em the other day and I realized that I've never worked harder but also never been happier at work than I am right now. 

Lest that lesson be lost on me, a certain company decided to remind me how childish people can be. Apparently, someone in the company reads my blogs and reports back if I say anything mean. So, when I was in Milwaukee last and wanted to go see my friends play some music, I was greeted with a phone call to meet their DJ at another bar down the street. He informed me that the regional manager had told the GM to tell him to tell me (did ya follow that??!) that I've been banned for life from all of their establishments. For how much I've drank in the last decade, I've never even been asked to leave a bar for the night…but because I referred to a guy as a coward on my personal myspace page last April, he had a guy tell a guy to tell a guy to tell me that I'm banned for life.

As if it wasn't pathetic enough, I was then treated to a string of text messages involving such classy statements as, "Maybe you should've kept your mouth shut…you made your bed now lie in it" and "I can't wait to come to Minneapolis and kick your ass."

Sigh.

To whom it may concern:
As my good friend John Kill pointed out, starting a fight because of something on myspace.com is like being in the Special Olympics; you might win, but you're still fucking retarded. 

With Love,
BQ

Dustin' off some classics...

Also, in addition to writing new blogs here, I'll also be posting old classics off of my myspace.com site. Not all of them, but there are some goodies worth revisiting, so periodically I'll throw one up just for fun. 

Here's one from February of this year, explaining the "little brother" theory I have about Wisconsin that I mentioned in the previous blog.

Remember Can-i-bus and his fight with LL? What the hell happened to him? I think Can-i-bus and LL Cool J are both fantastic.

Anyway, I hate this cold. This stupid, pointless, steals-the-breath-from-your-lungs cold. It's annoying, it makes things I need not work, and it doesn't bring snow; the only part of winter I really like. I know, I know, I choose to live here. I'm fine with winter, just like I'm fine with summer. I like most of it, but there's about 2 weeks out of the season that I really wanna be a hermit. Ol' Ben Kenobi-style, just wandering around in a robe scaring children. Maybe I should just do that anyway…

Inevitably it makes the first 2-3 minutes of every car ride a tense situation, with forced conversation, shivering, and the white-knuckling of fists inside their gloves (or mit-tens in the case of Em or Tina). But once it warms up, it almost turns any amount of time into a campfire experience, with deeply personal stories and sing-a-longs around every turn. I don't know if it's our subconscious recognizing that we all may not make it back from this journey, or just the valley and peak of temperatures so quickly allows our brain a boozy artificial high and a looseness of the tongue. Either way, it's always entertaining. 

I was recently on a car ride to Wisconsin with a 19 year old kid in the back seat. He is very naïve, very earnest, and very hard working. He's a fighter that's never won a fight (literally), and has in fact lost so many fights that his own family won't come see him fight until he actually wins one. He apparently also got framed for a felony arson case, but he totally didn't do it nor was he there. I had learned all of this within about 5 minutes. He had that Fivel from "An American Tail" quality about him, that "I'm-a gonna make it no matter what" Pollyanna outlook. I wanted to build him up…tell him funny stories about how we all have to fight to get what we want, and if it was easy it wouldn't feel as good, all that big-brother-he-never-had stuff to keep his confidence up. 

But all that goodwill went out the frozen window when this happened, word-for-word:

As System Of A Down was blaring on the stereo, this conversation actually occurred between me in the front seat and him in the back,

"Can we listen to some GOOD rock? You got any Staind?"

This is good rock. And no.

"Oh. Well, I gotta get pumped up. Nickelback?"

Fuck no. 

"Um, man I really need some serious rock-n-roll. How 'bout Limp Bizkit or fuckin' Skynyrd?"

No, and no. Dammit no. Oh, God, you're actually from Anoka aren't you?

"Yeah, why? You guys really don't have any Bizkit of Skynyrd??"

I'm in a music argument with a 19 year-old fighter that can't fight from Anoka while driving to Wisconsin, and we still have a half hour to drive. I'm getting dizzy from the smell of poetic justice in the car. I try to make peace by offering Fall Out Boy or the Dropkick Murphys, but he had no idea who either of them were. Sigh. 

I decided to keep him quiet for a while by telling grownup stories with my buddy G, and talking about the football season's conclusion. NFL, hurry back to me. I need you…and a quarterback. Come back with my All Day Peterson, my Williams twins, and…I beg you…please give us a quarterback. 

So we get to the bar in Wisconsin, and I'm greeted by that smell of bars past, the plumes of cigarette smoke and whiskey gently rolling out of the patrons' mouths like the breath from the players in a December game at Lambeau Field. Except it's warm and humid in this bar, and there's not an athlete in sight. I smile that my beer/chilled shot of Jack combo is only $5.50, I take in the ambiance of Packers/NASCAR décor, and I revel in the joyous sounds of Kid Rock's "Only God Knows Why" followed by Slipknot's "Wait and Bleed," knowing that it was the same guy who picked these songs back to back. 

As I do in any small town, I scan the bar for "the hot chick" to see what she's wearing, thereby indicating the kind of clientele I'll be surrounded by for the evening. Sounds a bit catty, but trust me, it works. You spend as long as I did in bars in Stearns Country, you learn a few tricks of the trade. Scanning, scanning, and then I see her. Like a beacon of light, she's sashaying through a pack of good ol' boys in sweatshirts and Wranglers (of course endorsed by Mr. Favre himself) to her pack of Kool lights at her table. And how could she not be confident with that cotton and lace top pulled ever-so-tightly over her black bra, "Muffin-top" handles just barely peeking out. And you need that buffer of squishy skin to really make that hot pink corduroy camouflage skirt pop like that! Girl, if there's a war in Strawberry Shortcake Land, your ass is hidden like Houdini (also from Wisconsin)! Far be it for you to wanna blend in, Mandi (or Kristi, or Kayla, or what ever name you have that either starts with K or ends with an I), you need to finish this outfit, nay, fashion statement off with a BANG! And you got it honey, those leopard print heels bring it home. Too-short white top with black bra, pink camo skirt, leopard heels. Wisconsin, you never disappoint me. 

I MC'd the event, watching the people cheering all night. Hip hop hats with black metal or NASCAR T-shirts was the dominant male uniform, and most girls had the imbalance of not enough fabric vs. too much skin…but none could hold a candle to my dear Brittni (or Ashli or Kimmi). The thing I realized that night, however, is that it's actually kind of endearing. There's no pretense, no acting like there's classier shit going on here. This is Wisconsin; like it, love it, or go the fuck home. 

What I really figured out is that Wisconsin is like your annoying kid brother. You can't be around him all the time, but every now and then he's kinda fun to party with. Yes, he'll get too drunk and start a fight or say something revolting and hurtful to someone, but sometimes we're all in the mood for a little bit of that. Sure it kinda smells in his house, but he'll let you smoke anywhere! Yeah, it's not really pretty, but you can get beer whenever you want 7 days a week! It's like going back to your favorite bar from college. You're not necessarily proud the next morning, but you sure had some good laughs, made some friends you'll never see again, and have myriad stories to tell your friends when you get home. 

So here's to you Wisconsin, my underappreciated lil' bro, we can totally hang a couple times a year. But for me, please (PLEASE!) stop telling your community college friends Anoka, Blaine, and Coon Rapids to come see me downtown. Tell 'em I'll meet them at your house soon, and we'll have a beer, a brat, and a smile. I call you later, bro…

Q

Bloggin' like a grown up should.

So here it is. Don't worry myspacers, I'll still copy these over there, but I need something a little more adult for now. This site looks good, I have trusted friends that use it, and I think a change was needed. So, in the aftermath of turning 29, here goes my first post.

So birthday weekend is officially over. Shouts out to George Lucas for FINALLY putting out a Star Wars movie on my birthday, but a big fuck you to him for making me so saddened by the franchise that I refused to go see it.

 

Instead I went to see Tropic Thunder with my dearest Em and almost passed out from laughing. I think that somebody in Hollywood has finally agreed that Paul, Steve, Jr. and I have the best senses of humor on the planet and movies should be written with us in mind at all times. Go see it, Robert Downey Jr. is scrumtrulescent. The fact that he gave breath to a dying franchise with Iron Man and then took this role as a follow-up gives me hope for the future of the arts.

 

Went with Emily to Pittsburgh Blue for dinner and had my good friend Drew course out a meal truly fit for a king and queen. Oysters, scallops, Alaskan King crab, salmon, and a 16oz. bone-in filet done rare-medium rare, all washed down with a 1997 Mersault and a 2005 Stag’s Leap Artemis. Shouts out to Scott Munns for introducing me to that velvet-in-a-bottle cab. It was finished with a carmel/brownie cake and ice cream with a reisling and a snifter of  Grand Marnier 150^th   to end the experience. If this is how I starts, 29 is going to be a really good year.

 

Em came through again in the present department, scoring with a trifecta of 1.) The Diesel watch I coveted 2.) A custom-made T-shirt that says, “I’m not your fucking iPod” to wear in the DJ booth, and 3.) The only cologne I can’t find but HAD to have. I gots ma work cut out with this one, good thing I have a start on her birthday already!!!!

 

As you may have heard or not, I took a promotion with the company I work for, so I’m finally not going to be working every weekend night. I can finally be a real person! I get salary and medical/dental on a group plan, and the joy of knowing I actually feel good the people that own the company. I’ll be traveling a bit more (sorry Em!) but I think once I get used to it it’ll be a great move for me. I’ll still be with my Maz at Aqua on Thursdays, but no more every Fri-Sat.

 

I’ve been succeeding on the weight loss plan but my progress has slowed slightly. Zero to 2 lbs. per week is healthy I’m told, so it looks like I just gotta roll with that. One benefit is I’ve been biking 10 miles 5 days a week, and really love the people watching. From a guy walking his 2 parrots, to hairy, stinky gay hippies, to bicycle polo (no shit, they actually play polo on their bikes with padding and all!!), to girls jogging in bikinis, I get to see it all and I get to pick the soundtrack. The iPod is the only reason that I am falling in love with working out. No one can bother me, it’s just me and the music not thinking about how out of shape I am or how much my thighs are burning. Just Kanye rappin’, “Don’t worry ‘bout how my wrist got so freeze, cause kinda like Doritos man that’s not yo cheese, and her friends is like Frito man I’m tryin’ to lay…”

 

Kanye, Common, Outkast, Luda, and Hov, please save rap. Again.

 

On a side note, I saw a guy running with a t-shirt from Oshkosh, WI a few days ago, and it just reinforced my infatuation with giggling at MN’s retarded little brother Wisconsin. It was the good-better-best 3 panel format. The first panel, labeled good, was a stick figure of a man holding his stick woman’s hand. The second, labeled better, had the same stickman now with a lady on either side and holding both hands. The third panel, labeled best, (and here’s where the shirt lost me) had a diagram of a plane on it. Just a plane. I get it, there’s a big airshow every year there, but did you really need a T-shirt that says you think planes are better than sex and threesomes?? Either you’ve never tried sex,  you’re doing it wrong, or I’ve been on the wrong planes. So idiot brother, let’s make a trade. You tell me about the neat planes, I’ll tell you what a vagina feels like. Are we even??!

 

Big ups to Daniel Tosh there.

 

Also as you may or may not know, I’ve been working on a TV show pilot that a friend and I wrote. It’s coming along and we have some interest out there, but for now I’m just crossing my fingers. Anyway, there we are at a Starbucks coffee shop dorkin’ it out and spitballing dialogue, and a gentleman with a suitcase sits down next to me. I glance over and IT’S PATTON OSWALT. Arguably my favorite comic of all time, and he’s next to me writing comedy. I’d love to write the story of what happened, but hearing me tell it is much more fun. Go to iTunes and search 7 corners podcast. I was the guest on the show that night and told the story, so download episode #204 and give it a listen. It’s free, and if you don’t laugh I’ll send you a full refund. I promise.

 

I leave for Milwaukee Wednesday morning for a week, so I’ll be doing some more travel blogging for sure. Holla atcha playas lata.

BQ