The Jean Situation

I know how pissed you guys get (NICK!) when I don't update my blog on a regular basis. The reason why is that I'm busy. I have things to do. Like update my twitter. And travel across the country.

At any rate, I got a text yesterday evening from my friend JT. JT is tall and can wear dark jeans. I, however, am short and anytime I try to do the dark jeans look, or the white tennis shoes look (I tried it one time, shut up), or the - God

forbid - sports look (this would be all encompassing of things related to sports: basketball shirts, football jerseys, baseball jerseys, and the ever douchey MMA apparel), I fail. Miserably. And I don't mean like the internet tells you how things fail. I mean for real fail. And failing at wearing wearing MMA style apparel in the vein of Ed Hardy is saying something. I mean, just look at the shirts to the right here. It looks like the walls of a tattoo parlor vomited cotton that informs us that "LOVE KILLS SLOWLY". As a marketing idea to myself, maybe I should inform Ed Hardy that while love may indeed kill slowly, bullets do not, which is what I think of when I think of MMA dudes. "Oh, I'm big and strong and can kick your ass with an ancient Brazilian fighting technique." Yeah but can you stop a bullet? Nope. Didn't think so.

What was I talking about here?

Oh, yeah. Jeans and fashion. That's right.

Now those of you who know me in real life know that if I were to make a list of my passions and interests, fashion would not be on there. I'm sorry. I'm just not very good at it. So imagine my reaction when JT said that there was this super secret bar called The Citizen that he was going and that I should join him. Something I want The Citizen to know: I'm sorry in advance if you guys get a bunch of calls saying "Hey... I wanna be in on this super awesome secret bar" because of my blog. I get dozens (literally DOZENS) of blog readers. And anytime I have to go to a restaurant or bar that requires that I wear pants, I immediately become skeptical. No, you dummy, I'm not gonna show up in my underpants (not like that's an option anyway) but if it's ten hundred degrees outside, you can bet your ass I'm going to want to wear shorts.

So as I was getting ready to leave my home yesterday evening and as I was desperately looking for the one pair of blue jeans that I own (I know, Sara, I know...) which I eventually found somewhere near the bottom of a pile of other stuff, I got to thinking, "Man, I really should buy another pair of jeans." But what kind?

There's the kicker.

- As we've discussed, dark jeans are a no go.

- Similarly, I'd say that white jeans are out. Unless, of course, I went back to The Citizen and Lionel Richie were to be there and then I could be like "Lionel! My man! Nice fuckin' pants!" Apparently, he has been known to hang out there. I'm not kidding about any part of this bullet point.

- Tight jeans are out. I don't want to be re-rackin' all night. Guys, you know what I mean.

As you can clearly see, I have but a few options. A fashion challenged individual who doesn't like fashion very much and is a big fan of comfort. What to do, what to do. Do I end that sentence with a question mark? Actually, that's not really a sentence. No subject.

Crap.

As a result of having worked until almost 7 each night so far this week, which I will not be doing this evening, I haven't had the time to remedy this situation. The jeans situation. Actually, I'm gonna call it The Jean Situation. Throw some capital letters into that sucker. Now it sounds like something that would appear on the nightly news. "Tonight... A young man ignited a furious skirmish in the escalating Jean Situation." Either that or it makesme sound like an idiot from the cast of Jersey Shore who, when you look at them, kinda look like they are a combination of orange, the aforementioned Ed Hardy, and regret. The beauty of having unfettered internet access at work and the boss taking a three-and-a-half day weekend allowed me to make a little headway into The Jean Situation.

And guess what I came across. That's right. The single greatest idea in the history of mankind. This is better than scotch, better than the designated hitter in baseball, better than the time Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopez burned down Andre Rison's house.

It's Pajama Jeans. Seriously. Watch this commercial and then after you stop laughing and start thinking objectively you'll realize what a truly brilliant idea this is:

Stylish? Check.

Comfy? Check.

Fits every figure perfectly? Check.

Two easy payments of $19.95? BIG CHECK.

If they make these for dudes, I am set for life. C'mon, internet... Don't let me down!

Teenage Wizard. *BA-BAH! It's only Teenage Wizard. *BA-BAH!

You know what I'm really good at? Staying ahead of the curve. Think about it. Who took 2 years to get an iPhone (and only because his other phone died)? THIS DUDE. Who thinks the iPad is still a piece of shit? THIS DUDE. Who has been driving around for the past three months with his brights on because his regular beam passenger side headlight is burned out? THIS DUDE.

When people think of me, they immediately think "early adopter". See? Despite my best efforts, I did learn something in Marketing 343 in college. Maybe it was a 200 level class. I forget. I wasn't really paying attention.

In keeping with my lifelong ambition to be the coolest, most badass dude on planet earth, I recently made a promise to a dear friend of mine that I would... Crap... That I would finally get around to reading the first Harry Potter book after years and years and years of saying that these "have GOT to be the biggest pieces of shit ever." That's right, I make judgments of books based on their movies. You do it, too. Don't act like you're some book purist. And after seeing the first four HP (that's what kids call 'em, right?) movies, I vowed never to see any more of the movies. I could never quite figure out what Harry was doing with that yarmulke [spelled that right on the first try, by the way] on his head and I was confused from their on out.

Now before you start breathing fire down my neck, I have two arguments for you. First, The Lord of the Rings books and movies are awesome. Secondly, The Chronicles of Narnia books are awesome and the movies look like Jerry Bruckheimer took a magical shit. There. I said it.

So, after 4 years of people telling me how much better the books were in relation to the movies, and after 4 years of seeing the same shitty-magic-broom-field-hockey-dragon-fight-in-the-sky-and-we-can't-talk-about-this-one-dude films on the screen, I vowed never to see another film in the HP universe. And I haven't since. Everyone kept telling me, though, the movies were crap and the books were so much better. I used the "polish a turd" argument and stuck to my guns. The Harry Potter movie I saw? It was called... Uh... Harry Potter 4. I think. It was back in late 2005. It had an obvious and tremendous impact on my life.

I told people that I needed to borrow the first book to and, as usual, the internet exploded with my relenting to the world of Hogwart's. Then... the comments, text messages, and phone calls started rolling in... All about how things really don't get going until the fourth book.

Wait just a damn minute.

Here I am, hanging out in Nashville all by myself, thinking I'm gonna get off easy on this assignment of only having to read the first TeenageWizard [if you're not singing the hook to "Baba O'Riley" you will be soon] book and then I find out that the first half of the series is "kinda boring". You know how to get me hooked on a book series? By telling me that the first 3 of them are "kinda boring". That's the best thing to do.

See? Soon.

Lo and behold, the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 is tomorrow in London. Coupled with the aforementioned promise of reading the first book and how much of an early adopter I am, I decided that now is as good a time as any to read it. So, last night, I sat down. And started reading. And I read the first half of the first TeenageWizard and this is what I've gathered so far:

- Harry's magic parents are dead and he used to live in a closet then went to a lighthouse where a magic giant told him to go magic school and then bought a bunch of magic supplies and then he got on a magic train and ate some magic candy and then wore a magic hat at magic school.

There. I just saved you who haven't read it two long, nudity-free hours.

No dragons, no unicorns, no lightning from fingertips like in Star Wars. This better start getting good soon - I'm gonna try to tough it out for a couple more books. But if it doesn't get better, I'm gonna give you guys a whole heap of "I told you so"s. Is that how you pluralize that? I don't know. And you know what the last thing you guys want from me? Yeah... a whole heap of "I told you so"s. Well, that and you probably don't want nude pictures of me either. But don't worry, 'cause this is Harry Potter and there ain't none of that.

So far...

Also, please don't kill me, Colby Pitts.

Soccer and pictures of women with short hair. Still interested?

One of the things they taught me in Blog Writing 101 is to grab attention with a headline. If there's anything that I know about America, which is quite a bit actually, it's that Americans love soccer.

Seriously.

What not to love?

You get to run around for like an hour and a half, kick a ball, eat some orange slices at halftime (because that's what gives you energy), drink some pop or soda or Coke or whatever it's called wherever you live, and then fall down and roll on the ground when someone touches you. I know, I used to play the game. No. Not professionally. The only thing that stopped me from getting drafted? Not playing in college. The only thing that stopped me from not playing in college? Not playing in high school. The only thing that stopped me from playing in high school? Being short, fat, and not having much talent. Other than that, I was the next Pele. He played kickball soccer right?

The older that I get, however, the more I appreciate the sport. I actually went to a(n exhibition) match at LP Field earlier this year. And, yes, I actually paid 60 of my own hard-earned USA

Fun Bucks to go to the match. The US men's team was playing some other country that had really good Mexican food. What? Don't all countries in Central and South America eat Mexican

food? What?! C'mon... Tell me how that was insulting. I dare you. Panama? Paraguay? Paris? Is Paris a country? It was one of them there places.

For as little as I know about men's soccer, I know even less about women's soccer. I can literally sum up what I know about women's soccer in two pieces of information. The first is, obviously, the cinematic tour de force Bend it like Beckham. Shut up. It's good. Shut up, again. I own it on DVD. Also, there was this one time where this chick scored a goal, took her jersey off and ran around the field and had her jubblies all a flubblin' and Queen started to play. Here's proof:

You know, if more soccer games were like that, I'd probably watch more of them. You would, too. Don't lie.

Apparently this happened at something called the World Cup. From what I understand this is a very big deal in the kickball soccer world. Like the Olympics and like that time I went on a date, it happens about every 4 years and everyone acts like they care. Quick, without cheating, when was the last time you watched a women's soccer game? That's what I thought.

And that brings us to the present. As I type, the US women's soccer team is up on everybody's favorite underdogs, the North Koreans 2-nil. "Nil" means zero. Maybe in that crazy Parisian language. I don't like being a translator. Since it's shaping up to be a rather slow afternoon at work and I have ESPN in my office, I've got the game on. I'm also (*plug) listening to David Comes to Life by Fucked Up. Sometimes my job is pretty sweet. The only thing that I can think of, however, is how much the North Korean women all look like North Korean men:

Good luck sorting 'em out.

So that got me to thinking: "Why do all the North Korean soccer playing women have short hair?" Does Kim Jong Il hate ponytails and freedom? The answer, as it turns out, is YES. To both. North Koreans of both sexes [hey! that's a palindrome!] are encouraged to cut their hair short "in accordance to the socialist lifestyle." I can't make this shit up. Actually, I probably could. But this time I'm not.

I'm in my office, wearing my freedom shoes, drinking my freedom water, and typing on my freedom MacBook, and all I can think about is these women with short hair. Some people call that a fetish. I call it normal. I mean, it's like if someone tells you not to think about your parents having sex, what's the first thing you're gonna think of? If you said anything else other than "my parents having sex", you're a lying commie bastard. Also, if your parents are dead and you were thinking that, that makes you either disgusting or a big BIG BIG fan of zombie love.

And this all started out with soccer.

Craigslist and career searchers

You know what's sexy about my job? Everything. Really. Stop and think about it. I have my own office. I work half days on Fridays. I get emails in the middle of the night that I am expected to respond to first thing in the morning when I wake up and I steal my neighbor's internet signal while sitting in my underpants (today my underpants are Homer Simpson with a Duff beer) and watching Scarface. I don't think I'm allowed to 'get' this movie because I'm not a hiphop artist and it is no longer 1983. By the way, when I did a google image search for Scarface, I came across a piece of fan-art that was the Scarface movie poster but it had Homer Simpson on it instead. I think that might have been a bit too on the nose for this entry.

One of the tenfinity projects that I am working on right now is a temp-to-perm telemarketing position. See, I told you my job was sexy. Recruiting and hiring telemarketers? You bet! If you've ever tried to hire a high volume position, you know that if you can get the applicant to show up for the interview and they don't drive their car through the front of your office building then chances are they are going to get the job. That's not a knock on the applicant, just a knock on the job. I wouldn't want to do telemarketing. You probably wouldn't either. I am going to let you in on a little secret: the best way to get applicants for a high volume position is to run an ad on craigslist. And, oh, the emails you will get.

And get.

And get.

And get.

I've been emailing back and forth with one candidate over the past two days; most of the time it has been while I'm wearing clothes. This morning, however, that was not the case. And what kind of email would prompt a response from me in pure underpantsian bliss? One that read the following:

"Stephen, I don't have a resume. I'd probably just quit the job anyway. Thank you, Miranda."

The first part doesn't bother me too much. Not as much as, say, Cher sitting on a battleship. I've talked to plenty of executives who don't have a resume. The second part [remember when she wrote "I'd probably just quit the job anyway."?!?!?!?!?!?!] probably won't inspire me to reach out to this candidate any further. And to think that she was merely a didn't-crash-her-car-through-our-front-office away from getting hired.

By the way, what the hell is Robert Loggia doing in Scarface anyway? His real name is Salvatore and he's Italian-American. He's about as Hispanic as I am. Repeat that previous statement and insert just about anyone else's name: F. Murray Abraham, Al Pacino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, etc... and the effect remains the same. It's like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with the lack of British actors. Screw you, Sean Connery is Scottish.

I know that times are tough. The economy has been swirling the toilet for a few years now. I know that people are having a hard time finding a job. I also know that if the only requirement for getting a job was not crashing a car through an office window, which in the case of finding a few telemarketers to work on the north side of Nashville it pretty much is, it should be pretty easy to find a job. As a professional recruiter (and judging from the tone of this entry, you can tell how fuckin' profesh I am), I would recommend not communicating to a recruiter or hiring manager that you would probably just quit. Not the smartest move. The only thing it's going to make them want to do is just roll over and go back to sleep in their underpants. Trust me. I'm an expert on these things.

Desert Eyeland

My friend JT came up with an idea to list your 10 Desert Island Albums. I'm almost amazed at how many of these have remained constant on a similar list for me for as long as they have.

I was originally going to post a picture of the album cover with every entry. That being said, blogger.com is shitty for coding and it gets to be a nightmare, so I am posting a link to purchase the records on iTunes instead. There, I just told you to go buy songs instead of steal them. I'm not a total jerk. Here they are... In no particular order.

Thin Lizzy - Dedication. I know, it's a greatest hits album and all. I would have picked Jailbreak over this if, and only if, the track "Dedication" was not assembled by former members of the band from one of Phil Lynnot's demos after he died and if one could find it anywhere else. It's easily the most badass riff I have ever heard. And I'm a man who knows his riffs.

Jimmy Eat World - Clarity. This album came out 12 years ago and it's the only thing that my generation has released that my generation still gushes about all the time.

Portishead - Roseland, NYC Live. The best live album ever made.

Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place. These guys and this record makes every other band in their genre (the post-rock instrumental whatever) look like total amateurs. I filled in on bass for a band about 10 years ago that opened for these guys and after the show I wanted sell all of my gear.

Pearl Jam - Vitalogy. The best collection of songs that they ever wrote. Eddie Vedder can tell one hell of a story in under 4 minutes.

Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On. People always talk about the title track being the one that they... well... you know. Best track on this record? "Please Stay". And for everyone who hates motown, I don't know if I can talk to you.

Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary. Jeremy Enigk can't sing. These guys couldn't really play. Most of the lyrics read like Robert Smith-throwaways. But it came out 17 years ago and everyone who is making rock music these days has this band to thank for having the balls to release something this unique. This is one hell of a ringing endorsement.

Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night. If you're under the age of 25, I wouldn't even recommend trying to listen to this. I know that everyone that loves Tom Waits and who reads this blog (all 4 of you) will say "What about Small Change, or Mule Variations, or Rain Dogs?" All great in their own respect but the stories in these songs make sense to me.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds. Paul McCartney once said that Sgt. Pepper's... was his band's attempt to answer this record. Think about what Brian Wilson could do if he had two good ears.

Original Cast Recording (London) - The Phantom of the Opera. My parents went and saw this in Toronto in the early-90s and I swear my mom played this tape for two years straight. A few years later, my parents took us to see it as a family across the border. I stood and applauded at the end.

I'm not going to reference that R.E.M song

Ever since I saw Roland Emmerich's disaster film (that description works on multiple levels) 2012 about this time last year, I have been afraid of three things:

#1.) Horses. If there's anything scarier to me in the world than horses, I don't want to meet it. If someone discovers dragons living underneath a caldera in Yellowstone, I bet that would be scarier. But we're talkin' real life here, folks.

#2.) Clowns. I don't know why anyone thinks clowns are great. Think about it. When I was you're the class clown, I you always got get in trouble. When you go to the circus, people don't want to see clowns, they want to see some chick get shot out of a cannon. When you see clowns piled into a Volkswagon Beetle, I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only one who hopes that the doors have the child safety lock engaged. I know, car nuts, that VW Beetles don't have a child safety lock, but it's my fantasy where clowns get stuck and those Germans engineers can figure out how to do pretty much anything. If you look directly to

the right you will see a picture of me if I went back in time and how scared I was. I'm willing to bet that if that picture was actually me, I would need to have my diaper changed. I look cute in overalls, though.

#3.) The end of the world.

Many of you who, God only knows why, read this blog know that I don't have much fear of anything; death and the apocalypse being way down on the list. Somewhere in the mid-triple

digits for inquiring minds. Way past "asking a girl out". Way past "cleaning my room". Way past "the first 90% of Signs." So it is with much bemusement that I find myself writing about the apocalypse today.

Living in the buckle of the Bible belt - hey! it looks like a belt buckle and it's in the Bible belt. I totally get that now! - I have seen several billboards in Nashville informing me that this coming Saturday is the end of the world. I'll save you the time of reading their really long article (I know you won't anyway) and just tell you that it's just based on some really crazy, fanatical Christian math. Or something. Christian math is cool. I won an award in sixth grade for it. It wasn't Christian math. Like, the questions weren't "If you have 7 paintings of Jesus and I have 9 paintings of Jesus and Joey has 12 paintings of Jesus, how many Jesus paintings do the three of us have altogether?" There are two answers to the question:

#1.) The mathematical answer: 28

#2.) Beat up Joey, split up the 12 Jesus paintings between us and sell them outside of a gas station. What makes him think he's so good, anyway?

No... not that kind of Christian math. I meant Christian math in the way that I went to math contests with students from other Christian schools and then beat their brains out in algebra competitions.

You know what that got me in the end? It got me into a really hard math class my freshman year of high school. It didn't get me chicks, which was hard enough to do given that I went to an all-boys prep school. It didn't earn me the respect of anyone in college. All it dead did was let me make a reference to Dead Man on Campus when I'm in my 30s.

So, ladies... What have you got going on later? If you believe in this weekend's upcoming apocalypse, I hope it's every worldly indulgence and I hope it's with me. A man can dream...

But, before you (dear hot single lady reader type) and I cover ourselves in green Jello and run naked through the streets because that would be both fun and sexy, we'd have to go do one thing on Fridate Friday afternoon. And that one thing? That's right... Go see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That's right, this blog was just a crummy commercial. Just kidding. You know what... Scratch that idea. No afternoon matinee. It's on me. That's right: PRIME TIME. You, me, and a full price movie - my treat. Well, you'll think I've paid full price, when in reality I'll buy the tickets in advance on fandango.com, indicate that they're for children and pay half price. Apparently, fandango is more about ticket sales then they are worrying about what kids are doing with their parents credit card and shopping online. And, out of the 20 or so times that I have done this very trick, it has only backfired on me once. The lady at Opry Mills called me out on it once. Her reprimand to me: "Don't do that again."

Yeah, I really learned my lesson.

Anyway, when Friday rolls around, what else would you rather do than go see that movie or worrying about what you're going to wear when Jesus shows up the next day? If you paid attention and have an adventurous spirit, you and I will be adorned in the aforementioned green Jello.

So here's the trailer of the new P.O.T.C. film. Michael Bolton is in it. Or something. And I guess it's got some Jewish dudes in it, too.

See ya on Friday. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Ryan Rado

Most of the blogs that I post are about fart jokes. Sometimes, they are about wiener [hmmm... "i before e", indeed] jokes. Or about alcohol. Or things that I hate. When I'm really on it, I'll throw in a joke about Michael Bolton. It's days when I manage to get all of those things in their together that I flirt with triple digit blog views in a day. As a matter of fact, you're contributing to it right now. Hello, advertising dollars! Crap, I should install something that allows me to make some sweet cash from this here blog. How does the internet work?

This particular entry, however, is not one of my typical blog entries.

Ryan Rado and I met each other in 1994. To give you an idea of what that was like, chatrooms were just becoming popular, Sunny Day Real Estate (you know, that band, that all those other bands that got kinda popular 8 years ago were really into) had just released their FIRST record, and Taylor Swift was in kindergarten. 17 years later, he and I are still friends. I was in his wedding. I am roommates with him and his wife, Christina, and apparently, there's another dude who has lived in our house for the past month or so and I'm pretty sure his name is John Williams but I haven't ever had a conversation with him. At any rate, Ryan and I have a friendship that has lasted (according to a study that I just made up) about as long as most marriages. It's a good thing we're still friends and roommates because I borrowed a sweater from him a long-ass time ago and still have it. And he has my Telecaster. I want that back, eventually.

The point is, I know this dude. He and I connect on lots of things, despite our very different personalities. One thing that he and I have always seemingly connected on is our desire to make the world a better place. I'm finally in a position to do a bit of financial good in the world. If any of you makes a crack about my New Zealand trip last year costing a bunch of money, I'll talk to you after you've done 40 weekend midnight wedding cleanups, logged thousands of miles in a van, and written 3500 trivia questions in addition to working 45 hours a week, Monday through Friday. I'm blessed (through grace, hard work, talent, and ability) to have a job that allows me to live the kind of life that I want to live. Yes, this includes my new pre-owned scooter (thanks, Patrick and Amanda). And, thankfully, I'm able to do something for someone else.

That someone else is Ryan Rado. For those of you [hang on, I'm listening to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" - I'll be right back] who know me or have ever stepped in Nashville, you probably know him. He has, for the majority of his life, worked through (I refuse to use the word "suffered" because what's that even mean, anyway?) several different afflictions: the most notable is Tourette Syndrome. It's real and the dude isn't faking it.

The same night that I agreed to buy the above scooter from Patrick and Amanda at RCC3's birthday, Ryan was talking with musician/artist/videographer Ethan Luck about making a video to help him out to raise funds for his Neuro Treatment Training. Ryan has asked a few people to be in the video that they are working on: myself included. At any rate, here is the trailer that they shot a few days ago at our house:

My Quest For Peace Of Mind (Trailer) from Ethan Luck on Vimeo.

Go donate. That's it.