Sep
28
At some point or another, most TV shows jump the shark. And from there on in, you just know the end is nigh.
Our favorite programs, those that have stood the test of time, know how to avoid that one little slip. But if they jump, they somehow manage to pull on their big-boy water skies and jump right back over the shark cage.
Jul
15
Not having anything better to do when our electricity abandoned us, I took to social media. My phone was powered alternately between my Prius and one of our camera’s portable flash batteries. Pretending I was transported back to Medieval times, the next 11 hours went something like this:
It’s 4:34 am.
I call this time “heh.” I’ve written about it in the past, back when my digital clock seemed to be chuckling at me. Turn 4:34 upside down and it says hEh.
Heh, you’re not sleeping. Heh, those thoughts racing through your brain are going nowhere fast. Heh.
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ettie™, the Women’s World Cup Soccer mascot.
Here are 20 important things you should know:
1. FIFA stands for “Fútbol: It’s Fútbol, Americans.”
2. Soccer began — some say — when a group of Medieval Brits gathered together around a pig’s bladder to receive endorsements from Nike.
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May
03
The bright red tulips magically sprang forth from the secret bulbs I planted for my wife last fall.
“There ain’t no better time of year.”
That’s what I wrote to my college roommate who has been going through his mother’s death, a divorce, a job loss, long-term unemployment and then, whoosh, finally a new job.
We’ve been there for each other over the years. He for me during my insane sicknesses and now me for him. I tell ya, it’s great to give back.
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The trip was exhausting. We were behind the Iron Curtain and at the mercy of the official Soviet travel agency, Intourist. It was 1984. The Cold War was showing no real signs of flaring up or calming down, and my intestines were wracked with what I liked to refer as the commie crud. I sat in a hotel in downtown Moscow, across the street from an enormous statue depicting Russian space flight and all I wanted to do was bend over the toilet. I felt worse than the embalmed body of Lenin who laid in state just down the street.
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Mar
02
Jeff Bridges, left, played the Big Lebowski. Charles Bukowski, right, played Charles Bukowski.
I just want to say at the outset, that I’m not always as smart as I like to think I am. This surely comes as a shock to virtually no one, not the least of whom me. Heck, I don’t even know if I constructed that previous sentence smartly.
But what I do know is that up until today — the beginning of March, 2015 — I confused Charles Bukowski with The Big Lebowski.
I think I have failed you, dear reader. And for that, I apologize. In my “best of” movie list for 2014, I left out a film I hadn’t seen yet. Granted, it was released in a very limited run — later in the year and didn’t really hit the DVD/rental market until a few months into this new year — but still, I could’ve done better.
If you haven’t guessed by the title of this blog, I’m referring, of course, to The Lego Movie. No, just kidding. Though I did wait until 2015 to see that particular film, I encourage you to go rent Hector and the Search for Happiness.
When you spent forever photographing a subject and at the end, they asked you what channel they’d be on.