it was a turn of phrase used to characterize me by someone who knows me well enough to know how true it is. (hint: my mom.)
unemployed, fresh out of school, as comfortable sleeping in then scrolling the net for blogs and/or job ops as actually earning a buck. wanting to travel before i get “old” and “settle down,” even as i realize that i kinda am both of those things already.
still want to party every weekend, but these days, “party” often means watching a dvd with a dog on my lap and my girl on the couch beside me.
what the hell do normal 35 year olds do? if they’re like in the movies, they just buy houses, have real jobs, wear suits, and…i don’t know, have kids, i guess. i know some people like that.
it’s good and bad, i suppose. it’s nice that when b. makes a joke about how old i am, i can make an off color (and incredibly immature) response using full-body gesticulations that would get you thrown into prison in most communist countries.
but it sucks that making those festures often comes with a loud popping sound that indicates that my hips don’t move like they used ta.
there was a karaoke party recently.
there was music. there were microphones. there was singing. there were korean videos. there were words that change colors as you’re supposed to sing them. and most important of all: there was )i believe the technical term is ) “a-drinky-drinky.”
it was great fun.
this is the result of such madness.
after waiting 19 years for the next indiana jones picture, i knew it had to be opening night at the alamo.
that was only way to do it up right.
they had special themed meals. i wore my fedora. (second place in the indy lookalike competition! i lost to a kid that bothered to wear khackis and a button up shirt in addition to the hat [also there was no actual competition per se]).
but the coup de grace–the touch that makes the alamo the alamo–was the snake wranglers.
hadn’t seen them since the ‘snakes on a plane’ premiere. it was good to see them again.
maybe it was the prodigious amounts of beer consumed (two bathroom breaks! i’m losing my ability to hold it!)–some would say so–but i quite enjoyed it. equal parts nostalgia and camp mixed with some serious action sequences, and bunch of knowing winks to the ‘true fans.’ what more could a guy ask for?
as birthday movies go, i’d say it’s up there. definitely better than ‘mission impossible.’
last saturday, a bunch of kids walked across a stage in square blue hats. they shook the hand of an old guy in a long robe, and they received a piece of paper. music played.
i wasn’t there. but maybe they called my name.
(although, now that that i think about it, i imagine they have a pretty solid system of removing the names of people that didn’t bother to go. the ceremony’s long enough as it is, without saying a few hundred names and waiting five seconds, noticing no one’s moving, and then going on to the next.
yes friends, i’m an honest to goodness college graduate now. should be getting my own piece of paper in the mail soon.
and on top of that, i turn 35 in two days.
35. if you spell it out, it looks like this:
thirty five. here it is with a hyphen:
thirty-five.
i didn’t bother to go. i’m old enough to be most of the other graduates’…well, not father, i suppose, but..you know…wacky uncle. i couldn’t imagine asking people to come sit through the air horns and the unpronounceable names and kids waving shyly at cheering parents. besides the ten seconds where that waving kid is you, it’s just everybody fidgeting in chairs thinking, “good lord, when will this be OVER?”
it’s a lot like church in that way.
instead, i went to the O.Henry Pun Off, where it was much too hard to hear, and had lunch at freddie’s.
i am truly a grown up.
psst.
come here a sec.
i wanted to let you know, so you can be in on the ground floor of this thing:
“ridiculous?” as a word? it’s out.
yeah, i was using it too much, and i noticed it’s not just me: everyone seems to be, and so i’ve decided we have to eliminate it from the cultural vocabulary.
in its place? bonkers.
try it. you’ll like it.
some people are wii guys. some love their xbox. everyone loves their guitar hero. i suppose grand theft auto should be mentioned. but me, i’m old school. my game of choice
best find at a yard sale:
oh, the good times that were had back in the day with this old thing
well worth the two dollars i paid! and works like a dream!
great for wasting time while actually meaning to do something meaningful…
lady at the bakery: “yes, we can have that cake ready in time. do you want it to say anything on it?”
in my head: “yeah. something clever. something funny. but not too many words. ‘my heaven’s he’s thirty seven’…but it’s korean-themed. hm. ‘happy korean birthday’? ‘my korean, he’s thirty seven’? doesn’t make sense, not that funny. doesn’t even rhyme, really. just ‘happy birthday.’ but with a weird name. ‘wiseguy.’ no, i’ll call him the janx. ‘happy birthday janx.’ but does everyone at the party know him as janx? better not. that might be weird. just go with his real name. yeah. keep it simple.”
how it sounded on the phone: “…yeah…how about…(looooooong silence, like twenty or thirty seconds)
…happy….birthday…christopher.”
yeah.
i took almost a solid minute to come up with “happy birthday christopher.” she must have thought i was brain-damaged
how’s my morning, you ask? i’ve spent too much time on wrongcards reading every card they ever made. you should too.
after all, you have to respect a site that WANTS to be banned (i’m doing my part, fellas, getting the word out) and has categories like “wtf,” “scientology,” and “in event of zombies.”
go there and lose an hour. your friends will all end up with humorous emails, and that’s always a good thing.
stadium tours are hard to pull off. the crowd is huge, and far away, and can’t see you very well. they can’t feel the energy and emotion coming out of your music or off the stage. for the most part, they’re staring at a giant tv screen, so they’re really seeing only what the director wants them to see. if they want to check out the drummer, too bad for them, cause he’s a speck a million miles away, but if they want to see how sweaty the singer is, well, they get a great shot of that. in essence, it’s pretty much like watching a concert video.
so when we went to kanye west’s (completely inappropriately named, it turns out) “glow in the dark” tour at the frank erwin center, i had an idea of what to expect. the lineup was prestigious, in a pretty contemporary pop sort of way: lupe fiasco, rihanna, n.e.r.d., and of course, the unstoppable force of rapstardom that is kanye. i knew to come for the music but stay for the spectacle. it’s not going to be an emotional experience. and i was definitely right. but even knowing that, there was quite a lot to take in.
the first thing i should mention is the crowd. it was quite the people watching scene. from pre-teen to…well, about my age and a little bit older, there was quite the disparity. there where white kids that had clearly walked from campus, black kids in full hip hop regalia, asian people; there were fauxhawks and mohawks and afros; there were eighties fluorescent polos and denim vests. it was impossible to pin down the demographics. which is a tribute to the music, i suppose.
i should also comment on the amount of times i heard the word “austin texas!” as in, “how are you austin texas?!?!?!?” and “austin texas are you ready to DAAAAAANCE?!?!?!” (and even a bit of “this ain’t new york! this ain’t miami! this is austin!!!’ to which i guess we were supposed to shake our heads like two years olds: “no! no! yeeeeeees!”
mentioning the city you’re in isn’t new. i was also to told to show my hands a lot, put them in the sky, wave (more…)
