RIP Casey Kasem

I am thirty-five years old. Being at the age I am, I was at that sweet spot when Casey Kasem seemed to be everywhere. Whether it was giving out Long-distance Dedications on American Top 40, or being “Far out, man” as Shaggy on Scooby Doo, I heard his voice everywhere. Sadly, I will only be able to hear his voice on reruns on Netflix. 

Casey Kasem has passed away.

When I was a child, I didn’t realize that the voice I heard in so many places was actually the same guy. I can remember nearly being in tears when he would tell the radio listeners a sad story about loved ones that could no longer be together because of various circumstances that were beyond their control. I can remember hearing Shaggy telling the gang that he was too afraid to go into that haunted house. I also heard Robin talking to Batman on Super Friends. And who could forget all those many voices he had on seasons one and two of Transformers? Those were my favorite. He truly was everywhere. He was a comforting voice that always seemed to be around, even before I was old enough to realize it.

There are few people today with the kind of voice Casey had. So few can handle voice-acting on top of a radio gig or vice versa.

While in the hospital, just after my youngest son was born a month premature, I was talking with a woman that claimed to be the biggest Scooby Doo fan. She had specifically asked to come to our room because she’d heard that I did a fairly good Shaggy voice. I was awoken at seven in the morning by her waiting for me to do the voice. I had to shake the cobwebs before I was able to deliver the voice. She clapped like a seal. It was awesome. She also told me about a Youtube video in which Shaggy used his “radio” voice. It was from a more recent movie I hadn’t seen. I went to the computer and watched it. The “radio” voice was Case dropping the Shaggy voice for a few seconds and speaking as he would have on American Top 40. I geeked out for a few seconds.

I will miss Casey Kasem. Even though he had been out of the spotlight for a few years already, and had even been replaced on Scooby Doo by Mathew Lillard (the actor that played Shaggy in the live-action movies), I loved hearing his voice. 

Rest in peace, Casey. You’re missed already.

My Daughter’s Three Days Grace Experience

My daughter loves Three Days Grace. Since the first time that she heard Animal I’ve Become on the radio, she has been one of their youngest and biggest fans. She loves all of the songs she hears on the radio. Whether it be Chalk Outline, Break, or anything else that the radio will play, you can bet that she will be there singing along.

Saying that she was upset when I told her that the band had broken up would be understating it. She was upset that the lead singer, Adam Grontier, was no longer going to be with the band. Even though both Adam and Three Days Grace were moving on with their existence, there was definitely some frustration over the situation. How I learned of their break up was that she wanted to go to a concert. There definitely was worry that she would never go to a concert after their breakup.

That brings me to two weeks ago. I’d been keeping tabs on the band, even hearing that they were going to be part of a festival a few hours from where I live. I couldn’t take her to that because I couldn’t get that week off from work. I had checked to see if they were going to be close enough to go see them and the closest spot was nine hours away on a school night.

“Have you checked?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I replied. “The closest spot is on a school night.” She didn’t look impressed. “You want me to show you?”

I went to their official website and showed her the list.

“See,” I said, then paused when I recognized the name of the town underneath the one I’d been looking at. I knew that name, but it took me a few seconds to remember where it was. When I did, I knew that it was less than three hours away and tickets were available.

I bought the tickets immediately as an early birthday present, but I kept asking her if she was okay with it not being the original lead singer. She told me that it was fine. We went to iTunes and listened to their new song and it sounded pretty good. All seemed right with the universe.

I took my daughter, as well as my oldest son, to the concert. We were so excited. We got there early and went to our seats.

“How much longer?” I was asked.

“Half-hour.”

“How much longer?” I was asked again.

“Twenty-seven minutes.”

“How much longer?”

“Twenty-three minutes.”

It kept going until the lights finally dimmed and the music started.

Three Days Grace worked their butts off on this night. Maybe they were trying to prove something to their audiences after their breakup with Adam last year, but they were definitely trying to make it a great show. They were almost perfect on their performance, and their new lead singer had a ton of energy and tried to get the crowd involved, even though this was a very small venue. For a band that was probably used to playing in front of thousands of people at a time, they played with a ton of emotion and energy for there being less than five hundred people.

I kept an eye on my daughter. They started off the show with the classic Just Like You and she was saying to me, “They sound pretty good.” They moved onto Break, and then into their new song Painkiller. She was rocking, singing along, and even doing a little bit of head-banging. My son, not the most energetic of sorts, was getting into it as well. I was enjoying it almost as much as the time I went to see Metallica. Almost…

A few songs later, I noticed that my daughter wasn’t moving as much and her arms were crossed. She finally perked up when they played Home, but that only lasted about half of the song. When Animal I’ve Become finally came on, I looked to her and wanted to celebrate the fact that her favorite song was being played a hundred feet in front of her. Her arms were crossed and she had a sour look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The music stinks.”

That was confusing because the music was certainly not the issue here.

After some additional prodding (and missing a large chunk of the song) I learned that what she actually meant was that she didn’t like the singing. She had grown accustomed to Adam’s way of singing the songs and didn’t like the new guy’s take on the classics. I felt bad that she wasn’t enjoying her early birthday present, but that brought up some other thoughts as they slept on the ride to their grandmother’s house where we were to spend the night.

We get so used to the way bands play their songs, whether it be in concert, or on the radio, that we take for granted how much work and sacrifice goes into it, and sometimes we feel jaded when our favorite band loses a member to break up or death.

Metallica has been far and away my favorite band for more than half of my life. When I grew to know them they had a bassist named Jason Newsted. I liked Jason. About a decade ago Jason left the band and was replaced by Robert Trujillo. I was angry. I liked the band the way it was and didn’t want them to change. Worse yet, St. Anger, the first album without Jason, was their worst effort up to that point. (I’m not going to get into how bad Lulu is.) I wanted Jason back and briefly thought about moving on to another band. In hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t. They released Death Magnetic in 2008 and that is my favorite album of the last twenty years. Great effort and great songs. Sometimes bands can replace the parts and be just as good.

AC/DC has seen unparalleled success since getting a new lead singer because of death. Alice In Chains fans have been upset since the passing of Lane Staley. Guns ’N Roses will never be the same without Slash and the rest of the non-Axel crew. Stone Temple Pilots and Scott Weiland have been on and off again for more than a decade and have never been able to regain the success they had in the mid-90s.

Results of broken up bands have been mixed to say the least. Nobody knows how we are going to remember the new Three Days Grace, Adam Grontier, or Stone Temple Pilots with Chester, also the lead singer of Linkin Park. 

There is also the issue of listening to bands live. It’s not radio. Not all bands are capable of playing their music well while on the road. I’ve heard that Elton John is horrible on the road, as is Meatloaf. I’ve only had the privilege of listening to Meatloaf from a few miles away. The words didn’t come through all that well from where I was. AC/DC is a great show, and most of the time Metallica is as well. Most of the bands and singers that lip-sync and can focus on their dancing are supposedly pretty good as well if you’re into their style of music. 

Not all artists or bands can be like Britney Spears and lip sync their entire catalog, but some of us want the same quality as the finely tuned songs we hear on the radio. Personally, I love live songs. I thought that the Three Days Grace concert was awesome. The Metallica show I went to in 2004 was amazing and I still have a recording of it. My favorite song of all-time is Fade to Black, but I like a specific live version of it slightly more because of the extra little bit of emotion I hear in the lyrics.

As it turns out, my daughter is among those who simply prefer radio versions. I found a Three Days Grace concert on YouTube that still had Adam at the helm and she listened to three songs before moving on with her day.

I’ve heard this argument from more and more people in the last five years. They want the radio version and will complain about whatever isn’t that. This is unfortunate and makes me wonder if we’ve become so jaded that fewer people will be willing to pay the ticket prices in the future because the shows are not what they expected. More and more young people are attempting to get their music for cheap or free nowadays. Torrent sites are still out there and being used, and people who are paying no longer want to purchase entire albums. They pick up the radio hits and move on with their lives.

Our cheapness could be the end of music as we know it. If we stop paying for music, as well as not go to as many concerts, there will be fewer bands and performers able to make a living off their craft. This would be very bad, but at least the solution to the problem if fairly simple to fix.

People, if you get the opportunity to take your kids to a live show, please do so. Don’t allow them to only know the radio hits. Expand their minds and show them how hard these bands work to make their fans happy. Show them that their are more good songs than only what they play on the radio.

I’ve started this process with my children. I hope to take them to more concerts as they get older and I’m always playing new music for them to listen to. Hopefully it pays off.

For everybody.

Putting the Chris back in Christmas

Yup. You read it right. I’m putting the Chris (Kris Kringle) back in Christmas.  I’m also going to attempt to put the Christ back in, but let’s take this one step at a time.

What has this world become? I know that I seem to ask that every few weeks, but it is a legitimate question that I feel hasn’t been adequately answered. I’ve spent much of the last three years searching for reasons to why things happen the way they do. Sometimes I find the answers I’m looking for, while other times make me scratch my head and wonder if we are out of our minds. When it comes to Christmas, I think it is more of the latter.

I’ve grown to hate most of what Christmas stands for. I love the part where I get to give gifts to my children and see their smiling faces. There is nothing in this world that could be better than that. It’s everything else that makes me want to scream incoherently.

Christmas started in October this year. Christmas music first crept into stores a week before Halloween, and I had the darndest time finding last second Halloween candy because my Wal Mart was already switching things out and creating seven or eight Christmas aisles, casting all of the Halloween things aside with a few days to go.

When did Christmas become more about the shopping than family? I love getting presents, and love giving them to other people that I care about, but I see mindless zombies wandering aimlessly through stores, compelled to buy anything and everything they see. They camp out on Thanksgiving, ready to leave their family who are sitting in front of the pumpkin pie so they can get to the store and pick up their next television for under a hundred bucks. They camp out all night, waiting for the next deal to begin. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this. Stores, stop coming between families. You are hurting us more than you’re helping us with your fifty bucks off that Monster High play-set or Skylanders Swap-Force starter set. Even if you were lucky enough to get that cheap television, is it really better than hanging out with the people you love? Wait, don’t answer that. I think I might become depressed by what the answer might be.

Then, when the shopping starts to slow a little bit, we discover that the Christmas we knew is no more. It started a long time ago when people started removing Christ from Christmas. Don’t run for the hills now that you think I’m going to give you a rant about religion. That’s not what I do. My complaint starts with that, and the idea that everything is revisionist history or changing the meaning of something just so it fits our needs. People try their hardest to remove religion from every aspect of their lives, and Christmas was getting in the way of that. Yoink. Get it outta here.

I have a bigger complaint about getting the big fat man out of Christmas. Since when are we trying to remove Santa Claus from Christmas? That was a new one that I hadn’t been expecting. I went to my children’s Christmas concert and there was a whopping two songs out of twenty that mentioned the fat man. They tried to not mention Christmas at all, which is my next complaint.

When did it become Happy Holidays? Did I miss a memo? Yes, there are other holidays out there, but how many people celebrate hanukah or kwanza? The last time I checked, Christmas is celebrated by a majority of the planet’s population, more so by people in the United States.

The problem is that, like everything else, we’ve found another opportunity to make Christmas another opportunity to be PC. Being politically correct has become more important than being smart. Everybody is so worried about angering the minority (which is usually a few people that actually give a crap) that we alter things, making it worse. Removing Jesus, God, and Santa Claus from Christmas is part of it, and changing it to holidays instead of Christmas is another.

People who need raise a stink just because they’re the minority, I have a request for all of you. Please, before you speak, take a few seconds to think about the true harm you’re causing. Give a few seconds to think about the kids that need the extra little bit of imagination in their lives. We’ve taken most of it away, and now are trying to take Santa as well. Think about it. Please. Give these children the opportunity to be kids for a little while longer before it’s ripped away from them. If you got a problem with religion, that’s one issue that you and your God (or lack of God) are going to have to deal with at some point. Don’t take it out your opinion or belief on children that can’t defend themselves or know any better. Give a few seconds to really think about the cons of your argument before you open your damn mouths and destroy another generation of children.

While on that subject, people who tell young children that there is no Santa Claus need to have their heads examined. You’re idiots that need to be beaten by your lack of imagination.

I can’t change the world overnight, but I’d like to think that my words might give one person pause about some of the things happening. There’s a bigger message here than Christmas. You just have to read between the lines to get the message. Christmas as we knew it, unfortunately, is just one of the things being removed from this world slowly but surely, but that’s a different topic for a different time.

On one hand, Christmas is being expanded for sales, but shrunk as far as how we celebrate it. Christmas is more than a shopping day. It’s about family. Remember that.

To all of you out there, I wish you a Merry Christmas. My well wishes go beyond race and religion. I wish you well because that is the true meaning of Christmas. If you celebrate, I hope that there is something to do with a fat man in a red suit. Merry Christmas to all…religion or not.

Bass Ackwards Writing

I’ve been attempting to tell stories since 1995. I’ve tried to portray my most inner thoughts on paper, and more recently, the computer. I work on these with great enthusiasm and hope, yet I’m always exhausted and I worry that things will never be as good as they need to be.

As a part-time author, I have my mind go through seven hundred levels of emotion. I go through an array of thoughts that range from jubilation to all-out terror, and that’s within a five minute span.

What is wrong with me? Is this supposed to be normal? I ask myself that very question over and over again. I never seem to have a good answer for myself. I love telling stories, yet I hate every single thing I write, even when people go out of their way to tell me how good it is.

As an author, I’m supposed to show undeniable confidence in every word that I put out. I’m supposed to be able to walk into a store holding one of my books and tell them that they’re idiots for not carrying my book. I can’t do that. I’m not super-confident, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. People who are over-confident can sometimes get themselves into a lot of trouble for overvaluing things they’ve done or the products they sell. I’m the complete opposite, and I’m still unsure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

In the year since my book, Incarceration, has been out. I’ve heard nothing but praise for it. No matter how many people come forward and tell me that it is good, great, or awesome, I’m always going to think about all of the things I could have done to make it better. When I was working on the podcast for it, I listened and thought that I should have used a different word here, and added a plot point there. It’s infuriating that I can’t ever be satisfied with anything that I ever do, yet I’ve come to discover that many authors go through the same thing.

Unless you have an ego the size of Texas, I’ve never spoken to an author, or even somebody who writes, that is completely satisfied with anything they’ve written. I’m sure the great Stephen King would tell stories about things he wishes he could change about some of his books. In fact, he went back and edited the original Dark Tower book many years after it first came out. I’m sure there are others he wishes he could do that to as well.

I’m not saying that my writing is bad. I think that I’m good, but I can always do better. I wrote a book back in 2002 called Doomsday, and I love that book. I’ve gone over it with a fine-tooth comb for years, rewriting it completely several times. I finally got what I wanted from it a year or two ago after starting from scratch once more, yet I’m constantly thinking about ways I could improve it and make it better.

Incarceration has gone through many changes over the years as well. I originally released it back in 2003 and it was simply called Death Has Come, which is now the series title. I swore that was going to be the end of it, yet I could never stop thinking about it. It’s a good thing that there are fewer than 100 copies out there, because I scrapped it after a dispute with the original printer. There were many hidden costs that have me still deep in the red with that one.

I was talking with a friend of mine when I brought up the idea that I didn’t think that the original story was finished. He thought I was crazy for wanting to go back to it. I realized that I told a tale about Jason Rangle being accused of a crime he hadn’t committed, but I barely mention his multi-year stay in prison. I completely glossed over a substantial part of the character’s life. I looked at that story, knowing that there was so much more that could be talked about. I sat down in front of my old iBook and said that I was going to add something about what happened to him in prison to the original story.

It became the entire book.

Realizing the mistake I made was one of those moments where I could have smacked myself in the head with the palm of my hand and said, “D’oh.” How could I have been so stupid? I wasn’t. I merely had more time to go over the original story and make it better than it was. The story wasn’t bad, but I’l never tell you that it was great either. I’ve been told that it is awesome, but it has become my red-headed bastard step-child. The book store where I live still has copies of it that they sell next to Incarceration. I’ve thought about buying them all just so I can burn them. I would dance around that fire, sending them to that holy place of books in the sky.

I’ve recorded podcasts where I wish I could change a joke or have made a better point. I’ve promoted things and wished that I hadn’t phrased a tagline in a certain way. I’ve done all kinds of things that I look back and say, “I wish I would have done that differently.”

I need to get over it. I need to find a way to say that what I’ve done is good enough and let go. I think I’m getting better at that. I’ve left Incarceration alone, but I’ve thought about a few scenes and wish I could tweak them just a little bit. When I’m rich and famous, I’ll pull a Dark Tower and go back to do just that.

I would love to say that going forward I’ll be better and be a big ball of confidence. The reality is that, in this new world of publishing, none of us really know how it’s going to work. Some of us will break through and get big-time money from conventional publishers while others will be content being their own person and writing for their audience, no matter if they sell seventeen or seventeen-thousand copies of their books. Even a larger portion of us are going to fade away and become disgruntled with writing, never to touch a keyboard again, unless it’s ordering Pizza Hut online or checking their fantasy football scores.

I’m going to keep writing. I don’t know any other life. There was a time when ex tried everything in her power to prevent that from happening, rendering me a helpless pile of nervous crap, but I’m over that. By my last count, I’ve written 10 books in the last twenty-six months. I haven’t written anything in the last four months, and there’s been good reason for that. Essentially, I’ve been writing a book every two months when I have the means. I don’t intend for that to end anytime soon. There’s something therapeutic about it that I don’t want to lose. Even when I work with my four children, have a fifty-hour-a-week job, try to stay in shape, have a great relationship with my girlfriend, and record multiple podcasts a week, I still want the opportunity to write something new, even if the temptation to tinker with something old comes along.

I might be bass ackwards about writing, but I think most of us are. If I’m wrong, feel free to lash out. There’s nothing quite like a good lashing.

And for those of you that are like me: you may never be able to let go, but that’s okay. You’re not alone. I feel your pain and discomfort. I know what you’re going through.

I’m just like you.

A Vague Memory of a Bully

There has been a ton of talk recently about bullying. It’s all over the media. CNN, Fox News, and many television shows that we watch focus on the topic of bullying. Even in sports, we can’t escape it. There was the basketball coach that called his players names and tossed basketballs at them, then there was the more recent even in which Richie Incognito supposedly bullied Jonathan Martin, his teammate, to the point where he quit the team. There can’t be any person less incognito than Richie Incognito right now. I’ll try to avoid the lame jokes now.

I’ve thought a great deal about the subject over the last few years as the topic has been brought up more and more. I’ve tried to figure out why it is so reported on now. Has bullying become worse since I was a kid? I don’t think it has. Have we, as a society, simply tried to remove bad practices from the culture, as we had previously with sexism or racism? I definitely think it’s the latter. Americans spend so much time thinking about ways that they can improve on things that went wrong in the past. Maybe they were bullied as children and feel that the want to stop this kind of behavior for a new generation.

I’m saying right now that it might not be the right thing to do.

I was bullied as a child. This is the first time I am mentioning that word based on what happened to me. Was it considered bullying then? No. Is it considered bullying now? Your darn right it is, but that’s unimportant to me.

Children love magic things and the vastness of the world. All kids see something for the first time and think to themselves how great that is. Every single kid I knew in first or second grade wanted to be a fireman or police officer. I would be surprised if even one of them was one of those two things now. It looked like something that was awesome to them. I can remember wanting to be a bus driver because the busses had so many flashy buttons and toggle switches. I thought it poked like KITT from Knight Rider. I want nothing to do with a bus now. As a kid, I loved super hero cartoons and movies, particularly Superman. I loved the idea that somebody had the strength to overpower the bad guys and he could fly. That was the big thing. He could fly into the air. I liked him so much that I went as Superman for two Halloweens in a three year stretch. For some reason, other people saw this pattern and started picking on me, saying that I thought I was Superman.

I bothered me. I liked Superman and my friends and I would play as superheroes at recess. My brothers and I would play with the action figures at home. That didn’t mean that I thought I was Superman. I would get hit and knocked around. They would then give me some remark about not being made of steel after all. One guy in particular used to pick on me every recess for a year or two, just because of that, calling me Superman and taunting me.

This continued on for years, even as I buried my love for that character in a unmarked grave. I wouldn’t watch the shows or the movies. I turned to other things, but the harassment kept coming, as did those people that thought that picking on the kid because they heard he liked Superman.

It died down during high school, mostly because I was on the football team, but it was like nails on a chalkboard when people would bring it up, especially after a good play. The last thing I wanted to hear when I went back to the huddle was somebody saying “Way to go, Superman.” 

If I believed for one second that anytime I was called this that it was because they meant it in a good way, I would have been fine with it. The looks that I was given, as well as the picking on that I took, was at times unbearable. I hated going to school because of it.

For years, there was a rumor that I had broken my arm while jumping off a desk, pretending to be Superman. It even came up at graduation, while the presenters were supposed to be talking about things that happened throughout our school careers. To the best of my knowledge, I have never broken my arm, or any bone, by jumping off a desk or any other structure. I’ve had a couple of broken fingers and two broken ankles, but I know what I was doing when any of those happened.

Everything that happened to me culminated at my graduating class’s party. It was the last time that I would see most of these people for more than fifteen years. It was a bowling party and I was put into a group with somebody that I’d never really liked all that much, and I’m positive that she felt the same way about me.

At some point I tossed a strike. I heard from this girl, somewhere behind me, “Way to go, Superman.”

I turned around and said, “F*ck you.” That was all I said, and the look on her face was priceless. After everything I’d been through, two words gave me a better feeling than anything else I’d ever done. No amount of fun, drinking, sex, or video games, had ever given me the feeling I had at that moment. I was free. This was the last time that I was going to see them. My two words somehow liberated me from those horrible feelings I’d had when I was younger. They’re attacks meant nothing to me anymore.

She did apologize to me later on, and I accepted. The only thing I said was that it was pretty sad when these were our last moments as a group and some people had to spend it using juvenile attempts at teasing. I didn’t have to say that much. The other two words had already said it for me. She gave that apology and we moved on.

I’m not giving this confession of my youth as a complaint. Far from it. Looking back, although it was difficult to get through at the time, I was stronger for it. Now, putting up with the things I’m going through in my relationships, especially my divorce, I see that I am a better person for what I endured. Whether they were right or wrong for what they did, I would like to thank them for making me who I am today, a better, more assertive person than I was then.

Maybe that was what Richie Incognito was trying to do, but I think that he crossed the line. Only time will tell what is going to happen there. Some people can handle it better than others. I had trouble at times, but I managed to get through it better than I could have ever imagined.

To al of those people that decided that it was funny to tease me about something as juvenile as Superman or hurt other people with your crude attempt at humor, I have only two things to say to all of you:

F*ck you, and thank you.

The Stephen King Effect

As an author, I’ve had a somewhat difficult time finding new readers. For one, I’m not great at saying “Hey, look at me, I’m a fiction’ writer and you’ll love me!” I had a hard enough time writing the first sentence here. I’m a guy that writes as much as he can and hopes that one or two people will like my things enough to want to purchase it. My hopes have always been that those one or two people will like it enough to spread the word to their two friends, and they’d tell their two friends, and sudden were have an aids commercial from the 80s, and I’d be living in a mansion, no longer having to go to my daily job. Those are all fantasies that would never happen.

Even now, as I talk to people either face to face or over the internet, I find that most of them are amazed that I read, let alone write. Through it all, I find that no matter what they’ve done with their lives, or how much they hate reading in general, there is one thing that I have that I can aways go back to: they’ve experienced something by Stephen King.

My mother, who hates reading anything with the slightest hint of gore or horror, has read Stephen King. I told her that she would love Bag of Bones and she did. An internet friend of mine, who I recently reconnected with after 3 years of silence, has read that book and that book only.

When you really think about it, Stephen King was what writing was all about until Harry Potter picked up that wand and magically made us all fall in love with him. That spell instantly changed the way we view literature and books forever, but there was a time when the medium wasn’t being controlled by sappy Twilight stories, the Hunger Games, or Harry Potter and the Eight Movies of Magical Ecstasy. In the 80s, there was nothing bigger than Stephen King, and most of novel-reading America found a common bond in his stories. They thrived on ever word and flocked to whatever movie was made from any of his works. Even some of the ones that steered far off course, such as the original The Shining, became classics. I can remember watching television—didn’t matter what station—and saw commercial after commercial for the Stephen King Library.

Even years later, now that he’s writing sequels to The Shining, and adding a 8^th book to the Dark Tower series and telling you what order to put them in, he’s extremely relevant to readers and writers everywhere. Under The Dome, also known as the plot from the Simpsons Movie, became an instant success as a television show. The book didn’t sell as well as his used to, but the success of the show tells you about the kind of quality writing that is still out there, and that we resonate with.

I doubt that I’ll ever have the success as a writer that Stephen King has had. Then again, I doubt that anybody not writing tween books that get made into sappy movies ever will. Despite my knowledge that no matter what I do, I will never be that, I know that I can get through to potential readers just by mentioning his name, knowing that they’ve undoubtedly read or watched something of his.

It’s a small world after all. It’s Stephen King’s world.

Going Postal Publishing Has A Secret

December 2

Tough or Dumb

I’ve had people tell me that I’m either the toughest person they’ve ever seen, or the dumbest. I’ve heard that since I was in high school. I played an entire football season on a broken ankle, missing only one play when some fat guy rolled up on the other ankle, leaving me with none. I once sliced my shoulder on a piece of sheet metal while at work, just below the tattoo on my right arm. Even as I bled down my arm, I was laughing. A co-worker asked me why I was laughing.

“I didn’t ruin the tattoo,” I said.

“You’re an idiot,” he replied.

Maybe he was right.

It was at this same job that somebody told me that I should be wearing gloves while emptying large garbage cans. I told him that I would be fine, then went up to him with four severely cut fingers five minutes later and said, “You mean like this?” I didn’t get it checked out or worry that I could see down to the bone. I thought it was funny and wanted to share.

Years before, I was working underneath my car when my hands slipped while pulling on a hose. My forearm, close to my elbow, hurt. I went back to working but was being dripped on by blood, but I didn’t know where it was coming from. I pulled my arm back and saw a huge gash on my wrist, behind my thumb. It was two inches long and was wide enough that I could see tendons and bone. I decided to show my girlfriend by making a joke or it. She couldn’t look at it and thought she was going to puke. I thought it was hilarious. Even while she was driving me to the hospital I was playing with it, squeezing the outside of it and making it move like a mouth. She refused to look my way and called me a few less than complementary names for what I was doing. I didn’t care. I was making fun of a not-so-good situation. That’s what I do.

I’ve had back issues, hip problems, and ankles that sprain if you look at them funny, yet none of that compares to the pain I dealt with this summer. For those who’ve read my blog before, you are aware that I had issues back in July with a toothache. Most of my vacation was spent in pain, but I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize the fun we were having in any way. By the time we got back, the pain had mostly subsided and was gone soon thereafter. Other than a few moments where it would flare up and I’d have to take some pain reliever, I was fine for a couple of months. That ended two weeks ago.

I was supposed to be working on short story that night. I stared at this laptop screen, unable to think about what I was writing because it felt as if something was stabbing me in the brain. I’d bitten down on something at dinner and it was causing me excruciating pain, no matter what I did to counteract it. I took pain reliever, which was just enough to take the edge off and allow me to get some sleep…until three.

The pain pills wore off. I took another dose, but they weren’t working. I sat in front of my computer, doing mindless projects until my children got up to go to school. I called in to work, and then I started calling dentists.

I called a dozen dentists throughout the morning. I talked to some that were booked for months, and would get back to me if somebody cancelled, but mostly I was just told to take a hike because they were too busy and important for a guy with excruciating tooth pain.

It was starting to look as if I’d called into work for nothing when I finally got a call from a dentist that had an opening. I immediately took a shower and got prepared. I didn’t care what they did to me, I just wanted the pain to stop.

I went to the dentist and was immediately placed into Captain Kirk’s chair, only this one reclines. It was at that moment that I realized that it had been seventeen years since I’d sat in one of those chairs, and that had been to get my wisdom teeth pulled, even though I got no smarter or dumb by having them removed.

She prodded in my mouth for a while, telling me about all of the problems I had. She made me bite down on something so I could get an x-ray. I wanted to scream because that hurt so badly. 

“I can save the tooth,” she proclaims. “I can fill it and give you a root canal.”

I’m assuming this is what she said. All I heard was the sound of a cash register or the coins falling into the tray at the casino. She looked at me as a way to pay off that new car she wanted. I looked at it as if it wasn’t going to be me.

“Yank it,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yup. Just yank it.”

I really thought she was going to put up more of a fight, but she backed off almost immediately. She numbed me several times and then grabbed something that must have been her equivalent to a pare of pliers. She wiggled around for a few seconds and the tooth came out.

I should feel somewhat strange at the idea that I have one fewer tooth than the average American. I should feel as if I’ve become white trash with a toothless grin and a taste for moonshine. Well, maybe not the moonshine. People with missing teeth are depicted in movies as scummy, dirty people. Maybe I’ve become one of them, but I’d like to think I’m just slightly less than I used to be. It’s a tooth, not my nose.

I was told to take care of the area and that I might not feel like eating. Less than an hour after the tooth had been removed I was eating ribs and mashed potatoes. It was delightful.

I know that I made the correct decision about the tooth. I could have been stubborn and let her fix it, but that would have cost me way too much money, money that I need to pay attorneys and take care of my children with. I literally saved thousands of dollars. In the end, the bill was only $212. Even though that seems kind of steep to simply yank a tooth, I’m willing to pay it.

Even though I’m a little bit less of a person that I used to be, I’m living with a lot less pain…in my mouth. I can worry about my other painful areas some other time. For now, I’m going to enjoy the fact that I can eat what I want and not have to worry about biting down on something and being in agony for the rest of the day.

I don’t miss that pesky tooth at all. I guess that makes me either tough or dumb.

Technology and Fanboys

I want to make it clear right off the bat: I use Apple products. That shouldn’t come as too big of a shock to anybody. With the number of Apple computers, iPads, iPhones, and iPods out there, many of you are as well. I have no beef with you. In fact, go on with your happy lives and don’t worry about what I’m about to say. For those of you who remain, HI!

I was once a PC/Windows user. When I was a child, it was all I knew. My school bought IBMs as if they were being handed out by the lunch-lady. The teacher who was in charge of all of it had the vanity plate JIBM on the back of his car. His first name started with J.

I have always been interested in technology. I wanted to know how computers worked, even when the first program I learned had nothing more than a square on it that we had to make designs with. The teachers said that we were moving a turtle around.

During my junior year of high school, I signed up for a vocational class in another school. I would go there for two hours a day to learn about graphics and printing. I showed up for the first day and walked to my seat through a group of computers I knew nothing about. They were small, black and white, but had colorful fruit on the sides. It was my first time looking at an Apple computer.

I was introduced to the Apple platform for the first time. The old Macs were difficult to use, but we had two Power Macs with big, full color, screens. I loved using these machines. They were simple to use and got out of my way when using programs like Pagemaker and Photoshop, which at that point was still being made by Aldus, I think.

It was at that time that I became one of the most hated people in the technology world. I was a Mac user.

I don’t really believe that there are Microsoft lovers, Android lovers (when we’re talking about phones), or Kindle lovers (when talking ebooks). I think that the world is filled with Apple haters, and I think that they don’t even know why. I’ve dealt with people for almost twenty years that rip me apart because I own multiple Mac computers, have an iPhone, two iPads, and an Apple TV. I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, but that’s because I know it works. The entire system I use works well in the Apple ecosystem. When dealing with other people, not so much.

I’m the one that fixes computers for my family. I’ve had more phone calls about broken computers over the years than I deserve to have gone through, yet I do it. I fix their problems and explain what they need to do. When it comes time to ask me about what computer they should by next, I tell them it should be a Mac. They never do. When I’m asked about which phone, I either say a cheap one or an iPhone. They never do. Same thing with iPads, and I’ve had my share of people who’ve had their minds blown by my Apple TV, yet can’t pull the trigger when they want the same setup at me.

I work with a guy that is always telling me that he’s thinking about buying an iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. He flaunts his Droid and tells me that its better than anything Apple makes. There’s no need for that. I’m not disputing with people what they have is—to them—better than what Apple has. It’s the way that people rip on Apple and are so biased against any of their products and probably don’t fully understand why. The only thing I’ve told him that could be considered a come back or attack was that of all the iPhone copycats, his was the best. Of course, this was when Droids were still one of the better phones on the market.

The man that has been doing some work around my house told me tales about how he is anti-Apple, yet isn’t a Microsoft guy. In an hour long conversation, he really couldn’t tell me what was wrong about Apple other than issues he had with networking in the late-eighties. Last year he was bragging about how the Samsung Galaxy S3 had sold ten million units before launch and that it was the greatest phone ever. He didn’t own one and I don’t think owns one now. The only people that I know that own one have had graphical issues with it and told me that it’s not very good…but still better than an iPhone.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this world isn’t filled with Android guys, Microsoft guys, or even Sony guys. The world is filled with Apple haters. They hate Steve Jobs, they hate anybody associated with it, and they even avoid the produce department at their local grocery store. They do this because this was what they were programmed to do. My school told me that Microsoft was better and to fear the produce. I used said produce and have been a big fan ever since. They refuse to listen to reason.

I’ve used multiple versions of Windows over the years. 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7 and 8 have all been used by the hands typing out this important message. I’ve never fully felt as though I was having a good experience with any version, the only exception being XP. The only thing I can say about Windows nowadays is that it doesn’t have the spinning ball of death that Macs have. Instead of that, there’s a little blue cheerio that goes round and round, where it stops, nobody knows.

I find it weird that people get so passionate about their technologies. It’s the same way when people have their Xbox, Playstation, or Wii. It doesn’t matter what version. People will like whatever they are accustomed to and shake their heads at people who own what they don’t. I never understood that. In the 90s, it was Nintendo or Genesis. Then it was N64 or Playstation. Playstation 2 or Xbox. It keeps going and people don’t have good reasons for complaining about things they don’t have, other than they don’t know it or understand it.

I recently didn’t play a video game because I heard that it was nothing more than a Grand Theft Auto ripoff. I’d been hearing about Saints Row 4 coming out but gave it no thought because I didn’t want a ripoff of another game. Then I heard a review that changed my opinion. I heard about aliens, super powers, and other nonsense that left me intrigued. It didn’t hurt that it was ripping off EVERYTHING as a parody game. Gone were the beliefs that the non-GTA game was somehow beneath me. I gave Saints Row 4 a try and it turned out to be one of the greatest games EVER! I loved it. I played it every chance I got. It was great and I would have never known about it if I would have kept a closed mind about it.

Even my brother is finally opening him mind. As a guy that always bought the cheapest computer and whatever free phone he could, he texted me yesterday and told me that he bought a MacBook Pro. He’s giving it a shot. Will he like it? I hope so, but nothing is guaranteed. He heard me complain about narrow-mindedness all of these years and my entire family was out of excuses on why they couldn’t give something a try. I’ll try anything and have. Sometimes it works out great and other times if fails miserably. I bought a Toshiba laptop about 10 years ago because I wanted a PC for gaming. It turned out to be the biggest waste of money I’d ever spent, but I gave it the chance.

People need to stop being bullies about what they like. Everybody is entitled to their opinions and don’t have to always agree with you. Don’t yell at me about your computer or phone being better than mine and not have a good reason why. That makes you a jerk and nobody likes you.

Dealing With Stupid People

If I would have known as a child that adults would be this stupid, I would have never wanted to grow up. The insanity that we deal with each and every day has grown to immense proportions. It seems that I can’t leave the house without running into somebody that makes me want to scream out of frustration.

Dealing with businesses has become one of my new sources of frustration. Just going to talk to the cable company turned into a battle of nitwits.

I got home from work and the Internet was out. Nothing. I tried resetting the modem and found no improvement. Dealing with Charter Communications phone services is like having your teeth pulled with nothing to dull the pain, so I went directly to the office to see what was happening.

“May I see your driver’s license,” the woman says to me as I walk through the door. I show her my credentials and tell her what the problem is.

She goes online and searches for my modem, telling me that there doesn’t seem to be a signal. I ask them if there was any way that they disconnected me. I’m told there is no chance of that.

Their course of action was to replace modems. It was fifteen minutes before they closed and they would not give me a new one without the old one. I raced for my car, calling my girlfriend and asking her to disconnect the old one so it would ready when I got home. She handed it to me and I was off, heading back to the cable company.

I walked through the door and the woman asks, “May I see your ID please?”

“Seriously?” I ask. “I was just here five minutes ago.”

“Company policy.”

“I understand that, but I was here five minutes ago. I understand if I come back tomorrow, but you just watched me leave and come back. Do you somehow think that I left and became a totally different person in five minutes, or my doppelgänger dresses exactly like me and wants access to my Internet account?”

I wish that I were making that exchange up.

She was less than thrilled, staring at me with eyes that seemed more confused than aware that she was partaking in a retarded ritual that was wasting everybody’s time. I still had to show her the driver’s license and she still took the time to look at it, look at me, look back at it and compare the two. If there were a time when I would actually physically smack somebody for being stupid, it was that moment.

She handed me the modem, saying that would fix it, but there would be a technician that would come to the house at some point the next day to check everything out, then forwarned me that it was likely something with my wifi modem and that I would be charged for the visit.

I took a moment as I was heading out the door to explain how the system works. She was unable to find my cable modem, the one they gave me, on her computer. I told her that the cable went directly into that modem, then went into my wifi router. If it were my router, she would still be able to connect to that modem because it’s step 2 in the process, not step 1 like their modem was. The glazed over look in her eyes told me that she had no clue what I was talking about.

Fast forward to the next day. I received a call from my girlfriend while I was at work. My girlfriend told me that the technician showed up and found that my cable service was disconnected. Perhaps you remember me mentioning me asking the cable lady if there were any chance that they did and she said “no.” My girlfriend asks me if I paid the bill, which I had. We hang up as she tries to figure it out.

I get a call a half-hour later. It turns out that a technician read the addresses wrong. I live on the east side of town, and he was supposed to disconnect the cable on the west side of town, a house I deliver to on my daily rounds. He has trouble seeing and refuses to wear his glasses we were told. How is that an excuse? The house on the west side of town has three apartments, each with a different cable hookup. His orders should have had a listing of which apartment he needed to disconnect. A giant red lightbulb should have come to life above him when he got there and saw a hookup for one house, rather than three individual apartments. Nah. He disconnected my house, refusing to think it through and went about his business as if it didn’t matter.

My entire experience shows me that we are growing less intelligent as a society. The people that we put in charge of our services lack the mental capacity to handle their jobs. When they screw up, they try to pass the buck. Do they apologize? Of course not. Will I see any kind of kickback on my bill? Not unless I spend an hour on the phone, arguing with multiple people on their almost impossible phone service, just to get a $5 refund.

On top of all of this, I get daily mailers asking for me to upgrade my service to the television and phone package. My girlfriend gets a call almost every day, asking for the same things. They are showing me where my money truly goes when I pay my bill. No wonder cable bills are so high.

My daily dealings with people not knowing what their own addresses are, or having other people’s pizzas delivered to my house by accident, is at an all-time high. For the first time, I think that we might actually be heading in the direction that the plot from the movie Idiocracy says we are. If you don’t understand the reference, check out the movie.

I’m so tired of dealing with stupid people. So very tired.