Semi-Automatic Mojo

Twitter-Faced Blog-space AIM'd YahooChat LinkedInto RSS Feedbag

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:24:00 +0000

I've become overwhelmed with the various constantly increasing ways to communicate on the internet.

I remember a day where you had 3 options. Face to Face, Phone Call, Snail Mail. And the rest of our lives seem to be spent engaging in what was known as "cardiovascular activities." How quaint, an age where people were not electronically linked into everyone else via 124 different methods. I remember when email was a new idea.. now it's considered old school!

So I've got my blog spaces. My mySpaces. I'm Facebooking. I'm chatting. Emailing. But I refuse to twitter. I haven't looked into what twitter is but it sounds suspiciously like chatter from a twit. As in the chatter that has polluted our audio landscape making it impossible to concentrate on any one thing for a period of time. Stop chattering you twits I'm trying to remember what was in my brain a moment ago!

So I'm twitterpated, not chatterboxing. I'm not hooking into my intraweb via my mobile binary googlebox mechanism.

On a positive note, I have pretty much established contact with every person I have ever seen from the moment of birth until 3 seconds ago via Facebook. Also on MySpace, I have on occasion befriended blocks of cheese, bottles of ketchup, cats, and long dead celebrities. At one point I had over 15 George W. Bush's amongst my acquaintances.

What's my point? A POINT YOU SAY? We don't have to have a point to clutter up the information superhighway with our over abundances of ones and zeros. I'm just ambling along, weaving back and forth across many lanes.. letting ones and zeros fall off the back of my vehicle.. angry net pilots swerving around me, cussing me out using characters like &(^$&^ and )&*(^(!~

How long until I start blogging the frequency and consistency of my daily potty trips? Only time will tell. This is the age of information. We must share everything at all times, to the point where we no longer have any thoughts.. we just experience and report. It's up to the sands of time to interpret and understand.

My fingers hurt. I'm going to go eat lunch. I might have the Blimpie's Best, perhaps the combo. I'll let you know later.

Adventures in Moving: Chapter 3 - deBasements

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:55:00 +0000

OK so let's move on to basements. The thing about house basements is that many people ignore them and use them just like a giant closet. Hey, open up the basement door and throw those boxes right down the stairs! But I grew up without a basement pretty much.

Well kinda, it was a log cabin (for real! but that's another story) and the main house had a "basement" that was a pit you crawled down a ladder into that had the furnace in it. I mean you could edge your way around two thirds of the furnace if you were thin. It was in the main house area. There was this thin door off the main hallway that had a ladder that led down about 5 feet into the pit where the furnance was. FUN. It was always super hot in there.. no ventilation at all, and if someone was down there it was to fix a furnace problem so it was a real event. Cussing. Sweating. Panicking. They should make a SAW sequel down there. Or have they? I haven't seen any of the Saw movies.

Oh wait there's more. The detached master bedroom (again, I lived in a very odd house as a kid) had its own basement. The entrance to this basement was past a bathroom that no longer worked and down another ladder. Stairs to the basement? That's for wussies! This basement was kind of like a normal basement except the ceiling was only about 4.5 feet off the ground and it was never used for anything. It had this abandoned workshop in it that my parents just left untouched.. long antique metal workbench.. old nonworking furnace.. all kinds of swollen wooden drawers and cabinets with strange old time tools and rusty bent nails. Cobweb city! Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust down there and my parents would never let me play there at all. So..I used to sneak down with a flashlight when I was a latchkey kid (parents gone from after school until later at night) and get scared by giant spiders and huge weird subterranean bug nasties and have nightmares about it for months. I would go down there... scare myself, and then run all the way back to my bedroom in the main house (up the ladder, through the abandoned bathroom, through the master bedroom, down the hallway, around the corner, up the stairs, down the hallway, into my room... a marathon of a mad dash) and shake under my covers.

Mom at work, dad out late... pitch black outside... weird noises of an old log cabin and I just upped the fear ante by venturing into the old haunted basement and saw about being attacked by mutant insects and giant spiders! Yea I was a sucker for scaring the life half out of myself. I would do stuff down there like.. turn off the flashlight and shriek as loud as I could to see how badly I could scare myself. Bang on a cabinet and scream to see how many bugs came out at me..

I just got creeped out actually, it's been a while since I remembered that creepy old basement. I will continue this blog when I shake off the willies.

Adventures in Moving: Chapter 2 - Backyards Ahoy!

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:03:00 +0000

So, when we looked at houses.. I checked out the backyards. I wanted to make sure they were big, and they were safe. And as a rule I was delighted to discover they were neither. Wait I meant "not at all delighted."

Don't get me wrong, we saw some truly beautiful backyards. And, I became educated on local topography. Who knew about all the hidden hills in Plymouth-Canton?

We saw some truly awesome houses that had back decks overlooking streams and ponds... where the backyard sloped at pretty much 90 degrees and the deck was up hundreds of feet in the air.

Oh how delightful to think of my kids reaching off the edge and falling the mile and a half down to their death in the (presumably) crocodile infested waters below. But man what a view. If we didn't have kids, and didn't plan to, or our kids were both over 15.. some awesome awesome decks with amazing views. A few overlooked Ansel-Adam-like swamps scenes. Very cool. I would have been out there every morning and night, having a drink and taking in the excellent scenery. Have a latte with nature. Take some photos and sell them to postcard companies.

But, very much NOT the back yard for a family with two young boys.

If they didn't fall to their deaths they would definitely vanish in the swamps never to be seen again. Raised by swamp rats.

Another thing I noticed was all the back yards that backed right up to busy roads. Or busy roads ran to the side if the house was on a corner. We're talking... 45 cars a minute whipping by at speeds of 45-90mph. Not cool!

One yard in particular was the oddest. The location was right off the M14- Beck Road interchange and I mean right off it. The backyard went about 5 feet out, level, and then rose at a 45 degree angle until it was higher than the house. I'm guessing you could open up the second story window and leap out towards the backyard and hit the hill and slide down it into your back door. You literally looked out your back window and saw a wall of grass. I climbed to the top and looked down and it was M14 below. In all its glory. Hey, in winter, my kids could climb a cheap chicken wire fence and then toboggen right down to M14 into some 90mph traffic!!

No thanks.

Another yard was off an 80's house and you had woods. I mean.. 1 foot out from the sliding glass door, a thick nest of trees. A gateway right into Grizzly Adams territory.

That lot would have been PERFECT for a nature lover. I love nature, but not quite that much. Plus the interior of the house was from the 80's. I wanted my kids to have some land to run back and forth over.. so this didn't quite work either.

Finally, we had to wonder about the families who bought the houses whose back yards ended in a 10 foot brick wall where industry and commercial zoned mega-plexes lay on the other side. I'm not talking a shop or two. I'm talking a huge mega-building with 1000 spots, and as you look right and left... more huge mega-buildings. Like living right behind a Meijers or an IKEA. Our agent pointed out that some of these situations were because people bought houses in undeveloped areas.. and then the commercial zones appeared all around them later. Wow would that suck! Talk about a golden opportunity laying a giant sized toxic egg. Best of luck selling those houses! Yow.

Next up: Crazy Basements.

Adventures in Moving: Chapter 1 - The house search parameters

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:08:00 +0000

I'm going to talk about the various elements of our house search to help make some sense of all of this before I talk about the houses themselves.

Since it's such a buyer's market we had a lot of houses to look at, in various shapes and sizes and in various conditions.

I was already schooled in house hunting from back in 1995 and knew the things to watch for/avoid/lust after.

Examples of things to avoid:

House near commercially zoned land.
House on busy street.
Land sloping towards house.
Undeveloped land bordering house (could turn into a Kwikee Mart or a Sewage Disposal Facility).
House near power lines.
House in bad school district.
Basement shows signs of flooding .
Yards so small that you can reach from your back deck into neighbors fridge and grab beer (and it's a brand you don't like, to add insult to injury).
Ancient Indian burial ground on premises.
Necronomicon found in basement sitting next to dusty tape recorder.
Mogwais frolicking in backyard next to Chupacabra.
Giant swastika pattern etched into landscape that can only be seen from the air.

Examples of things to lust for:

House in excellent school district.
Street in cul-de-sac.
Low traffic street.
Far away from power lines.
Close to main roads.
Hooters within walking distance.
Yards have some kind of foliage to give privacy from other yards and look nice

And now the house itself.

My wife was concerned with the main interior..how many bedrooms, bathrooms, all that stuff. I was concerned about that stuff too, of course. But we divvied things up, divide and conquer. My number one priority was to scout out the basements and the backyards. Keeping not only our needs in mind but the needs of our two boys.

Often times we came up with different opinions based on what we saw .. a great backyard but a crappy house, a crappy basement but a great upstairs... awesome house, dangerous backyard or no backyard. The trick was to find a house where all the components were acceptable.

But wait, there's more.

There's the financial status of the owner in regards to the house to consider as well. We not only looked at houses that were being lived in but also houses that had been vacated for various reasons. Abandonment, foreclosure, job relocation, or the people simply owned two houses and were living in the other one. Depending on this variable.. things could be smooth or tricky. A great deal, no deal, a long drawn out negotiation, an instant sale.

To add to the fun some of the houses were foreclosed, others were short sale. Foreclosed means the bank owned it and kicked the ex-owners out. Sometimes the ex-owners trashed/looted the place on their way out. "Short Sale" means the owner owed more on the house than it was worth and tried to talk the bank into reducing how much he/she owed if he/she sold the house for a lower price. The owners other option at this point is to lose the house and declare bankruptcy and then the bank is saddled with the house. I guess the gist of this one is, the bank was willing to take a moderate loss if they could unload the house and no longer be owed money by the owner. Less work for the bank.

We couldn't afford to wait, we only had a month to find a new place. So "short sale" houses were out.. those deals can take many many moons to work through. One of the simpler reasons for this is.. the sheer volume of people trying for a short sale to unload their house. Stacks of short sale requests sit on overworked bank employees desks.. waiting to be looked at as time permits. And thats only after the owner figures out how to file the correct paperwork to the correct person. UG!

So we were armed with a battle plan and knew our individual duties. And off we went! With our real estate agent, who was a great person but desperately needed a GPS but didn't have one..

next blog: backyards.

Adventures in Moving: Preface

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Recently we moved. We as in my family and I. We sold a smallish house and purchased a bigger house, and moved the whopping 1.2 miles down the road in what can only be described as "a typical move."

But, anyone who moves can tell you.. there is nothing typical about a typical move. The typical move experience is packed full of bizarre little incidents and inexplicable situations. Local oddities and global phenomenon. You, your old house, and your new house make up a kind of Bermuda Triangle where logic and reason enter on various plotted courses but vanish from the radar of common sense never to be seen nor heard from again.

Our moving experience was no exception. So, I thought while my memory still functioned in a near-average capacity, I would share some of the madness for your enjoyment. Laugh at my pain, I beg of you!

What will follow are scatter-shot recollections from this experience, arranged in some kind of attempt at being semi-coherant.

Why Move?

I had owned my house for about 15 years.. having purchased it when I was a bachelor. It was during "the seller's market" phase of the economy. It was quite difficult to find and purchase a good house back then (believe it or not), and I spent considerable time looking at houses and bidding on houses before I got one. It is a nice house, when I got it it was a fixer upper of sorts but had a basement and a separate garage, in a neighborhood that was in a great location. Great school system too.

I met my wife, we got married, and had kids and fixed up the house even more along the way. It was still small though. Not for one guy, and not for one couple, but definitely for a family of four. Especially when that family consists of two strapping young boys who start literally bouncing themselves off of walls for their enjoyment since they didn't have lots of room to run.

My mom, my wife, and her mom and dad all wanted us to move. For years I heard about it. Finally I decided.. maybe if it's me against everyone else.. maybe, just maybe, I should consider the idea that everyone else was right and I was wrong.

So I mulled it over with an open mind finally and thought "yea let's try to move." After all, if we put the house up for sale and it didn't sell.. nothing lost. If we put it up for sale and it sold.. we would then find a new house and get a good deal on it. There was no downside to this equation.

Also I would finally buckle to the pressure and get everyone off of my back.

So we got an agent and put the house up for sale. We got ready for the long process of showing the house. We made plans to be gone on weekends for some open houses. The first people came to look at the house. We made plans to go look at some houses. We thought about... Hey hold on. What? The first people are interested in looking again? Fine, maybe they can give us some constructive... Hmm. What was that? They made an offer!? No wait, are you kidding?

We haven't even looked at any houses yet! By the time we go out to look, as we look at our first house our agent and the agent of the people who want to buy our house are haggling by cell phone. By the end of the day our house is sold pending inspection!

And so the journey begins, as we are still preparing to think about the journey!

Next up.. the frantic house hunt begins.

Today's new Expression

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:18:00 +0000

So I've been cheese & knuckling it for the last few weeks, busy with various real life events that tend to get in the way of what's important.. my blogging. Many of you have been left adrift, some turning to drugs and prostitution and cannibalism to help cope. But others of you who aren't named Vince have been suffering in silence in your own ways as well.

Good news. I have come up with a new expression for you to use.

"Let's not put a tuxedo on a penguin."

Unlike the previous expression, this one has an implied meaning already and thus is not adaptable to any given situation like the last expression is. Still, it's a great expression. I used it this morning and it got positive feedback.

What's the implied meaning? If you haven't guessed, don't go throwing boots in the lake, I'll tell you.

"Let's not put a tuxedo on a penguin" is all about not wanting to be redundant. Because a penguin already looks like it's wearing a tuxedo, you see?

OK. So off you go with your new expression. Expression(s) actually, as I forgot to tell you about the "throwing boots in the lake" one. Which has already mutated here at work to "slinging sneakers."

-Jack Francis

Cheese and Knuckles Primer

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:21:00 +0000

Yesterday I coined what I deem as the new phrase of the oughts:*

Cheese and Knuckles.(tm)(2008)

I've already put this phrase into use for testing purposes and it's been accepted with open arms by the masses. In particular, a few masses that I know of named Bruce, Glenn, and Matt. These are masses of human flesh that I call friends.

It's now being rolled out into common usage as of this moment.

So how might one use this phrase? I'm glad you asked. I have crafted a few examples of its use for you to study.

Here is your Cheese and Knuckles Primer.

Example 1:
Bob: Boy that was a tough game.. the Redwings were really evenly matched!

Jack: I'll say. They really had to cheese and knuckle it all the way to the final buzzer!

Example 2:
Boss: So, did everyone understand what Roy said in yesterday's presentation?

Jack: Sure, but it was just a lot of cheese and knuckles as far as I am concerned

Example 3:
Sam: We have to get this done! Jack is everything set on your end? Can you handle it?

Jack: You bring the cheese, I'll supply the knuckles!

Example 4:
Stoner: This weed is great

Jack: It's the cheesy knuckles, dude!

Feel free to use this, I plan to have Stephen Colbert get this put into the national lexicon as soon as possible. Be the first on your block to cheese and knuckle your way into coolness.

-Jack Francis

*("the oughts" are the years between 2000 and 2009, also referred to as "the zilches," "the zippidies," or "the null-o-s").

Adventures in Movie Making: Dont Fick Around with Questionable Festivals

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:41:00 +0000

Adventures in Movie Making Series with your host Jack Francis

Note: Updated (see portions in orange) on 04/15/2008..

As an independent filmmaker, I make a pretty good welfare recipient. I've "been there and done that" in terms of zero budget movie making. The experience enriches as it depletes your mind, your body, and your investment capital. I wouldn't give it up, since it's on my own terms and it's something I love. If I was doing this in Hollywood as a main career, I'd either be having much more luck or I would have moved on to something else. But I like it here in the Mitten State. No killer bees. No mudslides. No floods. No earthquakes. Not too many twisters. Not as many illegal Mexicans stealing your jobs, and our majority of illegal aliens stealing our jobs are Canadians which means we can at least share a beer with them and understand what they are saying. If someone is stealing my job, I want to be able to at least know their language. Err anyways so I do it on the side and enjoy every moment of it on my own terms.

Zero Budget movie making can be pretty fulfilling and pretty fun, especially when the experience gets surreal as long as you have the fortitude to enjoy the profession for what it is. Artistic and managerial chaos with no guarantees. It's an experience that can be rewarding on so many levels assuming your goal is not "to get rich," but rather, to express your creativity and produce "art" and enjoy the ride. I've learned a lot about myself and made a lot of meaningful friendships along the way.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone whose only goal is to "get rich." Play the lotto! Go to Hollywood and see if you can D.O.P. for some porn then slide your way sideways into soaps and see if you can inch your way up the ladder. Good luck!

Tonight's lesson in movie making is about a surreal situation involving venue.

Let's talk about showing your movie.

If you've got the product edited together and finally ready to go, and you've looked around to show it, then I'm sure your jaw will hit the ground when you find out how much a theater will charge to show it one time. After spending 2-4 grand on the movie (or more, perhaps) you'll be dumbfounded to discover that it can cost between $1,500 to $2,000. ONE TIME. They wont let you put anything in the theater in advance. They won't let you put your title up with the other movies. Your movie won't be listed in the paper. Nope. So your big movie premier is going to draw in cast and crew and probably not much else unless you spend additional coin to advertise.

Then it can get ugly as greed or just fiscal need kicks in. You will want/need to recoup some of this. You'll be sorely tempted to charge cast and crew 10 bucks to see the movie that they most likely worked on.. for free. You'll be tempted to charge them for their copy of the movie.

Some people do this because of the pure greed of it all. "I made my movie, I want to profit!" Others for a baser reason. "Rent is due, I can't afford to show this damn thing unless I can some of it paid for or I lose my apartment!"

Big mistake. Greed or need is no excuse to be immoral. If you can't afford to show it, don't show it. Wait for the opportunity.

I bring this up because at this point you are vulnerable to people who want to take advantage of you and/or situations where you pay less but also get less.

We showed a movie at a location that was a little seedy once. It was cheaper. Not many people showed, but some did. The weird thing about that situation was, the guy running the projector was a fan of exploitation movies so before our movie played, he showed some trailers of exotic foreign exploitation movies... so we had old ladies in the lobby peering in and seeing orgy scenes and such. WHOOPSIE! I had the guy stop that as quick as I could. And we all laughed about it later. The rest of the event went great with no hitches.

But that was nothing compared to what happened to us, recently. Again, in the end, we didn't suffer as a result, we got lucky. But still, we were duped, and want to pass on what happened so others are not duped as well. And I want to take full blame, my cohorts Jeff and Jacquie were quite suspicious but I sweet talked them into going through with this. My bad!

On to the details.

We have 3 movies done now and we like them to be shown. If someone contacts you and says "I have a film festival I'm starting up and I'm looking for movies to show.. no entry fee," it seems like a no lose situation right?

We weren't desperate, all our movies had been shown at least once, but still, it doesn't hurt to get them shown again, especially for free. With the chance to sell copies at the end of the event as well, it seemed like a deal that couldn't be passed up.

I'll tell you the story and then explain why it was a huge mistake to think that way.

This person, I'll call him Phil Frag, had such a deal for us. He was starting up a film festival and wanted movies. So we sent him our DVDs.

Frag liked em and was going to show them. A double feature! 2 of our movies back to back! Seemed like a great idea!

The big warning flag that I convinced us to work around was that Frag seemed like a bit of a scatterbrained thickie; he would give no actual information aside from the barest of vague facts and only after constant request. He gave us the address of the place. It was a bowling alley movie theater combo (say what?). He gave us the date. We had to ask him about 10 times before he said which movies he would show. Getting the time the festival would start.. was a real feat. We finally got it.

Then another warning flag: Another zero budget company, it turned out, was telling people their movie was showing there that night!

We confronted Frag on this and he said it was now a triple feature! He assured us that the order was our movies first then the other company's movie. We knew the guys from the other company and they are great guys... so that was no big deal for us to include them.. in fact it was kind of cool. Why not, hey if they were OK with their movie being shown at 10:30pm-ish.. worked for us. After all their movie was a zombie movie.. perfect for being last on the bill. Still it seemed fishy. Jeff mentioned he was leery so many times I jokingly called him "King Leery." Hey my decision to press on was wrong but at least I got a bad pun out of the bargain.

We hadn't spent any money aside from postage to mail him the DVDs... so why not give it a go. That was the road to Cinematic Hell that I was paving with my exploitative intentions.

And now let me tell you about the night of the "festival." I'm going to keep this vague as it's not my point to fry this Frag ficker, but rather, to use this as a cautionary tale that is packed to the gills with absurdity and hilarity.

So there we were, "Shaven" Dave and I, at the "festival" scene. It looked bad right off the bat. It said "Movie Theater" on the outside as part of the big sign, or something to that effect, but mostly the big sign said a lot of words about BOWLING. Definitely nothing about any movies currently playing there. No signs or banners outside to indicate that any "festival" was going on.

We went in and wandered around. Looked a lot like a bowling alley and nothing at all like a theater. No evidence of a theater being in there at all, actually. Shaven Dave and I wandered down the length of the bowling alley to investigate. Much like Shaggy and Scooby might do. Looking for some food and beer at the same time .

"Raver, rare are ra Rebby Racks? Rooby rooby rebbyrooooo!" - Me

It was a popular place, most bowling lanes had people bowling. Across from the lanes was a
restaurant-style room and beside it...a band room with a mechanical bull in it as well. Yee-ha!

Sadly, no one was riding it.. that would have been a hoot to see, I've never seen anyone actually doing that except on TV.

We wandered all the way down the lanes down past the restaurant room, past the band room.. to see an arcade room across from lane 18 or so. We looked in it to see what games they had and noticed that along the back wall, we could see an open door and what looked like a theater curtain in the far back of that room. We headed over to take a closer look. We had found it! That was the theater. We found it by pure chance.

Nestled back in a secret room behind the Arcade room near the back of the establishment.

Later on we heard that other people had come into the place and asked a staff member about the theater.. they didn't think there was a theater inside the place at all!

Fellow producer Jeff and his lovely wife Jacquie of our movie company were already there, chatting with Frag. I peered past them into the theater room through the door to check it out. It looked like a place you would find PeeWee Herman, and not on a good day. On a "I need some sexual release in the darkened company of strangers" type of day. PeeWee was not there at this time.

The movie screen itself was a real beaut. It had some slices in it, but the real damage was a huge gaping hole that was duck taped up. at the bottom left, big enough to constantly distract from the movie of course.

Bottom Line: This screen was in no shape to show a movie.

Luckily enough Frag was too stupid to have actually gotten the word out about this event. He had lied and said he had a notice out in Real Detroit but it turns out there was no notice. Frag had no publicity out. Nothing outside in the parking lot. No sign on the external doors to the bowling alley. No one out front to flag people down. No sign by the Arcade room. Not even a sign at the theater door. how the Fick were people supposed to find this place? It looked exactly like a bowling alley that had no theater in it.

Like I said, as it turns out, this was an awesome stroke of luck for us.

A waitress/manager/someone who you wouldn't want to wake up beside on a Sunday morning after a drunken binge walked over to talk to us. Frag had ficked off to tamper with the "movie projector" (more about that later). People had been calling the bowling alley asking about what movies were playing and when and she had no information at all to tell them. Nice work Frag! I guessed at the movie lineup for the night and told her; she was very happy that someone actually had some information for her. She ficked off to attend to her various duties.

Frag was up in the projection room playing bits of the movies see how they would look on the screen. They looked like ass, even aside from the "duct-taped gaping hole movie screen" aspect of things. The movies were projecting larger than the screen, chopping off the heads and feet. Shaven Dave went upstairs to the projection room to help. He ficked around with the aspect ratio and such to see what he could do. He couldn't do much but he made it a little bit better.

Shaver told us a revealing detail later.. there was no actual movie equipment at all, just a projector component that you could buy at a Best Buy/Circuit City/Office Depot to project something onto a white wall or a screen off a PC or a DVD player or whatever. Basically what you might buy to show your family movies at home.. preferably on a surface that wasn't full of slices and duct taped holes!

UPDATE:

Here's a picture of the equipment that was set up:

If you click on the picture it should take you to the link to "buy it now" for $350 bucks on eBay.

"High XGA resolution 1024x768 and 1000ANSI lumens. LCD technology, this projector can project fine image even if room not completely dark. HDTV support 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p/60. Electronic zoom and manual focus. Can be used as desktop or with ceiling mount."

Hey I'm not knocking this product, I'm sure it works great for its intended use.. for business presentations. It was not designed to work as a movie theater projector.

Back to the story..

Mike B. from the other movie company showed up, confused as we were. I brought him up to speed as best I could.

Frag was just standing around with his hands on his hips, it was 7:15pm and only two people had showed. We finally pressured him to start our first movie since 2 people had paid cash money and the movie was supposed to start at 7:00..

Frag finally started up the first feature. Jeff, Jacquie and I wandered around the bowling alley and found someone who let us at least say over the bowling alley loudspeaker that it was a "film festival" and the first movie was starting. You know, to lure in the people already there. Not that redneck bowlers are film buffs as a rule unless the movie is about canoes and dueling banjos.. our movies had neither.

Mental note... if we make a movie for this place, we know what content to put in it. And don't bother making it look nice... it don't matter son! Also a deal... see the movie, get a mechanical bull ride for 50% off.

Back to the story. Jacquie went to see the movie, but Jeff and I didn't head right in, we stopped at one of the many many numerous places where you could order a huge monster beer for cheap (hey.. it was a redneck bowling alley. God Bless them for their love of beer). Nate, an actor from one of our movies, showed up, we saw him wandering around looking for the ficking theater. We flagged him down. He hadn't paid yet. We had a beer with him, and even though the movie he was in was playing right then.. after hearing about things he felt no urge to rush down and see himself on the big screen. Maybe he thought the hole would obscure his head.

Those egotistical actors! (Nate, you know I'm kidding). Nate was going to bring his whole family, luckily for them and us, that didn't happen.

The movie played, the sound was OK I guess. I have to say, the sound did not suck any ass. Attention blind audiophiles who enjoy cheap beer.. you would have enjoyed the feature. I kicked back after getting my second monster beer and enjoyed myself ok. It was a lot like sitting at home watching a movie while thunder boomed outside (bowling alley) except that my TV doesnt have a huge hole in it. With my eyes closed I could imagine I was home, and it was stormy outside.

Jacquie, who doesn't have polar bear stamina like myself, noted before the movie started that it was freezing in that theater. They did some minor scrambling around and one dude said he was going to turn the heat on. I think it got a little warmer. I initially blamed the establishment for this but looking back, they probably never heated that room because (1) they never used it because (2) they apparently were unaware of the existence of that room!

So let's check the festival status at this point. 2 people there plus the movie company reps. And Nate, who Jeff snuck in when Frag had ficked off to do something. A total bust as a festival. But on the plus side we didn't have to pay to get in. And Frag had only gotten 20 bucks.

Then, the first movie ended. Even though Frag had told us in emails that the running order was going to be our two movies then the other company's movie, Frag decided to shorten the night and cut our second movie from the bill entirely. I knew something was up when it went right from our movie to their movie with no pause whatsoever. Not even time for a pee break!

That was all I needed to hear to finally get angry and call "my people" together and split. Nothing at all against the other movie company, but we wanted to have Frag see people walk out on his ficking bullshitte.

Looking back we all should have left from the start, the moment we saw that ficked-up screen. I guess we stuck around to make sure people didn't show up. I think Jeff would have been warning people away. And like I said, he got Nate in for free.

I gave Nate and the 2 people that actually paid the 10 bucks copies of our most recent movie for their trouble. And a copy to Mike B as well, since he was duped like us. So people actually got something for their time, just not from Frag. From me.

We felt bad about leaving Mike B. there.. I need to catch up with him and see how the rest of the debacle went. Hopefully no one else showed up. But we seized our chance to flee and flee we did!

UPDATE: Mike B. has this to say about what happened after we left:

"Wow. It was like an episode of Extras. I left half-way through our flick, I just couldn't take it. It's like he was someone who hated us, and wanted his thing to fail. I watched Frag turn away every person that came to check it out. Whatta chump!"

So to recap. Frag had no clue how to play the movie. He did no work at all to publicize the event. He did no work to even let people know once they were at the address where the ficking theater was in the place. The ficking wait staff didnt even know that theater room existed!

Then Frag had the nerve to start to bitch Jeff out on not bring out enough people. As if it was somehow our job to get everyone we knew to pay 10 bucks a head. Even if it was our job..which it wasn't.. wouldn't that assume that the projected movie would be watchable? You know.. correct aspect ration and a working movie screen?

Good news was.. pretty much no one showed up so there was no embarassment. Thank God! I can't even imagine the horror of trying to face down a large group of people who came to see movies. A lot of people could have showed up, and been totally unhappy and blamed our movie production companies. Gotten quite angry! After all.. holes in the movie screen, top and bottom chopped off the picture.. this was a huge total and utter debacle!

I think back to the scene in Strange Brew when Bob & Doug Mackenzie were watching the premier of their movie and the film broke in the movie, and then they opened up a container that had moths in it so the moths would swarm to the screen. And then they made their escape. We had no container of moths!

A final humorous note, Frag had a girl with him, a beaut. When he was off standing somewhere like the buffoon that he is, I asked her if she knew any details about this "festival".. any other nights? What other movies? etc.

She gave me a dark look and said "I have no idea at all, this is his deal not mine. this is all him."

I assumed she was someone who barely knew him that he had somehow roped into helping him. Turns out She was HIS WIFE!

Nice. and of course, his wife had every reason to look upon Frag and his ficked up project like that.

So now the lesson learned.

What can fellow movie makers learn from this experience?

I'm glad you asked.

It's very important to verify the validity of an event that is going to show your movie. Check out the equipment, the movie screen itself, and the location. Can people find the room where the movie is playing?

Do the people working there know there is a movie theater? Can THEY find the room where the movie theater is?

I just assumed all of that would take care of itself and in most cases.. they sure will. Not very many places have secret hidden movie theaters. And of those, I'm going to guess we found the only one with a screen in such bad shape.

Still.. cover all your bases. Second hand info is OK but SOMEONE has to check this out. Especially when you are zero budget looking for any kind of good deal you can get. You still need to remember that sometimes a "good deal" can leave you in the negative.

We got lucky, we learned a lesson but didn't get burned in the process. We just had to apologize to two people, who were very good sports about it. So we got off scott free. A miracle, and a funny story to tell. I mean.. this stuff can't be made up, it's so bizarre that it can only happen in real life.

Frag has another one of our movies. With any luck his "festival" is over and it won't be shown. But if he shows it at least it's our first movie, and the technical limitations of that movie can synch up with the damaged screen and the ficked up aspect ration. A Match.. made in Hell!

-JF

Kittens, MySpace, & More

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:20:00 +0000

We've all heard of MySpace. There, I said it, and this means I don't have to explain a darn thing about it.

Fine, ok.. go learn about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace

"MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA,[2] where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media; which is owned by News Corporation, which has its headquarters in New York City."

OK so where will I go with this rant.

Kittens.

Yes, kittens. You see, a while back when I was still trying to exploit the denizens of MySpace into becoming willing contributors to my movie company's cash coffers (sorry about that, denizens, although this is an academic apology since my efforts were fruitless), I stumbled across a kitten with a MySpace page. I looked closer and discovered that the kitten had many "friends."

All kittens with MySpace pages.

I looked even further and discovered that kittens would post "meow's" on other kittens profile pages!

OK I'm no Doctor Doolittle but it seems to me that this is just wack.

So I did some more looking and discovered that I could find condiments with their own pages. Yes that's right.. ketchup, mustard, even butter all have profiles on MySpace.

And it doesn't stop there. McDonald's characters have their own pages! The sky is apparently the limit. And I suppose "Sky" probably also has a MySpace page. Headline on profile reading "I am the limit."

MySpace is out of control lunacy.

So let's cut to what's important to me: me. Do I approve of MySpace? Sure! How could I not approve of something that patently absurd? I am sure kids and adults all across the planet are right now racking their brains to choose inanimate items and concepts to use as their MySpace identities. Let the games.. continue on!

I'd like to contribute to the fun. These could all be done, but in case they aren't.. here are a few ideas I am putting out there for you to use if you decide to completely waste time and energy on something so silly as MySpace, a few profiles you could create:

1. Peace. Why not become a concept. Alternatives would be "war," "pestilence," or even "flatulence."

2. Matter. Your headline can be "I am the glue that holds everything together. AND, I am also everything that is held together by that glue."

3. MSG. Then you can offer people who won't befriend you the option to put "this profile has no MSG" as their headline

4. Lots of people pick a famous person. I would be trickier and pick a relative/spouse of that famous person. And then use a second profile of the first name of the famous person who has a picture of a dog as their picture (macho dog for man, wimpy dog for woman). So you make both profiles and establish a dialogue between the two about stuff that only the real famous person would talk about. Your famous profile...will have no other friends, he/she is only on MySpace because the spouse is.

5. A movie critic. and then start reviewing every actor/movie whose pages you land on. talk about submitting reviews to your editor and such but keep it vague, as you are not allowed to reveal who you work for. make sure all your reviews are patently absurd.

6. Same for a music critic..

7. A doctor. surf the web and cut and paste intricate descriptions of graphic surgeries you have performed.

8. A politician, john smith. blog about your hardcore sexual conquests with animals and humans. hint that you are a very powerful politician who is glad his/her antics have not been uncovered.

9. The worlds most incompetent terrorist. all your plans backfire and all your attempts hurt no one but yourself. you are opposed to something completely silly, your cause is pure hokum. like... "Allah's Soldiers in Arms Against the MySpace Kitten Army" or something.

10. The guy who invented FaceBook. ask a lot of questions on why people like MySpace and what their thoughts are on the whole trend. then call them fools and idiots.

And if you have free time enough to make all those profiles .. have all of them get to know each other and then start squabbling. Explore the possibility of using this to research someone who has a multiple personality disorder whose personalities are involved in a bitter "MyWar." Then discover conclusively that you are that very person.

Then again if you have this kind of free time... maybe you could do something useful for humanity like...

like..

I lost you at "useful" didn't I?

See you on MySpace, you won't know it's me of course... but the next time you see a comment on your page from a floor wax product.. you never know... (I also make a great dessert topping)...

JF

A glass of

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:42:00 +0000

I was watching a movie when I heard someone tell someone else to have a nice tall glass of "shut the f*ck up" and it occurred to me how cool it would be to live in a society where behaviors could be handed out in drinkable form.

"Son, have a nice refreshing glass of 'be responsible and do your homework' with dinner, please," I'd say to one of my boys. "Aw Dad," he would reply, but gulp the beverage down anyways.

Woman: Well okay, I'll do it with you if you drink a glass of 'I'll still respect her in the morning.'
Man: OK.. as long as you drink this cup of 'I will not smother him and destroy his manhood in front of his friends' first.

Bartender: Here's your beer, and a shot of 'I will not drive drunk tonight' to go along with it.

Announcer: We've secretly replaced Gary's regular coffee with a piping hot cup of 'I'll take off my clothes and run through the neighborhood screaming,' let's sit back and watch the fun.

Why the options would be unlimited. The amount of drinks we could have to solve society's problems.. would make any drink executive delirious, the dollar signs virtually tattooed on his/her eyeballs.

And why stop there. I call out for Behavioral Cake too! Sit on down and have yourself a slice of "be nice to strangers" along with your glass of "stop shirking your social responsibilities." You can't go out to play until you finish up. Think of the people with no morals in other countries whose souls are starving!

-Jack Francis

ps - I was going to add in the conclusion that "you can have your Social Darwinism and eat it too," but I ultimately couldn't determine if that conclusion made any sense or not. Sometimes I get so deep with these insightful posts that I confuse myself .

All I needed was a little head

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:28:00 +0000

Attention, this is not a porn blog. Just to be clear

I'm talking about the discovery and recovery of the missing Spiderman Head of lore. By "Lore" I mean "last blog." It's protocol for me to refer to anything that happened more than 45 seconds ago as lore. I think that's fair, people only have a 45 second attention span.

Anyways about my blues. They were in full swing. It was like my dog up and died, and my pickup truck ran over my woman. I was on a "brief crazy diet regiment(tm)" designed to heal my gut. I was lethargic and bombastic. Spastic and drastic. Caustic and rustic? I needed help.

So I finished up this "napalm-the-badboy-biotics," "lay-down-some-pre-biotics," "back-to-regular-biotics" three step process that my doctor put me on. It was tough inasmuch as it was making me super tired.

By the way Yes I have a doctor! Everyone over 30 should have someone who is slavishly devoted to making money off of your insurance coverage. As of yet, I have no high paid team of lawyers and no harem. Also no R&D department. I do have a few flunkies though. Or as they tell it, it's me who is the flunky. We all flunked a class at some point, which is the important thing. Also I'm just about 40 which means, no doctor, less than a week to live. They don't tell you this when you are young, they don't want to scare you into pooping your pants. Which you'll start doing anyways once you get even older.

OK fine, he isn't MY doctor, I share him with all his other patients. But.. he looks like Dick Cheney, which is oddly reassuring. I know that if I die, he will at least get to tent his fingers and use this event for evil somehow. Even though he seems to be a nice guy.

What the hell am I babbling about?

Right. So my karma and my biotics were on the fritz. And I needed a slice of Karma to bludgeon me out of the doorway of rut-ness into the green grass of, of something.

And fate smiled upon me like some great smiling thing in the sky that if looked at too long, sears ones retinas. Wait no that's the sun, don't stare at that. Picture Fate more as a smiley face balloon that if popped, dumps powerful acid right onto your face. Because you shouldn't pop the balloon of fate, dumbass. That's why.

I found the Spiderman Head. It had bounced up under my car seat and attached itself to the bottom. It sat there waiting for me. Laughing at me. LAUGHING AT ME, I tell you!

But I found it. I found it! Angels sang and the world was a better place. Actually it was Danzig who sang, the misfits CD was in my CD tray. Angels, Misfits, close enough.

And I started to feel better! Could my doctor have been right about the out of wack gut? Chalk up one for science, and I don't mean the chalk outline of my corpse! Yay!

I decided to go work out finally. My cough was almost gone. It was time to see if I could run around the track. I did! I collapsed like a whale after 15 minutes and it took 11 Greenpeace girls in tight fitting seaweed panties* to pull me off the track and into the delousing tub, but other than that, a good workout.

So call me Travolta, because Ah'm Back!

-Jebs

*I'm not sure why Greenpeace girls in tight fitting seaweed panties suddenly appeared, but it makes a powerful image does it not? And they did save my life, leaving me forever grateful. I could have died out there on the third curve, run over by cellphone talking mini-barbell-waving grandmas. I think Greenpeace should use this experience of mine in a promotional campaign of some sort.. I can picture a great poster concept here. If they ask me, I'll let them take that idea for free.

Put your hand around the Spiderman head

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:32:00 +0000

So there I was in the garage looking for Spiderman's head. It had popped off and flown upwards. Where had it landed? And who the heck made metallic Spidermans that came apart by design?

"A kid could swallow Peter Parker piece-by-piece! Piece-By-Piece," I mumbled to myself as I quickly checked the garage floor.

No dice. And that's OK because I wasn't looking for dice. No Spiderman head either. Which was more troubling than no dice.

I had already twisted and turned and looked in my car. You see I was sitting in my garage in my car with the door open, unpacking and arranging the figures I..

But let us go back to the beginning.

My kids had busted up their Batman figure, torn his leg clean off. This was an homage to last year's Batman story arc by DC comics where Batman had his leg ripped off by the large humanoids of.. . No? OK fine, it wasn't. Maybe that can be next year's story arc. They can use that, I'll offer it up here for free. DC, run with my story like a child with scissors chasing another child with a Heathcliff balloon. Off you go then.

Anyways I went to K-Mart (I couldn't find an S-Mart) to buy some simple superhero action figures for my kids to play with. It took a while. They like to make all the action figures frozen into precise physical arrangements as to limit play and the imagination. I didn't want to buy "Batman in golf pose with laser beam shooting golf club and Batarang golf ball" so my kids could only imagine stories where Batman was golfing against the Riddler or Spiderman was stuck in "leaping across a puddle pose" or Superman was frozen on the toilet in the classic "thinker" pose.

No I wanted simple action figures with movable arms and legs so my kids could make their own adventures up. Like how it was when I was a kid. I refuse to fall victim to the classic "You must buy 67 action figures so your kid can come up with an intelligent plot to his little playtime adventure" scam.

After navigating around a mom with a kid who demanded a "Spiderman in a helicopter that shoots webs" for his friends birthday party..

ok let me digress. Peter Parker does not have the money to buy a freakin' helicopter. He can barely pay the rent. What kind of a piss poor research team comes up with... grr... grr.. rant.. rave.. OK fine, destroy the whole premise of the character for your STUPID TOY! YOU MONEY GRUBBING BASTARDS!

Sorry. Blood pressure pills. With triple latte and jalapeño sauce.. mm.

I found a Batman and a Superman from one set, and a Robin from another set... and finally found a Spiderman from another set that said simply "Metallic Spiderman."

I get them home, and the dad instinct kicks in. I decide to pull into the garage and unwrap the toys there... and bring them inside without all the tiny accessories that fit so nicely up a kids nose. If the kid SEES it, you can no longer ditch it. You have to inspect and streamline the toys BEFORE the kid sees them. I open up the Batman and ditch the Batarang. I open up the Robin and ditch the backpack, the projectile shooter and the hooks (dang, don't mess with Robin, he's loaded for bear), and I pocket the Superman Kryptonite. which makes the Superman action figure feel a lot better. I mean really; how mean of them to encase him with Kryptonite! Spiderman gets his own HELICOPTER, while Superman gets encased with deadly poison. Talk about unfair toy handling practises. Let's have some standards people!

Anyhow I open up the Spiderman plastic bubble and "kapow," the head flicks up into the air and lands, I know not where. and the car door was open too. Could be in the car, or in the garage.

Turns out it's a Spiderman figure where every part is attached to every other part merely by magnets.

Great. So my kids could be sticking little Spiderman metal parts into every orifice. The toy should have had a "Danger! Spiderman Orifice-Stuffing Component Toy: not for use by anyone with any orifices" sticker on it.

I of course had to bring this toy to work. I paid for it! And we usually don't stuff things into every orifice here. Unless we want to. But at least we know what we're getting into.

So the problem is, it's a headless Spiderman toy. Which I guess looks kind of cool. But I wonder if I will ever find the head? I sure hope my kids don't find it first and scream in horror. Dad's been chopping the heads off of Spidermans! HORRORS! Call CPS!

You Gotta!

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:27:00 +0000

I've been busy as of late, on my latest cunning plan to make billions of dollars. After much work in r&d and then of course the intensive testing and user acceptance phases, it's finally ready for launch.

I've unveiled the results today, don't dilly-dally, no need to lolly gag around here. Head right over to http://yougottaguy.blogspot.com/ now! You gotta!

Demolish

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:09:00 +0000

He poked his head out of the 3 bedroom shack in front of the abandoned Church to see if the wrecking crews had arrived yet. He'd miss this place, he'd been shooting up here for years.

He remembered fondly the first time he had squatted here, tense, shooting up while on the edge. Who would find him and bust him? Anyone?

No one. In fact he had seen movement in the back of the shack only once, and it was just a rat. It hadn't even scared him because the smack had already kicked in.

The church behind him was where the hookers and addicts all hung out, its sadly-debauched beauty eclipsed the nondescript dull run-down shack in front of it. People were drawn to the Church, and thus no one ever bothered him in here.

It was Monday morning, no telling how long until the cranes and bulldozers started to arrive. He'd overheard the news story on the demolition.. what was it.. yesterday? 3 days ago? He didn't remember. He just knew it was time to float back here one more time for a fix before the man took it all down in the name of so-called progress.

Yes he'd miss this place. So many blurry half formed memories. He'd have to find a new dilapidated building to shoot up in. Luckily, in this town.. that would take about an hour. 3 if he shot up first. Yea, he would definitely shoot up first. It would take the edge off the whole search process.

He shot up; the last thing he thought about before the heroin finally did him in and he took his dying breath was how beautiful the Church behind him was and how it was such a shame that it was coming to such a forgotten end.

No one missed him.

"I knew this guy who.." Volume 2: Mailbox Menace

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:23:00 +0000

Hey this feature is a reader favorite! Yes, reader as in one reader. He likes it. Hi Vince. Hey, it's a start! Soon he'll tell one friend and she'll tell one friend and... it will no longer be an ancient Chinese Secret?

"I knew this guy who.."
Volume 2: Mailbox Menace

OK I have to preface this blog with the following disclaime:. As I grew up, on many many MANY occasions I was a complete idiot. As I recall some of the things I did, I feel it necessary to advise, nay to BEG with any readers: DO NOT BE AS DUMB AS I WAS. Really. There are ways to have fun and be an idiot and not risk your life. You'll know what I mean when you read about the "secret passing game."

So back in the day I knew this guy who liked to be absurd just to have fun. He was a notorious slob and he cranked things up a notch or 7 to make it fun for everyone to "enjoy." His room was a pit. And he never did the dishes. It got to the point where I changed my way of life. I would put all the dirty dishes glasses and silverware away in the cupboards and wash them before I would use them. Why? This way I only washed what I used and didn't have to wash them once, use them, then wash them a second time and put them away. Because this guy would use up all the clean dishes. And counter space. So my solution was... clear the dirty dishes off of tables, chairs, floors, counters, sink.. put them away in the cupboards and drawers. It worked too, because no one wanted to get out stuff and wash it before they used it, cept for me.

His response? He used paper plates or tops of old pizza boxes as plates. and drank out of the bottle of whatever he had. Fingers worked as silverware. So he won, and I won, and our other two roomies lost. Caught in a war of filth.

Funny story (hey how convenient, I'm here telling a funny story anyways. this can be a bonus story inside a story. How Jebbspearean of me), when we all moved out of the apartment we lived in (rumor has it this was during my college years) , we packed all his dishes up into boxes for him and of course they were still dirty. I drew a wacky face in ketchup on one of the plates to be goofy. He moved to a different apt, we moved, over the years he bounced around to different apartments.

Flash forward to when he buys his first house. Me and the droogs are out there to see it, and helping him unpack boxes. Some of the boxes were, he said "from a few moves back." I open one, and sure enough, I pull out the plate I drew the ketchup face on.. about 4 years ago. So now he had all his dirty nasty flith encrusted dishes back! I think he may have just thrown all those plates and glasses out soon after that actually, he had since purchased a new set. Seeing all the dirt encrusted on them was probably enough motivation to just put that stuff out to the curb.

Somewhere in a junkyard there could be a plate in a box with a "vintage 1990 jebby ketchup drawing" in it. For reference, it was a dude sticking his tongue out with his fingers in his ears. The ketchup has turned a shade of Dorian Gray by now. Do not clean it or I shall vanish foreverrrr...

This guy is legendary, the stories go on and on. One summer he stayed up at school and was so lazy he didn't go to any of his classes, like.. he didn't even show up ONCE. He didn't flunk them, he got Xs in them. How do you get an X? You don't even show up once. He stayed home and lay on the couch. He never left the apt! He ordered pizzas to be delivered. And he ran out of soap and shampoo for the shower so he used dish soap. He ran out of TP too, and I think he was using .. napkins? probably from the pizza deliveries. Nasty.

He was a great guy actually, and only got this messy during that one summer, and no one else experienced it, as he was alone at college and never left his room. So I never had to deal with more than the "dirty dishes" thing. Which I will admit was fucking annoying.

Anyways he loved to drink! God help us, we all did. He used to order up lemon drops at the bar and hit on anything that moved and was female. Well, I'll spare you the stories of who he hooked up with. Suffice it to say that he has an embarrassing photo of me passed out under a bathroom sink in just my BVDs, but he will never show it because I have a picture of him at a party with ..well, it had a girl's name.. but I am not sure what form of life it actually was/is. So my blackmail trumps his by a thousand-fold.

Anyhow the point of this blog.. on the way home from the bar, this guy would go Poncho Villa on us. We would be walking and approach a corner with a mailbox on it. He would suddenly yell, and drop to a football stance. He would say something derogatory about it. Then he would charge the mailbox and slam his shoulder into it with all his might and careen off the mailbox, laughing.

The next day he'd be in a lot of pain and ask us why he did that. We'd just laugh. How the fuck did we know why he did that? To make us laugh I guess. And laugh we did, when he did it and the day after when the dumb ass could barely move his arms.

Some of the stuff he did, I got roped into as well. Stupidity is contagious! One time we drove down the road with a case of bottles of beer and would drink half a bottle and then throw it up in the air as high as we could (he had a convertible) and listen to it smash on the road behind us. And laugh like maniacs. Yea that was real nice wasn't it?

Another time we were racing down I94 after midnight and we would play a "secret passing game." One of us would turn off his headlights and then pass the other guy.. it was pitch black so when the lights went off.. you didn't know where the other guy's car was then suddenly it would fly by you on the right or the left, depending on what lane you were in. OK so that was stupid enough, especially considering we were both drunk. And we were going quite fast. But he ultimately outdid me, he passed me like that on the freaking shoulder! I'm cruising along and his headlights behind me extinguish and I wait for it.. to see him pass me on the right and suddenly I hear a honk and he's passing me on the left.. on the shoulder! I can just make out his white smile and his eyes as he laughed and floored it and sped by me. A mental image I will never forget.

Nothing like driving over 85mph in pitch blackness while drunk.. on the shoulder of a highway.

I passed him and pulled into the rest stop up ahead and he did too, laughing his ass off. I was laughing but then I told him he could have died.. what if a car was parked on the side of the road. That sobered us both up fast. We decided to take it easy on the rest of the trip and as soon as we pulled out of the rest stop and got back on 94 we passed some state troopers sitting on the side of the road.

Yikes.

Mulling this over, now I'm wondering.. why am I still alive? I guess a lot can be said for the power of luck to overcome stupidity.

I didn't even mention the time we got cops to let us in the closed parking garage by Bourbon Street (in Kalamazoo, not New Orleans). We had parked in there, not seeing the "closes for night at 11" sign. Apparently many people missed that sign so we asked the cops on the corner what to do and they actually had the keys to open it up. So we went in to get our cars. I got into my car and backed into a parked car and CRASH.. and the other car's car alarm went off, broken tail light and headlight glass was all over. I just kept going acting like nothing had happened, after all I was drunk. His car went out first, I went out second, thanked the cops for helping us. Later my friend said he and the cop head the CRASH and the alarm but didn't think anything of it.

Still, I didn't ever tackle any mailboxes.

Dream Diary Volume 1: Undead Early Abortions Illegal

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:43:00 +0000

I like making new features for this blog. Rather, I like making up names of "new features," when really all I am doing is blogging about whatever I want.

Today's "new feature" is Dream Diary. Oops forgot the font and the color and the centering and stuff, hold on here we go:

DREAM DIARY
Volume 1: Undead Early Abortions Illegal

There was a huge party being planned at my cottage, and I was in my teens again, meaning both my folks and all my folks friends were still alive. This means the dream is real, passed on to me by ghosts who enter my subconsciousness at night!

Err no. But anyways back to the dream.

So during the cleanup I'm talking with my friend about how last summer's party sucked because of the zombie outbreak. Then as I am shoveling sand off the sidewalk I notice embedded in the grass something that is kind of rising through the grass, hard to make out. Going very slow. It's a fricking skeletal structure of someone. Two people! With tissue and flesh and such slowly forming on them. But not as people, these suckers are forming into zombies. I am about to smash them with my shovel but suddenly 3 members of the local police are there. They stop me.

Turns out you cannot abort a zombie until it's final formation. For some reason it's referred to as abortion. Some crazy bible thumper passed a law that states while a zombie is forming it is still a life with a soul. Since this zombie was somehow a skeleton forming into a zombie via some sort of tissue regeneration, it was technically alive. We knew it didn't have a soul, it was bones. But the poorly written law didn't take RE-re-animated zombies into account. LOOPHOLES! I hate em.

Bottom line, if I smashed it now I would be a murderer. They take my shovel and throw in the trunk of the squad car as evidence. Why? I tell them they are making no sense and they pull out a clipboard and start talking about certain sections of certain regulations. One of the cops takes my friend and puts him in the back of the squad car because he was drinking underage. That cops disappears from my dream, fate unknown.

So I'm there with 2 cops, and one gets called away. He leaves on foot. I look back to the back of the squad car, my friend isn't there anymore! Some blood is pooled on the back seat. I am convinced a zombie got him. The remaining cop pulls his gun on me and advises me to stay here until we get rid of these two zombies. THEN we can look for my friend.

We're waiting.

Once a zombies stands up, right before it dashes at us, we are THEN allowed under current law to blow it away. That's the rule. The cop is telling me that he voted for the other guy last election, he hates all these new zombie abortion laws. I am trying to remember who that guy was.. I am American and my cottage is in Canada, so I am not up to speed on Canadian politics. Oddly enough neither is he, he isnt sure if it was Trudeau or Putin. I tell him Trudeau was from the 80's and Putin was Russian! Then we are trying to remember what year it is, and he notices he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We see the bullets in the cop car, the cop car is locked. And I wished my friend was in there to open the door.

The first fully formed zombie had walked up behind me, he taps me on the shoulder, I turn and he says BEEEEEEEEP

My alarm saved me. I am sure the zombie was about to bite into my shoulder.

All in all a cool dream, I don't have cool dreams as often as I used to, so I really appreciated this one.

When I was a troubled youth, I had crazy wild dreams all the time and I was seeing a social worker at school (for other reasons) and she tried to make sense of them (the dreams). Finally she said "you are troubled, sure, but your dreams, I think they just mean you are very creative." For a while she was convinced they meant something deeper.

I think they meant "life sucks and there aint nuttin' on TV, so my brain is going to make up stuff that I would have liked to see on TV." Remember, this was pre Cable TV.

"I knew this guy who..." Volume 1: Picture in Picture

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 30 May 2007 14:00:00 +0000

Another new segment, I realized that I know/knew a lot of colorful people in my life. And some of the things they do/say bears retelling to others. It's damned amusing! So here we go.

"I knew this guy who..."
Volume 1: Picture in Picture

I knew this guy who was the most particular dude in the whole world. In fact I'll say solar system. This guy was unreal. We're talking Rainman-style inflexibility.

For example, it's a known fact that at a strip bar they gouge you for the drinks. And everything else, but you can't change those things. However you can try to be smart about the drinks. For example if they have a "drinks on tap for $3.50" deal, TAKE THE DEAL. Well, when we went to the strip club*, I got to witness firsthand the unthinkable unalterable stupidity of this guy. He would refuse the deal, he didn't like to drink tap drinks. So, even when he was told that Bud Light on tap was $3.50 and Bud Light In A Bottle was $7.50, he would go for the bottles. Keep in mind the guy is a raging drunkaholic. So add it up, the dude blows an extra 4 bucks a drink. And drinks 15 drinks.

Let's calculate. That's.. that's math and I refuse to do math. I got my high school diploma and college bachelor degree which proves I once did math. Well the high school diploma proves I did math, the college degree only proves I got drunk. Now it's up to others to do my math for me. If I am forced to do math, a little part of me dies. So it's not going to happen. I still drink for myself though. And a little part of me dies then too, but it's a glorious death on the cognative battlefield of my frontal lobe, not a meaningless math death.

So that's a bunch of money he wastes each time he goes to the strip bar. And he went a lot. Cha-Ching!

But the FUNNIEST thing I've ever seen from this guy was when he went to buy a TV. He is the kind of guy who spends a lot of time researching and "thinking" and over-analyzing. Well he wanted a huge Sony TV (had to be Sony, he would accept nothing else) but he was stopped in his tracks by Picture in Picture. You see, he doesn't like Picture in Picture. He has no reason for not liking it, he just doesn't like it. So, in his typical fashion, he refused to buy a TV that had it.

A rocket scientist once told me that if you have a product with a transparent feature you don't like, you could simply not activate and use that feature. AKA if you don't like Picture in Picture, just don't use Picture in Picture.

Well this guy finally caved in after a year of fruitless research to find the one new Sony TV that didn't have Picture in Picture. And he actually bought a one with Picture in Picture. It's a standard feature. They all have it.

I could tell he was all torn up inside about this. If you mentioned TV, or a TV show, or video, or a movie, or airwaves, you could see him tense up as he prepared to go into his monologue about his internal torment over the "Trojan horse Picture in Picture" that he had to get on his Sony TV. The Horror! The technology was holding him hostage, symbolically! He had to accept a feature he didn't want! Freedom itself was in peril! He was like a caged manimal, trapped, abused, a victim of the future!

Let me backtrack, there's a story about this guy and shoes, where he spent about 2 months buying shoes. He would buy a pair, take them home, think about it, and decide he didn't like them, then go back to exchange them for another pair. He did this, like I said, for over 2 months. Seriously. His girlfriend used to confide in me and tell me these stories, and I would laugh and laugh. This guy was a true life Seinfeld character.

OK back to the story, so obviously he decided he didn't want the TV, it was no good, how could it be? It had the dreaded Picture in Picture. He didn't want to take it back to the store for some reason. Maybe he couldn't? It wouldn't fit in his car? I Dunno. But he tried to sell it to me and I almost went for the deal. He's an idiot, why shouldn't I profit from that fact? But then he started to try to make as much back on the TV as he could, and thus I was out looking for a similar TV to price compare. I wasn't going to pay him full price for a used TV.

I found one, same exact model, that was returned to the store, with no problems, that was 100 bucks less than what he wanted. And I didn't have to drive across the state to pick it up. So I bought that one from the store. I still have that TV to this day, great TV. Sony has my blessing.

As a side note, I don't ever use Picture in Picture, I think it's silly. However, unlike this guy, I have no problem with it being a feature on the TV.

I don't remember if he ever managed to unload that evil TV with the much dreaded Picture in Picture or not. I do remember not caring at all one way or another, and enjoying his future exploits.

I can still imagine him looking at his remote, in agony, seeing the little Picture in Picture button, look how it mocks him!

-Jebby

*Disclaimer: there is no concrete proof that I have ever been to a strip club, I must be hypothetically projecting someone else's memories onto myself here for the point of this story, according to my lawyer Mr. Timothy Sparks, whom I keep on retainer to deny any and all allegations and or implications. After all, if it's alleged, it must be categorically denied. Johnny Cochrane may have told me that. "If you imply, we will deny!").

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:16:00 +0000

I'm starting a new segment here at Semi-Automatic Mojo, a segment devoted to my sheer innovative genius. That, coupled with my overpowering sense of modesty and my sublime unspoken wisdom (ask me, I can talk for hours about my unspoken wisdom), is a huge part of the equation that makes me what I am today (an idiot).

So let's get right into the thick of things. Let's get right to

The Soup Bell!

Not to be confused with "the Soup Belle," who is an attractive Southern Gal who enjoys soup. Possibly the subject of a future SAM* segment. She has quite the Belle Curves. Bang a gong! Get it on! OK, I'll get back on point before you cut my Power Supply**.

*S.A.M = Semi-Automatic Mojo

** I'm aware that song wasn't originally done by Power Supply; it was done by T. Rex. The ghost of Marc Bolan sends along its thanks to you, the music watchdog.

I was watching this show on Bell Making, or rather it was a segment on some show on the Discovery channel, and they were making a bell.

And suddenly I had "My Next Brilliant Idea©®™."

I give these out for free, so grab your notepad. A golden opportunity, or a brass one, or maybe copper.

A soup bell. A soup pot that doubles as a bell. With a spoon that doubles as a bell banging instrument.

So you put the soup in the soup bell and heat it up, and when it's done, you announce this fact by striking the bell with your banger. then when people coming running to the melodic ringing, you flip the banger around and serve out delicious soup.

Gone are the days when you needed a soup pot, a spoon, AND a bell system. Now you can have all of this and more***, with the Soup Bell

***Not much more. Actually nothing more. We apologize for the slight over-hyping - Management

Sure there are technical issues that need to be ironed out. Can a bell sound good when its upside down and filled with soup? Is it light enough to pick up? Etc Etc. That's something for your team of engineers to figure out.

Also, we need the users to know not to flip the soup bell right side up to ring it, otherwise much to their surprise, scalding hot soup will be dumped in their lap. Painful! That's something for your marketing/product safety team to concentrate on.

All I ask is a modest 15% cut of your business. So whoever decides to take this idea and run with it, let me know. I'm ready to make money off of your work.

7 dollars a gallon: called to the carpet

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 23 May 2007 18:18:00 +0000

The day gas hit 7 dollars a gallon, there was magic in the air. Specifically, in carpet form. All my friends and I made the change over gladly, except for my foolish pal who tried his hand at a bio-diesel vehicle. They found him face down in a sour mash, more dead than alive. His family cried. A lone piper played a Scottish dirge. The world moved on, the incident was buried in the sands of time. Or was it kitty litter?

My carpet and me, we had a good time. I'd sail over the city at midnight, dropping rotten eggs from great heights onto the scant few SUVs parked in dilapidated driveways. "Take that you dinosaur-fueled sources of evil." It hadn't taken a comet to wipe them out, merely a magical 7 dollar benchmark that broke the stressed out feather across the camel-back of humanity.

Long after humans left earth, some new race would touch down their spacecrafts here and dig up SUV bones and wonder what it all meant. "Such ugly transporter carcasses, and all with over-sized cup holders and needlessly powerful speaker systems. They must have been a thirsty deaf race."

I had the most fun on weekends surfing through the clouds. Light, white, and fluffy. You wanted to avoid the dark clouds. Unlike Dark Chocolate, the dark clouds left a bad taste in your mouth, in fact it was sulfur and brimstone, especially when you suffered a direct lightening hit. Gray clouds made excellent carpet washers.

At work we all rolled up our carpets and tucked them snugly and conveniently under our desks. There was no need for parking garages so all they turned into skateboard parks.

There were no need for parking meters either, or garages, or driveways. People just carried their carpets wherever they went. Some guy made a mint inventing the "carpet-a-pak," a backpack like container that not only helped you carry your carpet around but also made you look damned good doing it. And the "carpet-a-chute" did well too. Don't fly without one, you'd hate to be an idiot and fall to your death. The carpeto-ankleo-lineo was also key. Sure the names sucked, but the products were quite robust.

At 6 bucks a gallon people had still just put up with how things were. When it hit $6.66 a few satanists and televangelists complained or rejoiced (I forget who complained and who rejoiced, it's hard to tell those people apart), but American Idol was still enough of a distraction to make people bend over and say "do me, gas daddy, shove your rock hard nozzle where the sun don't shine, thank you sir can I have another gallon of your tough love?"

By the time it hit 7, something had to give, but would people finally wake up to the magic around them and embrace it?. When Apple announced their iTunes plug in adapter/speaker system for the Magic Carpet that very morning (the iCarpet), it pushed America over the Edge.

Accessories had once again paved the way for the acceptance of innovation.

The Return of Bob & Doug McKenzie!

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:14:00 +0000

It's true! I was being a good Canadian-blooded American, I was watching a special on Canada's bestest hero on CBC. No, not William Shatner. No, not Alan Thicke. Geez! NO! Not Alanis! OK look, you gotta work with me here you knobs.

Wayne Gretzky, eh.

Remember him? No, he's not related to Tim Horton. I forgot how little you hosers know about The Great White North. Put on a Rush album (and "Take off! To the Great White North! Take off! It's a beauty way to go!) once in a while for Christ's Sakes. Have a donut, here.. take a jelly, kick back and enjoy a cold one too eh?

"Wayne Douglas Gretzky, OC (born January 26, 1961) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player who is currently part-owner and head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. Born in Brantford, Ontario and nicknamed "The Great One," Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL calls Gretzky "the greatest player of all time". He is generally regarded as the best player of his era and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters, players, coaches, and fans. Along with his many awards and achievements, he is the only player to ever have his playing number, 99, officially retired across the entire National Hockey League." - Wikipedia

So there I was watching "The Great One" on CBC and they cut to an ad. A bunch of hoseheads saying "loo coo coo coo COO COO COO," and I figured, another Bob & Doug McKenzie retro product tie in, maybe another add for Molson or Pizza Hut or something like that.

But no! Apparently they are doing a reunion special of sorts!

Here's something I stole from an article that I will give no credit to!

"May of 2007 marks the 24th anniversary of the film starring every one's favorite hosers Strange Brew Bob and Doug McKenzie. The CBC is set to air a one hour special this month called The Two-Four Anniversary of "Strange Brew". That's right, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas will be reuniting as Bob & Doug McKenzie for what may be their last show from the Great White North."

OK I totally lied, it came from here: http://homercat.blogspot.com/2007/05/grab-two-four-for-24th.html

Here's another story on it:
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/entertainment/article.jsp?content=20070507_105097_105097

So that's all this blog is about. I'm stoked. Has anyone said "stoked" since the 80's? I don't care. I'm stoked. I'm a huge fan. I have the Great White North comedy album of course. And Strange Brew on DVD. But also I have the "Strange Brew" soundtrack (Thanks to my pal "Shaven" Dave). And I even have them guest DJ-ing on a radio station (again, thanks to "Shaver." OK he's a cooler fan than me, that's obvious. I'm just riding on his coat tails). The point is, watch the show! I will. It will be a beauty.

I leave you with a random picture followed by a random script snippet from Strange Brew.

Bob McKenzie: Fleshy-headed mutant. Are you friendly?
Doug McKenzie: No way, eh? Ra-... radiation has made... me an enemy of civilization.
Bob McKenzie: [into a comm unit] Alpha Base. This is Bob McKenzie. I have a fleshy-headed mutant in the Forbidden Zone.
[Bob shoots Doug with a toy foam launcher]
Doug McKenzie: Ahhh! Take off, you hoser.

UPDATE! Here is when it is on!

http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/program/index.jsp?program=Bob+%26+Doug+McKenzie's+Two-Four+Anniversary

Past Blasts Vol II: The Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:50:00 +0000

I had a monster who antagonized me as a tweener. I'll call him Frank. Oddly enough that was his human name. Although I am sure you could only bind him to your will if you used his demonic name. I never learned that name, and thus, I could never get the upper hand on this guy.

Let me back up. This is another Past Blast, and I'm delving into a time in my life where I got attacked regularly by the Monster.I don't think it was every day, and I don't mean that I was savagely beaten. He knew to do enough damage to me to make me sometimes cry, and no more. He gave me as much misery as he could get away with. Or he tried to, sometimes he crossed the line and got caught and sent to the principals office. He knew if he ever left a scar, I would have undeniable proof and would be forced to rat on him. He knew if he ever hurt me too badly, I would probably turn him in regardless of the consequences. Plus, he told me if I told on him, he would beat me severely. One look into his demonic eyes and I believed him. So he did what he could, and he enjoyed every moment of it. I mean this kid really enjoyed his work. He knew I would never tell on him, when he got caught it was because he got careless and a teacher saw something.

So, he would slam me into the lockers, throw my books down the hall, punch me in the gut, whatever he could think of, all the time singing to me in a sing song voice about how he wanted to kill me some day. It was not only painful but unnerving. His childlike singing, his blank expression, his beady eyes, his massive serial killer bulk. I was picked on by a lot of kids, but this one was the only one that really chilled me because he didn't seem like a human being. Nothing stopped him.

Frank's attacks became so common, though, that in spite of all this I started to build up a resistance. I took them but they stopped scaring me and instead annoyed me. I started fighting back in small ways that got larger and larger because nothing stopped him and nothing made him mad. So why not fight back? It didn't matter either way. He would just keep up the assault until he had to stop (saw a teacher coming or the bell rang).

One day in the hall I was talking to my friend Mike (not the Mike from the other Past Blast, I knew about 10 Mikes it seems) and I was trying to be a tough kid and Frank attacked me and I managed to twist and slam him into a locker. I could tell it really hurt him, maybe he hit his funny bone or something, but he was in pain. His eyes had teared up. And he just laughed softly as he sort of loped down the hall. I guess it was close enough to class time that he knew not to engage me any more. I remember Mike saying "he's going to really beat you up for that one." But he didn't change it up at all, it went on the same exact way it always was.

Another time I remember stabbing scissors at his hand during an arts and crafts time and scraping off some serious skin off his palm somehow, maybe causing a small cut too. Was he lucky I didn't stab him through the hand (I know I meant to) or was I lucky (he might have killed me)? I remember he spent the rest of the time, when the teacher was busy looking somewhere else, trying to get the scissors out of my hands saying he was going to stab me in the chest. I was quite panicky for the duration of that. Since I had kinda stabbed him. I thought he might mean it. Needless to say I didn't let him get those scissors, but he made me bang up my fingers pretty badly in the struggle.

The time that sticks out in my head though is one day during recess. I would always hang on the fringe so the other kids wouldn't pick on me, and my friends would come visit when it was cool for them (if they spent too much time with me, they would have been considered losers too. ah the joy of youth!).

Frank came over and started poking me in the ribs painfully. And singing, and pulling on my hair, and pushing me down, and laughing, and singing, and pretty much prancing around me like a ballet dancer. With his beady eyes and his expressionless face.

I snapped. I grabbed a big rock and held it out so he knew I had it, and he sang a song. something like "johnny is afraid, he is afraid to hit me with the rock, because if he hits me with the rock i am going to kill him, i am going to kill him anyways, johnny is afraid..."

He lunged in and I swung the rock as hard as I could, it missed him. He laughed, surprised, continued his song, and added lyrics like "johnny is lucky he didn't hit me." He came in again. This happened a few times. Finally I cut loose again and with all my might swung the rock. And hit him right in the head.

"Hit" as in a square smash dead on into his skull. I heard the crack. I felt the crack. The force of the blow made me stumble back and fall down backwards. I swear I split his skull. I know I didn't actually split his skull, brains didn't fly out and his head didn't come apart like an egg, but at that moment I thought I split his head wide open. I was gripped in total fear, did I kill him? I remember the thought of "I killed someone!" racing through my head. I don't remember if my eyes were shut but I remember either opening them or maybe pushing hair out of my eyes and seeing him sitting on a large rock, looking at me, slightly confused, with blood streaming down his face from the hit. Not a gusher of blood, more like 2 or 3 lines of blood, but what stuck out at me was the fact that one of the lines of blood was going right into his left eye. And that was confusing him. He finally figured out what was happening and wiped his eye and licked his hand, and he looked up. And he fucking SMILED at me. And he GIGGLED. He got up and started dancing around me again, pushing his bloody hand in my face, singing about killing me (nothing new there) but also giggling as he sang. A teacher came up finally and grabbed him.

That was the common daily ritual. Once a teacher saw Frank antagonizing me, the teacher would come over and save me and Frank would leave me with a threat. Usually Frank would be partially dragged away because he didn't like people touching him. This time Frank was just giggling and put up no resistance and I could hear him singing and giggling as he was led off, presumably to the office.

The funny thing is, I remember a lot of Frank stories before that. He prank called my house at 3:00am and made my dad mad. He got older kids to do donuts on my lawn. He lit two of my books on fire during recess. He hacked into the computer system and deleted kids school records (supposedly, I don't know this one first hand, it could be an urban legend). But I have no memories of Frank after this. I don't remember if he started leaving me alone because I fought back and drew blood, or if this was around the time he got expelled for good. That was 6th grade, and he didn't make it to 7th grade in my school, so perhaps it was near the end of the school year.

His younger brother was a trip too, but that's another story for another time.

Past Blasts Vol 1: Mad Dog GBH

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:02:00 +0000

I'm going to start an ongoing series here where I talk about little snippets of my past. As I get older I will probably completely forget this stuff so I figure, blog it, and thus keep it around, if it's worth telling. Worth it to me that is. And if anyone else likes it, cool beans.

Today's snippet: Mad Dog GBH.

Mike was my mentor in high school. He was the cat who was the coolest. He liked all the cool bands before they were cool, and bands that no one else even knew about. I guess you could refer back to him as a "hipster." I don't know why he liked me at all, I was a total loser. He was a year older. Perhaps he wanted to be someone's mentor. And I was that guy. I liked the same music and had the same sense of humor and before you know it, we were both getting yelled at for playing 3-D tic tac toe in Spanish Class. I idolized him, he taught me the ropes on 'being cool,' and anytime he wanted to do anything, I jumped at the chance. Symbiotic-wise we had a great thing going.

Well, we went to some cool shows, and it was his goal to get me drunk and himself high. I was scared of the 'bad mamba jamba Mary Jane,' so I didn't want any pot (yet). And he had stopped drinking at that point, he had racked up too many bad experiences with booze so he had moved to pot. But he could buy, so he was not merely a hero to me, he was a SUPERHERO. We both agreed that going to shows "bombed" was the only way to really enjoy them. I supposed Jim Morrison smiled down at us and our so called "wisdom."

That night Mike introduced me to Mad Dog 20/20. He said it was a cheap wine, and that he got me two bottles to gun while heading to the show. I was a complete idiot, I didn't think anything of it. I slugged down those two pints or quarts or whatever they were as we cruised down Fort street to the show. We were going to see "Charged GBH." I remember we had some Gothic junk jamming on his stereo on the way down with the windows open. I was enjoying seeing all the dilapidated buildings as I slugged down this nasty ass shit and heard this depressing music. It had a certain karma to it all.

We got there and I was complaining.. man that shit tasted harsh! Really fucking harsh. Mike was laughing. He said "Wow, I'm impressed, I didn't seriously think you'd actually drink em both." So we get out of the car and head over to the place, and there's a line of pure punk rockers outside waiting for the doors to open. I start to feel a little drunk and we get in line. I'm checking out the Mohawks and skinhead chicks with ripped nylons and feeling warm.

My next memory is of falling constantly through the world, which is confusing to recall. And as I fell eventually things started to crystallize and finally my right eye hurt. And out of it I saw blurry brown while out of my left eye I saw a sideways view of the world from ground level. Yes, I was laying in a puddle, my one eye submerged. I struggled up and Mike is sitting there on a cement curb smoking a cigarette.

Apparently I got so drunk I sat down, then I fell over in the puddle. Mike thought I dropped dead. He dragged me off to the side of the line and I sat up, then fell sideways into a puddle, but he could tell I was breathing. And he waited. It was 2:00am when I came to. We obviously missed the show and he obviously stayed outside with me.

He said he was sure he had killed me and it scared him so bad that he threw up, he was paralyzed with fear until someone came over and looked at me and laughed and said I just needed to lay there until I came back around.

I dunno, maybe I got brain damage then and it explains how I am today.

At the time I couldn't get mad at him, I could tell he put himself through Hell for talking me into drinking those two Mad Dog 2020 bottles.

Looking back, I'm only sad that I was such a dumb ass. What the heck. What an idiot. Hey, don't check the alcohol content, just drink it down. Hey dumb me, here's a clue, if it tastes that fucking harsh, maybe it IS that fucking harsh.

To this day I remember exactly what that stuff tastes like.

And yea, um, no thanks, dude, I don't want a sip. Really.

Diamond Mining Time

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Put away your Clapton. Throw down your Eddie Van Halen. Cast aside your Frank Zappa corpse. I have come unto thee to tell unto all that of which I shalt have been known to have spoken. From the hill I preach to thee. So it is written, so it shalt be spake.

But seriously folks. I just gotta tell ya, the results are in. I refer of course to the results of my untold years of Guitarology research. My quest to find the one true Guitar God. And I finally have to close the book and bring to you my findings.

Curt Kirkwood.

If you don't know who this is, throw yourselves down on the ground and writhe like a wild undulating wildebeest, yelping, whimpering, perhaps even braying. For you are among the unwashed ignorant mismatched-sock-wearing masses. You are like a deer in the headlights of a UFO. You are a coin tossed towards the fountain that bounced back from the fountain edge unexpectedly and tumbled instead into the sewer, clinking its way down until it lands on a bloated rat carcass. Is the rat dead? Or it is sleeping? Was it a nickle? A dime? A quarter? Surely not a penny, that's just cheap.

Actually I am not surprised that many may not know who recently-knighted (by me) Guitar God Curt Kirkwood is. He's off the beaten path, Curt is not a "Rock Superstar." Sure he's had his brush with fame, he got some face time on MTV playing with Curt Cobain on "MTV Nirvana Unplugged" along with the other members of his band.

The band? The Meat Puppets. "The Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980, in Paradise Valley, Arizona. The group's classic lineup was Curt Kirkwood (guitar/vocals), his brother Cris Kirkwood (bass guitar), and Derrick Bostrom (drums)." I stole that right from Wikipedia. Because it's true. It's good to steal the truth. It's better than buying a lie! I think I'll pass that onto my kids. "Boys," I'll say, waving my corncob pipe meaningfully, "It's better to steal the truth than to buy a lie."

I just left myself a mental note to buy a corncob pipe.

The Meat Puppets, to me, are the best Country band that's never been considered a Country band, ever. A quick thoughtful listen to "Huevos" will confirm this fact. Their first 2 releases may be hardcore punk run through a cow's digestive track and left in a steaming pile on the grass; but by the time they released "Up on the Sun" they had crossed over into my idea of perfect Country. I remember first hearing "Up on the Sun," and I remember it well. Because I was into Black Flag. Sex Pistols. Dead Kennedys. Stuff like that. My buddy Marty lent me "Up on the Sun" and it blew me away. Totally blew me away. And I HATED country. Rather, I hated the current Country Music Genre. I like Johnny Cash. And I love the Meat Puppets.

I saw the Meat Puppets, I think on the tour for their "Out My Way" EP. What was amazing about this tour was the fact they they played to their hardcore punk base, even though their new stuff wasn't hardcore punk. So this meant they played all their new songs really really really really fast. People were slam dancing to sped up versions of their new songs.

Back to Curt. He's the one true Guitar God as I mentioned, and here's a reason why. He played all that stuff really fast and it sounded great.he wasn't just doing some half-assed shredding, he was playing stuff that they recorded one way.. a lot faster. I remember being thrown off my game, I was expecting to hear the songs as they were on the record. And I remember a lot of sweat flying in the air, because at the tempo they were playing people were going bug-eyed-jungle-animal-on-PCP bat-shit CRAZY. This was the only hardcore show I was at where I was actually afraid I was going to die. The audience can only be described as crazed and potentially on a music-fueled cannibalistic sacrificial frenzy. I was worried for my skinny white body and what would happen if the crowd descended upon me and decided to rip me limb from limb. And they wouldn't remember it later.

Officer: And none of you remember ripping this skinny white boy apart?

the crowd is silent and vacant eyed.

Officer: look at your faces?! Covered in blood! You.. look at your hands

The crowd member the cop is talking to looks at his hands, and his eyes focus suddenly. He barks out a verse from "Buckethead"

Crowd member: got no head!

Another member of the crowd suddenly looks up and continues the lyric

Another Crowd member: it's a bucket with teeth!

The crowd starts to chant

Crowd (speaking as one): It likes to dream, It likes to sleep. It knows hot. It knows cool. It know what's what. It's no fool.

The police officer starts to back away slowly towards the exit but is cut off by crowd members.

Crowd (chanting as they descend upon the police officer and rip him to pieces): Fill up the bucket with Whatever we've got. Make sure it's something That the bucket likes a lot!

Curt Kirkwood floats off the stage and coasts slowly over the crowd, laying down an amazing instrumental as the crowd rips the police officer to pieces and feasts on his innards.

That's how it could have gone down. As luck would have it, there was no carnage at the show. And it totally rocked.

The Meat Puppets have veered off in many odd directions. For example they recorded one of their CDs over the course of a few days using many first takes. They said they did that one in tribute to one of their favorite bands, ZZ Top. I hope the members of ZZ Top have heard it, it's my favorite Meat Puppets CD. Later on, their best selling CD "Too high to Die" was obviously their tribute to grunge. Curt Cobain was a huge Meat Puppets fan, which is why they ended up on MTV Unplugged.

Unfortunately Cobain passed on his heroin habit to Curt's brother Cris. The band fell on hard times, and broke up, and reformed with different people, and re-broke up, and re-reformed with slightly different people. Etc, etc. I think the latest version has the Kirkwood brothers reunited, with a different drummer.

Throughout it all, though, Curt Kirkwood dazzled everyone with his unique guitar stylings. The man can crank out some deep fried licks. Deep fried and mutated, he has a style all his own.

Therefore I have submitted him for Guitar God. I emailed my suggestion to "guitar-god-designator@hotmail.com." The email bounced, so I'll see if "guitar-god-designator@yahoo.com" is the right address. And we'll take it from there.

If you are inspired to go pick up some music by the Meat Puppets, I suggest you start with "Up on the Sun." And really let it sink in for a while. You'll need to become accustomed to its awesomeness and when your mind is opened up, perhaps you can cautiously proceed to either "Huevos" or "Too High to Die." Don't dabble by mistake in Meat Puppets I or II, I knew a kid who did that and his left eyeball bled for 17 weeks and 3 days. He recovered, but only through careful Spandeau Ballet therapy, his brain soothed back to being functional through the carefully played crooning of, whoever that lead singer of Spandeau Ballet is.

Sometimes, with careful monitoring, someone who has just heard a few tracks from "Up on the Sun" can hear "Flight of the Fire Weasel" from "Monsters," or "I am a Machine" from "Mirage," but only if, and I can't stress this enough, if there is someone there with a big fat joint ready in case the listener becomes overwhelmed and needs quick medication. In the event that no one has any pot, a shot of Jack Daniels and a kick in the testicles followed by a push down a short flight of stairs (a stretch of somewhere between 12 and 15 steps if possible) can be substituted. It's much easier to just ease from "Up on the Sun" into "Huevos," then proceed cautiously to a quick listen of "Mirage" followed by intensive "Monsters" aural therapy lasting between 12 and 17 days depending on the responsiveness of the listener. From there most people can then peruse through the entire Meat Puppets catalog as they see fit.

I recommend new listeners try to get a Meat Puppet Mentor, that's really the best way to go. I'm available right now, I just got done pushing a friend all the way to the "Live in Montana" CD, and he managed to make the whole journey with only one 3 day lapse into pants-shitting dementia.

Curt Kirkwood has a solo CD out now called "Snow," but I haven't listened to it much yet. Even a wise Meat Puppet Master knows to proceed with caution. With Time comes Wisdom. With Wisdom comes Knowledge and Power. With Value Meal comes Fries and a Coke, but don't "Biggie Size" it, that's just unhealthy.

I'll leave you with a lyric from "Automatic Mojo":

"Inside the mighty basket

I carry rattlesnakes

You got to be a monkey

To see the sense it makes"

Ask yourself, are you that monkey? If so, proceed quickly, purchasing a copy of "Up on the Sun" as soon as you can, subsequently shooting me an email so we can begin to uncover the truth about the rattlesnakes.

I just found my mental note, I'm off to buy a corncob pipe.

-Jebby

Lunch Justice!

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:37:00 +0000

I've been festering in the corporate world since before this millennium began. I have no real complaints save the end of my childish all day lolly-gagging antics and the end of my once lean and active husk of meat-covered ligament-connected bones (with a pasty white skin wrapper) (Sporadic hair placement, and sweaty eye watering "musk" included at no additional charge) (See your nearest Jebby dealer for details on our lease-to-disown plan). These days I am lugging my inactive husk out to the gym, trying to slim down and have corn-kernel abs again. And maybe do something about my pathetic T-Rex arms. Here's a hint, if your four-year-old can beat you in arm wrestling, you might want to think about developing those arm muscles. In my case my TWO-year-old can beat me in arm wrestling.

Where was I going with this? Right. I remember.

At each place I have worked, they have a fridge for employees to store their lunches in. Sure, you can go out for lunch, get some fresh air, some social interaction, pump some money into the local economy. And by "local economy" I am not referring to the stage name of the stripper down at the Slippery Nipple whose g-string becomes packed with your disposable income. Her name is "Loco UCuddleMe."

At lunchtime some like to stay inside, festering, brooding . These people store their lunches in the company fridge.

Well on occasion there is a "lunch incident," involving someone's lunch getting stolen. Or, even worse, you take your sandwich out of your bag and discover it is partially eaten! I'm not making this up. Tis true! I've seen this happen time and time again.

Well at one place I worked; this was a common enough occurrence that we came up with a plan of attack. The "poison lunch plan."

The concept is simple, you put out a poison lunch for these criminals to take and then when they eat it, they suffer the consequences. It's Lunch Justice! In fact this blog was originally entitled Fly Sandwich but I'm now changing it to be Lunch Justice. That would make a great independent movie title. I think I'll go see if I can register the website.

Ideas for this poison lunch ranged from glass to ex-lax, secretly secreted into the sandwich. Wait can you secrete glass? Nestled? Planted? You know what I mean. Well I didn't want to hurt anyone, nor cause anyone to fill my company bathroom with fecal damage, so my idea was more along the lines of "make them sick." You know, they puke at their desk. If there is puke in the bathroom or kitchen or at a desk, it gets cleaned up quickly, while bathroom fecal damage tends to linger on and on, stinking beyond belief, punishing us all beyond all reasonable limits of our sanity, sitting there as a constant stinky reminder ..like for example the Bush Presidency. But I don't mean to put down feces like that, feces is a good kid. Also if someone pukes at their desk someone SEES it. Evidence!

My proposed brand of poison lunch was "the Fly Sandwich." A title I already gave away, and earlier demoted from being the title of this blog, thus sucking the drama of revealing it here right out of the blog. Stupid!

Anyways here is how you make it:

1. Two slices of bread
2. Peanut butter
3. Jam
4. a collection of dead flies
5. An apple of the variety of your choice

You put peanut butter on both pieces of bread. Then on one piece of bread you put jam, a medium thickness layer. Then on the other piece.. a layer of dead flies. Spiders, beetles, any insect that isn't poisonous will do. You carefully put the jam coated piece on top of the other piece and make sure no dead insects are peeking out. You put an apple along with the "fly sandwich" in a bag and put it in the fridge unlabeled. Don't agonize too much over the "make and model" of the apple. It's a decoy. No one who steals a lunch eats an apple, they never even take the apple. I think it's against the lunch-thief code. I've seen row after row of pilfered lunch bags, identifiable by the fact that each brown bag has but one lone apple rattling around in it. One solitary apple per bag, crying out in deliciously crisp freshly-washed-and-shined rage against the machinery of thievery. Have you ever heard an apple rattle? Think about that for a moment.

Back to the plan. You wait.

The beauty of this is, if someone ate your sandwich and became sick.. you reap the benefits of hearing about it. If someone ate the sandwich and didn't know.. you get to smile knowing someone ate a whole mess of dead bugs! And you can execute your scheme again! But if someone puked, your glory is done. Don't do it again or you'll trigger a fridge exploratory committee that will stake out the fridge from there on out, sending out emails and posting bulletins and who has time for all that distraction from your main task of surfing the internet?

Sadly, I never did put this plan into action. I ate out mostly, and when I didn't I brought in a cooler so I could keep my lunch locked in my desk. So I was never motivated enough to implement this plan.

Stay tuned for tips on making your own poison lunch in a special PS! But first, my signature.

-jebby

PS - a tip on making your poison lunch work is the strength of "the reveal." When will the thief realize what is really in that lunch? For me, I picture them tasting something odd or feeling an odd crunch and then taking the sandwich apart and looking.

"Hmm, that jam is kind of odd, it's got weird shaped fruits, they almost look.. like.. AHHH! BUGS! SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS I THINK I'M GOING TO PUKE MY GUTS OUT AND DIE, OH THE PAIN, I HAVE REAPED WHAT I HAVE SOWN!"

Then when they recover they think.. "was that jam just totally invaded by bugs? OR.. did someone put bugs in there!?!?!"

The beauty is in the mind-f*ck that accompanies the gut-f*ck. I think "Gut F*ck" would also make a great movie title. I better see if that website is available.

Hey do blogs get to have "PS" sections?

New Lead Singer! Recipe for... ?

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Francis) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:24:00 +0000

Sometimes a successful band encounters a situation where it's time to give the heave-ho to the most visible member of the band. I refer of course to the lead singer. Or, the lead singer leaves the band. Often times it depends on who you ask. The lead singer will claim he/she was fired, while the de-facto leader of the remaining band members will claim the singer quit. The cause is usually artistic differences. Let me translate that: EGO. Too many cooks in the kitchen! A recipe for breakup.

So it's the end of an era. The lead singer goes on to fame and fortune (David Lee Roth). Or, to ridicule and misfortune (again, David Lee Roth, just a few years later). But let's get back to the people left behind. The important thing for them, what now? Usually the solution is to find a new lead singer.

Seems simple right? Well it isn't. You don't want to get a lead singer who seems like a carbon copy of the old singer, this much is true. You want someone different.

A shining example of this is Van Halen. Roth leaves? They get Sammy Hagar. Different style! Good move. Sammy Hagar leaves, they get.. Gary Cherone. Hagar-Lite. I didn't buy that CD, but I've heard it. And forgotten it.

Let's not forget Black Sabbath, they trail-blazed the way for Van Halen. They got it right the first time, they went from Ozzy to Ronnie James Dio. And then.. I'm sure Sabbath fans remember the other singers names. I don't. And as John Q. Public, if I don't know, it usually means those CDs didn't sell that well.

Sabbath, like Van Halen, has dabbled in reunion tours and/or new tracks with both of their sets of successful singers. And not with their other singers.

An example of a bad move right out of the breakup starting gate is Echo and the Bunnymen. Am I the only person who bought "Reverberations?" I think that's the name. Ian McCulloch had left, and they got some other dude. But he was no Ian McCulloch. He didn't stand out in any way shape or form. A non-presence. Noel somebody. They later reformed with Ian McCulloch. Smart move.

The safest approach when a singer leaves seems to be, if you can't find a new singer who already has some pre-existing appeal, like Sammy Hagar or Ronnie James Dio, bring one forward from inside the band.

For example Pink Floyd. When the levee broke and Waters flowed away to his solo career (what a terrible sentence. I suck, who lets me write these things?) Gilmour and the boys just kept rocking. Or, whatever you call what Pink Floyd does. Floyding?

When Peter Gabriel left Genesis, they pulled their new singer from their ranks as well. Drummer Phil Collins took over. Phil's style was different. Genesis went from a prog rock band to a pop juggernaut. Good move! Then Phil Collins left and they got some guy who was a lot like Peter Gabriel. Anyone remember his name? I actually bought that CD. Yes, I was that guy. I don't remember a single song off it. And now Phil Collins is back for the reunion.

Actually the SAFEST approach is to disband right away and start up some other band with mostly the same members but a different style. Or move on entirely.

It worked for Bauhaus. They broke up when Murphy split, and Ash and Haskins formed Tones on Tail, then brought David J back into the fold and formed Love and Rockets.

It worked for the Yardbirds. How many frickin superstar bands came out of those guys? I'm no 70's rocker so I don't know.

But it's not guaranteed. Even the coolest band can splinter into a bunch of underwhelming pablum-producing solo acts. When the Beatles broke up they all scattered to the four winds. John, George, Ringo, and the impostor who took Paul's place when Paul was killed in that auto accident. They all disappointed us, save Paul, who wasn't actually Paul so I can cut that doppleganger some slack.

So what's the real recipe for success? NEVER SPLIT UP THE BAND, and KEEP THE LEAD SINGER. We're talking Rolling Stones. Aerosmith. Cash Cows. Not a band called the Cash Cows, I'm calling the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith "Cash Cows." I wonder if there is a band called the Cash Cows? I'm sure there is.

Of course let's not rule out breaking up and saying you will never reform EVER. Then reforming when the money accumulates to an impossibly ludicrous level.

Hell yea! I'm part of that problem, I'm going to see the Police this summer! I can't wait.

One final note. If you were in a famous band as the lead singer briefly after the lead singer quit, how do you know if History is going to take a huge dump on your memory? Check the next Greatest Hits CD. Is there a single entry from the CD you sang lead on? No? Bummer for you, the band is trying to rewrite history and erase your ass. In my opinion, not cool. I'm talking to you Eddie Van Halen. No Cherone songs on the Compilation CDs? That's just low.

Feel free to drop a comment here on your favorite band that changed lead singers and your judgment on their subsequent releases.