Tag: humor

Sometimes being an astute observer has its drawbacks

imageAs I’ve mentioned, during our town’s annual spring festival, the carnival sets up across the street from our home.

Literally.

If it were any closer, I could high-five everyone on the tilt-a-whirl without leaving the couch. So each night after work, I walk two blocks home and pass through the carnival, enjoying the fact that the sound of screaming teenagers — for once — isn’t coming from any of mine. I take time to watch the interactions of people, the motion of the rides, the flashing lights, and take in the carnival-specific aroma of frying corn dogs and sweet cotton candy mixed with freshly spewed vomit from the squirrel cages.

Being a writer, this is a target-rich environment of atmosphere, character and dialogue that I store in my memory to either draw from later or, as in the case of what I’m about to share with you, eventually discuss with my psychiatrist or lawyer.

For example…  Continue reading Sometimes being an astute observer has its drawbacks

Apparently, I’m not the only one who finds bacon sexy

image As I mentioned last Sunday, I have somehow ended up among a group of men ranked as “The Sexiest” on The Public Blogger’s international stage of artists known and The Neighborhood.

I know what you’re thinking: There goes The Neighborhood.

But the fact that I’ve reached the top six out of 100 men just goes to show that Trump’s campaign may not be the strangest thing we’ve seen this year. For example, with two rounds remaining, I am somehow ranked 1st after Sunday’s round of competition: “Sexy Poetry.” I’d like to say it’s because of my command of love language and ability to create sexually charged imagery that makes the heart beat faster; I’d like to say it’s because my machismo transcends the written word and internal passion that each of us carries, just waiting to be ignited; I’d like to say something really sexy right now but as you can see it’s not working.  Continue reading Apparently, I’m not the only one who finds bacon sexy

Speaking of ergonomic chairs, does anyone know a good chiropractor?

imageBeing a journalist, I am trained to notice the most subtle signs of something amiss.

A hesitant glance.

A bead of sweat.

A chair that appears to be built backwards.

So, as I walked through our composition department this morning on my way to the news room, I immediately noticed that Peggy’s standard-issue office chair had been replaced with a broken piece of furniture. Who would do this to poor Peggy with the lower back problems? Why not replace her desk with a TV tray while you’re at it? Maybe we could move the copy machine on top of a book shelf so she has to use a ladder!

Poor, poor Peggy.

Then I remembered her mentioning she was getting a new “ergonomic” chair. Using the deductive skills I’ve developed over 16 years as a journalist,  I came to the following conclusion:

This must be her new chair.

I stared at it for a moment, trying to picture how one would ergonomically sit in it. I decided there was only one way to find out — a process that was captured by one of our office’s surveillence cameras…  Continue reading Speaking of ergonomic chairs, does anyone know a good chiropractor?

I’m shucking excited over my new book cover

image As I admitted a few weeks ago, I spent the morning with an oyster. Nothing kinky. Just a photo shoot for the cover of my new book coming out in September. Given that the title is a play on words related to pearls and shucking, the idea of incorporating an actual oyster into the cover seemed the responsible thing to do. For about two hours, a photographer friend, Joshua Greene, did his best to capture something cover-worthy.

And let me tell you, holding an oyster as it slow-cooks under the lights is its own special kind of hell. By the time it was over, I was essentially holding nature’s seafood petri dish of shellfish poisoning.

When it was over, I thanked Joshua profusely. He shook my hand and smiled. “Let’s not ever do this again.”

I posted the top five picks here a few days later and a lot of you offered your feedback, which I really appreciate. The final image (above) was among the top two, which I then sent to another friend, Eric Wilder, who I met several years ago in the WordPress blogosphere at The Grimm Report (a hilarious but, sadly, now defunct blog offering news reports from the land of fairytales.) In addition to being an author, Eric also has a highly successful graphic design business, Wilder Design and Advertising, a beautiful wife and children, is stylish, uber talented, and even knows what to do with all that extra silverware at fancy restaurants.

Yet some how, in spite of all that, he’s simply too nice to dislike — and I consider myself extremely fortunate to call him a friend.  Continue reading I’m shucking excited over my new book cover

It takes manliness to crawl under the house, even if you’re screaming

imageThere comes a time in every man’s life when he must set an example for his son by crawling under the house to fix something. This must be done with apparent fearlessness even though he knows whatever needs fixing is going to be located in the darkest corner of the home’s underbelly, probably behind a spider web the size of a commercial fishing net.

Several years ago, I used plywood to seal up the underside of our home and stop what I suspected were nightly “rave” parties hosted by our cat. These parties generally started around 11:30 p.m. and were held directly beneath our bedroom floor, where it sounded like 20 cats playing Twister. Naturally, I had no choice but to break up these parties by getting out of bed and shoving our 60-lb. Labrador headfirst through the crawl space in our closet floor.

My point is this: Sealing things up stopped the cat parties. Unfortunately, it also turned the crawl space under our home into a frightening black void where, thanks to evolution, a species of hairy, sightless, spider-like rodents with large fangs and the ability to mobilize telepathically has nested, colonizing into the hundreds.

Possibly even thousands.

I know this because I’ve shined a flashlight down there and — this is not an exaggeration — I’m pretty sure I saw something move.  Continue reading It takes manliness to crawl under the house, even if you’re screaming

This photo shoot has left me feeling a little shellfish

imageIn my younger days, while working through kitchens in the Deep South to become a chef, I shucked a lot of oysters. Probably thousands. Honestly, it was a crazy shucking time in my life. But while I used plenty of oysters for cooking, I also flung my share onto people during fake sneezes, or while pretending to cough up something.

Often they would ask, “What are you, a shucking comedian?”

Looking back now, I guess it’s no surprise I eventually traded my chef’s knives for a humor columnist’s keyboard.

So the irony wasn’t lost on me when, nearly 20 years after becoming a columnist, I found myself standing in front of a camera posing with a freshly shucked oyster. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that stranger things have happened to me. In this case, however, it wasn’t on a security tape or just a really bad attempt at a sexy selfie for my wife. It was for the cover of my new book coming out in September:

Pearls of Writing Wisdom: (From 16 years as a shucking columnist).

Obviously, the title demanded an oyster be on the cover. Mostly because of the Oysters Union. In fact, the only reason I’m on the cover at all is because someone had to hold the demanding little crustacean in the proper light. I had no idea the photographer, Joshua Greene, was shooting us both. In fact, the only input I had was on deciding whether to have it open or closed. After debating the merits of both, I finally just said, “shuck it” and popped it open.  Continue reading This photo shoot has left me feeling a little shellfish

What an escaped hamster taught me about crisis management

imageWhen you find yourself force-feeding Pepto Bismol into your child’s constipated hamster, you figure you’ve faced one of your greatest challenges as a parent. In fact, over the years, it has become the measuring stick by which all family crisis is measured:

“He backed the car into a tree? Well, I suppose it’s still better than dealing with a constipated hamster…”

In fact, the only crisis that has come close — appropriately enough — involved the same hamster. It was a moment that began with a simple statement from my daughter.

“Dad, I can’t find Squiggles.”

Those words, uttered just three nights after the constipation incident, transformed a quiet Wednesday evening into a full-scale hamster hunt. Within minutes, our team was assembled around the kitchen table for a briefing.

“There’s no telling how long he’s been on the outside,” I said. “There’s a good chance he’s already assumed a new identity — perhaps as a mouse or gerbil. Keep you eyes open.”  Continue reading What an escaped hamster taught me about crisis management

I swear I had nothing to do with this

Does this look like the face of a guilty person?
Does this look like the face of a guilty person?

We all make mistakes:

Drying boxer briefs in the microwave

Bathing your cat.

Kanye West.

But when it happens in a newspaper, it’s like taking that same mistake and repeating it, say… 15,000 times… then handing it out to people to make sure they saw it. Such was the case in our latest newspaper issue, which included a full-paged ad promoting the biggest event our small town hosts each year — and has been for the last 109 years: The Florence Rhododendron Festival. Our small town swells (it’s a swell town) from 8,500 to 18,000 for four days each May, culminating with the West Coast’s second-largest floral parade next to the Rose Parade. It also brings about 300 bikers to town.

No one knows why.  Continue reading I swear I had nothing to do with this

Grab your streamers, we’re bringing May Day back!

imageSomewhere, lost between the risen Lord of Easter Sunday and the more laid-back Dos Equis guy of Cinco de Mayo, is the Roman flower goddess Flora, who used to reign supreme as THE party icon this time of year.

Nowadays, any May Pole dancing is purely coincidental, at strip clubs, with the only reference to Flora the flower goddess being dancers named “Daisy.” How did a celebration dating back before Jesus somehow get lost in the shuffle between Easter eggs and Mexican beer bottles?

Even when I was a kid, which I’d like to point out was well after the resurrection and as recent as the 1970s A.D., I remember dancing around the sixth-grade May Pole and savoring the opportunity to hold hands with Sara Getlost as she cried out in springtime rapture, “Ewww! Ewww! Your hands are SWEATY! Ewww!”

It’s that kind of wild, springtime ecstasy that May Day and the goddess Flora were all about.  Continue reading Grab your streamers, we’re bringing May Day back!

Can you believe it? They’re letting me publish another book

imageAfter taking a good look at this photo, I know what most of you are probably thinking:

His real name is Edward? Hahahaha!

But don’t forget, there is an entire generation of Twilight babies out there named Edward.

Or Jacob. And man, do those Jacob babies have some freakishly developed abs.

However, the real point of this post is to share with you that, this morning, I officially signed a contract with Port Hole Publishing for my second book, Pearls of Writing Wisdom from 16 Shucking Years as a Columnist. This is an important step beyond what had previously been me unofficially talking about my soon-to-be-published book with strangers, sipping directly from a vodka bottle while hunched over an empty bowl of peanuts at the bar. It also means that in order to meet my September publication date, I need to get the finished manuscript to my publisher by mid June.

So…

Gotta Go!

 

Just kidding. It’s not that bad.  Continue reading Can you believe it? They’re letting me publish another book