Other Yesterday Occurrences.

I was home all day yesterday because on Thursdays and Fridays I usually just bunker down and do schoolwork until my eyes bleed, and I usually have the news on in the background (I don’t have cable but I have an AppleTV and most of the news apps have a live streaming feature) and so I saw the very brief report when a small yellow plane crash landed on a golf course in Santa Monica. It was interesting, but that sort of thing actually kind of happens not infrequently in a place as big as LA.

But then … BUT THEN … the world began to learn that it was Harrison Ford flying the thing and oh my god it was like someone lit the planet on fire! In fact, if someone had actually lit the entire world on fire that probably would have gotten bumped to the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Now I like Harrison Ford just as much as any other good red-blooded American and, sure his politics are kind of retrograde, but he’s like seventy years old and I’m just happy that he’s not standing pantsless in his yard screaming “GET OFF MY LAWN!” at the squirrels.

I’m not making fun of Harrison Ford (I just want to clarify that in case he is reading this from his hospital bed; Get well soon Harry!), I’m making fun of the fact that no one gave two shits about a little plane crash until Han Goddamn Solo was on board. I was sitting right here where I am sitting right now as I write this and I seriously spent some time trying to decide if Harrison Ford’s plane crash was news or not. I guess it is, in so far as a plane crash is news, and — yes — I guess it is news if only because he is such an iconic figure that he transcends simple celebrity, but other things happened yesterday too.

Yesterday a plane full of people slid off a runway at LaGuardia and nearly into the freezing waters of Flushing Bay, the LAPD locked down the dorms at my college because some idiots were firing a handgun, forty miles of traffic was stranded on a freeway in Kentucky, NASA put a probe in orbit around that dwarf planet Ceres — you know, the one that appears to have a couple of bright lights on its surface. This is to say nothing of the fact that some raving lunatic recently slashed the face of the American ambassador to South Korea, that somebody knocked over a shipment of gold in North Carolina, that the Iraqi Army if right now trying to retake Tikrit, some silly Republicans are trying to gin up a controversy over what email account Hillary Clinton has been using, Jodi Arias was sentenced yesterday, and for the first time in a century a tortoise was born in the Galapagos Islands.

I guess I’m just in a complain-y mood this morning, but doesn’t it seem like that in the age of the 24-hour news cycle and instant information, that we would have the time, the ability, and the inclination to care at least a little bit about all of the things and not care so much about only one or two of the things?

I think that is all I wanted to say about that.

Oh! Wait! One last thought:

If I had participated in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I would be too afraid of karma to even go outside, much less fly my own plane.

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Cutting The Tags.

So I’m just here cutting the tags off of my new running belt. I haven’t been running since I got back from my Christmas trip. I got sick in pretty short order and am still fighting it off, though I think the worst of it is over. So – I think – out of a sense of guilt and a feeling of flab, I went and bought a new belt last night. It wasn’t wastefull though, I did need one.

To be clear, a running belt is just that: a belt one wears when running. It usually holds some kind of water bottle and has a pocket or two for your iPod or some energy gels or a small crack pipe (assuming you run to get your crack, and who doesn’t?). This new one holds two little water bottles and has a pocket big enough to hold my phone. So I am basically all set. I just need to feel a little better. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to go out there in the world for a bit.

I’ll be honest and admit that over the past year and a half or so (or since I started doing things outside other than walking to and from my car) I have experienced a deep but quiet joy over owning very specific stuff. I HAVE A RUNNING BELT! I also have TWO different kinds of lightweight camping stoves! And FOUR sleeping bags! Although one of those was given to me, but STILL! I just like having these things that are activity-specific. Owning them makes me want to go out and USE them. That is a pretty new experience for me. I have been writing my whole life, bt there really isn’t any gear for that. The giant dork in me wants to wear my running belt all the time. When I’m not running I’ll loosen it so that it hangs at a big angle like Han Solo’s holster. And then people will come up to me and be all like, “Oh, is that a Nathan Trail Mix 2 Energy Belt?” to which I won’t even say anything. I will just nod slowly, somberly. A calm and no-nonsense acknowledgement. And the person asking me about it will nod quietly too. That nod will mean, “Respect.”

Though for any of that to happen I need to run more than I have been and need to log more miles than I do. There was a time last year when I was logging a lot of miles during the week, but it was also the summer time and the sun was up forever. Lately it is dark before I even leave the office. But hey! I own not one but TWO backpacking headlamps! I should totally be a night runner by now, but alas, I am not. But I will get there.

I have been reading Runner’s World magazine recently. It is stupid expense but I can’t yet bring myself to subscribe to it. I feel like they would somehow KNOW that I don’t measure up to their standards. Anyway, I have been reading it and reading interviews with real runners and reading all of these stats and all of these training plans and all of these special diets and all of the other nearly narcissistic stuff that gets published in such a sycophantic magazine and it all makes me realize how very little I know about this stuff. Basically I put on my shoes (and my belt!) and go run. I have to hope that for a guy like me who just looks like a normal person (albeit an awesome one) maybe that is good enough for now. Although, as I flip through the glossy magazine pages I’m besieged by photos of the long, lean, slender bodies of all of these runners. I’m honestly quite envious. So envious really that it takes me out of my head and I have to step back and go, “Whoa there buddy, why SO envious?”  

I guess I have just always been short and bald (rocking male pattern baldness since 1998-ish!) and while I am fine with that and make it look pretty good, there is a part of me that would like to not be so soft around the middle. So I’m working at it and will continue to. My philosophy though is basically the same as Kevin Spacey’s in “American Beauty” when he goes jogging. He’s asked what part of his body he wants to work on and replies, “I just want to look good naked.”

So yeah, maybe one of these days I will try that protein shake that Runner;s World told me about, but really I would just rather be able to NOT do that. I would like to just be able to go running and find some quiet meditative grace in it (grace or some sort of graceful form is still a distant goal of mine. When I run I basically look like three-legged beagle trying to flee a pack of wolves across a river of cake batter.)

So yeah, I would like to look better and I would like to run better. It seems to me that the only way to accomplish those goals is by actually going out there and running. I guess that is often the answer to these things, isn’t it? That’s the whole idea about “Just Do It” right? I never really knew.

Oh! And also, I would like to be able to wear my running belt out in public and have people mistake me for Han Solo. That’s not too much to ask, right?

And speaking of Han Solo, here is a picture of a bunch of women dressed like Princess Leia. You’re welcome.

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Some Modern Proverbs I Am Trying to Get Off the Ground.

Here are some modern proverbs I am trying to get off the ground:




It is better to have a dozen ducks in your living room, than one howler monkey in your bathroom.



Never Google anything you don’t want Google to know you were Googling.



Don’t take a knife to a gun fight. Better to just not go to the gun fight at all.



Sometimes the grass actually is greener on the other side.



There are only two kinds of women, those who want to sleep with me, and lesbians.*



There are only three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t.**



No matter how much or how hard you work today, there will always be more work to do tomorrow.



Never trust a man who likes Mad Men too much.



Chess is not a metaphor for life and you’re a douche bag for acting like it is.



Even Han Solo had girl trouble sometimes.


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*This one is not mine, it was said by my friend Mike the Director’s dad.


**I’m pretty sure someone said this to me recently, though I simply cannot remember who or where or when.





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Some Possibly True Facts!

Some of these things are true!


Osama bin Laden’s is believed to be the most recognizable face in the world!

Rob Lowe is a bestselling novelist!

Edgar Allan Poe bred cats in Baltimore with seven toes!

Recent poll finds that for the first time Astronomers now have high rates of suicide than dentists!

Lou Diamond Phillips is the godfather of Jennifer Grey’s son!

Marine biologists have discovered that cats cannot SCUBA dive!

In 1962 the Soviet space program launched an elephant named “Pasha” into space and that she made 26 orbits of the planet Earth!

All Canadians are afraid of the dark!

President James A. Garfield was the model for the famous cartoon cat in the comic strip “Garfield”!

President James Buchanan was the model for the cartoon character of “Jon” in the comic strip “Garfield”!

In parts of Amazonian Peru tarantula eggs are considered a delicacy and eaten on bread!

The band “The Decemberists” are named for a 19th Century Russian military uprising!

The nation of Azerbaijan was named for Dilpallan Azerbaijani, a fourth century Hindu explorer and religious leader!

Opium was discovered by the Mongolians, not the Chinese!

The Palestinian Authority is not allowed to enter teams in the Olympics!

The actual nationality of Christopher Columbus is unknown because as a boy he was orphaned in a shipwreck, of which he was the only survivor!

The 1990’s one-hit-wonder band “White Town” changed its name and became the band “Spoon”!

The band “The Presidents of the United States of America” are working with Sir Mix-A-Lot on a Broadway musical about the rise and fall of the band “The Presidents of the United States of America”!

Kurt Russell was nearly cast in the role of Han Solo in “Star Wars” instead of Harrison Ford!

Dennis Hopper was nearly cast in the role of Tom Hagen in “The Godfather” instead of Robert Duvall!

As a child actress, Calista Flockhart was an extra in one crowd scene the Harrison Ford film “Witness”. Now they are married!

More than 1,800 man-made objects fall out of space every year due to their deteriorating orbits! Most of them burn up on re-entry!

In the 1940s Army and Exxon scientists worked together on a secret project to chemically change water into oil and visa versa!

Historians and psychologists now believe that Civil War Union general William Tecumseh Sherman was actually a diagnosable pyromaniac!

Every year more than 40 people worldwide are killed by ants!



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