it's a sign

My Obama sign has made me a better person. I mowed my lawn yesterday. I even raked the leaves despite my belief that they should sprawl across the grass and do their part as insulation and nutrition. The tradition of putting something that naturally decomposes into plastic bags that don't doesn't make sense to me. It's that kind of thinking you'd think would come from a guy with an Obama sign in his yard. But I don't want to look like an Obama guy. I want to look like a regular guy who does normal stuff with his leaves.

It's a lot of pressure having a political sign in your yard. Colorado is a "Battleground State." The race is close. One guy sees me drunk and peeing on our maple and it could swing the entire election.

This morning I was about to take the trash out in my underwear, and I stopped, and thought about the consequences of representing Obama in my skivvies. I don't think he needs that.

Thanks to Barack Obama I'm even been putting on my seat belt long before the interstate.

I'm safer, I'm less naked and my yard isn't decomposing. I've never lived so clean.

It might be more fun to get a McCain sign.

reply all

Apparently hitting "reply all" can get you fired.  Unfortunately I'm not in a position to fire any of the people who have me in their "reply all" chain.  it's been going for three days now.  I keep thinking I have all kinds of neat new email, but it's just a bunch of strangers one-upping each other in a game called "total waste of the Internet." 

One brief "reply all" anecdote.  While working for the massive radio chain of Entercom Communications, some weekend deejay accidentally sent out a national, corporate-wide email to everyone--the managers, their managers, the secretaries, sales people, janitors, accountants, deejays, janitor's manager--that he thought his station in New Orleans rocked the hardest and all other Entercom stations were a bunch of "female genitalia" and he'd get them "on the 'f'n' bus" and show them how radio is done. 

I don't think he ever got that opportunity.

Shining Moments

It bothers me how much scary movies frighten me. Granted, Saturday night was an extra special sort of scary. I hosted the Shining Ball at the Stanley Hotel. It's an incredible place surrounded by nature and elk the size of dinosaurs, but it's supposed to be haunted. It was used as a setting in the scary-ass movie, The Shining, and now TV shows like "Ghost Hunter" trek around its catacombs looking for banshees and the like.

The party itself wasn't scary at all. It was actually a lot of fun, with the exception of two of the qualifiers in the "Sexiest Costume" contest getting mad at me for awarding the grand prize to the third. It wouldn't have been so bad had the Jack Nicholson impersonator not screwed up and given the gift basket to the bosomy baseball player in the mini skirt. Fake Jack had to take the prize back and give it to the rightful winner, the sexy cop, who was oblivious she'd won in the first place. Once the She Hulk caught wind of the mistake, she decided she should be upset, too, I guess thinking the whole thing was a sham. A contest, mind you, judged by the volume of screaming drunks.

The real problem wasn't the party. But the hotel.  It's regal and elegant and, in my mind, where a whole family was murdered by some guy who went bananas with an ax. I know that's just the Stephen King story, but the movie really screwed me up. I can't even watch the whole thing through. I've tried twenty times and the lady-in-the bathtub/kissing scene is unbearably terrifying. When I first saw I thought, "Oh cool, nudity." And then it turns awful.

Right now, writing this, I'm scared. I had Sports Center blaring to keep me calm but then I figured it kept me from hearing something from which I'd need to flee. In the corner of my eye I'm sure I can see those blasted little girls from The Shining. That's what my imagination does to me. It's like I'm out to get me.

At midnight I turned off the music and the Stanley staff lowered a projection screen to show The goddamn Shining. I busted like crazy to break down and get out before something scary happened, but even the opening music is unnecessarily freaky. You might think I was overreacting, and you'd be right, but I was about to drive alone at night through the same damn woods that Shelly Duval and the creepy "Redrum" kid eventually escaped. And I'm the kid who had to sleep with my friend's mom after his 12th birthday slumber party included watching Friday the 13th part 1 & 2.

Before I could leave the Stanley I had one last stop. I needed to get some equipment from the McGregor room. I'd set up a PA system to make announcements during dinner. Three hours prior the room had been bustling with revelers and wait staff. As I approached the door at about 1am it was dead quiet. Some moonlight reflected off the antique furniture. The chandeliers hung dark and silent. I stood at the entrance and wondered if I could just come back some other time. Upon discounting chalking another three-hour round trip to irrational fear, I came up with another strategy.

Singing R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love" as loud as I could, I rushed into the room. I thought of R. Kelly, the decadent rapper and his lifestyle. It was sunny and there were beautiful people by a pool. I picked up the volume and went to work looking for light switches. I clawed at the walls like somebody in need of oxygen. When I came up with nothing I sprinted across the room, breathlessly belting the last song I'd played at the ball.
"Step in the name of Looooove…You gotta something something….Step in the name of Loooove." While I fought conjuring images of the gruesome ghost twins of the MOVIE, YOU KNOW A FAKE STORY, A YARN SPUN INTO AN EXPENSIVE HOLLYWOOD PROJECT WITH SPECIAL EFFECTS AND UNION GUYS AND CATERING, I spotted light at the far end of the room. It was the kitchen. I crashed through its swinging door and had little time to think of a body in the freezer. Instead, I rejoiced at the sight of a row of switches and sliders. I cranked them all up. The McGregor burst with light. I picked up my pace on the R. Kelley rap ballad and frenetically stuffed my gear into one giant bag. I hope my lifetime of turning off lights whenever I leave a room covers my leaving the spacious ballroom looking like the sun. I wasn't going back.

The irony is that someone is going to find all the lights on and think the place is haunted.

The problem with running scared is your judgment isn't so keen. I know the way to Estes Park pretty well, but leaving seemed much different than I remembered. I even saw a sign for the little town of Masonville.  Growing up Masonville was closer to my hometown than to Denver.  Normally, someone who isn't sleep and cognition deprived would think, "How have I ended up near a town that's further from my destination than from where I just departed?" No, I took as a neat piece of trivia. I was a little disappointed, but really more tickled that Masonville had moved.

I drove, and kept driving, and wondered what happened to all the sharp curves. It was a longer drive, but definitely faster. That was good, but I was really disturbed by the loss of familiar landmarks, like the little town of Lyons, a place where my parents went to high school.  At night, I thought, those things are harder to spot.

It was like my brain was trying to protect me from sadness.

And I actually thought all those things until I passed the sign welcoming me to the Loveland city limits.  "A different Loveland?", I asked myself.  No, I'd gotten on the wrong highway--34 instead of 36--the empathetic clerk at the 7-11 informed me. I'd added an hour to my trip. It was past 2. I spent the next hour and a half speeding down the interstate with the windows down and the freaks of late night talk radio blaring their paranoia.  I sang some R. Kelly but mostly yelled obscenities at myself.

this happens every fricken year...Jack Nicholson loses it

I always take on too much when I emcee a show.

He was in for the Shining Ball at the Stanley Hotel.

I just got a sweet job offer!

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Finishing Quin's yogurt with a baby spoon has given me time to ruminate on these topics.

We've been running. We've been busy and surviving on whatever Quin doesn't eat. Not too long ago Quin wasn't eating much grown-up food. He dabbled in string cheese and fell pretty hard for tomatoes, but for the most part we got to eat the majority of our meal. His binge began the other night when we were out at Champps, a brewpub with some decent food in rather large servings. I ordered a hamburger, a break from my Caesar salad and necessary protein preparation for the next few days of working with my father. I gave Q a couple pieces of beef and soon he was ripping hunks of flesh from my meal. That was with his left hand. His right dug around in Sarah's noodle bowl for more artichokes. Sarah, who usually has plenty left over for lunch the next day, said, "I'm out of food, what have you got?" I was down to parsing the garnishes into infant bites while being heckled by a one year old.

That was a few weeks ago, and now I'm finding half eaten food everywhere. He got into Sarah's lunch this morning and helped himself to whatever he could open. Quin would take a bite of Sarah's string cheese and then offer a bite to Paco, who'd wait while Quin took his turn. I glowed the way a parent does over two siblings finally learning to share. Of course Paco does have a legitimate beef. The first solid food Q ate was his.

My favorite course of action is in the morning. I hand Quin a whole apple, and he's content walking around stabbing at it with his three teeth. You wouldn't believe the damage he can do. The bad part is that he often comes back with no apple. Only a few have ever been recovered.

I have to be honest; I've felt a little resentment sharing my food with him. Sometimes I break out some baby cereal just to distract him from whatever I'm eating, but it doesn't work anymore. He wants my apple, he wants my ravioli, and he wants my sausage.

Let me just say that the biggest scam on the planet (at least for today) is the American Express Gift Card. Having our cupboards ravaged by a 20-pound omnivore, we decided to go out on a card given to us at Quin's birth. (We hoard gift cards. You might get a gift from one you gave us.) After the meal the waitress came back with the ego-neutering message that our card had been declined. For once my disbelief was earnest, as the stated balance was far greater than the tab. But here's what we found out when we got home. Every month you don't use the AmEx gift card they deduct two dollars. And when you do finally buy something you're charged a $4.95 processing fee. Someone paid twenty-five bucks cash to buy us a gift, and we spent twenty without ever buying a thing. Seems scummy to me. It's like a Hickory Farms gift basket that evaporates the longer you wait to eat it.

the broncos are awful

The Denver Broncos are awful.  Some people might say their record of 4-3 isn't so bad, but those four wins are from before all the other teams got better.  Head coach Mike Shanahan has one move left.  He strikes before the other team is ready.  He's the guy who punches the giant biker in the back of the head. Sure, he scores first, but then all he can do is hang on for dear life. 

I don't even know the final score of last night's New England Monday night game.  I'd actually flipped to "Samantha Who" and, for much less than a minute, the live premiere party of "The Hills".  Sarah hopes they're this bad all the time.   

But back to the Broncos' overall badness.  They can't tackle.  It's almost like they don't want to tackle.  It might hurt.  And it did enough to knock the vaunted Bailey brothers out of the game.  The Broncos' best player, Champ Bailey, left the game with a "groin injury", which could mean he felt he was risking his manhood by simply being on the field with the hapless losers.  His brother, Boss, or as we call him in Denver, "The Other" Bailey, left with an injury as well.  They should have played with nine.  There's a better chance Patriot running back Sammy Morris would fall on his own accord, and then at least people would say, "sure, they lost, but they only had nine." 

The Broncos are fricken awful.  I grew up watching them being mostly bad, but they were just good enough to make it interesting.   We didn't expect them to win.  We had John Elway and then some other guys.  I guess we did have three wide receivers in Mark Jackson, Vance Johnson and Ricky Nattiel.  They were called the Three Amigos.  I had a poster of them wearing Sombreros.   Sadly, though, they didn't merit being called the Three Speedsters or the Trio of Touchdown Terror or Triple the Points.  No, they were just friends. 

Last night the Broncos were mere acquaintances to the game of football.  They looked like those kids Peyton Manning might help on an off-season Sunday.  There's no leadership.  No enthusiasm.  Even the quarterback, you know the helm of the offense, looks lost.   He's got to get a haircut.   How can a team in need be inspired by a guy who looks like the Village Idiot.

At least last night I never had hope.  Right away it was evident I was better off going to bed.