balding angrily

Bad Visual Effects: Check

Bastardization of an American Icon: Check

Impromptu Dancing and Singing Including In-Flight Dancing and Singing: Check

Monty Python Levels of Absurdity: Check

It must be Bollywood! (via BoingBoing)

I wanted to conclude the Cols talk for the time being, even though she may come up in future stories.

She and Jerry had a running joke about her dad who passed away about a year or two before I met her. They always referred to him as “her/my dead daddy.” She never, ever got upset about this. She loved gallows humor or humor that crossed the boundaries of good taste. To give you an example, even though she was a practicing Catholic, she had a whole collection of sacrilegious nun dolls including a nun puppet with boxing gloves.

So we knew immediately after her death that she would approve of any laughter at the expense of her passing. Upon such a joke, someone in her huge group of left behind friends would say, “Cols is laughing her ass off right now.”

After four months, I wrote an email to Jerry to sell him on some architectural services. It was not sincere, as I was (as always) frustrated with my job. A little background: Jen-An is Jerry’s boss, and she had just moved out of her office. Jerry moved into it. This is my email to him:

I can’t talk to you right now unless it’s business related. As I have been made aware that I am lacking in my marketing abilities, I must ask you if the Human Resources Department of XYZ is looking for any interiors or architectural services.

Reliant Architects is a full-service architectural firm with an emphasis on the CLIENT. Say a head director in your department is moving to another office leaving her office to an undeserving underling. That undeserving underling will need to know how to use his new office effectively and efficiently.

We at Reliant Architects can and will meet your space planning needs.

Let’s suppose that there has been a recent tragic passing of a loved one. She will be greatly missed. She was an inspiration to all that met her. She has left a hole in the hearts of those closest to her.

She has also left a nice bit of office space for her department with which to contend. That valuable real estate, under the sensitive hands of Reliant Architects can be turned into USEFUL space for her department.

We at Reliant Architects understand your grief, and we also understand that there’s no use crying when a 10 x 15 area is up for grabs. We’ll get in there and turn it into something so spectacular that you’ll forget you even had a friend.

Reliant Architects IS Service.

Jerry forwarded the email to Jen-An; they laughed their asses off, and four years later, Jen-An sent it back to me. I had forgotten what exactly I’d written.

Here’s stuff I done got for mah birfday.

Red-Haired Mom is a wonderful woman if a bit loopy. She sent a big box of stuff to Jen-An and Owen to deliver to me instead of just sending it to me. She wanted me to be presented with stuff, instead of getting a brown box in the mail. Here’s the bag that they shouldered into the restaurant. You can see I started unwrapping stuff before I thought to take the picture:

Here’s all the stuff in the bag. It’s hard to see in this picture, but the Garfield on the far left is wearing a baby hat. I presume that Red-Haired Mom included it in the package assuming that it’s mine. It is just as likely that it belonged to my brother or sister, and she stuffed it into the package with an attitude of, “Meh. He’ll never know the differnence.” She also included in the package a large file of pictures from when I was living with her. I haven’t opened the package yet because I haven’t had much time:

You might recognize the stuff from this picture as I’m getting ready for my senior prom. Though it pains me to admit it, here is photographic proof that a senior in high school had Garfield stuffed animals displayed prominantly in his bedroom. My mom never sat me down and said, “Alex, you’re weird. Please stop being so weird.” I blame her for the way I am now:

My dear sweetness gave me a ring. I lost my wedding ring maybe six months after our wedding. I took it off at the gym while working out, and I left it in the locker when I left. I immediately realized my mistake, but by the time I called the gym and got back there, it was gone. Jerry was diligent and found the exact same ring and got me a replacement. His ring also has a knot motif but is a bit more traditional. We liked the idea of having rings tied in theme if not in aesthetic.

Yargh!!! I’m going to get you with my stubby fingers and hairy knuckles:

Crump done give me a book I asked for. She said she liked the title because her name comes up as “cannoli” when she uses spell-check. Someone please go buy some art from her. She’s the nicest person I’ve never met. Jerry’s sister and brother-in-law gave me this kick-ass DC Comics book. I’m not sure what the 365 pages signify. Am I supposed to read it in a year like one of those bibles? That’s too much pressure, and I’m not going to take life-lessons from this book. Probably:

Finally, Jen-An and Owen gave me “Blackbird” sheet music, a small jewelry jar with the lyrics to “Blackbird” on it, and a small hand-colored piece of art with a web link on it. All of Jen-An’s family are artists. She did this. I haven’t gone to the link yet. I’ll let you. “Blackbird” was one of the songs that was at Jerry and my wedding. It was really the only thing we knew we wanted before we decided on anything else. Funnily we hadn’t really paid attention to the lyrics and were scared that it wouldn’t work. After sitting down one night and listening, we were relieved. What’s not pictured is some more art that Jen-An did to personalize the sheet music. She made the cover a kind of birthday card. Because she and Owen signed it with their real names, I didn’t photograph it even though I really want to show you her awesometude.

Ma and Pa Jerry and Dad and Blonde Mom also got me wonderful things that I will put to nefarious uses, but unfortunately they’re not very photogenic.

Finally, just because I’m not above pandering to get an “Awwww,” here’s a kitty with some kitties (”im on ur cowchez, maken beeleev”):

Crump is doing some crazy-cool things with print-making. She even used a bit of my rambling about meta in one of her pieces.

In the coming days I hope to post some pics of all the loot I garnered for my birthday. I also want to post an email I sent to Jerry some months after Cols’ passing. I think it shows our relationship accurately, much better than I could describe it to you. You’ll have to wait, though.

Work + sinus drainage is kicking my butt right now. Feeling under the weather on your birthday sucks.

I just re-read the Cols post after a friend who knew Cols called it bittersweet. I really tried hard to take all the bitterness out of it.

When writing about a real-life situation that made me laugh or smile, it’s a real struggle to get you, the reader, to feel the humor, to get you to smile. See, I don’t hold with the “Aw, I guess you just had to be there” philosophy. I think it’s a failure of the writer if they can’t put their readers in a given situation.

On the other hand, I can’t hold a gun to your head and say, “Laugh, dammit! That’s funny shit!” I don’t have that kind of control, and I have to just let you come to a story on your own terms. And if you don’t laugh, that’s cool. Hopefully, you’ve still enjoyed the story. So I’m at peace with that struggle. I won’t stop struggling to make you smile, but I’ll never be hurt if you don’t.

Having said all that, I’m always surprised when I get a laugh at something I wrote because invariably its not at a place where I intended one. It’s when I turn a phrase that I didn’t even realize I was turning that Jerry goes, “that’s some funny shit right there.” And yes, Jerry is always my test-subject. God bless him.

That’s enough naval-gazing for now. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program on Monday, unless someone forwards me another unicorn video this weekend.

Apparently, Planet Unicorn isn’t the most original thing on the internet. I’m years late, but in case you haven’t seen it, here’s Charlie the Unicorn, by Jason Steele. Instead of three gay unicorns you get one apathetic and two very creepy unicorns. How did my site become the repository for all things unicorn?

Jen-An is unflappable. Colleen was not, but you could never tell what would set her off. Jerry, making breakfast-for-dinner, said to her, “Move it Cols. Or I’ll kick you in your pussy.”* This didn’t faze her. I looked into the cramped kitchen shocked, wondering if Cols would respond. She ignored him and kept doing what she was doing.

On the other hand, if you timed it right, you could get Colleen good.

She had her gall bladder removed, and Jerry and I visited her in the hospital. She wore a hospital dressing gown that showed off her behind to friends and family. We chatted and left.

Later, Jerry told me she was afraid I saw her behind. I hadn’t. Jerry said, “Look. She’s really embarrassed. You can’t bring this up with her.”

A week later she got out of the hospital, but the doctor told her she couldn’t laugh. She might rip out her stitches if she did. Asking Colleen not to laugh is like asking the sun not to shine. If the expression “peels of laughter” ever applied to anyone, it was Colleen. It was her trademark, her calling card - that and screaming/yelling at someone through her laughter.

Jerry, Collen, and I were walking from her apartment to the car underneath a mailbox hut, one of those central areas where residents retrieve their mail. Jerry and I were walking about ten paces ahead of her.

Jerry said, “Hurry up, Cols. You don’t want a pussy-kickin’, do ya?”

She looked at him with a stone face as if to say, “Is that all you got?”

“So, Cols,” I said, “Did you show anyone else your cooter? Or was it just me?  Did they have to shave it down to cut you open? Do you miss your gall bladder?”

Here she stopped underneath the mailbox hut, put her hand on the stucco wall at forehead level, and silently hit her head against the back of her hand. She didn’t laugh. I like to imagine that she was crying from the pain of holding the laughter in, but I can’t say.

Footnote

*For a long while someone getting “kicked in the pussy,” was our thing. A work associate deserved a kick in the pussy. Roommates needed a kick in the pussy. Richard Nixon would have been a better president if someone would have just given him a good, swift kick in the pussy. I should also add that this was before Anchorman and Will Ferrell’s infamous, “I’m going to kick you in the vagina.” In fact, I wonder if somehow Adam McKay or Ferrell got that from us.

Colleen was Jerry’s best friend for 9 years before he met me. She passed away unexpectedly on my birthday 4 years ago. It’s best that I don’t dwell on that.

I can’t profile her like I did with Jen-An and Owen because any attempt would turn out too shallow. All the people that I put down here turn into characters (or caricatures) for you to read about. I play with these characters at my whim.  The real people behind the characters tell me on a night out that I’m a jerk, that I’m unfair; we have a glass of wine and a dinner and we move on. These people: Jen-An, Owen, Pubic Hair Head, Jerry, Red-Haired Mom, et al. live outside my head, and as I write new stories about their characters, I’m confident that their real-life counterparts are living full lives, unaffected.

In contrast, Colleen is trapped in my head, bouncing against memories and emotions like a pinball. It’s really unfair to her. She ought to be given the same freedom to live outside any character I draw of her. She was a joyous, living human. Even that sentence is diminishing; she was more than joyous and living. She was all the conflicting things that humans are. The moment I write one thing that she was, I edit out all the other things, and that drives me crazy.

So, this post is my disclaimer. I had a hard time sleeping the other night trying to figure out the best way to introduce her to you, and I decided that it’s best to show this part, the hardest part, first. Then we can move to the good stuff, and you won’t have to ask why she’s always presented in the past tense.

And Cols, I’m going to get things wrong. I so badly wish you were here to yell at me when I do.

Someone as awesome as awesome can be makes a piece of art like this.

My God. I’m thunderstruck at the sheer awesometude of it. Thanks MagnusfromBerlin, whose last name I know but remains secret. If he had a website, I’d link the hell out of it. He’s a frequent commenter, and he and Crumpet are my favorites. Suck it, the rest of yous. When you do something as awesome as this, you can be my favorite.

Oh. And he called it a Kubrick Toy. I haven’t read the accompanying Wikipedia article yet, as I was too excited to get this posted.

He said that I should think of this as a concept for a line of Balding Angrily toy action figures that I could sell. I feel Alex Kubrick needs a time machine, so he can visit his past and live out all those sick fantasies about his high school classmates. That said, I love it with all my heart and soul.

Just. Awesome.

Edited to add: I just asked Magnus about The Chimera. That’s AdamandSam, my trusty mount on whom I ride into battle. I always pictured AdamandSam to be a fierce, scaled hydra. He envisioned him/them as more of a Falkor-like creature, a friendly luck-dragon. I like his interpretation better.

Magnus - rock, rock on.

It happens enough that stand-up comics write routines about it. (And isn’t that the true measure of how far a model has pervaded our culture?) A person is talking on a bluetooth headset, and an observer gets concerned that they’re witnessing an actual mad person talking openly to Shiva the Destroyer. I always see the headset, so I never truly get confused.

However, this morning a woman was doing it in the elevator, and her hair was covering the headset. I honestly checked my observation of this woman against my own schema of reality. I asked myself, “Is she really on the phone? What evidence do I have that she is? I could be witnessing something special here.” Part of me wanted her to be mad. It would have made a better story.

Apparently, she and her friend were talking - on the phone - about text messaging. Think about that. Take two moments. There’s a meta level there, a feedback loop that if left unchecked could lead to…

Imagine a future in which we can transmit thought directly to our friends through a device implanted in our wrists. Imagine that we still have phones and computers and internets and everything else. Now imagine two people standing next to each other, conversing with their mouths (talking) about their simulaneous thought conversation about a phone conversation they had in which they discussed a text message from a third party that recounted an IM conversation that person had with a friend while they were both on the phone with each other. I wonder if this kind of scenario would lead to a communication black hole, where the density of meta is so high it doesn’t allow any thoughts to escape.

Anyway, this is the last thing she said to her friend, obviously about plan minutes, as I left the elevator.

You like me unlimited; I like you only five dollars worth.