E*Trade Babies (Outtakes)

And speaking of babies... I do love talking on the phone to a friend who has just had a new baby. We are in the middle of a conversation about the economy or Astronomy and suddenly I'm being asked if I made a poo poo. Or...

Me: "Yeah, can you believe the crap that guy pulled, and what exactly is a ponzi scam...?"

Friend: "Yeah, seriously man... awwwwwe, is it da booby-milky time? Do you need da momma?"


The odd thing about the whole senerio is that the friend seems to continue the conversation by answering your questions.

Not a bad day...

I can't believe how flabbergastingly beautiful it is here in NYC. I know what some of you are thinking. "Oh shut up you typical NYC-braggart." But I just can't help it. It is so beautiful that I almost skipped down the street today. Then I realized just how gay that would look (not that there's anything wrooong with that,) and settled for whistling.

Today's chores included:

Getting up at 7-ish and walking my heck-of-a wife to the subway. I took the long way home around Columbus Circle and by Central Park.

Stopped to pick up a NY Times from a street vendor.

Went home and sat on my deck and read said NY times under the baby-blue sky and in the soft, cool breeze.

Drank coffee.

Researched Literary agents.

Drank more coffee.

Worked on dissertation.

Responded to Superchurchlady's fun blog.

Made an omelet.

Gobbled down the omelet.

Read 20 or so pages of the Sound and the Fury. (It's growing on me, finally. 9000th attempt at reading it.)

Called future employer. (Hopefully...)

Life was rough today. (Famous last words.)

Life is full of different moments. Some suck and some are heavenly. Some are tiresome (getting evicted and moving 3 times in 3 months) and leave you feeling like crap (or smelling crap, see post about poo-tub) and some make you want to go hand-gliding, or skipping. Sometimes it seems that just when everything is going great, you get a big kick in the crotch.

Today, the crotch wasn't bothered and there was no poo-tub. It was only coffee, omelets, NY times, and blue skies. When you have have those kind of days, you just gotta shout about them.

Therefore, I shout. Thank you Lord for this good day!

The trick is to somehow be thankful during the crotch-kicks too. I'm still learning that art of that, and have a looooong way to go. They are really painful. But I think it was Jesus that said, "in this world, you will have crotch-kicks, but my peace I leave you." -The Message Bible.

Seriously, I hope everyone reading this here blog experiences one or two of those days this week, despite of your circumstances.

Peace love and joy, people. Feel it. Own it. Claim it!

I'd like to teach the world to sing... a perfect harmony.... (Quick, music trivia. Who wrote that jingle?)

Embarrassing Things You Might Miss By Not Subscribing

I am the biggest post-then-yank-the-post-because-what-I-posted-was-embarrassing blogger in the history of the bloggosphere. I am a stream of conscious writer and half the time I think that people think just as weirdly as I do. Some of you... well, you've got me out-weirded like Pee Wee Herman to the Beaver. But most of the time, I am usually glad that I yanked the post because of either the weirdoramma factor, the anger, or because of the pure, raw stupidity. But as I found out later to my horror, if you subscribe to the RSS feed, you get them no matter what. Here is an example of one that went into the "draft" world:

(Posted a long time ago in a blog far, far away...)

While we are discussing theological mysteries, let me bounce this one of ya'

First... (tapping fingers and slanting my eyes, debating whether or not to type the next paragraph) in the bloggin' world I think we are allowed at least one theologically crude and dumb rhetorical question per year. So here goes.

Will we go poo in heaven? I mean, have you ever thought about it? It's kinda how God designed us right? Or is going number 2 a product of the fall? You may think this to be the stupidest question that a thinking man could ask but I make a habit of surveying various Atheist blogs and these are the kinds of questions that Atheists are asking to stump the Christians! And stump them they do. (now you know you have wondered this too, no matter how trite and banal or even truistic the question might seem. Geeze.)

Just a simple question. So if you think you have a good answer, I would truly like to hear it. I do not think it a ...waste of time. (bud-dum-splash!!)

I do know one thing, if we are going to be "dropping the kids off at the pool" in heaven then I bet the bathrooms will be pretty darn clean. I mean, you don't have to worry about stopping at a gas station and finding a rat swimming in the toilet (like my sister did in East Texas one time) or some sort of fungus speaking French to you from the toilet lid (obviously there will be no gas stations in heaven because gasoline pumps are of the Devil, and Fungi rarely speak French but for the sake of the flow here...) because the gas station bathrooms in Heaven are going to be el-speck-and-spanno. Spotless. Maybe if there are tiers in heaven then you can bet that will be my job. Heaven-gas-station-bathroom-cleaner. As a matter of fact I'll probably get heaven-latrine-duty just for posting this on-the-edge-of-sacrilege-blog alone.

What can I say? I get weirder by the minute when my wife is away. Another plight and flaw in man.

To H-town and Back

Last week I was in Houston meeting with my prof. about my dissertation. It was a great trip and it was so good to see all our friends and people that have become like family to us. A blog is coming very soon about our church in Houston and the wonderful people that are there.

And yes, Houston is as hot as it was when I left it in August. If Louis Armstrong were to have sang about Houston it would have gone a little something like this:

I see smog of blue,
it burns my eyes
The hot humid days,
there's something in the sky...

And I think to myself
"Is that a mosquito or a bird...?"

I see traffic for miles
It ebbs and flows
like some poo made of glue
or a grandma, rowing a large boat

And I think to myself,
I'm gonna jab out my eye

(Bridge)
The colors of the rainbow,
high jacked by the gays
The churches are so huge
they could stage an Elephant's play (?)

I see dudes holdn' hands,
got both whiskers and some boobs
I see some old bum peeing
at the sonic drive-thru

I hear babies cry
No wait; it's a billion birds
perched above my car
covering it with their turds

But I think to myself...
"I miss all my friends there..."
Then I think to myself,
"No more sweaty underwear."

I wanna run, I want to hide.

I've started a morning regimen of sit ups and push ups and let me tell you... wait a second...

By gum... I think I don't mind it! WOW!

That may be the first time I've ever said that about any sort of organized or self-inflicted calisthenics.

(Pausing to review my life-working-out history.)

Let's see... I despise running with a passion. (I would just assume sniff a trucker's rhoid-cushion to running a mile.) And, as I remember back to my educational prison sentence... yes, I still have a black burning coal of hatred behind each knee-cap for high school gym class.

Now, sports, that's another thing altogether. I love a good romp on a court or in the dirt and always have. I love football, baseball, tennis, racket ball, volleyball, aerobic walking if I am walking with someone because you can talk and pass the time, monopoly... (That's right, folks, monopoly is cardio when I play it. Especially for the "other players," otherwise known as "My future tenants/slaves." muhaha... muahahahaha... muuuHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

About the only sport I hate playing is basketball. That's because I pretty much suck at it, and I ain't exactly a human skyscraper, and call me prideful, but when some 14-year-old kid in the youth group blocks my lay-up -or even my alley-oop for crying out loud - all of my faults and/or awkward memories, from childhood to present, go rushing before my eyes.

Anywho, other than basketball, as for just doing something for the sake of doing it, "working-out" sucks. It sucks bit poo-covered cow utters.

Seriously, if you think about it, working out is torture. I know, that isn't really a terribly original epiphany, but hang on a second. I know we say, "oh, wow, this is like torture!" But do we REALLY ever consider it to actually be torture??? Does torture REALLY have to be administered by the Japanese or a militant Islamist to be considered authentic, Grade-A torture? What does torture do and work to achieve? Here is the definition of torture, according to good old Webster:

1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain
2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure

Sounds pretty much like the friggin StairMaster, Nautilus, or treadmill to me. Suuuure, we listen to music to take our mind off the pain, but I have a theory that eventually, hearing "Where the Streets Have No Name" is someday going to be to the Christian-weight-lifting-enthusiasts what Beethoven's 9th was to the psycho-rapist in A Clockwork Orange: a form of torture in itself.

Yes, I can see it now. Someday, Chris Tomlin is going to start singing "Where the Streets have No Name" (a song he covers) at a concert, thinking he will surprise all his avid worshipers by cleverly enlightening thousands unto spirit-U2-ality, but instead, he will choke on the chorus as he sees several thousand men writhing on the ground covering their ears and screaming for their mommas. Tomlin's last thought before he stops singing the song? "Why didn't any of big fellas eating chili-dogs writhe around on the ground when I started to sing the U2? Maybe momma was right... Maybe it really isn't a praise and worship song. Maybe it IS of the Devil."

Welp, arms are getting tired from all the push-ups. Gotta go. Chick-fil-a is 'a calling.

The Internet Fuddy-dud Award Goes To:

Me.

Exhibit A: I just can't get into Twitter. I've been on the website about 14 times and I can't bring myself to set up an account. I don't know... just something about privacy that is very special to me. I just can't get into all the -

"Hey everybody, I'm about to go drop a poo."

"I'm really tired of my jeans falling down and giving everyone accidental plumber-vision; do you have that problem?"

"I'm about to get in bed... should I change out of these old cruddy boxers, or should I just turn them inside-out?"

"I just got into bed, shouldn't have turned them inside out."

"I just picked a boogie and I'm searching for the best covert spot to wipe."

Is that the kind of stuff you guys want to hear? Really? Am I the only person who thinks that telling everyone in the world what I'm doing at every moment is unbelievably BORING, and possibly gross?

Exhibit B: Facebook. This one I've tried really hard to like, and I do see its purpose... But there's just something about it... I get this icky feeling everytime get ready to post a slew of pictures... of myself. I mean, I like myself. I think I'm a decent looking fella... But ya just gots ta draw a line somewhere with all that "I'm too sexy for this shirt" attitude. Plus, if I get "you've been superpoked" one more time in my mail inbox I'm going to just ... go home and BITE MY PILLOW. What the heck does "superpoked" mean??? And whatever it means, it really sounds very wrong, and quite uncomfortable... and just downright unwelcome.

Exhibit C: I hate stats. First off, it is really depressing to discover that your biggest and best blog is one called "Jankum." And methinks that the people who ended up on my blog searching for "Jankum" weren't trying to find a story about my middle school days. I just bet they left a smidge disappointed. Just a hunch. Sorry pervs. And there sits that graph. Blast that stinking graph. One day its up, and one day its down. Pretty soon they are going to have stat-dysfunction-medicine commercials during the superbowl. And the only way to really keep people coming or to increase the number is to somehow sneak the words "Britney" and "boobs" into the post a few hundred times. Or "jankum."

So there you have it. Internet Fuddy-dud of the year. That's right. So, superpoke Twitter and Stats and Facebook and the horse they rode in on.

Yours truly.

El-Fuddy Dud, Esq.


(Let it be said that I do NOT fault anyone for doing any of the aforementioned things. In some ways, I am quite jealous of those that garner great fun from these activities. I'm sort of like a young child with hands pressed upon on a glass pane, face smushed against its cold surface for a closer look, yet unable to see what all the other children see. I'm the man who forgot to bring his heavy-prescription glasses on the camping trip and can't discern the UFO from the moon, while all his other buddies ooooh and ahhhh, forever changed by their camping trip UFO encounter. These are my hang-ups and my issues. These are ways that I am painfully uncool and old-mannish. Thus, the Fuddy-dud award. Carry on.)

Still Kickin'

Hello folks. Been a while. Sheesh. I've got a few minutes here so I thought I drop in and let everyone know that we are still at it. Despite all of our apartment shenanigans, (will the Pandora's box of apartment torture ever end for the Wards?) we are having a good time. Amber is just kicking serious butt as Dorothy in Wizard of Oz and as Darlene in Honky Tonk Angels. And, as of yesterday, it looks like she will be playing Morales in Chorus Line as well. The girl who plays Morales (Jennifer, an incredible dancer) injured her knee in the big Jitterbug number in Wizard. Amber was her understudy. The whole scene backstage was just like that scene in the Chorus Line with Danny hurts his knee. It was horribly sad and scary. We are praying for a quick recovery, but sadly, she might just be out for the season. I was very worried about something like that because it is such a huge part, (dancing is I.N.T.E.N.S.E...) but once again... my amazing wife rose to the challenge and dove in off-book. For me, that moment was worth every bit of the sewage and piss-carpet that we had to endure for the past month in our apartment. (More on that later. A big thanks to the incredible Francis family for rescuing us from Poo-motel!!!!)

The cast here is so incredibly talented and nice. They just welcomed Amber into the fold of Chorus Line and were so helpful with the the bazillion steps.

Sooooo, Ward-friends, if you were planning to come, now you have THREE reasons to come. Amber gets to sing a great tune in the middle, dance a bunch and then sing that awesome song at the end, "What I Did for Love..." Do I sound proud? I don't know... maybe just a tad. Plus the rest of the cast is just awesome too. They will all have great careers, no doubt about it.

I have butt-loads to tell. Mucho buttloads. Good lord. Next week the shows will all be open and I'll have a little time to do a little blogging and more writing.

It feels good to write a little. My Lord do I miss writing. There are a couple of Editors at the humongo publishing houses right now reading my Novel write now so keep your fingers crossed for me, would ya?

Peace out little chillin'. Happy Fourth of July, and eat lots of Freedom Fries.

(The first pic is just one of Prestonsburg. The second is one I snapped of a Chorus Line rehearsal.)

Thumb on OFF-Button; push, Ahhhhh.

I'm done. Done-ola. Finissimo. No more.

I had typed a big, long, nasty blog about the Obiased press, but you know what? Fuggedaboutit. I was going to title it, "Journalism is Dead, and on the Third Day, Obama Arose." It was full of stuff about how the media is supposed to present both sides of the argument, and they aren't. It was full of all kinds of negative stuff and griping and complaining. But, in the words of the one-term-wonder, George Bush Sr., "not gonna do it."

If the media is in love with Obama, then there's nothing I can do about it but stop watching the Journalistic PDA. It's depressing because now I can't trust Obama. I'm only getting the techni-color version. It is a sad, sad day when the channel that is giving the most fair and un-biased reporting is FOX news. I fear the space-time continuum is near the breaking point.

However, there was one glimmer of hope today on the news... Obama called a press conference discussing national security, conspicuously close to Biden's amazing statements about "Obama being tested." The session was decorated with everything but the presidential seal. He was backdropped by a line of old Democrats and two, perfectly starched flags instead of Greek Pillars.

After Obama opened the conference, looking presidential, the press were allowed to ask questions. Now, I fully expected ALL of them to super-glue their lips to his butt, but... wonder of all wonders.... they did not. Obama got a taste of what the press actually is: A fickle, fickle, female-dog-in-heat. One minute they love your smelly poo-breath and the next they are stirring the boiling tar for which to cook you.

The first question went like this: "Yes, Senator, don't you think this press conference comes awfully close to remarks that Biden made? Are you worried about perceptions of your ability to handle a crisis since you've never served a military day, and you've never held an executive position?"

I about fell over. Barack was visibly annoyed. He answered that "it would be hard to get all these people together in two days for that." Uh huh. Methinks a wallet fat with a fresh 150 mill. can cover a multitude of sins, and/or Biden blunders, not to mention buy a few thousand plane tickets to the moon if he wanted.

Then came the next question, a similar question. Barack answered again, this time he decided it was time to tie it all back to the economy and calling McCain, Bush, even though it was supposed to be a press conference discussing his ability to govern militarily.

Bottom line: The press wasn't falling for it and kept up the Biden questions. Finally Barack was forced to say that Biden has a tendency to go into these verbal "flourishes." He was visibly annoyed, and ended the supposed-to-appear-presidential press conference looking more pee-ode than I've seen him... ever.

So friends and neighbors, I'm satisfied. At least I know that the press is as equally vicious as they've always been, and even though the media has been nothing short of a Barack Obama TBN, equipped with their own Obamaevangelists that resemble Robert Tilton, maybe they are seeing the light and realizing their valuable duty as protected by the constitution: Ask the tough questions, and get to the truth and report it.

After all, guys, you're all we've got.

Second and most important reason for stopping the politico talk: It's ruining my sweet-tea experience. Yes, once anything has pushed me over the edge to where I can't even enjoy a glass of sweet tea, Houston, we've got a problemo.

So, I've brewed a new batch, sweetened it to perfection and I've shut the talking BaCrack-box O-F-F.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Kentucky Apartment Chronicles, (abridged verstion.)

So, I had planned to closely chronicle the Kentucky apartment saga/experience, reliving every morsel on this here blog. I have now grown bored with that notion. It's time to move on. I offer you the late-nite cliff-note/Tarzan (or slightly Tanto-ish, I can't decide...)version.

Kentucky remind Sethzan of Jungle where he grow up. Big bugs used to cary little Sethzan accross Jungle. Used to make Sethzan go boom boom in loincloth. Sethzan kill big Kentucky jungle spider to conquer childhood fear.

Kentucky Jungle make me feel at home, until we reach cabin. Bunch of people in the Cabin. Sethzan no like. Sethzan cannot make bathroom thunder sounds without all other man/woman-people hearing.

Sethzan hint to producer to move him and woman to nother tree. Him say, "We'll see." Him give Sethzan a wink. Sethzan think that his man-charm has scored a nice place for him and woman to have some... alone... stuff. Sorry, Sethzan has to stop typing for second to beat chest for woman painting her toe claws.

Back now. Where was I?... Oh.

Producer returns next day and says we stay at apartment. Sethzan and Amber do a little happy dance. Sethzan goes to view apartment. Apartment look like several chimps throw crazy parties on the carpet. Apartment also smell like chimps had pee pee contest near bed and the biggest bubba chimp won.

Sethzan break news to woman. Woman sees for-self. Woman holds nose.

Sethzan and woman complain to winking producer. Winking producer sends young helper to clean it. Young helper was like bad gorilla. Him not do good job.

Sethzan and woman think they stuck in chimp-pee/poo hotel. We real sad. Us spray lots of Febreeze. Too much we thinking. We start having bad dreams and having glowing tinkle water from the fumes.

Then, next day, bathtub fill up with poop water. This last bamboo stalk.

Finally we move into another house. Very nice. Owned by very nice man. Him also own a very nice woman. Rest of summer we sleep gooder.

The End.

What Hump?

Have you ever had one of these moments? I have. Several times. I have put my foot in my mouth so many times that I can, blindfolded, tell you when shoe was made and what it has stepped in, just by smelling it.


" Hmmm. 1984, Converse, 3-day old Coke, Bazooka Gum and faint Weiner Dog poo. Good year, Good year. Comfie. I recommend it. Yessss."

[a small crowd of onlookers gasp in amazement]

“Wow mommy that man really must chew a lot of yucky shoes.” A young girl with curly hair observes.

“Yes dear, lets run along now before he insults us…”


My personal favorite "What Hump" moment was when I asked my amazing-Jazz-musician-friend if it ever made him angry that people associate instrumental Jazz with K-mart, Musak, or music on the overhead at the Western Sizzler. He just looked at me with a furrowed brow...

"What…what do you mean..."

A brief moment of silence followed.

Speechless, with nowhere to turn except into a deep, dark tunnel of awkwardness, I simply cocked my head slightly to the right and said...

"Is that a helicopter flying over us?... Must be a wreck or something... Hey, I'm hungry."

This tactic only worked because this person that I had begun to insult was plagued with A.D.D.

Being an A.D.D. man myself I knew that a few tasty distractions could serve as an adequate smokescreen for my conversational getaway.

It worked and the subject was not to be breeched again. The mystery is still unsolved.