TidBits, ManBoobs, and PodBeans

My "2-blogs-ago" about the proposed liquor reform initiatives in Washington State have drummed up sentiment, resentment, and conversation! THAT'S AWESOME. I'm ecstatic that people think, read-up, research, synthesize, and discuss these issues. I have great taste in friends and readers. DON'T STOP. While I will never be all-in on how any form of government is run, the wholesale stripping of liquor sales from the state's tax puddle is not the way to reform this area. This draws attention to it and hopefully that results in a more moderate reform, but a reform nonetheless.

MEDIA RELEASE!!! I recently recorded an interview with a great Seattle comedian, Mike Cummings on his podcast, "Table For One, with Mike Cummings." He's been hitting stages for about 5 years now, and has a candid perspective about stand-up. We talk about moving to/from Los Angeles, The Industry, and comedy as part of Married Life and Fatherhood. There's a lot of my subtle wittiness in there, too. I think. I missed some of it, it's THAT good.

Posed a Facebook status question the other day about what it means to be American. I'm not sure anybody knows, or can explain it in a way that doens't sound jingoistic, xenophobic, and/or racist. I think it's almost like asking what it means to be a Man; the definition could encompass so much that it really cannot, but NEEDS to be, simplified. I'm pretty sure both definitions include gun possession and split-rail fencing.

I accept the fact that I am built almost exactly like Fedor Emelianenko. Fedor is the most-dominant heavyweight mixed martial artist in the world (Brock Lesnar not withstanding), and has lost once, legitimately, in a decade. The picture below is from a weigh-in with his opponent Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski, shown on the right. While I spend most mornings before 6:30 putting myself through a circuit workout that almost nearly makes me vomit each time, I have in my head a picture of the guy on the right, while my body resembles the guy on the left.

Fedor won this fight with a thundering overhand right at 3m14sec.

The next few weeks will be interesting, as I am transferring from one job to another, back into the mobile communications industry. I'm excited about the chance to go do something for an industry I don't despise, with a team of people who are interested in the possibilities of the future. Never have I been the type to lean back and say "Yeah, this'll be enough for me until the grave opens." All the same, there's a lack of work, a plethora of bandwidth right now while this contract wraps up, and frankly I am just playing out the streak. Back to work!

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MC, HOST, CORPORATE, COMEDY, SEATTLE, GEOFF, LOTT

You Have God To Be Kidding Me

Excuse me while my brain tries to work on a Windows box instead of the Apple shortcuts toolbox installed in my muscle memory. If this ends up with a link to a document about reporting errors in double-looping syntax, one for Incoming, one for Archiving, I ask now for your leniency.

The other day on the way to work I saw a minivan! with a bumper sticker that read:

GOD DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS

Wow. I have a joke in that vein, that Atheists believe God is a construct of weak minds looking for a greater meaning to Life than "Eat, Work, Fuck, JetSki, Die." Turned around, I believe God thinks the same of Atheists, railing against people who are trying to do something other than act out in a way to make people ask "How could God let that happen? At a WalMart of all places!?"

I wanted to find out more about this person, follow them to their church, and see if they were joking or if they really meant it. Because if they indeed held steadfast to a traffic-facing statement in 9.4-cents worth of ink and sticker, then they are a horrific person pretending to know the Mind of God and should be held under a spigot of trucker shit. What massive asshole on feet.

I don't claim - especially to myself - to be the most religious person you'll ever meet. I do believe that Jesus Christ's edict of "Treat others with compassion and love, for the sake of treating others well, that they may act towards you in the same manner" is the way to save the world, even the parts we would rather see sucked into a burning lake of BP crude while waving American flags stitched together from t-shirts with hunting-related witticisms 'pon them. I believe that the Core Values of the Christian Church are alive and well, and that they are based upon Love, Acceptance, and Community. Notice I didn't say "molesting children, killing infidels, berating homosexuals, and stoning women to death for having an opinion."

And I believe that were it not for people calling themselves "Christians" who are most likely just paranoid fartpacks acting in a manner they really, really, really, really REALLY HOPE will gain them favor with God... while acting as if it's okay for them to act as a conduit of God's judgment/wrath... then the label of "Christian" wouldn't have so many negative connotations.

Also, a friend of mine who is as annoyingly vocal about his Atheism as a recently-born-again Christian at Bunco night, told me he attends weekly Atheist meetings to discuss Atheism, pool money together for events, and encourage each other to not keep the faith. Sounds churchy to me.

I guess I'm paraphrasing Groucho Marx, "I wouldn't want to be part of any group that would have me as a member because I'd probably pass judgment on them for how they represent our group and then I would think they are dipshits and I would stop going to meetings, but hey, at least I wouldn't feel guilty for not being around such a bunch of assholes."

Then again, who would want THAT asshole around?
Jesus.

=========================
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Blow Me Down

The Pacific Northwest has a broad spectrum of weather, getting both arms around - and both cheeks into - every season. Icy, snowy Springs. Sunny, drizzly Winters. Summers that last only 7 weeks but have temps in the low 100s. And the WIND, oh yes... Mother Nature's Howl.

Recently, while Wife and Son and I were in Culver City there was a really hefty wind-storm. Not a storm just by Los Angeles standards that gusted up to 18mph and threw cigarette ashes all over the back seat of the TT. The kind where, if you were walking home from the bus stop, your legs were being blown into each other and almost tripping you, and you freaked out because normally you can handle that much NightTrain on a 20minute bus ride. Also, you realized that the lights all along the block, up to the Lee SuperLiquor! bodega, were out. HEAVY BLOWIN'. (that oughtta get some more hits to the page)

Power was out for about 3 hours that night. We ordered Italian food from Ugo. It was quality bites. I highly recommend Sun-dried tomatoes and smoked mozzarella on a sammitch. The next day I was driving to work and was on Venice Blvd. A tree had been blown over in the wind, and the branches and leaves and top-half of the trunk were passed out... excuse me... flopped down into the far-left lane. A traffic cone had been placed 50 feet ahead of it to let people know, "YO... we'll get to it!"

The city of Los Angeles has red light cameras all over the place, but not enough to drive revenue from the incredible number of red-light runners (2-per, from my count). A 1-hour rain will flood the streets. The buckling roadways are ground-down and patched-over. Perfectly good comedians are getting shunned for spots at the A-clubs, while horrid hosts with barely 9 minutes of masturmaterial get half-hours on Comedy Central because of their management team. BAD, bad, bad infrastructure.

So that tree, the broken & blocking one, lay there for 2 days before somebody in a city truck came to get it. Sunny weather, clear skies, dry roads. No city utility worker available to clear the roadway. For 2 days.

Last night up on Juanita Drive & 163rd, a tree blew down and knocked power out to Juanita-like areas. The crews were up there this morning getting it handled.

4 weeks ago I had to call the city office in LA about a health inspection. I got a call back TODAY. Thank you, Los Angeles. You proved your point.



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Freakuency

I've taken to calling-out people doing rude and dumb things in public. Recently, at Swapper Jack's, a man's left arm crossed my face to reach for a chutney. It wasn't preceded with any sort of "Excuse me," nor a "pardon, I'm sorry, but there's one guy here who needs some mango chutney on the regular, and it ain't YOU, mang." THAT I'd-a be down fo'.

So I said, about 6 inches from his untrimmed ear:
"Do you need to get in here, sir?"

He said nothing, paused, then beat a retreat with what I can only assume is a life-changing mincemeat of mango, bell pepper, honey, and exotic spices.

Today at the Post Office - which I openly mock because I'm comfortable knowing I will NEVER work there - I was 6th in line when a chick in pig tails, yoga pants, flip-flaps, and a hoodie cut the line to ask a cage worker "Um, like, hiii, can I ask a question?"
(Cage worker was helping somebody who was rather stunned)
The cage worker said "mmmhmmm" or some sort of affirmation.

Dipshit asked "My friend left her diary here a while ago, like, do you have a Lost & Found? It was like 2 weeks ago I think?"

Okay, nobody said anything.
The problem is now everybody's issue. Because this isn't a transaction that will benefit the USPS, and will only hold everything else up, and I'll be Catholic Priest-tickled if that shit's happening when I'm in the building.

And I start to think, "Will Cage Worker take a break from the line and go look for the journal of this dipshit's dipshit friend? NOOOOO, she wouldn't. That would be like Customer Service, and the Post Office ain't that."

Well, she DID go look. For about 5minutes, which is 30minutes in Post Office time. I moved to 4th in line. Journal not found.
Dipshit in PigTails starts asking questions about "Could you look again? Are there ANY books?" and this is WAAAAAAY over the limit...
SO I SAY...

"Excuse me, excuse me? Miss, in the sweatshirt?" Now everyone's looking at me. And I will admit, I FELT VERY MUCH ALIVE.

"Um, yeeeah?"

"We're all waiting in line to do business here, your friend's journal's gone. We need to get going here, okay? Sorry."

Everyone's acting like it wasn't said, except me, Dipshirt, and Cage Worker. Dipshirt takes a second, glances around, acts all butt-hurt, sighs, and says "Thanks" to the Cage Worker and flaps-off out the branch.


YOU'RE WELCOME, WEST HOLLYWOOD POST OFFICE.

Say something. Especially when somebody's doing something wrong and it's hurting the community and if needed, you could kick their ass.

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Fame, Us, People

Today we were in Santa Monica heading to a birthing class to make sure we know how to breathe and where the baby comes out. You'd be really, really freaked out if you knew. It's... wow... ANYway, we get there and gotta... GET TO THE POINT.

I was at the lobby desk and glance to the left as a man in a red shirt, long sleeves, skull-covered, saunters around the corner, hair curly and wild. I think "Tim Burton's got hair like... THAT'S TIM BURTON."

Near him in bright pastels is a bouncy gal with hair in an up-do, and I start totally ignoring the ass-backwards lobby desk "guard" trying to figure out the parking maps. Because I KNOW that this lady has to be... HELENA BONHAM CARTER.

At which point they glance over at me (yes, I was waving as though I was signaling "MINE" for an incoming fly-ball), and I say "Hey, I love you guys! I'm a huge fan of your work."

They said?
"Oh hey, thanks! Cool!"
And they walked outside LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE LIKE ME AND some of you.

I head outside with my parking pass and far too much judgment on what it must NOT take to get a job as a lobby desk guard for UCLA Health Services. As I exit the building I see
TIM BURTON and his wife HELENA BONHAM CARTER! Just a few feet from our car, wherein My Wife! is reading something about our class. I turn to TIM BURTON and HELENA BONHAM CARTER and say "Sorry, I'm geeking out. I love your stuff!"



I peek through the window and tell my wife "Hey, that's (pointing behind me) TIM BURTON and HELENA BONHAM CARTER!"
She waves at them and says "Hiii!"

Whaddyoo think those two did?

THEY WAVED RIGHT BACK AND SAID "Hii!"

Then they walked down the street and off to do what they do when they aren't about to get hugged and cried-on by a guy who has deep emotional attachments to "Beetlejuice," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and "Ed Wood."

In our birthing class we watched a video where some random lady in Iowa gave birth. They showed her pushing it out of her (business). Hey, how about a heads-up before the Head's out? Jeez. Bloody show, indeed.

Then we went to Calabasas to shop at Babies R Us because they were the only one in the area that had a store where teenagers weren't registering for their showers. And the sling we needed, from what I was told.

What a great day. I love my wife. I love my life. I love that we're Living. Blessed.

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TIM BURTON and HELENA BONHAM CARTER!

John, John, John...

I'm not sure if I love him for this, or just feel like sighing.


While my vote is still for sale... er... undecided... er... not yet cast...
I would like to point out that I've heard far more rhetoric leveled against Barack Obama in the vein of his Race, and not his Record. Neither of these candidates has wowed me, though the composure Obama has shown is a nice change to flustered mutterings and catch-phrases.

This "Joe The Plumber" guy that was so popular last night, btw, was investigated a bit to find out who he is, what he does, and where he buys his leg snares.
Turns out... hmm... Guy has never cast a vote in his home state. Interesting. And I assume he's at least 23 years old, from the pictures, so that means he's missed one Presidential "election" already. So, hey, please... get out and vote.

If for no other reason, than to vote opposite of the neighbor you dislike most. Don't let that 4-car havin', 1-car workin', stray dog-apoptin', good ol' gal with more kids than teeth decide which part of her health plan is paid for by your tax dollar in the next four years.

BIRTH CONTROL IN FOOD SOLD AT WAL*MART IN 2009!

I'm Geoff Lott, and I don't approve this message. I ADORE IT.


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