I'm Moving On Up

Blogger bites. Like The Jeffersons, I'm moving on up. They moved to the east side, I moved to Vox. Here's my latest blog entry.

Jimmi's Telling You He's Not Going

My weekend didn't start off too well.

Driving back from the library I saw a dog get hit by a car. The asshole who hit the dog stopped long enough to allow me and another man pull the dog to the side of the room before leaving.

The poor dog was running across the street with another dog. The one dog was unharmed and made it across the street. After getting the dog to the sidewalk, it took off and got hit by ANOTHER car.

So, we carried the dog to the sidewalk and it just laid there panting. It was so sad. After getting disconnected with the Humane Society, I had Joe call for me.

By this time, the man who helped me get the dog to safety took off. So it was just me and the panting dog. I didn't know if I should put him in my car and drive him to the shelter or not. I just pet him for a bit and told him he was going to be okay.

Unfortunately, the poor little doggy died within minutes. :-(

I just don't understand how somebody could take off without helping the poor little dog. People suck sometimes.

Friday night, Joe, Robert, Ryno and I saw Number 23 with Jim Carrey. It was a few numbers short of a good movie.

Saturday Joe and I were going to see a play with Buddy. But it was opening night and sold out, so we quickly invited people over to Joe's for an impromptu game night.

It was a blast!

Cranium is a fun group game to play. And it helps you get better acquainted with your friends. I learned:

Alfonzo has the uncanny ability to spell words backwards.
Despite trying, Chris can't hum American Woman.
Joe does a pretty good job of making a birdbath with a handful of modeling clay.
And Jack will blame his partner for losing even though his partner was the best on the team.

Sunday we headed to Squirtle's for a BBQ. After stuffing ourselves, we met Tim at Apollo's (a local gay bar) to see The Blonde One host the Oscar's. And no, I'm not referring to Ellen. My very funny friend, Barbra Sevillehosted a fun Oscar's party at Apollo's complete with prizes!


Joe won tickets to the Bodyworlds exhibit. I won a free car wash and oil change. And Tim won movie tickets!


Barbra, Tim and Joe were their normal funny selves. Plus, Neil Cohen (Echo's resident movie critic) sat at our table, and he's very funny too. So it was a good night.


The best part was when Tim turned to me and said, "I didn't know Helen Mirren was going to show up."


I turned to see a drag queen at the bar who looked just like Helen Mirren. The best part happened a half hour later.


The draq queen left the bar and five minutes later, Helen Mirren was on TV. The real Helen Mirren did her bit on TV, then five minutes later, the drag queen came back. It was uncanny!

I hadn't watched the telecast since I was in high school and I have to say I haven't missed much. Could someone tell me if there's ever been a year since the invention of talkies that Randy Newman wasn't nominated for Best Song?

HAPPY TUNESDAY!!

I was really upset when Jennifer Hudson got kicked off American Idol (the one and only season I've ever watched it -- NEVERMORE! All the good people get kicked off and losers like Fantasia and Tyler Hicks win). I was happy that she won an Oscar. I haven't seen Dreamgirls yet. But I did see the musical. Watch this clip from the Tony's. The video quality isn't great but the original Effie White, Jennifer Holliday, really belts out this song.

Funny Friday

I didn't wear cleats when I played kickball on Sunday (I didn't want to seem pretentious). Unfortunately, I pitched (or more accurately, rolled the ball) so I was infield the whole time. And it was quite slippery.

Once I fell straight onto my left ass cheek. It kinda hurt (I don't have much padding). I also did the splits at one point (I'm not flexible, so it was sort of like a modified split where my legs were separated by only about four feet - but that's a lot for me!).

I've been kind of stiff all week. But today my left hamstring felt like it was shredded. So.... I'm doing the cold/hot thing. And I'll go to the voodoo doctor (more about him later) to help me get better.

Rugby is going really well. We have all new backs for the most part. They have no experience but they are improving so quickly. I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks. We play three games in three weeks. It'll boost their learning curve (and mine too) tremendously. We're going to be VERY strong by the time we hit Seattle!

FUNNY FRIDAY!
Saturday Night Live is hit or miss. It goes through droughts of unfunniness that seem to last forever. The past couple of years have just been awful! I can't handle more than five or ten minutes of it. It just sucks.

One of my favorite skits from the past is the Sweeney Sisters. They are a lounge act that's beyond cheesy. It's not necessarily what they say, but how they say it that cracks me up. Jan Hooks's facial expressions are off the hook!

There's a few seconds of commercials at the beginning but keep on watching. It's great stuff.

Canary in a Coal Mine

This is my little girl Hera. Isn't she adorable? Hera's got great markings and her eyes look as if she wears mascara. She's a sweetheart.

I don't have much to say today. So I figured I'd post some pix of Hera and Boots before I posted another song from The Police. I'm really excited that they're going on a reunion tour. Joe and I talked about the tour (they're coming to Phoenix), but the ticket prices are terribly expensive. I'm sure we'll get the DVD.

;-)











This is Boots looking out the window in my bedroom


Hera posing some more


Boots mid-lick


They love my bed


HAPPY TUNESDAY!

Did you hear that The Police are reuniting for a tour this summer? ;-) Zenyatta Mondatta was an awesome record when I was a wee lad living in Syracuse, NY in 1980. My stepbrothers played it all the time and I really loved to sing along. This is probably my favorite track - Canadary in a Coalmine. Somebody created a video using the Digimon cartoon. It's kinda cute.

Lyrics

Easy Out!

I had a fun weekend!

Friday night Joe, Jimmi, Kevin and I headed to the Mills to see Hannibal Rising. I didn't want to see this movie. I thought the whole Hannibal Lecter thing had been done to death. And the reviews weren't very good. But Jim gave it a good review and he and I are in sync when it comes to horror films and rock music, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Overall, it was a pretty good movie. It was interesting to see how Hannibal became the super smart, wickedly funny villain who loves to eat his victims. I really loved it because it took place in 1940s - 50s Soviet Union and France. I love pre-90s Soviet Union stuff. I don't know why, but I've always been drawn to it. I guess because deep down inside I'm a big pinko commie, comrades.

Saturday, after playing HOURS of Zelda, Joe and I watched a bit of Peter Jackson's version of King Kong. I only got to watch the first half hour, but it's recorded on his DVR so I'm sure I'll finish watching the final six hours later this week. When I was a wee lad, I was obsessed with King Kong. I had the poster of the 1976 remake hanging in my bedroom. I hope this version is decent - so far so good.

We rented the movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend. It has Uma Thurmon, who I absolutely LOVE. And one of the Wilson brothers (Luke). It was cute and had a great premise, but it wasn't as funny as it should have been.

We also watched Sarah Silverman's show Jesus is Magic. It's HORRIBLY offensive. Of course, I loved it. Joe and I were quoting it all night.

Sunday we got up at the crack of dawn to watch the Scottsdale Lady Blues rugby team take on some team from Long Beach, Ca. They kicked ass and I got buzzed drinking beer at 9 in the morning.


After the game we all headed to Denny's for some good eats. (If you're curious to know who the handsome men above are: l - r, Alfonzo, Robert, David, Anton, Matt, Shane, Joe).

Then some of us headed to the softball fields in Tempe. The Lady Blues were having a fundraiser - a kickball tournament. I haven't played kickball since the 6th grade. It was SO MUCH FUN! I wish all the guys had come to play, because those who came really had a good time.

After the game we headed to Nu-Towne for a Phoenix Storm fundraiser. We sold some raffle tickets and distributed Storm cards to get people interested. It was nice. I hung out and talked a lot to Mike (our scrumhalf). I like hanging with him. We always have good talks.

It was also nice to see Jimmi and Kevin show up. Kevin had worked like 20 days straight or something insane. So, it was nice he came out and supported the team!

All in all, it was a great weekend! I hope everyone had as good a time as I did.
:-D

One more thing. I'm going to post a different song for Tunesday, but I'm really excited that The Police are going on tour. I didn't care too much for Synchronicity because it was a bit too pop-ish for me. But I love the song Synchronicity II. The lyrics are terribly depressing, but I love the sound of the music, the blended lyrics and the delivery.

Here's a video of it!

See This? This is Sand!

Hello everyone!

I had a great Valentine's Day. I picked up Chinese food: chow fun for Joe, his favorite, and sweet and sour pork for me.

After we scarfed down the food, Joe put my feet in a hot bubbling massage bath. He bought some foot scrub stuff and rubbed it on my feet and legs. And then he tried to get the callouses off my feet and toes. But my feet are really beat up from running in cleats on the desert ground (it's like concrete), so he couldn't do it without getting a sandblaster.

Then we watched Pride and Prejudice. This is one of Joe's favorite plays. And he's often compared me to Mr. Darcy. Not that I'm anything like Mr. Darcy, but I'm like what Mr. Darcy represents to Keira Knightly (I can't remember her name, Elizabeth??). The movie was terribly confusing. EVERYONE looked alike. And it took me awhile to get used to the accents (it was kind of like listening to Dave, our Scottish player, talk for two hours), so I only understood every fifth word for a bit.

FUNNY FRIDAY!

For some reason Sam Kinison popped into my head the other day. If you don't remember, he was this big guy who screamed a lot. He made really offensive jokes but they were fucking funny, especially when he talked about women. This is a great standup routine from an awesome comedy special on HBO. It's from the 80s so it's a little dated (We Are the World and Betamax jokes). Also, this is anything but politically correct. So watch at your own risk!

sam kinison -- young comedians

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I'm Sirius About My Radio

I received a Sirius radio for Christmas. I love it!

There are a boatload of radio stations of every possible genre. My favorite is Octane. It plays hard rock - Tool, Breaking Benjamin, System of a Down, etc. There are no commercials, only DJs.

The beauty of this station (and many others on Sirius) is that they don't play only the top 40 rock songs. They play popular rocks songs AND, they play B-sides too. So I've discovered a bunch of new songs and artists this way. It's great because it displays who the artist is and the song title.

Octane isn't the only rock station. There are NINETEEN stations dedicated to the rock genre. One of my favorites is Hair Nation. It plays all the great hair bands of the 80s - Poison, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, etc.

Sometimes for fun I listen to the all-70s station or the all-80s if I'm feeling nostalgic. And if I don't want to listen to music there are over a dozen news stations - I can listen to CNN, CNN Headline News television broadcasts on the radio!

What's even cooler is the Old Time Radio broadcasts. It's a station that plays all of the old Jack Benny, Twilight Zone, The Shadow, etc!

Plus, it has all of the NBA games!

The radio has a built in recorder. So if someone calls me on my cell in the middle of a favorite song, I can just play it again. Honestly, I've only used this once but it was cool nonetheless. It also let's me store up to 16 favorite artists or songs. If a specific artists/song plays on any of the gazillion stations, it beeps and lets me know who is playing. I can ignore it or press the button to hear a group.

Remember the first time you got cable and you kept changing the channel just because you could? That's how I was at first. But I've settled on a few favorites and am in absolute heaven! I don't know how you poor slobs handle regular radio with all of their crappy commercials and stale playlists!

I know this sounds like a stupid commercial for Sirius, but it's a great product and I've been wanting to write about it for some time.

HAPPY TUNESDAY
This past weekend Octane had a 90s weekend. It was AWESOME. I never wanted to leave my car. Of course, they played Plowed by Sponge. This was a great song and it's on the Empire Records soundtrack - a great 90s movie (despite having Renee Zellweger in it).

Messy Teddy

Last month Joe and I went attended a holiday party thrown by a friend of his. The friend (and his partner) are both very wealthy and have a very nice apartment in an exclusive tower in the Biltmore.

I didn't really know anyone there, so I was very happy to find out Joe's boss Kevin and Kevin's partner Michael Porto (it has to be said in one breath - even Kevin calls him MichaelPorto). The four of us stood in the kitchen and talked about cats and grocery stores and other bizarre things.

Joe, Kevin and MichaelPorto adjourned to the other room to bring back snacks. I was standing at the bar/sink in the kitchen. My elbow was resting on a napkin. On top of the napkin was a glass of wine. I moved my elbow ever so slightly which caused the glass of wine to topple. Having cat-like reflexes I managed to grab the glass of wine before it spilled.

Unfortunately, by grabbing the glass I caused ALL of the wine to come flying out of the glass. There was a five foot radius of red wine all over the kitchen. I stood there for about ten seconds assessing the situation. "Maybe nobody noticed," I thought.

But then I saw the apartment owner and gracious host approach with a painted on smile saying, "That's okay. It'll clean up." As we were cleaning up the mess (it took forever), the host decided to explain how the marble finish was imported from Italy and was VERY porous.

So, Kevin, Joe, and MichaelPorto walked in as I'm on my hands and knees cleaning this stuff up. Kevin starts laughing and asks what the hell happened.

Fast forward to last night. Joe and I went to opening night at Arizona Theatre Company's production of Souvenir. He and I were standing in the lobby talking to his boss Kevin. I had a glass of red wine in my hand. Kevin leaves.

I decide to turn off my phone (unbeknownst to me, MichaelPorto is approaching from behind...). My phone slips from my hand. I try to grab the phone before it drops and end up spilling my wine all over the floor and onto Joe's shirt.

So, Joe says I have a secret crush on MichaelPorto which causes me to spill wine whenever I'm near him. Joe also dubbed him Michael PourO!

It was pretty funny. So once again, I had to clean up a mess. And my phone split on the side. I have to get some crazy glue or tape to hold it together.

Friday night we went to the library for Andy's (one of the straight guy's on my team) birthday. It was a lot of fun and he got REALLY drunk. I had an interesting conversation of gay vs. straight sex with Andy. And an even more interesting conversation with John (another straight guy on our team) about his sexual exploits as a teenager.

Sunday, Joe and I went to see The Messengers. It was pretty good - it had some really spooky parts! I like ghost stories like that. I'll blog later about why I only go to Harkins Theatres.

Funny Friday

I love political cartoonists....

And I love Seinfeld. A lot of Seinfeld episodes aren't laugh out loud funny. But they're humorous and they get better with repeated viewings. One of my all time favorite episodes is the one with Donna Chang. I spliced together the Donna Chang storyline to share (ignore the big A in the upper right corner-I used a trial version of Premiere).

I love the looks Jerry, George and Elaine give each other. They're hysterical - especially the look Jerry gives Donna when he first meets her. And any episode with George's parents is a great one. They YELL out at each other - George's mom looks like she's going to explode when she screams, "I have no eye for fashion?"

Inside Job

I am a flyhalf.

As recently as last week, if someone asked which position I played, my initial instinct would be to say, "I play flyhalf but I'm a winger."

Today, I can say with conviction that I truly am a flyhalf.

My rugby career started as full back. But I'm too scrawny for that position. Then I got switched over to wing. More specifically, I played weak-side wing. I loved it. I had my own turf. And I did a pretty good job of protecting that turf.

Weak-side wing was easy to master and it allowed me to see the game unfold. I did a lot of watching, but that was okay. I learned how the game was played and it allowed me to start being more vocal about what plays should be called. I was able to point out things the opposing team were doing and I felt confident enough to let my teammates know about it.

This year through attrition I quickly went from weak-side wing, to backup flyhalf to flyhalf. In fact, I only had one practice to prepare as flyhalf for the game against San Francisco in Dec. I know I wasn't the first choice to do the job. So, I felt bad doing such an important position on the team when there were probably others better suited for it.

As wing, all I had to do was catch the ball and run as fast as possible. As flyhalf, I have to assess the situation and call an appropriate play, get the ball from Mike (who takes it from the scrum or lineouts), try to avoid someone barreling down on me and pass it to the correct person. I also have to recognize where we are on the field and be able to kick us out of trouble.

It was really daunting because I'm not the best passer and my instinct is to run - not pass. But something has happened recently. I've been able to pass the ball well and with accuracy. And my kicking has improved. I can't boot it as deep as others, but I'm pretty accurate now. And I can catch most anything thrown in my direction. So if Mike doesn't throw a perfect pass, it won't screw up the rest of the offense.

I know now that every pass I throw won't be perfect. But that's okay. Because nobody on the field ever throws perfect passes each time.

This probably sounds like an "I'm great" post. It's not meant to be. I'm skilled in some areas and deficient in others. But I came to the realization today at practice that I'm a flyhalf. And that made me happy. :-)

I have 20 minutes to post my Tunesday song....


HAPPY TUNESDAY!
This song is all about believing in yourself. It's a simple but pretty Pearl Jam song called Inside Job. I love the lyrics at the end:
Let me run into the rain
To shine a human light today

Lyrics
Song

Let's Go Crazy

Friday night, Joe and I watched The Devil Wears Prada. It was MUCH better than I anticipated. I LOVED Meryl Streep. No matter the role, Streep always does a great job. I know this movie has been out for awhile (I watched it on DVD for heaven's sake). But it's kind of fun discovering a movie or band or whatever after the fact.

Quick rundown: Streep is the editor for a fashion magazine. She could have played this over-the-top bitch. But everything was understated, which made it even funnier.

There are lots of great lines and scenes in it. The only downside to the movie was that the ending was a total sellout. I won't say why, in case you haven't seen it. But I wished the ending had stayed true to the rest of the film.

Saturday night we went to Ticoz for Jimmi's birthday. Dinner was good but the service was not. Our waiter looked like Davey Havok from AFI. He also forgot to take down the order of someone at our table. Just skipped on by. (This was after they messed up our reservation - we had a reservation for 7 at 7:30. They released our tables after we didn't show up at 7).

Sunday we went to Tim and Mel's for the Super Bowl. They had authentic Chicago deep dish pizza from Chicago. It was DELICIOUS! They also had Teddy Grahams (cuz they looked like bears) and other great food. MMM.

The game was competitive at first but the Bears just lost focus and let Indy run all over them. The ads were ok but nothing seemed to jump out. I thought the K-Fed commercial was cute. And the Snickers commercial was totally hot. j/k.

But what was Prince thinking? I couldn't tell if he was trying to look like Aunt Jemima


or Little Richard

Funny Friday

One of my favorite correspondents of all time is CNN's Jeanne Moos. She does these two-minute "slice of life" pieces in New York. Sometimes they're laugh out loud funny. Other times, they're just amusing.

Joe sent me a link to one of her latest stories because my friend Stephen is in it! I'm so jealous. But Stephen is the perfect man for her stories. He's hysterically funny. Every time we talk, I just laugh and laugh. Joe thinks Stephen is like Jack McFarlane, but Stephen's funnier.

Anyway... Here's Stephen's debut on a Jeanne Moos story (he's the one that says, "How do you know when it's done?" and "they clean themselves!"). Here's a pic of him with Joe when we went to New York for Bingham Cup.

Kitty Bath - Jeanne Moos