![Carrot Jim… aka Bycicleus Executeus]()
by Richard Timothy | Apr 9, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Life Characters, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
This story starts as all stories on this subject start… with good intentions followed by a series of bad choices. At least I think that’s how it started. While going to college in Powell, Wyoming I was without a car… actually I started with a car, but it died about 30 miles from campus. And when I say died, I mean dead died, like never coming back dead… like Steve Buscemi at the end of Fargo not coming back dead.
My first car was a 1971 Chevrolet Impala. Believe me there is no need to be impressed. The car cost me $50 dollars and it was a vomit aqua color of blue and green and rust all mixed together. The inside was gutted so that there was not padding or covering of any kind on the inside roof of the car. And it burned oil. It burned oil like a Brit drinks gin, like a vegan eats tofu, like an alien probes a… abductees. Yeah it burned a lot of oil. We named it the Lucky Bastard mainly because it had actually made it to California and back when the previous owner, my friend Ryan, felt compelled to learn to surf before heading to the UK for a few years. It was a miracle that the car made the round trip and we still running for that matter.
As I was driving to Powell I was traveling along a windy canyon road and found myself stuck between a Pratchett Troll and a dab spilled soy sauce on a white shirt (a rock and a hard spot). There was a large yet motionless exhaust pipe in the middle of my side of the road. There was a car traveling in towards me in the opposite lane and a cliff with at least a 50 to 75 foot drop-off to my right. So I took the only logical option I had. I slowed down as much as I could and ran over that exhaust pipe. This resulted in a very large crunching noise the emitted from under my car. It sounded a little like two Transformers making out. So when I found a turn off point I pulled over and checked out the car.
The back seat was so full that I could not see a thing out of the back window such had a billowing cloud of white smoke coming from my car. I couldn’t really see a problem, but when it comes to a working knowledge of car related things, well, I can usually identify the color, but that’s about as far as I usually get. Long story short, the crunch I heard was the exhaust pipe knocking a dime sized hole in my oil pan. It only took 20 more miles before all the oil had run out and the engine seized, never to be started again. The tow man did take pity on me and was kind enough to town to Powell even though we were already in a Cody (a town about 30 miles away from Powell).
Hence, this is how I arrived in Powell with a car and without any transportation. So when a friend told me that there was a co-op in Billings, Montana (a city about an hour and a half from Powell) that was selling some rental mountain bikes for about $200. Sure it was four times more than I paid for my car, but it was also going to be 10 time more reliable. They were that year’s model and they had been well taken care of and kept up. I was in, I just needed to find a way to get there and bring one back with me.
Turned out that Carrot Jim and a few other people were heading up to Billings that Saturday and were happy to have me join the trip and help donate to the fill the tank with gas fund. We went to the co-op first and picked up the bike with no troubles to speak of. It was a mountain bike with front shocks and it was just my side. Carrot Jim even had a bike rack on the top of his Jeep. It was one of those older model station wagon style Jeeps. I know there’s a name for them, just don’t care enough to look it up.
Now as I was test driving the bike and taking care of the purchase and all, some of the people in the Jeep thing had… hmm, let’s go with they were suffering from glaucoma and took some time to ingest some air that just so happened to be filled with a little HC accented T. I mean I know one of the side effects is poor short term memory, but what happened next was… I really just couldn’t believe it.
Once we had attached the bike to the roof of the Jeep, most of the people in the car were expressing an intense desire to get something to eat, and Jim needed some carrots. His backup bag was now empty. He suggested a place in the downtown area that had great coffee and good food. It was unanimous and as short while later we were in the heart of downtown Billings. Jim mentioned that there was parking lot close to the café that we could park at. What he failed to mention was that it was an indoor parking lot. So as he pulled into the place I spoke up from the back seat, “Dude, you have a bike on the roof of your car!”
This received with a few giggles and Jim continued pulling into the parking building. I tried again, “Jim! There’s a bi….”
And I was interrupted by a very loud crash, bang, boom, and scraping sound from the roof of Jim’s car. He slammed on the breaks and actually said, “I thought you were kidding!” as he jumped out of the Jeep so we could check the damages. The front fork shocks were dead, but they are what saved the frame of the bike. The seat had caught one of the low cross ceiling beams and the shocks were pulled out of their tubes and stretching out the springs.
I was baffled when I got out of the Jeep. He thought I was kidding? What? Why… How is that even possible? He helped me attached it to the roof of his car less than twenty minutes ago. I mean… seriously! All I could figure is that it must have been some amazing pot, because that much memory loss over just a short time and distance was simply dumbfounding… and commendable if you think about it. I mean the fact that most of them graduated, well done indeed.
It was clear that Jim didn’t care about my bike at this point, we was more concerned about any damage to his Jeep. Other than a small dent or two there was no real damage. I on the other hand was going to need to get new front shocks, which meant that my just bike was about to double in price. New shocks were going to cost as much as I had just spent on the whole bike, which I didn’t have. Yeah I was pissed at the time, but I would imagine most people in my situation would be.
Jim sensed this and to help smooth things out promised to pay for the new shocks, all the while apologizing profusely. The unfortunate part was that the reality was that we were both broke college students, so when I finally got the bike fixed and called while with the bill, he was honest and told me he would be paying it. He didn’t have any money to do so. So I responded like the young 20 year old I was who was also a broke college student and just used their portion of the rent to get their bike fixed because they were told they’d get the money for it. I started swearing at him and doing my best to point out every possible flaw I could think of about him in regards to his failure as a human being.
Sure I felt bad afterwords, and I know he felt bad about it as well, but I was stuck in victim mode and was angry and chose to be mean and unforgiving. Youth can do that to you sometimes. So we stayed clear of each other after that. We wouldn’t even acknowledge one another at parties, or art shows, or in classes we had together. It was too bad too, and in the scheme of things, utterly pointless.
I think the saddest thing was that even after 13+ years of this event transpiring, one of the first things Jim said to me when we reconnected on Facebook was that he was a little worried about accepting my friend request and that he had a little anxiety when he saw my name on the friend request because of the bad way things ended between us. That’s way too long to be carrying around that type of bad energy. It’s so bad for you on so many levels. We’ve since cleared away the any residual negative waves between us. I don’t know if we’ll get any further than old college acquaintances, but even if that’s where we end up, it’s profoundly better than it was for all those years. And based on that alone I think it’s a rather happy ending to an unfortunate event. Besides, the mental image of watching a Jeep drive into an indoor parking lot with a bike on the top of it is going to keep putting a smile on my face until the day I die.
What are your thoughts?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: 1971 Impala, tow truck, mountain bike, bike rack, apologize, and shaking hands.
![Carrot Jim… aka Bycicleus Executeus]()
by Richard Timothy | Mar 24, 2010 | Confessed Confidentially, I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
There are a few things that I have been quite good at most of my life. Not necessarily due to practice, but due to the exact opposite of that. Being pasty and on the verge of bio-luminescence when the lights go down due to my lack of exposure with the sun on a regular basis is one of those things I have excelled at most my life. It’s true I usually had to put on sunglasses just to take a shower. Ok not really, but I did think about it once or twice.
While growing up in rural Wyoming, which for the record is the only type of Wyoming there is, there were a number of peers of the farming persuasion who, much like the people of San Francisco, would be outside without their shirts on catching some rays at the first sign of any actually sunshine. It’s true. I spend a summer in San Francisco and the second the sun comes out, people start appearing all over outside. They are in swimming suits laying down on any open spot of grass they can find, catching some sunshine and working on their laptops. This usually lasts about 10 to 30 minutes tops and then as the sun ducks behind the local clouds everyone puts their cloths back on and go back inside to their desks. You do get use to this, but the first time you experience this phenomenon, it does give the first time viewer a “what the f…unny randomness just happened” moment of contemplation.
All that being said I’ve never been big of my inclusion of the “run around shirtless” genre of social activities. When the sun is involved my shirtless activity has almost always resulted in me becoming the same hue of a thirteen year old boy on his first date who has just accidentally farted loudly sitting next to his date while sneezing softly into a napkin. That is a very special kind of red that take years to recover from, and I believe requires you to never see that date ever again. The sun has a way of ensuring my skin remains that color for a pain filled week or two.
With that, let’s jump back a few years. In 7th grade, I did what your average 7th grade boy does when the opportunity arises. I tried out for sports. My father had been a basketball hero when he was a lad and at 13 there is a desired emulation that often happens where you think that if you should try doing what your father did then he was your age. The desired outcome consisted of him being proud of you and you being proud that he was proud. So I tried out for the team. It was open to anyone that wanted to give it a go, and a go I gave.
Tryouts consisted of played a few rounds of basketball while the coach watched you play. After watching you play for a total of maybe 10 minutes, the coach would tell you to get off the court so someone else could give trying out a go. At the end of the day, before you would rush to catch the bus home, you would check the roster to see if you had made the team. Yeah, I never made the team, but there were a few reasons for this.
Reason 1
Difficulty concentrating on the game. I think I would have been a little more clearheaded had I not been on the team required to be “skins.” Instead of giving us different colored tops we could put on over your shirts we would play shirts vs. skins, or shirtless, or half nude… awkwardly breezy comes to mind as well. Being on the skin team meant that I was you run up and down a basketball court half naked. The uncomfortable awkwardness came from knowing that the cute girls I fancied were in the bleachers watching all of the boys trying out for the team.
This translated to the cute girls looking at my goofy assed clumsy 13 year old body. I felt like a piece of meat on parade. But I wasn’t a piece of prime rib, or t-bone, or Alaskan Salmon, or even a marinated chicken breast. No, I felt like a slice of that prepackaged bologna with those weird different colored specks of gum drops, or whatever the hell those things were. Ok so it was sliced pickle and pimento loaf, but as a kid, it was gummy bear bologna and it was creepy. I mean sure, it was always fascinating to look at for about 10 seconds. Then it’s eeriness becomes too much and you leave it there in the cooler, scaring small children that wanted regular bologna and ended up grabbing the gummy bologna instead by accident.
This meant that I spent most of the 10 minutes trying to hide my half nakedness behind the other kids. This failed for a few reasons, but mainly because I was the tallest kid on the court and I was about the same color as the florescent lights in the ceiling.
Reason 2
I suppose the main and most obvious reason was that I just wasn’t any good at the game. I mean I wanted to be. But when it take four tries for you to make a basked while standing right next to it and you keep getting your own rebounds because you are taller than the others around you, it’s a little obvious where your skill level lies. I did enjoyed playing the game outside with my friends for the three months out of the year that it was warm enough to play basketball outside. Although this consisted mostly of playing HORSE or PIG, or other games that required us to be polite and take turns and not get in each other’s face. When it came to skill in the game, I was about as useful as mop at a sneezing competition… actually that would be quite useful. No, how about a mop IN a sneezing competition. Yeah, that analogy works much better.
Reason 3
There was something else that happened during those 10 minutes of play. It was the realization that I didn’t want to play basketball. There is something so incredibly dreary about the sportsmanship you experience on the court, field, ice, or whatever. There are some people that are amazing sportsmanshipy kinds of sportsmen. Win or lose they are about the game first and foremost. If they win, grand. If they don’t, at least it was a good game. My experience is that this is a rare breed of sportsmen, women… people. In my tiny experience in playing sports and watching sports, what I noticed about sportsmanship is that is that 9 times out of 10 there isn’t much, if any.
People turn into mean angry frumpy little bitches… and I was no different. I didn’t like getting angry at people for stealing the ball away from me, or for blocking my shot. Nor did I enjoy having people get angry at me when I did the same thing to them. I didn’t agree with the coach congratulating me with a “good foul” cheer when I’d do something to negatively affect another player. At 13 I saw sports responsible for causing more damage than good. So, I banned me from them. I think I tried again in 8th grade just to make sure. Turns out I was sure, and I haven’t looked back since.
I’ve have dabbled a bit here and there over the years. I played soccer for two summers and I played late night volley ball on tennis courts. I also became mildly competent at pool my first year in college and could endure a volley or two of ping pong with someone who actually played ping pong. I even got an A in my bowling class. If you do love sports, well done! I say go with it, enjoy it as much as you can as long and you can. I’ll even politely listen while you talk about it. Just know that I couldn’t care less. As for me, all in all I’m Zen sporting reject. I reject them and they reject me, and ever since we came to that understanding, we’ve gotten along just great.
What are your sporting stories?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: pasty white guy, youth basketball, pickle and pimento loaf, and poor sportsmanship.
![Carrot Jim… aka Bycicleus Executeus]()
by Richard Timothy | Mar 23, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Something I Know Nothing About, When I Was a Kid, Working Observations
I want to start off by saying I do not like scary movies. Suspense films? Sure, I can do those. What I am referring to are films of the horror genre, namely the slasher, serial killer, psychopath, lots of blood and gore type of films. For the record, there has been the occasional film that gets me to invite them over for a sit down and while we spend 90 to 120 minutes together. You know, things like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and, um… Ghost I guess.
When I was young I remember trying to watch the classics like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and the camp site one… oh yeah, Friday the 13th. The problem was I just couldn’t get into them. It was even a scary movie that gave me had my first nightmare. Granted, I was 7 and the film was Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. The wolf man in the film scared the hell out of me. In my dream the wolf man kept trying to catch my mom and eat her. I woke up in tears and ran to my parent’s room to make sure she was in bed and ok. Just to be on the safe side I even spent the rest of the night in bed with my folks… damn you Abbot and Costello and your evil wolf man.
I did make ample my efforts in my teens and early twenties to watch and enjoy horror films. I got the watch part down, but I never got to the enjoy part. It just wasn’t a good fit. So I stopped trying to get to the enjoyment phase of the films and moved on the films I would enjoy. I still have a number of friends and a lot of co-workers that are have much love, devotion, and adoration to the genre that is the horror film. I have one friend that is so dedicated to the cause that almost his tattoo collection consists of creatures from the horror film genus.
He loves the gore and goo and splatter of red paint being thrown against walls. He also has an ever growing list of the best horror movie kills. I know one of his top ten kills was is from the 2005 release of House of Wax. It has two levels of satisfaction for him. The first was the simple gore factor involved in how the person was inhumed in the film. The second part of his appreciation comes from the fact that it was Paris Hilton who was the one meeting her demise.
I was originally not aware of this, but after hours of horror movie conversation I’ve learned that there are actually a number of factors involved for the horror minded to enjoy a horror film. Here is what I have picked up so far:
- Rule 1. The film must be rated R. This reassures the fan that the film maker was willing to cater to the classic staples that make a horror flick a horror flick. This equates to graphic deaths scenes, lots of blood, and ample and consistent use of colorful metaphors, i.e. profanity, oh and a scene or two of your standard 10 to 21 year old nakedness.
- Rule 2. The film must cater to the classic staples that make a horror flick a horror flick, namely graphic deaths, lots of blood, and ample and consistent use of colorful metaphors, and a scene or two of nakedness. I know this may seem a bit redundant, but for the record we are talking about horror films here and if there is one thing you can count on when it comes to horror films its redundancy. Think I’m kidding? Well then answer me this one little trivia question… How many Friday the 13th films are there? I don’t know either, but I imagine it’s somewhere in the 20s, with plans to make more.
- Side note: Interestingly enough to the devout horror fan the “lots of blood” factor only seems to add to the comedy level of these types of film. It was explained to me that, “A lot of blood makes it funny because it’s so obvious that it’s fake. For myself, a lot of blood only grosses me out and wants to make me close my eyes.
- Rule 3. The killer needs to be masked or have a deformed or scarred face… or both. I think this has to do with the “what does this crazy person look like” factor that keeps the viewer entranced throughout the film in hopes that the killer loses their mask at some point and you get a view of the crazy hiding behind the mask.
With all of that now explained, you can begin to understand my befuddlement when I walked into my office one morning to find my co-worker and office mate a touch grumbled because of a horror movie he had watched that weekend. The first thing he told me is that he had watched one of the scariest movies he’d seen in some time. 
Not sure what to do with the sudden lull in conversation I congratulated him. It seemed like the proper response to someone who was such an advocate of horror. I figure if someone that dedicated to watching scary movies can find something that scares them that would be a bit like that Charlie giving the everlasting gobstopper back to Willy Wonka, or Picasso painting something that wasn’t blue.
According to my own imagination, Picasso’s blue phase was a result of purchasing a year’s supply of paint from eBay and didn’t read closely enough to realize that the supply of paint only consisted of blue and white paint. This realization put Picasso into a deep depression, which he did paint his way though. Still, it wasn’t until he actually sold a blue painting that he was able to finally purchase a different colored paint and bring a little color and joy into his life. Yeah, I know. I really should have become an art history professor.
As it turned out my friend was bothered because the movie which had sucked him in and freaked him out was rated PG-13. To the devote horror fan a PG-13 horror movie is actually cinema blasphemy. The only feeling I can think of that would compare to this is that moment when you realize that all of your fame and hit songs as a recording artist are a result of 10 to 13 year old girls being in love with you. And in another year or two they will be burning everything they own that has your picture on it because of the immense embarrassment they will suffer at the realization that they were so into you. That’s right New Kids on the Block, I’m talking to you. You might want to call Miley Cyrus and tell her what to expect.
Yeah it was weird. For something so trivial it was kind of a big deal to the lad. He even admitted that had they changed nothing about the film and just given it an R rating he would have felt much better about the whole thing. The movie was 1408, and in a sentence, the film about a writer staying in an evil hotel room for the night. That’s really all I can give you about the film. Have I seen it? No. Will I? No. Do I recommend it to others? No idea. Does it have John Cusack in it? Yes, so that’s cool. And a bonus for all you Cusack fans… that like scary movies. I only bring it up because I did find it rather amusing that my friend, who is a horror movie aficionado and a zombie movie connoisseur, would be bother by being scared by a PG-13 movie. I tried to help by telling him if he really wanted a scary movie, try watching any of those Land Before Time cartoons. G rating aside, they are horrific.
I did offer to buy my friend a beer in hopes that it would help him feel better. It seemed to work. He had a Homer moment where he started smiling and then under his breath said, “Mmmmmm… beer.” It’s nice to have friends that are easy to shop for and who are always willing to improve their mood at the prospect of a free beer. And from what I’ve heard, beer makes almost every movie better.
Any thoughts on today’s Smirkiness?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: watching horror movies, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, rated r, Willy Wonka, and beer.
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by Richard Timothy | Mar 11, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
Whenever I begin telling people about my beer journal I get the look. It’s not a standard look, hence why it’s “the look” instead of “a look”. It’s the look that the face unconsciously creates when people hear something that processes a bit confusingly. Only a bit though. The look is a mixture of partial understanding, but at the exact same time the other word(s) create the confusion. I suppose you could call it the “I almost get… I think… what?” look. I’m not sure it’s the type of thing you can practice either, which I like the thought of. It adds to the authenticity of those moments when a do receive the look. Of course there is always the chance that the person listening to me will just get angry because I said something that perplexes them, so instead of the look, they’ll just call me a dirty name and walk away.
To those of you who may not know, I am not a beer drinker. I’ve never even tasted the stuff. I just have no real interest in doing so at this point in my life. Part of the added confusion to this story is that during the time I was creating my beer journal it was during a period in my life when I had yet to taste alcohol in any form other than cough syrup, which usually made me gag and want to expunge all the contents of my stomach. So, likewise, when I started my beer journal it was a touch baffling to those around me.
So what exactly is a beer journal? It’s a documented event wrapped in glass and fill with beer. Here’s how it worked. I was living in Logan Utah at the time, doing that college thing and having a grand time hanging out with friends old and new. Most of these friends were big fans of beer consumption, and in homage to this practice they would create a celebration on almost any given evening so that groups of people could gather together to assist the consumption of this elixir. Yeah, so I went to a lot of parties and drove a lot of people home. Then on April 12, 1999 it just happened. I picked up a beer, two in fact, and stuck them in my pocket to commemorate the evening.
It was for my friend Brandon’s 25th birthday. His wife Jules, girlfriend at the time, had planned a surprise party for him. I went over and played some poker with them for about an hour and then we headed over the Ibis, the coffee shop Jules and I worked at, saying we had a quick meeting and then would be heading to the bar. When we got there the place was filled with friends and beer. Not just any beer, but special ordered beer that Brandon had much love for… Henry Weinhard’s Hazelnut Stout and Blackberry Wheat. So I took one of each, one for the poker night, and one for the surprise party. When I got home I took them out of my jacket pockets placed them on my dresser. And that is how it all started.
Over the months, I when I would go to parties, I would always take a beer home with me. It was always unopened and always a different beer. To those of you concerned that I was breaking party etiquette, it’s not like I was stealing beer. People knew what I was doing. I let them know all about it. And yes even though they gave me “the look” when I told them they always supported me and even started to make sure they would set one beer aside just for me. Granted, to help with this exchange, I always made sure I brought a six pack for people to enjoy. A six to one exchange rate is a pretty good deal, especially if that exchange is beer.
After the first twenty to thirty beer I collected, it was becoming a little difficult keep them all straight. So I invested in some little label stickers and started documenting each beer with the date and event. There was the Moosehead Beer for the Cinco de Mayo / Farewell Liz party… because nothing says Cinco de Mayo quite like a Canadian lager. There was my Icehouse beer, the only can I acquired for my journal, which Jules and Brandon gave to me as my get well beer when I threw out my back and was stuck in bed for about a week.
There was the bottle of Blue Moon for the night I said goodbye to my friend Jasamyn, who was moving to San Francisco. There was the Uinta India Pale Ale for Kyle’s 25th birthday and the Fischer LaBelle for my sister Fee’s 23rd birthday. The Guinness Extra Stout was for my first Eddie Izzard party and the bottle of Melbourne Bros Strawberry for the evening I went to see Tori Amos in concert.
Yes, there were beer signifying more birthdays, move farewells, and even some for reunions of old friends and family. There was the “Be thankful for Friends” party, which was remembered with a bottle of Moretti Birra Friulana. There was a beer for the occasional first date and one for the goodbye to an ended love. There was even the Pilsner Urquell for my first day going back to college. And…
And then it just stopped. Not the parties, just the bottled reminder of them. There were a few reasons for this. The first was the storage of the thing. I was quickly running out of space. My dresser was covered with full bottles of beer, as was my window sill. A beer journal begins taking up a lot of space after 7 months. The practicality was no longer there either. At some point in my life I would be moving and if things kept up, the thought of moving hundreds of full bottles of journal beer seemed like a task that I really had no desire to be a part of. I think the novelty was done as well. I have experienced many grand celebrations and a few unpleasant evenings, it was time to process and remember in a different way. So, I bought a camera. The beer journal ended January 20th, 2000… wow just over 10 years ago. Maybe I should go get a beer to commemorate my 10 year anniversary of my beer journal… hmmm. When the journal ended I had around 60 or different bottles of beer, and one can, compiling my beer journal. Oh, one more thing, trying to keep the dust off of all those bottles was becoming a chore that I never really wanted in the first place.
Then came the question, “What the hell do I do with all this beer?” Correct! You drink it! Well, not me personally, but I had an evening, a sort of celebration. I invited an armful of close friends, who drank beer, this was key, and with three or four coolers of ice we chilled all the beer and I played MC. People would grab a beer and show me the label. I’d then tell them the story about the evening that the beer was a journal entry for. Then we would either toast the remembered celebration, or give one last goodbye to those that I had said farewell to.
Near the end of the evening, all the attendees, well those who could still speak coherently and mostly stand, told me it was the most amazing and brewfully tasty party they had ever experienced. I’d like to think my stories helped them come to that conclusion, but I have no misconceptions. I know and you know it was predominantly, say 99.999998%, the 60 different types of beer they helped consume through the evening. Alcohol is amazingly resourceful in that regard. Still, it was a great night for me as well. By morning all beer had been opened and most of the bottles were empty. I think Rob was the one who said that the hangover was worth it and he’d gladly do it again if I ever made another beer journal then needed to be let go.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this practice… well repeatedly anyway. For me… I think it was worth the experience at least once. Who knows it might even be more worthwhile if you are actually a beer drinker. Although, I’m not sure how effective an evening of storytelling and letting go would be if the storyteller became schnookered during the process. Yes schnookered. This is a technical term meaning epically inebriated, plus… it’s a lot more fun to say than “really, really drunk”.
If you happen to be a sad drunk it might be a little rough on your friends when you you get to the beer that you picked up as a journal entry for your favorite teams playoff finals cup bowl game and they ended up losing. Causing you to get all emotional while drinking that beer and telling everyone it tasted of tears and failure. Then while cradling the empty bottle in your arms you start weeping. Remember the celebration of the beer journal should be a positive thing. If you only get beer entries for the bad things that happen I recommend stopping the beer journal before you even start. Then again, if you decide to give it a go, it then becomes all about your and your journey, so who knows, maybe it will help. Good luck to any of you that decide to give this a try. Feel free to send any questions you may have about it.
As for you, any of you have your own odd type of journaling? What are your thoughts on the beer journal?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: bottled beer, beer in ice, Tori Amos in concert, telling story, and birthday party.
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by Richard Timothy | Mar 9, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Lightbulbs and Soapboxes, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Public Service Announcement, When I Was a Kid
Music… it’s always been one of those unifying arts. The collection of chords and rhythm combined with lyrical accompaniment has been a catalyst for documenting and remembering very specific moments from my life. There are songs we use to rejoice and celebrate events and lives, gone, present and on their way.
There are songs that rejuvenate us using beats and chorus that instills in us an uncontrollable desire to move both emotionally and physically. Sometimes it’s a subtle as smiling as we tap of our toes and bob of our heads. Other times we let the power of the song flow thorough us and we stomp our feet and raise our hands above our heads in joy and adulation, while we sing out loud. Then there are songs that, well, let’s just say that there are entire city populations that owe their existence to three people, their mother, their father, and Barry White.
Music also instills in us very powerful and protective emotional reactions from their listeners. Think I’m kidding? Just try telling a Skynyrd fan that Skynyrd sucks and… I’m not sure you’ll get to the “and” part, before a beer bottle is used as an implement for getting you to shut up. Likewise, try telling a Lil… (some random rap artist) fan, sorry I don’t listen to rap so I’m not sure what artist in that genre has the more avid “most likely to attack you for bad mouthing them” fans. My rap education stopped around Run DMC’s team up with Aerosmith, and the Beastie Boys License to Ill album.
Then again, if you tell a Depeche Mode fan that their music sucks, they’ll most just avoid making eye contact with you and hope that you just go away. But once you do leave you can be assured that they are going to bad mouth you with each other and probably say a few profanities about your mother.
Then there is the same genre clash, questions like the Stones or the Beatles, Frank or Dino, Bell Biv Devoe or New Edition, or Joel or Mike. It’s something I think we all do. A sort or personal preference in genres that to the outside listener might not make a lot of sense, but to you personally, there is a line! The big one for me was the grunge movement that lasted about three weeks back in the early 90s. It was always Nirvana or Pearl Jam. I’m not sure why, but I could not stand Nirvana… I still can’t. I was always a fan of Pearl Jam, but Nirvana… it was the difference between using sandpaper or Kleenex to blow your nose.
Still, there are two things I’ve noticed over the years in regards to my attachment to music. First is the evolution in my musical listening repertoire. It altered immensely over the years. Song I swore I’d listen to all my life and want played at my funeral are now songs I can go the rest of my life without ever hearing again. Music I hated in my youth now has a place in my listening palate. Then there is some music that falls under the same category as fingernails on a chalkboard, dentists’ drills hitting an open nerve, or ally cats copulating at 3 AM outside your window.
The other thing is that my affinity and intense musical appreciation as been greatly reduced over the years. I know that the music industry is taking a huge bite due out of their profits due to piracy, but it’s kind of a double edged sword. I know that there are many people are leeching the creator’s talent, and that sucks. I do feel that if you love a song or an artist you really should pay them for the aspects of their creation that truly moves you. That is the brilliance of this whole electronic musical era. You can check out the entire album and then purchase only songs on the album that are worth a damn.
I think music piracy began as a result of years of fans being crapped on by the music industry in regards of quality vs. quantity of musical reward. Here’s what I mean. Remember back in the day when you would hear a song on the radio and become smitten by some catchy tune. The song was so brilliant that the only natural next step and option was to purchase the artists entire CD. Sure you could listen to the radio for hours so at a moment’s notice you record the song off the radio, but the damn DJs always talked through the beginning of the song…EVERY TIME! This is the key reason radio DJs are some of the most hated people on the planet.
A CD was your only option at getting an unviolated copy of the song. The problem was there was never a listen before you buy option. These CDs were always locked down. All you got was a sticker on the cover advertising that they performed the “Smash hit…” you were after, and a price tag letting you know the album would cost you about $15 to $20. I think the sale price was usually $13 to $15.
As you drove home you’d listen to the song that inspired the initial purchase over and over again. Then once you finally got home, you’d go to your room and:
- Place that “Do Not Disturb” door sign that you took from the hotel you stayed at while on vacation the summer before.
- Close the door.
- Place the new CD into your player.
- Have a moment of silence asking the music gods to bless your CD so that it would be the Holy Grail of all musical purchases you had ever made up to that point.
- And then press play so that you could properly take in the majestic brilliance that was your new musical purchase.
Things usually broke down like this (let’s say the CD had only 12 tracks)…
Track 1 – Listened to for 30 seconds… “Eh, it’s ok, but not really as good as track 3 (the reason for the purchase).”
Track 2 – Listened to for 25 seconds… “At least tract 3 is next.”
Track 3 – Listened to for the whole song… “Ahhhhh. That’s the stuff. I love this song.”
Track 4 – Listened to for 30 seconds…“Hmmm.”
Track 5 – Listened to for 25 seconds…“Still, track 3 is really good.”
Track 6 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 10 more seconds… “Lame”
Track 7 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 5 more seconds… “Sucks.”
Track 8 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 2 more seconds… “I should have just purchased the damn single.”
Track 9 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to rest of the song… “Eh, maybe… that might take a few more listens to get a proper feel for it.”
Track 10 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 5 more seconds… “Are they really this consistently worthless?”
Track 11 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 2 more seconds… “It would appear so.”
Track 12 – Listened to for 10 seconds, skipped forward one minute, and listened to for 2 more seconds… “$15 for only one damn song… worthless one hit wonders!”
Then, to feel better you would go back to track 3 and listen to it about 12 more times and then leave my room in a better mood, but still with a lingering hint of disappointed. Sure there were albums that were the opposite of this, 10 songs you loved vs. the 2 songs that sucked, but those were the exception and were a very rare occurrence at that. In my experience, for every ten CDs I bought, 7 to 8 of them were $15 singles that had 40 minutes of inexcusable musical vomit professionally referred to as filler tracks. One or 2 enjoyable songs, and then there was the one in ten that gave you the 3 or above ratio of songs worth listening to.
On a plus note, this corporate musical CD release practice of paying $15 for only one enjoyable song is responsible for a great deal of my profanity practice growing up. 
Again, I don’t feel bad for the corporations in, but I do feel bad for the artists. It was the artists that came before them that made all of those one good song CDs that ruined it for the musicians of today. It’s a kind of musical karma I think. If you give that much musical rubbish to the world, it’s going to come back and bite you where it hurts the most… and for the corporations it’s their wallet.
Just remember, if you pirate a CD, at least remember to go online and purchase the song that motivated you to rip the CD in the first place. Rarely is an entire album with the entire purchase, if a song give you joy, tip the artist a dollar as of way of saying thank you.
Any thoughts on today’s Smirk?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: music, plug ears, cd shop, and tip jar.
![Carrot Jim… aka Bycicleus Executeus]()
by Richard Timothy | Jan 24, 2010 | Adolescent Shenanigans, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
This weekend hit a transitional moment in my life… Ohhh sounds ominous doesn’t it? Truth is, it’s probably just a fluke or a random phenomenon, enous, eni, no ena… yeah phenomena, I think that’s right. So a phenomena in opposition to what is a staple of my aging night life.
It’s kind of sad really. In the earlier version of myself I was quite a professional night owl. Of course I had very good teachers. My parents were always up until midnight or one, or two in the morning, or… actually 2AM on a weekday was usually the latest anyone would stay up when I was little. The thing was it was normal. I remember having a conversation with one of the local cops who said that one thing he could always count on was that the Timothy house would always be lit up well into the middle of the night.
The late night teen years encompassed the most concentrated collection of late nights and consecutive all-nighters. I think my record was three days without any sleep. It’s not that I have had anything to do or any homework, or any Atari games to keep me up. No, I think it’s because I wanted to write really bad teenage poetry about girls I had crushes on that I believe the parlance of the time was “didn’t even know I existed.” After the half way through the second night, I think the motivation shifted to, “I just wanted to see how long I could go without sleep.”
It was on the third day of no sleep where I had my first and only hallucination. It was during my art class, 5th period, right after lunch. I was working on a pencil drawing of a lady in a dress almost in a profile view and with her arm hanging down to the side, in front of the dress.
Everything was fine and normal. I was shading along the dress next to the arm and then it happened. The arm became three dimensional and popped out of the drawing, just hanging there in front of the dress. I wasn’t worried or confused was to why my a portion of drawing had decided to become three dimensional, I was just annoyed. I kept trying to shade the dress around the arm, but the arm kept moving to where I was shading, constantly getting in my way. So I started grabbing the arm and moving it out of the way so I could shade the dress. I kept losing my grip and the arm kept moving back to get in the way again.
This lasted about five minutes, until I heard someone saying my name. It pulled me out of the intense focus I was giving drawing. I looked up and sitting across me was one of the other kids in class. “Yeah?” He started explaining what he saw and wanted to know if I was alright. Apparently the action of my grabbing at my drawing, trying to push the arm out of the way was a little visually disturbing to the boy.
I told him I was just a little tired. Adding, “Damn it.” when I looked back down at my picture saw what I had being doing to my drawing. It was starting to look like the dress was coming through the middle of the lady’s arm. I commented I should probably go home a little early and started erasing my artistic result of my hallucination in art class. Once I got home I took a 13 hour nap.
Things have not changed all that much from my youth apart from the all-nighters. I mean I do get to bed a bit sooner, usually midnight. Going to bed early is being in bed by 11PM. So when this Friday arrived let’s just say it had been a full week, which left me a touch worn out. I thought about taking a nap, but got side tracked with a new book I’m reading. After thirty or forty pages my eyes started reminding, through a series of uncontrolled shutting that, oh yeah, I was going to take a little nap. Knowing that I had missed my window of napping opportunity I decided it was time to get some sleep instead.
I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. I looked at my clock and make sure the alarm was turned off so I could sleep in a bit and, guess what? It was just barely 10 o’clock. Un-bloody-believable, 10 PM on a Friday night, I was going to bed earlier than I have in almost 10 months (being ill the only exception). I thought about it for a few minutes, then came to the conclusion, “Bugger it”, I was tired.
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: art class, lit up house, and man sleeping.
This story starts as all stories on this subject start… with good intentions followed by a series of bad choices. At least I think that’s how it started. While going to college in Powell, Wyoming I was without a car… actually I started with a car, but it died about 30 miles from campus. And when I say died, I mean dead died, like never coming back dead… like Steve Buscemi at the end of Fargo not coming back dead.
The back seat was so full that I could not see a thing out of the back window such had a billowing cloud of white smoke coming from my car. I couldn’t really see a problem, but when it comes to a working knowledge of car related things, well, I can usually identify the color, but that’s about as far as I usually get. Long story short, the crunch I heard was the exhaust pipe knocking a dime sized hole in my oil pan. It only took 20 more miles before all the oil had run out and the engine seized, never to be started again. The tow man did take pity on me and was kind enough to town to Powell even though we were already in a Cody (a town about 30 miles away from Powell).
Now as I was test driving the bike and taking care of the purchase and all, some of the people in the Jeep thing had… hmm, let’s go with they were suffering from glaucoma and took some time to ingest some air that just so happened to be filled with a little HC accented T. I mean I know one of the side effects is poor short term memory, but what happened next was… I really just couldn’t believe it.
Once we had attached the bike to the roof of the Jeep, most of the people in the car were expressing an intense desire to get something to eat, and Jim needed some carrots. His backup bag was now empty. He suggested a place in the downtown area that had great coffee and good food. It was unanimous and as short while later we were in the heart of downtown Billings. Jim mentioned that there was parking lot close to the café that we could park at. What he failed to mention was that it was an indoor parking lot. So as he pulled into the place I spoke up from the back seat, “Dude, you have a bike on the roof of your car!”
Jim sensed this and to help smooth things out promised to pay for the new shocks, all the while apologizing profusely. The unfortunate part was that the reality was that we were both broke college students, so when I finally got the bike fixed and called while with the bill, he was honest and told me he would be paying it. He didn’t have any money to do so. So I responded like the young 20 year old I was who was also a broke college student and just used their portion of the rent to get their bike fixed because they were told they’d get the money for it. I started swearing at him and doing my best to point out every possible flaw I could think of about him in regards to his failure as a human being.
I think the saddest thing was that even after 13+ years of this event transpiring, one of the first things Jim said to me when we reconnected on Facebook was that he was a little worried about accepting my friend request and that he had a little anxiety when he saw my name on the friend request because of the bad way things ended between us. That’s way too long to be carrying around that type of bad energy. It’s so bad for you on so many levels. We’ve since cleared away the any residual negative waves between us. I don’t know if we’ll get any further than old college acquaintances, but even if that’s where we end up, it’s profoundly better than it was for all those years. And based on that alone I think it’s a rather happy ending to an unfortunate event. Besides, the mental image of watching a Jeep drive into an indoor parking lot with a bike on the top of it is going to keep putting a smile on my face until the day I die.
