I could never live in a nudist colony.

It’s not the nudity part that I couldn’t handle, although there are plenty of things to worry about with that, such as ugly people and inappropriately-timed erections. No, the thing I wouldn’t be able to handle is the lack of pockets.

No matter if I’m going out or I’m home alone, I’m almost always at least wearing shorts, and most of the time they’re cargo shorts with lots of pockets. And I use them all, boy do I ever. At any given time on any given day, if one were to ask me to empty my pockets, one would be confronted with a barrage of knick knacks that would turn the most dedicated packrat green with envy.

Besides the normal cell phone and wallet, I also typically have two or three business cards, six or seven receipts from the last places I went to dinner or the grocery store, a ballpoint pen (sometimes even two), a whole litter of keys on several different keyrings accompanied by four or five plastic Gold Club eXtreme Rewards Preferred Member cards they give you at supermarkets and video stores, ticket stubs for the last sporting event/movie/theater performance I attended, and several sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper folded twice over to be pocket-sized and containing information about either schedules, phone numbers of people I need to call, or musings I had written about why I could never be a nudist.

A wise man once said pockets are the greatest invention in the world, and although I wouldn’t entirely agree—everyone knows the high five is the greatest invention of all time—pockets do slide in at a very close second place.

In the past two years, I’ve played match maker for three different couples. I am no cupid, nor do I garner an uncanny, unmatched knowledge of relationships based on loads of personal experience; I do watch a lot of Dawson’s Creek, though. Combine a little common sense and the life lessons of the Creek and there isn’t an interpersonal situation I cannot help diffuse with a reasonable recommendation or assistance to the matter.

The quarky kids on Dawson’s covered pretty much the entire emotional gauntlet of life in their six seasons of prepubescent hormones and Paula Cole-soundtracked moments. A few viewings and there isn’t a real situation you’ll encounter without being able to draw on knowledge of how it could potentially play out. This helps determine the best advice to give or the analysis you want to proceed with. Television is a life coach like no other.

This is only problematic because television rarely attempts to step beyond entertainment. Aside from the cable channels focused on learning and the occasional PBS show, television is a scripted and controlled hypothetical universe. Its episodic issues play out life in the most interesting way possible, it handles the situations on a dramatic and conflict-oriented route to a resolution, not necessarily the best one. That’s why taking life lessons and advise from television should be problematic.

But for some reason, it’s not. My 3-0 record of relationship counseling based on knowledge garnered from prime time melodramas proves this. But why?

It’s probably because I’m not the only one who has seen these dramas, and learned these life lessons. Just like me, people have seen the same episodes and dramas that I have seen, and as such, expect their lives to play out in a similar fashion. We draw our perceptions, anticipations and expectations from past experience, and television vicariously provides us this. We can feel like we own these lessons because we were with Pacey when he went through them and when we are in the same situations, we want and expect them to play out the same way.

As much as we think we are unique, we live our lives just like the lives of the fictional characters on television. We make decisions based on these viewed experiences, and the people we encounter draw their opinions from the same setting. It is self-fulfilling and it makes television our number one behavioral coach.

Sure, it might make things interesting, but it doesn’t make them easy.

Did you ever notice how colors evolve? I’m not talking about identity crises like orange getting a shade lighter and suddenly calling itself “Burnt Sienna.” I’m talking about an evolution of meaning, a whole paradigm shift in how we interpret colors.

Now, I’m no expert (not on colors, anyway), so I don’t want to get into the whole interior decorating/design aspect, where all the sudden we have a bushy-haired woman in reading glasses on a string around her neck standing in our living telling us not to paint the wall red because it’s too “emotionally charged” next to the “traditional peacefulness” of the olive-green couch.

No no no no no. What I’m talking about is perception; more accurately, auditory perception of colors. What comes to mind when something is described as pink? How should you feel if someone calls you blue, or yellow? Why isn’t it easy being green?

In fact, let’s start with that: green. I remember a time when I was a kid when green was grass, woods, soccer pitches, baseball infields and outfields. Then I grew up and experienced my first election as someone who actually understood not necessarily the specifics but at least what an election was and what it meant to win, and all of the sudden green became a joke. If Ross Perot was our third choice for people to be in charge of the country, and Ralph Nader and the Green Party was behind him, then how could green not become synonymous with jest?

Then four years later, there it was again. Only this time, Nader was third place and green was getting a little more serious.

2007, though, was a big year in the evolution of green. It really stepped up its act this year, making appearances on all kinds of TV shows and networks, getting buddy-buddy with Al Gore, which would not have been cool except for the amazing concert he put on in summer with hundreds of awesome bands all over the world. Yeah, green has really improved its image this year. It’s gotten hip, trendy, the couleur du jour, if you will. And all this simply because green is associated with saving the earth.

Well, I’ve never been a great fan of green. I think it’s greedy, it’s envious, it’s even kind of shallow sometimes. And that’s why I think blue is getting a bum rap.

Think about it. The earth’s surface is made up of about 70% water. So, if you were to look at a topographic map of the world, more than two thirds of it would be blue. You see what I mean about green stealing blue’s thunder? Blue should be enjoying some time in the limelight, shmoozing with rock stars, hanging with Gore, the poster child for “Saving the Planet.” Blue should not have to deal with this tired old stigma of blue meaning sad and depressed.

Blue is happening, blue is alive, and blue is ready to bust out onto the world’s stage. Except green is in the way, like a conniving little brother who always asks for help with school projects and then takes all of the credit for them.

Green. What a jerk.

1. Jean-Claude Van Damme/Steven Seagal Comeback Film. Bonus points if they are in the same movie and must team up to stop some heinous crime. Or better yet, the two are serendipitously linked as Steven Seagal must save his kidnapped daughter on ship that is being actively targeted by terrorists that Van Damme is hired to stop. Double bonus points if in some way, shape, or form Wesley Snipes is one of the bad guys.

2. New 2Pac Album. Its been a year or two since he has put anything new out. I know he is “dead”, but that hasn’t stopped him before.

3. Declined Friendship Notification on Facebook. A lot of people ask me to be friends with them on Facebook, but I don’t always want to be their friend. Sometimes, it’s because I don’t know them, other times it’s BECAUSE I know them that I am just not interested. In either case, unless they actively look on their friend list for me, and see me not there, they could think I have added them. I wouldn’t want to then run into them, and have them think we are friends when, in actuality, we are not. They should know. Facebook notifies you about everything else. Why not this?

4. My sweating problem to go away. There are a number of things that cause this. Perhaps the extra weight I have been carrying lately, perhaps I suffer from hyperhydrosis. All I know is that even Gillette Clinical Strength Anti-Perspirant isn’t working and I would like to be able to wear dress shirts again. Something must be done.

5. Jennifer Love Hewitt Nude Photos. I know recently these photos surfaced…but I don’t care. I dedicated too much of my teenage quality time to this woman to give up on hope now. Of course, now that the tabloids are covering her, again, she probably doesn’t need the exposure (get it….chuckle, chuckle) but if she can fade into oblivion just enough from a Ghost Whisperer cancellation, we could get the perfect storm of desperation that we finally see it happen.

( A close six…Misusing Big Words to blow-up and be huge. Call me a dreamer, but I think the world deserves it.)

Still piled behind the world’s tallest midget, the hay sits unattended. It’s waiting to be moved to the ball-balancing elephant’s ring, but I haven’t got to it yet. Nobody fed Bernard last night, so I had to attend to him first or the lion tight rope walk would be missing its lion. The kids would be disappointed. Bernard is incredible. The aerial acrobats and the sword swallower both have colds, so I’ve been passing them hot tea all day. A show without them is barely a show at all. Once I’ve finished, though, I’ll prep Daredevil Dan’s bike for the helicopter jump finale. I’d like to try it some day, if I ever have the courage. I don’t know how he does it. I love it here, but sometimes, surrounded by all these people who do amazing things, sometimes I feel ordinary. Ordinary has no value.

Are Not Very Resolutional

There are some things that need to be left alone. A scab, a carton of spoiled buttermilk, a broken heart, or perhaps an old boyfriend. But some of the previously mentioned can be cured with a little bit of distance and time and maybe even by just leaving it alone for good.

Now if I could only stop picking at this scab…

Have you ever pondered to yourself:

“I’m so fascinating that someone should write a biography of me. Since no one has, I’ll just do it myself. It’s better this way–I don’t have to share any royalties.”

You haven’t?

Oh.

I guess I’m the only one.

Well, happy new year anyway.

As a writer who would eventually like to be writing something more than five people will read, I was thinking of how I could make this little mom-and-pop blogspot a little more visible. Obviously, if all it took was good writing to be noticed, we’d be on Countdown with Keith Olbermann every night, we’d be in printouts on the desks of the Pulitzer voters, we’d be in the hearts and minds of every God-fearing, leisure-reading man, woman and child in the state of Texas and across the globe.

Sadly, that is not the case.

So for my research, I did what any quasi-intelligent, semi-clever (or is it semi-intelligent and quasi-clever?) young man would and should do: I looked to popular culture. And there, between the Perez Hilton’s and the Us Weekly’s, I found my answer.

We need a scandal.

Look at Jamie-Lynn Spears. Besides being the sister of perhaps the nastiest pop star of the last 10 years and the hands-down winner of the “Don’t EVER Bring Home To Mom” award, she probably could have floated along in relative comfort and anonymity, enjoying the small modicum of success a TV show on Nickelodeon and a handful of 10 year old fans can bring. But Jamie-Lynn has an enterprising spirit, and she recognized the value of the scandal. So what did she do? She got knocked up.

BANG. All of the sudden, she’s everywhere. Magazines, internet, TV news–she’s practically the entire Thursday night lineup on E! Before this whole “oopsie,” I couldn’t have even told you if she looked like a girl. Now I could describe with 95% accuracy the color of her eyes (brown, with flashes of hazel in the right light) and how she wears her hair on Tuesdays and alternate Saturdays.

Normally, I don’t try to follow the example of Britney Spears or anyone with similar DNA, but this time it’s not a bad idea. However, this is going to be a multi-phase process. In the coming weeks, I’ll be rolling out my ideas in a step-by-step method in order to alienate people just enough so that they are intrigued and ravenously coming back for more to this little blog of ours.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of…

The Making of a Scandal

In the defense of “Freddy Got Fingered”, I didn’t watch the whole thing. I didn’twalk out, but about 15 minutes in, I simply gave up on life and zonked into a 90 minute coma awakening only after the closing credits had long since ended.

There have been other bad movies made (don’t see: “From Justin to Kelly”) and other really bad movies made (looking your way Whoopi Goldberg and “Theodore Rex”), but none that so egregiously attack the inner-neurons of the human brain with such vigor and disdain than “Freddy Got Fingered”.

Again, in the defense of “Freddy Got Fingered,” it came out just past the height of one-balled-guitar-toting Tom Green’s idolizationship from pubescent boys in 2001, and was probably seen as an excellent financial opportunity for MTV to make a little green. So, to the morally oblique, the movie had, at least on paper, a redeeming quality.

Unfortunately, any being capable of feeling isn’t subjected to those redeeming qualities, and is instead barraged with inane hijinks’s that teach you nothing. Having only made it to the point of Mr. Green twirling a baby, helicopter style, above his head by the umbilical cord, I might have missed out on something, but the way things were going I doubt it. At that point, I had also just experienced a horse receiving a hand job, so it is difficult to speculate things were on a track to get better.

There was nothing to be learned from this movie. Or maybe there was. Maybe we were supposed to learn that twirling babies isn’t as funny as it would seem… so maybe you should think twice before doing it. I am afraid if that was the lesson to be learned, as it is rather roundabout and between the lines (in which case…very English teacher of you, Tommy).

I would speculate that isn’t the case.