Top Five Things Realized While Walking the Dog

I'm supposed to be meeting My Brotherman in Capital City in twenty minutes. Instead, I'm sitting two and half hours away from Capital City because two, I say two, giant storms are colliding upon the interstate I was to travel. In addition, an hour before the storm even hit, a Hazmat truck tipped over for no good reason preventing anyone from the QC to access the interstate anyways. That, or the city officials created an artificial reason to close the interstate before the storm hit and caused everyone to crash. That, or it has led several hungover city officials to frantically clean up blood, acids, and shampoo from said interstate before the colliding storms both freeze and then melt and then snow upon the material. Since I was already awake at 5:45 in preparation for what was supposed to be a drive across the state, I decided to take the dog for a rather lengthy walk around the QC. An hour and half later, I'm home with five very important thoughts I want to share:

5) Beverly Hillbillies might be the greatest premise for a sitcom ever.

Origins of thought: I've been listening to Weezer's very good first two albums a lot lately. I thought I'd give their most recent three CDs a new listen via the iPod while I walked. The third and fourth album lack any sort of oomph. By that I mean they suck. The fifth album has decent moments, but is very spotty. Oddly enough (odd because I generally don't like the radio) my favorite song on the CD was two years ago hit "Beverly Hills." I especially like the line about how all the people who live there are born into money. That got me thinking how it would be great if a bunch of rednecks fell into money and moved to the Hills. Then I realized alas, I'm too late to the dinner table with that plump chicken; everyone's already been fed.

5a) The Jefferson's might have the greatest song for a sitcom ever.
5b) I like TV. Please come back. I miss you.

4) Pumpkin pie is only the best pie in November; cherry pie is the best pie at all other times.

Origins of thought: I don't know if this is a QC campaign or a nationwide campaign, but someone, presumably those pesky Democrats and their dog Scooby, sent out vague pie graphs that people now have on their cars and on signs in their yards. The first round of these signs have absolutely no information other than the pie graph itself. Now, I'm a BIG fan of graphs--love em, if I could somehow graph blog, I would--but the whole point to a graph is that IT NEEDS TO CLEARLY STATE WHAT IT IS MEASURING. Someone on my committee, "People who love graphs more than humans," (note, we feel there is no need for pompous capitalization) must have sent them a pointed letter because now all the signs point out that the federal deficit is out of control. Woo hoo, party time! Federal Deficit, you be so crazy. Thanks for letting me know that vague sign makers who no nothing of graphs. And thanks for using an ugly burnt orange as your primary color. It reminded me that I wanted to be eating pumpkin pie at that moment, rather than walking. I then realized that if it were warm out, I'd most likely want cherry.

4a) People with political bumper stickers versus bumpers stickers with witty messages like, I'm Going Nucking Futs; My Other Car is an Airplane; Spam; and Never Forget, are wasting quality sticker glue that could be used for scrapbooking.

4b) The federal deficit is no different that (just a guess) 100% of the average American's budget-overspent and maxed out. Your country is a direct reflection of you, blame yourself.

3) Will we ever find out what happened between Rick Springfield and his friend Jesse?

Origins of thought: This morning before leaving the house, I watched an infomercial for a CD collection called, "The 80's Gold," or something like that. It was hosted by some washed up blond actress and her new boyfriend and former 80's teen idol Rick Springfield. I think about the 80's smash hit song Jesse's Girl a lot anyways for a variety of reasons. 1) It's the pinnacle of American culture. 2) I'm still pissed that Rick Springfield came to my college town my third year in college and had the balls to charge $40 per ticket. Forty fucking dollars for the lesser Springfield twin? Take your poofy hair elsewhere boyo. Oh wait you did; you're hosting infomercials. 3) It's so brave.

Think about it. Everyone had someone they had a crush on in high school. Except for me. (I'm asexual!) Only one seventeen year old on record has ever written a song about the girl he had a crush on, the same girl who dated "a good friend of (his)," and played it for 25 years on the radio. However, the combination of seeing Rick look a little sad on the TV (though still dreamy) got me wondering if he misses his friend Jesse? Or if he still wants to be with Jesse's girl? My bet is that Jesse's girl gained several pounds over the years and became quite controlling and bitter-call it the usedtobecute curse. Now Jesse, who skipped college because he failed class after being too hot for teacher, is working down at the Tasty Freeze dreaming of a vacation to watch the rains down in Africa he'll never possibly afford, wearing his sunglasses at night as he sneaks into a show with girls, girls, girls, even though he's been blinded with science, and crying big tears for fears out of his Bette Davis eyes because not only did his angel never become a centerfold, she grew folds. I'd say Rick Springfield won in the long run, but I refuse to say Rick Springfield is a winner.

3a) Pink Floyd is really overrated.
3b) Rick Springfield is a winner.

2) I could be Jodie Foster.

Origins of thought: My third favorite movie of all time is the Burbs, starring Tom Hanks before he insisted on growing David Spade's hair, for obvious reasons. Now for those of you who haven't seen it, shame on you. For those who have, you obviously understand that the best part about a movie where all the normal neighbors assume the new creepy neighbors are murderers is that it turns out the new creepy neighbors ARE MURDERERS. Brilliant! Disturbia thought it ripped off Rear Window, but nope. As I thought about movies of nice suburban areas brought to their knees by strange killers, I quickly thought of Buffalo Bill and his telling of the fat starving women to "put the lotion in the f'in basket bitch." These women would scream, "Jodie Foster save me and make Nell 2." Buffalo Bill would say, "I'll be in a lot of popular movies through my career but no one will ever no who I am!"

This got me thinking about how I can't hear a damn thing that is going on around me while I walk. My iPod is turned up so loud as to not only add a level of danger to my walk, but to prevent any sounds of the outside world to infiltrate my listening brain. Since my walks generally lead me through residential neighborhoods, where Hollywood has led me to believe several horrific murderers exist, I don't even give myself a chance to hear someone scream, "Jodie, Jodie, Jodie!" My iPod prevents me from being Jodie Foster, winning some sort of her medal, and probably gift certificates and cash prizes. Screw you Apple.

2a) I like bananas.
2b) And hot dogs.
2c) And intercourse.
2d) Are people who make softcore pornography as unloved by their parents as those that make hardcore pornography? My Brother and I talked about this once.
2e) I should be in Kansas City. Or close to.
2f) Mmm ribs.
2g) McRibs!

1) I still don't like Elian Gonzalez.

Origins of thought: I realized at around minute six of my walk this morning it was really really cold. Being a man, and by nature smarter and stronger than all women, I did not wear a coat this morning. I wore sweats and a hat too small for my head, which is big, because it houses my colossal brain that loves meself the graphs. Being a man also means I never have to admit I'm wrong, so not wearing a coat was clearly the correct decision.

Even so, my arms almost frostbiting off my body got me thinking why anyone ever settled here originally. I get why most of us are here now-family, friends, blah blah. Why then? Why did Jack Iowa decide to settle up shop with Martin Illinois and Torrence Minnesota? Did they get here in May and/or September-the only two months of "just right" weather and think, "This be God's country." Were they trying to woo Marcy Wisconsin? Our founding fathers are idiots. I wanted to move to Florida right then and there.

But then I thought I should probably move to Georgia or Virginia instead, since Florida has scared me ever since they had that brief run of tourist murders when I attended elementary school. Also, they aren't that welcoming to new people, as evidenced when they kicked out poor Elian Gonzalez simply because he wasn't born here, his family wasn't here, he took steroids, murdered some poor girl in Aruba, raped some poor Duke girl, oh wait no he didn't, tried to steal his memorabilia back after being inexplicably exonerated when he clearly killed his wife and her concubine, shaved his head to avoid failing drug tests after his pop career fell away, started jumping up on a couch saying, "I Love Scientology; I love Scientology," called Rutgers players naughty names on the radio, invented low carb diets, broke up Jennifer, impregnated Anna Nicole, and beat out Clay to become our American Idol.

1a) I wonder what Nancy Grace thinks about all this.
1b) What's a snausage?