The above quote was spoken to me by Brian about Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre. Brian had commented to me that Green Bay had no offensive line to protect Favre, and I replied by saying that he did not need one. And he is in fact not Chuck Norris, so therefore I guess a one man line is in order. But I swear to...ummm...a higher power when I say that I do not desire to watch any more highlights of Favre evading would be tacklers for about fifteen seconds then throwing a three foot underhanded shovel pass which is then turned into a three yard gain. THIS IS NOT A HIGHLIGHT. THIS IS THE KIND OF LAME STUFF THAT HAPPENS WHEN NON-PROFESSIONALS PLAY.
This past Sunday, I went to one of my favorite places in the world- the laundromat. It is a place, where first of all, I can do one of my least favorite things, which is laundry, in a minimal amount of time with an elevated amount of entertainment; great music, great people, occasional homeless altercations...wow. For instance this past Sunday I arrived at the metallic den of washers and dryers around 11am to hear the delightful melody of Rick James' Superfreak (and this particular laundromat, located in in freethinking Venice, plays the actual songs, not the elevator music). This was enough to get me pretty pumped up for the cleaning of my garments, but I got even more amped when I reached the Super Large Washer area and heard a man loudly making commentary on the song to no one in particular:
(After the line "the kind you don't take home to mother" had just played)
"Hear that? He was still livin at home when he wrote this song...Hey Mom, don't worry about this girl I'm bringin home. Then he sold a million copies and moved out, but whaddya know, three months later..'Hey Mom! I'm movin back in, I smoked all those crack rocks and I'm movin back in."
Wow. This was going to be a special laundry experience.
But then, the unexpected happened. My fellow launderers let me down in a big way, not once, not twice, but three times. Allow me to explain. Everytime I go to one of these locations, I secretly hope that a truly cinematic well-choreographed dance routine on top of washers, dryers and folding tables will suddenly erupt. For some reason this past Sunday I was even more hopeful than usual.
As I began folding my first load, I walked over to an empty folding table with my back to the room and heard what I thought to be a perfect song for everyone to bust out into dance- an old Michael Jackson favorite- "Pretty Young Thing". I could feel the smile creep onto my face as I slowly glanced back over my shoulder, ready to see the Mexican family to my right jump on top of the single load washers and start the room a dancin. Nevermind that none of us had ever met (although the Mexican family may have had some practice together) nor really had any dancing abilities, it would just be one of those magic moments when feet would know how to move, hands would know when to do a rhythmic jazz shake, and more capable men would be aware of when to toss around women back and forth across aisles. Alas, no one else seemed to notice and I reluctantly returned to folding my laundry, thinking that maybe this was just not the right song or the right moment.
No more than ten minutes later Prince's "When Doves Cry" came blaring over the sound system, seemingly louder than the past few songs, chiding everyone to grab any purple-tinted article they could grab and get ready for the dance and most memorable moment of their to this point feeble existences. I was thinking some low to the ground, walking forward in a flying V pattern snapping was in order. However, as I turned around to do so, I noticed only one other patron that may have been ready for this twinkle in time, but alas she was just using some very emphatic gestures for folding some garments.
I had to use the old noggin once again to think what had gone wrong. Catchy song? Check. Lots of people, having fun? Check. Purpley colored stuff around? I guess some people had some, so check. Appropriate things to jump around on and slide under for a good dance routine? Check. Maybe the songs were too old for this generally younger crowd, maybe the well choreographed top secret dance routine had happened before I got there, maybe I was just not reading the moment right...but I just had no clue.
Just as I was putting my laundry in my bag and ready to head home, I got that gleam in my eye once again when some Justin Timberlake song came on (true I did once announce I was upset with all the female singers playing on the radio presets only to discover that one of them was in fact Timberlake) and I was thinking....this is it...a trendy new song for this younger crowd...it's time to fuckin dance. And nothing. No one even flinched.
After I was asked to get down off the folding table and once I explained I was already on my way out, they still asked me not to come back. I think I know why: they knew they were only another visit or two from me away from turning into the trendiest laundromat in all of LA.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
You Can't Imagine You Will be Listening to Beautiful Stranger
As today I sat on my lunch break, initially wondering why I had not purchased hardly enough food to last me through five days of the week (and at that, I bought some really shitty stuff...I must have been really out of it on Monday when I went to the store), and secondly wondering how likely it would be that I would be at a Subway, in Los Angeles, on my lunch break, listening to Beautiful Stranger by Madonna...I decided it would have been highly unlikely for me to be in such a position. First of all, when I eat Subway, normally I do not choose the dine in option, as when you do this you typically run into: a)a slew of people trying to lose weight but eating two footlong chicken and bacon ranches and leaving you to wonder why they also got the chips and the cola that would satiate a whole village and b)homeless people being fed the low grade meat. Secondly, the weather in LA, while one of the factors that is freaking me out about this place, as I have decided I love seasonality, is always beautiful, and the outdoor seating areas are lovely outside this particular Subway. Thirdly, the homeless seem to always be getting free sandwiches at Subway, which, while I have no problem with that, tends to hurt my appetite a little. So, yes, a different experience.
While walking to the bathroom the other day at work ( I work in a 24 floor large office building), I noted a grizzly old janitor man. I decided janitors who are in the profession after the age of 50 have three primary jobs, and in this order:
1)Have an awesome mustache.
2)Be grizzled, stare angrily ahead.
3) Leer at women.
The mustache part is by far the most important. Sure you can be angry as you are seemingly a professional janitor, but you know they are spending hours at night at home grooming their mustache, which is most admirable. I would love to have a job where I could steam around angrily, leer at women and be extremely grizzled. I mean, think about it, sure you have to occasionally clean overflown toilets and such, but you have permission to have an awesome stache, seem super angry, and stare at attractive women, it is totally expected.
OJ Simpson was included as a suspect in some sort of Las Vegas sports memorabilia heist today, and it only made me thing one thing: I want to be a suspect. Why only suspect the crazy former NFLer who was suspected of murdering a few people? Do you know what joy it would give me at work or to be watching ESPN and see my name scroll across the bottom line: OJ SIMPSON, SEPERATELY TIM RADWAY SUSPECTED OF HOTEL ROOM BREAK-IN... I would be so proud to round up alibis and know exactly what was up. It would make my life so very exciting.
That is all I have for now. And shut up, what have you done for me lately?
While walking to the bathroom the other day at work ( I work in a 24 floor large office building), I noted a grizzly old janitor man. I decided janitors who are in the profession after the age of 50 have three primary jobs, and in this order:
1)Have an awesome mustache.
2)Be grizzled, stare angrily ahead.
3) Leer at women.
The mustache part is by far the most important. Sure you can be angry as you are seemingly a professional janitor, but you know they are spending hours at night at home grooming their mustache, which is most admirable. I would love to have a job where I could steam around angrily, leer at women and be extremely grizzled. I mean, think about it, sure you have to occasionally clean overflown toilets and such, but you have permission to have an awesome stache, seem super angry, and stare at attractive women, it is totally expected.
OJ Simpson was included as a suspect in some sort of Las Vegas sports memorabilia heist today, and it only made me thing one thing: I want to be a suspect. Why only suspect the crazy former NFLer who was suspected of murdering a few people? Do you know what joy it would give me at work or to be watching ESPN and see my name scroll across the bottom line: OJ SIMPSON, SEPERATELY TIM RADWAY SUSPECTED OF HOTEL ROOM BREAK-IN... I would be so proud to round up alibis and know exactly what was up. It would make my life so very exciting.
That is all I have for now. And shut up, what have you done for me lately?
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Hopefully No Bipolar People Are Using Hotmail Anymore
Hotmail.com, my longtime personal e-mail provider (man, the structure of that sentence was way off, making it sound as if hotmail.com is a site designed specifically for the intent of use by one Timothy C. Radway ((or as Citibank knows me, Timothy R. Radway…I got into an argument with them about my middle initial…they insisted they were right. Some customer support people are just a little off)), which would be nice for a website to be so dedicated, but it is not really the case) has recently began making changes to their appearance, trying to become more sleek and less like the “even homeless men who round up quarters to use the internet at the library to look at porn can have a hotmail account” that they always have been. One of the interesting new features is that, if you login frequently or have your e-mail address set to be remembered by the site (or as far as I know, there are people in India who remember it and type it in for you),all you have to do is type in your password. BUT, if you are not that e-mail address, rather than something saying “Change e-mail address” there is a small bar you can click on under the remembered address that just says “Forget me”. I, for some reason think this is a tad weird, and for the Wellbutrin taking crowd, I am sure that could not be some sort of upper to see this everytime they check their e-mail…but what do I know?
As I sat in the LAX airport today, waiting to board my plane back to Chicago for my friend Adam’s wedding, I did what I do best: creepily observed people without them knowing…alright, so that one girl noticed my frequent observation, and I am pretty sire she smiled before she walked away really fast, so there is that. But anyways, I love watching people that think and seem to act like they are on a remote island by themselves. (But as John Donne told us “No man is an island…except for people who have to buy two seats on airplanes…they are islands, and typically quite buoyant”) So, here are some of my casual, asinine, non sociological observations.
There are all sorts of different types of eaters and chewers around. This is where it really helps people to think they are alone, as well as evidently invisible, as their eating habits cannot possibly be the same when they are dining with others. Anyways, of the types of chewers I noticed, there are a few, and even one that looks sort of like a dinosaur.
a)The ripper- This person seems to have teeth with the sharpness and chewing ability of a spoon. They have to clamp down on their food (in the case of the ripper I was observing, the food culprit/victim was pizza and an apple…whoa was the apple an intriguing view) then turn their head back and forth several times to rip off a portion to then slowly allow the saliva in their mouth to dissolve for them to swallow. It is very odd to watch and makes me wonder. The only time most people turn to ripping is with a crusty loaf or something like that, not for every food.
3) The big mouth- This person, not to be confused with the small bite/quick chewer, evidently desires to eat their meal in approximately 2…well, to 2 bites. The man I observed using this tasteful tactic was eating a rather large sandwich, and after each bite he had the cheek filled appearance of a squirrel storing nuts for the winter, or a pelican looking all pelican like.
qIV) The dinosaur- This person watches a lot of tapes and animations of brachiosauruses and their eating technique, and imitates it to a T. Modern animals similar in fashion are cows and really old people and monkeys. This person is at the very least deliberate in their eating. Maybe they only have gums, I don’t know.
1712) The talker- I am not entirely sure how this person ever actually consumes any food. I noted three of these people. They had entire servings of meals in front of them and spent an entire 45 minutes to an hour talking either to; an uninterested person next to them, some bored work associate on their cell phone, or to the maintenance staff of the airport (I think this may have just been a maintenance man carrying around a pizza though). All I can say is, weird.
WAXY) The small bite/quick chewer- As I referenced before, this person takes very small bites, masticates thoroughly, and swallows and choking on their food is never a danger. The only downside to this eating style is that it is time consuming and sort of gross to watch…it’s like watching a fat man lotion his back. Just go with me on my analogies.
The other interesting and slightly funny/irritating thing to me is the way people will begin sitting or standing in the boarding area long before it is actually time to board. The comical thing about this is: have these people never been on an airplane? Much less a Southwest flight…what is the rush? Do you know of some ultra secret seating area that is better than all the other tiny rows with all the same chance of sitting next to someone with body odor/ bad stories/ a little “extra” for you in your seat/the armrest hog? Weirdos. I usually end up smugly waiting until everyone else is on the plane…at least I maximize my time spent sitting down…good practice for the unfortunate paralysis that will end up plaguing me unexpectedly (of course it will be psychosomatic…Ricky Bobby style)
WORD UP.
As I sat in the LAX airport today, waiting to board my plane back to Chicago for my friend Adam’s wedding, I did what I do best: creepily observed people without them knowing…alright, so that one girl noticed my frequent observation, and I am pretty sire she smiled before she walked away really fast, so there is that. But anyways, I love watching people that think and seem to act like they are on a remote island by themselves. (But as John Donne told us “No man is an island…except for people who have to buy two seats on airplanes…they are islands, and typically quite buoyant”) So, here are some of my casual, asinine, non sociological observations.
There are all sorts of different types of eaters and chewers around. This is where it really helps people to think they are alone, as well as evidently invisible, as their eating habits cannot possibly be the same when they are dining with others. Anyways, of the types of chewers I noticed, there are a few, and even one that looks sort of like a dinosaur.
a)The ripper- This person seems to have teeth with the sharpness and chewing ability of a spoon. They have to clamp down on their food (in the case of the ripper I was observing, the food culprit/victim was pizza and an apple…whoa was the apple an intriguing view) then turn their head back and forth several times to rip off a portion to then slowly allow the saliva in their mouth to dissolve for them to swallow. It is very odd to watch and makes me wonder. The only time most people turn to ripping is with a crusty loaf or something like that, not for every food.
3) The big mouth- This person, not to be confused with the small bite/quick chewer, evidently desires to eat their meal in approximately 2…well, to 2 bites. The man I observed using this tasteful tactic was eating a rather large sandwich, and after each bite he had the cheek filled appearance of a squirrel storing nuts for the winter, or a pelican looking all pelican like.
qIV) The dinosaur- This person watches a lot of tapes and animations of brachiosauruses and their eating technique, and imitates it to a T. Modern animals similar in fashion are cows and really old people and monkeys. This person is at the very least deliberate in their eating. Maybe they only have gums, I don’t know.
1712) The talker- I am not entirely sure how this person ever actually consumes any food. I noted three of these people. They had entire servings of meals in front of them and spent an entire 45 minutes to an hour talking either to; an uninterested person next to them, some bored work associate on their cell phone, or to the maintenance staff of the airport (I think this may have just been a maintenance man carrying around a pizza though). All I can say is, weird.
WAXY) The small bite/quick chewer- As I referenced before, this person takes very small bites, masticates thoroughly, and swallows and choking on their food is never a danger. The only downside to this eating style is that it is time consuming and sort of gross to watch…it’s like watching a fat man lotion his back. Just go with me on my analogies.
The other interesting and slightly funny/irritating thing to me is the way people will begin sitting or standing in the boarding area long before it is actually time to board. The comical thing about this is: have these people never been on an airplane? Much less a Southwest flight…what is the rush? Do you know of some ultra secret seating area that is better than all the other tiny rows with all the same chance of sitting next to someone with body odor/ bad stories/ a little “extra” for you in your seat/the armrest hog? Weirdos. I usually end up smugly waiting until everyone else is on the plane…at least I maximize my time spent sitting down…good practice for the unfortunate paralysis that will end up plaguing me unexpectedly (of course it will be psychosomatic…Ricky Bobby style)
WORD UP.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Labor Day is a day off....weird
I really have no clue how Labor Day came about, nor will I spend the time to go read a Wikipedia entry about it (especially as I have had very...let's just call them skeptical opinions of the last few wikipedia entries I have referenced...I have a feeling that Bulgaria has very little to do in actuality with the world of puppetry...) but I can say it is very odd to have Labor Day be a holiday and day off work. Why on all actual days of Labor do we work, and then on the one specificall called Labor Day, no onbe works (except for prostitutes waiting to prey on unsuspecting politicians on their way back from a 3 Smirnoff Ice too many Laboir Day BBQ. Even though I personally think 3 Smirnoff Ice are too many. But yeah, hookers are still out, I've heard at least).
This weekend I have been in the northern California area with Eliot and hanging out with former 742 housemate Derek. It definitely felt like a little slice of 742 on Saturday when we headed over to Derek's in the mid afternoon with a case of beer and a bottle of Jack, began playing Guitar Hero, and then...oops...suddenly it was midnight and so much liquor had been consumed that I am not even sure where it had all gone, nor why we were doing such random things like watching a car chase scene from the 1968 movie Bullitt. So yeah, one of those nights.
On the drive up here, we happened to stop in a very small town called Buttonwillow, (Beware the seedy underbelly of Buttonwillow) which led to me wondering about certain compund words which would sound funny and be memorable no matter what. Here are some rules I thought of:
-Button + Pretty much any other word is going to be a memorable town name. It all really just depends on how friendly you want your town to come across. Buttonwillow...friendly. Buttontail...friendly...Buttonmurder, not so kind, but tell me you are forgetting that pit stop...
-Pairing two words that you would never think to see together: Kindfraud, Eviltickle, Trustworthybelgian . You get the idea. In fact, stay away from Trustworthybelgian this time of year...the weather there is awful.
-Pairing together words that are funny by themselves= double funny. Weinerballs, Schlongtaco. Okay, maybe this is only funny to pubescent teenage boys to men the age of 60. But that is a key demographic group.
Well, to my utter dismay, I have nothing to say. Except for the stuff I already said.
This weekend I have been in the northern California area with Eliot and hanging out with former 742 housemate Derek. It definitely felt like a little slice of 742 on Saturday when we headed over to Derek's in the mid afternoon with a case of beer and a bottle of Jack, began playing Guitar Hero, and then...oops...suddenly it was midnight and so much liquor had been consumed that I am not even sure where it had all gone, nor why we were doing such random things like watching a car chase scene from the 1968 movie Bullitt. So yeah, one of those nights.
On the drive up here, we happened to stop in a very small town called Buttonwillow, (Beware the seedy underbelly of Buttonwillow) which led to me wondering about certain compund words which would sound funny and be memorable no matter what. Here are some rules I thought of:
-Button + Pretty much any other word is going to be a memorable town name. It all really just depends on how friendly you want your town to come across. Buttonwillow...friendly. Buttontail...friendly...Buttonmurder, not so kind, but tell me you are forgetting that pit stop...
-Pairing two words that you would never think to see together: Kindfraud, Eviltickle, Trustworthybelgian . You get the idea. In fact, stay away from Trustworthybelgian this time of year...the weather there is awful.
-Pairing together words that are funny by themselves= double funny. Weinerballs, Schlongtaco. Okay, maybe this is only funny to pubescent teenage boys to men the age of 60. But that is a key demographic group.
Well, to my utter dismay, I have nothing to say. Except for the stuff I already said.
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