Dial M for Mr. Swanky

Self-Improvement while You Sleep

Mr Swanky — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:47:00 -0700

This happened a while ago, but I’m inspired by Robin’s use of her blog to record random things for posterity. It’s no EverNote, but hey, I don’t need an external brain as much as I need to work on my internal brain, and maybe this technique will prove valuable. Anyhow…

I had a dream a few weeks ago, and upon waking forgot nearly all of it, except for this bit which really amused me:

I was having an argument with some guy (who doesn’t exist in the real world), and the guy was a total goody-two-shoes, boy scout, rule following, idiot sort of a guy. So, I’m about to tell him what a complete dork he is, and I start the rant off with:

“Listen, Dudley Douchebag…”

The thing is, I’ve never used, or heard anyone use, this term before, and it took me totally by surprise. I have to say, I’m pleased with my subconscious’ ability to come up with a pretty decent burn like that. I literally don’t remember anything else from the rant (or the dream), just that opener, but I think it’s safe to assume that it was a similar combination of stunning, rapier-like wit, and hard hitting truths.

Actually, I think I woke up mid-dream rant, because I was half-awake enough that I half-realized that I’d dream-said “Dudley Douchebag” and felt a compelling need to make sure I remembered it, unlike the majority of my dreams, which I don’t recall at all upon waking.

Of course, in the real world my rants are more likely to start off (and continue, and end) with even less clever, course expletives, but maybe if I keep up this sort of dream, my waking rants will improve accordingly. Kind of like improving one’s vocabulary by listening to a dictionary on tape when falling asleep or something. Except with more douchebag.

Swiss Miss

Mr Swanky — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:05:00 -0700

Morgan and I started watching Swiss Family Robinson last night, though we didn’t get too far before his bedtime. My only prior exposure to the concept was the Swiss Family Treehouse at Disney World, which Morgan quite liked and we had to climb twice, despite the fact that the local temperature in the Happiest Place on Earth had in fact surpassed that of the Surface of the Sun. Anyhow, my take-away from the Treehouse was that this particular Swiss Family appeared to have been nearly certifiable in its industriousness. I honestly don’t recall a lot of specifics, as I suspect I was suffering from heatstroke at the time. Let’s see what the Internet has to say…

Ah, yes, now I recall. They basically kitted out the tree with the most elaborate furnishings salvaged from their shipwreck, and crafted gizmos to move water up the tree and other sundry contraptions. It looked like Rube Goldberg was one of the castaways. Come to think of it, the Professor on Gilligan’s Island clearly owes a debt to the Swiss Family.

Let me get sidetracked a moment here. This rant will make no sense if you haven’t watched the video I linked to up there, so watch it if you feel like it. OK, what in name of home video is going on there? Whoever is behind the camera is clearly of the Drunken Master Film School. “Hang on, let me zoom in on the fake grapes, here. Whoa was that a sign with readable text that might provide some context for what the hell this crap is? I better not show that for long. Holy Christ, what was in that drink? I think I’ve been poisoned! Maybe my killer is in this tree house. I’d better stumble like a lunatic all over the joint in a desperate effort to exact my own unique brand of justice.”

And then it just stops! It’s more like the Blair Witch Treehouse. “On a summer afternoon in 2002 in Orlando, Florida, three teenagers went into the woods to film a documentary about binge drinking. 5 years later a tattered backpack was found with this footage, a smelly Hot Topic t-shirt, and a blood stained hat shaped like cartoon mouse ears.”

OK, that’s not entirely fair. They precede the video with an advertisement for buying the DVD, so maybe that’s why they didn’t bother to give this clip a graceful ending. But that just begs the question of who on earth is going to buy this DVD? It’s bad enough watching home movies of a friend or family member, but watching some random spastic’s home movies? Of Disney World? And paying for the privilege of doing so? You’d be better off booking a trip on the Swiss Family Cruise Lines. At least that way you’d get to live in a tricked out tree house until your fellow castaways start looking like giant hot dogs running around and you get a taste for human flesh. I presume that’s how the movie ends.

Tour de France Musings

Mr Swanky — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:07:00 -0700

We’ve been watching the Tour de France again this year. I started watching it in 1994 or 1995, when Miguel Indurain was dominating. It was relatively difficult to follow back then because there wasn’t a lot of mainstream exposure in the U.S. I followed it a bit on the InterTubes (pneumatic back then), and at 2:30 a.m. on ESPN2 right after the World’s Strongest Table Tennis Fishing Competition, when they had a super-condensed hour long version of that day’s stage. These were the Dark Ages before TiVo, so I actually had to stay up and try to make sense of a sporting event for which I had no ready way to relate. It was a little like when I discovered Australian Rules Football (also in the wee hours of the morning during ESPN’s era of desperation programming), but with less insane violence and no white fedoras.

Somehow I convinced Robin to watch it with me at some point, and now she’s pretty enthusiastic about watching, though a little less so than myself. Since it’s been on OLN/Versus, we’ve watched it either live or TiVo’d and become real fans not just of the event, but of certain riders and commentators. We pretty much don’t watch any other bike racing (or any other racing, for that matter), and I don’t think I’ve been on a bike since I taught Robin to ride one in 2001 or something.

Of course, since we started watching the event has been dominated by Lance Armstrong and doping, and we’re not really fans of either. But it’s been pretty easy to enjoy the Tour despite those dreary things, and I never really thought about giving up watching it. It’s a 3 week spectacle, once a year, you know? Whether or not some guy with one nut is dumping his wife for a celebrity fling while shooting elephant adrenaline into his ass every 200 miles isn’t really going to diminish the enjoyment for me.

For some reason this year, Versus has figured that the people watching the Tour must be somehow in crisis over whether watching is the right thing to do, and we need to be reminded of the dilemma at every commercial break. So, they’ve crafted this 30 second spot of some of the scandalized riders with the footage reversed (so their trophies are being taken away instead of granted – high concept!) , accompanied by this godawful acoustic guitar with some country western dude whining about how it’s Never Too Late to Start Over. I presume the song was originally meant as an apology to his wife for having sex with their horse — it’s difficult to tell in the 30 second chunk — but it doesn’t seem likely that there’s a lot of doping scandal/Tour de France/line dancing crossover.

But seriously, Versus, do you think I need to be convinced that it’s morally ok to watch your programming? I’m a big boy, and can change the channels all by myself. Did the various Catholic networks have 30 second spots around the time of pedophile priest scandals, reminding the viewership that Christ was still a good guy? I think it’s safe to assume that people are going to watch the Tour de France because they actively want to, and not because the very thought of the various scandals rendered them too depressed to turn off the television after Mixed Martial Art Rodeo Bowhunter’s Journal ended.

Raising a Super-Villain

Mr Swanky — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:33:00 -0700

Morgan (my 4 1/2 year old son) was telling us about an imaginary animal of his own creation, an “animalized rooster”, and he was screeching like hell. He explained:

Morgan: That’s the call it uses to attract the females.

Me: Oh, really? How do you attract the females?

Morgan (shouting): Female! Silence!

Rejected

Mr Swanky — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:05:00 -0700

Joe started a blog and made the error of asking me what I thought he should name it. Wisely, he rejected all my suggestions. I started out not unreasonably, but it went downhill fast.

Here’s what could have been (“highlights” only):

Caution: May Contain Rambling

Let’s Talk About Joe

Joe: Threat or Menace?

There’s Something About Joe

Joe: The Awakening

I actually quite like a couple of those, and the last three never fail to crack me up. Alas, he went with The Winds of Change, which is his prerogative, I suppose.

Anyhow, he has a damn blog now, so I was moved to add a bunch of links at the bottom of this page to people I know who have got a damn blog. Also, check it out! I actually put in a freakin’ link in this post! Next thing you know I’m gonna bust out an image or some other fancy-ass webby crap!

Go look at Joe’s blog and check out the blogs of those other miscreants and ne’er-do-wells I linked down there.

Take 2

Mr Swanky — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:10:00 -0700

OK, that didn’t go so well. It turns out I’ve barely gone to any shows since I decided to talk about shows. Then it turned out that I’m still a lazy bastard, and didn’t talk about anything else either.

Enough folks have been hassling me to revive this thing, that I’m going to give it the old college try. It took me two times to graduate college, too.

Anyhow, I’m back on the air thanks to Jason’s patience. Now, on to disappointment!

Car Talk

Mr Swanky — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:52:00 -0800

Robin: You know how Scott drove into a guardrail swerving to avoid hitting a deer? Well, the insurance people said it’d be better to hit the deer. So, if you ever have the choice of hitting a deer or a parked car, just hit the deer. Bam!

Me: If it’s a dude, I should hit the car?

Robin: Yeah. No one eats dude.

IM Conversations of the Gods, Chapter 1

Mr Swanky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:53:00 -0800

rainvt: where is geech today?

william hartwell: sucking.

rainvt: hard

william hartwell: truth

rainvt: “suck hard truth, evildoer!”

Show Ramblings

Mr Swanky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:13:00 -0800

When I was young and foolish I went to a lot of shows and, after my cousin Nick moved away, I started going to a lot of shows alone. It’s really not so bad, since I was there mostly to see bands play, not necessarily to hang out with people, and the truth is that a show is a pretty miserable place to hang out with people. Either the band is loud as hell and conversation is impossible, or the band is quiet and conversation is incredibly rude. So, you know, if you want to hang out with someone do it before and after the show — during the show, not so much.

The drawback to going to shows alone is that in-between sets there’s fuck all to do. Sure you can drink, but only so much — you’re alone, so no one is going to get you home safely. So, back in the day, I carried around a notebook to scribble in during the lulls at a show. It really was just to pass the time, I don’t think I ever went back and read any of the things I wrote in there, and who knows where the damned thing has gotten to now. For lack of a better idea, at least some of the random crap in this blog is going to be that kind of thing.

I barely go to shows anymore — having a baby puts a dent in that carefree lifestyle — but now that Morgan is 3 years old, I feel a little less guilty leaving Robin for the night and spending time in dark, but no longer smoky, clubs. And I’m hoping that she’ll feel free to get out on her own without the boy or myself in tow. If things work out, I’ll be going to shows a bit more often, though nothing like my old self, no doubt. If I remember to, I’ll bring something to write on so I’ll be able to while away the idle time, and generate “content” for this site.

I really don’t know how long I want to make these posts, so I think I’m going to wrap this one up, and see how it looks. Here’s a snippet from the last show I went to (I’ll have more ramblings on the show later, I think):

Overheard at the Downbeat 5/Prime Movers show at TT the Bear’s 2/3/06:

“She’s very Swedish.”

I’m not even sure what that could mean. Isn’t being Swedish a binary thing? Is there a range of Swedishness? Swedishosity? Who would be on the extreme ends of the range? I think the Swedish Chef would be on the “Very Swedish” end. I’m not sure about the “Not Very Swedish” end of the range. Maybe Mr. T.

With Sincerest Apologies

Mr Swanky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:00:00 -0800

As I feared, I’m already fretting too much about this blog. For example, is it the ugliest page on the internet? Or just the lamest?

Anyhow, since my audience consists entirely of Jason and Geech, and maybe my long suffering wife, I may as well get this out of the way now:

To Jason:

I’m sorry you spent your hard earned money on hosting my incoherent ramblings.

To Robin:

I’m sorry you spent your hard earned money on getting me this domain once before and all I managed to do with it was absolutely nothing.

To Geech:

I’m sorry you suck so hard.