That Time I Met Slick Rick...At Meijer on Keystone

Look, a lot has happened since I last posted. I left my job in federal law enforcement to coach college soccer, got married, broke my leg in half, and had a kid. More on all that later. Right now, let me tell you about the time I met Slick Rick in Meijer on Keystone.

For those of you not in the know when it comes to "The Rap Music", Slick Rick is a seminal 1980/90s rapper who is probably best known outside hip-hop circles for his look. What look is that, you say? This look, I say:

That eye patch isn't an affectation. Mr. Rick lost sight in his right eye as an infant.

Inside rap circles, Slick Rick is best known for the badass look, his languid, British accented delivery (also not an affectation - he's British) and incomparable story-telling style. This isn't a History of Rap posting, but you probably should Google Slick Rick or give him a whirl on iTunes. Totally worth it.

Now that you have a little background, let me set the scene.

Winter. Indianapolis. Meijer on Keystone.

Your protagonist has just entered the store to pick up a few things that likely include baby food, fruit for my fruit crazed wife, deli meat, half-and-half, and beer. He is likely wearing sweat pants, hasn't shaved, and is feeling old and overweight. Nothing about the scene that has just been set has prepared your protagonist for the encounter he is about to have.    

Exiting the baby food aisle and entering the booze department (I do not think it's coincidence that these two sections are located adjacent to one another), I find myself alone amongst the affordably priced, modest selection of beers one would expect a store like Meijer to carry.

While taking way too long to mull over the choice between Bell's Two Hearted and New Belgium's Ranger IPA, I become aware of a fellow shopper at the opposite end of the beer aisle. I glance up from my conundrum to see a larger black man sporting a black fur coat, backwards Kangol hat, and ALL THE RINGS.  I can't see his face, but snort a little and think, "I hope he has on an eye patch."

I grab the Two Hearted and proceed toward the dairy section to take a similarly unnecessarily long time choosing my half-and-half. My route takes me toward my fellow beer buyer and, as I approach, he selects his beer and begins walking toward me. He has on sunglasses. Close enough.

Without meaning to, I begin to stare. This man is not dressed for a late Wednesday afternoon shopping experience at Meijer on Keystone. This man is dressed to go on with Doug E. Fresh in six minutes. My mouth may even be open at this point because I am trying, for all the world, to figure out why there is a Slick Rick impersonator in Meijer in Indianapolis on a Wednesday afternoon.

And then, right as we're about to pass, he looks over at me and, in perfect Slick Rick intonation says, "How's it going, guy?"

I say, "Good."

I continue toward the half-and-half and Slick Rick heads to the front of the store to check out.

Now, you may be saying, "Come on, there's no way to know if that was Slick Rick or someone else." I completely agree. I even Googled "Slick Rick Indianapolis" on the way home to see if he was playing a show in the area (he was not).

But I ask you, in the situation I just described is there any other explanation that makes any sense and isn't significantly more complex and troublesome other than one in which I met Slick Rick in Meijer on Keystone?

I think not. 

I'm back. Also, Dr. Neil Clark Warren Scares Me.

Well, maybe it's time to pick this thing up again. What's it been? Six months? Hope you've been well.

A quick thought just to get the fingers dancing on the keyboard again (Well, maybe not 'dancing.' I'm not sure they ever 'danced'...more like dry humped?)...*ahem*...A quick thought to get my fingers dry humping on the keyboard again:

Is Dr. Neil Clark Warren, he of the eHarmony empire, not the last person on earth you want selecting your soul mate? If he's not, he's certainly in the last three. If he's not in your last three, you probably watch church on TV on Sunday mornings. I'm not judging (I actually am judging), but is he not a little too grandfatherly? Maybe a little "give-me-some-sugar-Sandusky-like-creepy-grandfatherly?

I DO NOT want this guy in charge of my love life

I could be wrong. Maybe this is all my hang up and I'm strangely freaked out by Doc Neil, but I'd venture a guess that there are a few of you out there who read this blog, or did until I stopped writing it, and you know exactly what I'm talking about, feel it even, but more in an empathetic kind of way and less in a creepy uncle tickle kind of way.

Think of it this way: You're out at a bar with some friends. You're single. Doc Neil walks over with a young man/woman on his arm and delivers he/she to you. He doesn't want you to date, he says. He wants you to be in a relationship. Then he flashes that beatific yet wholly superficial grin and floats off without another word. Get to it.

God, Doc Neil is creepy!

In Which I Skip Illogically All Nimbly Pimbly Through Subjects Which Have Recently Given Me Occasion To Smile

Clearly, it's been a minute since I've written anything and rather than try to weave all of the things I've wanted to write about for the past two months into a rambling, expansive narrative that would whither and die by the second paragraph, I'm going to opt for a snapshot attack.

*ahem*

If you live in Indianapolis or are ever visiting (it really is a delightful city), please take the time to go to Taste on College Avenue for breakfast/brunch. Yes, it's trendy. Yes, the wait staff is clad predominantly in skinny jeans. Yes, idle hipsters linger over their meals on weekday mornings and wrestle with the New York Times crossword puzzle. Whatever. All of this and the decided lack of sensible parking options are more than worth negotiating for even just one delicious sip of their Spanish latte. What makes it Spanish? I have no idea. Condensed whole milk, espresso, and whipped cream have never struck me as particularly Iberian, but there you go. Seriously, this is the best coffee drink I've ever had. I would shame myself if I wrote honestly about the things I would do for a Spanish latte from Taste, so I'll pull my punches a little bit. I would slap my grandmother backhanded (the grandmother who's still with us) for a Spanish latte from Taste. That was me holding back. Use your imagination.

If you don't appreciate David Bowie, we probably wouldn't be very good friends. It's not that I'm a Bowie superfan - I probably only have ten or so Bowie songs on my iPod - but that I struggle to understand anyone who's not fascinated by Bowie's complete, all-encompassing strangeness...even if that fascination is only with Labyrinth David Bowie. My sister and I probably watched that movie 500 times as kids. Some of my friends' parents wouldn't allow them to watch it on the grounds that it was too "Satanic" (As if there's an acceptable level of Satanism?). I've never understood this. If, on the other hand, they didn't allow their children to watch Labyrinth on the grounds that David Bowie's pants are WAY too tight and you can literally see his cock and balls throughout the entire movie, I might be able to get behind their reasoning. I digress.

My most recent infatuation with Bowie is attached to the song "Modern Love." Firstly, I challenge you not to dance to this song if you hear it and are alone. Secondly, how has this not been covered yet? I'd bet $100 that a Killers cover of this song would be a top ten hit on college radio. Stone cold lock. Thirdly, over the opening chords of the song, there's a spoken word bit in the background in which Bowie says, "I know when to go out and when to stay in, get things done." I can't hear this and not crack up. His intonation suggests that he's trying to be cool and mysterious, but all I can imagine is Bowie on the phone with his buddies telling them he can't go out this evening. It wouldn't be responsible. He's got to balance the checkbook and do laundry. Maybe Friday.

Last October I moved back to my favorite neighborhood in Indianapolis after two years in a vinyl village located in a kid infested suburb of the city. I love kids, really. But any doubts I had with respect to whether or not I was mature enough to father any of my own at the present moment in my life were forcefully and undeniably quashed over the course of those two years. Some day, yes. Tomorrow the 8th of May, 2012? No fucking way.

Anyhow, my "favorite neighborhood," that of the Spanish latte, is a partially gentrified, liberal buffer between the north side of downtown Indianapolis and the gilded ghettos of Carmel, Indiana (infuriatingly pronounced 'Car-MEL' by some of the nouveau riche a little too taken with their zip code). There's a convenience store located within easy walking distance of my apartment that I sometimes go to when I only need a couple of things and don't want to drive to the supermarket. My first trip to this convenience store was a few weeks after I had moved into my new place and, although I was delighted to be back in my element, I wasn't totally in love quite yet. That all changed as soon as I walked into this store.

The place was packed and there weren't two people of the same race. One hitters were for sale right behind the bulletproof bubble in which the clerk was encased. The Indian proprietor was outside haggling with a guy in a white box truck over body piercing jewelry he was buying in bulk to sell in the store. A hand scrawled sign advertising adult movies on VHS (VHS?!) was taped to the bulletproof glass just above the one hitters. On the customer's side of the counter, there was a wicker basket full of bananas with a sign that said "Fresh Froot. .50".

It's not that any of these things comprise essential characteristics of That Which Makes Me Happy, but that taken as a whole, in their specific location (geographically and socially) they remind me of the neighborhood in which I grew up in Austin, Texas and how my mother often had to delicately explain to my sister and I what the movie titles posted on the marquee of the adult movie theater located near our home meant. "Well kids, when a man and woman love one another...". Basically, in a decidedly non white picket fence sort of way, I feel at home and I love it.

I had blood work done the other day and when I arrived to check in to the lab I was gruffly confronted by a large, black female nurse. She was short without being rude and had the air about her of someone who had to stick needles in peoples' arms all day long which is, of course, exactly what she had to do. After I'd checked in, the nurse started asking for information from a couple in the waiting room who had arrived before me. The nurse needed to know the couple's doctor's address, but they didn't know it (Who does?!) and this agitated the nurse. As the couple fumbled for their cell phones to try to find the address of the doctor online, the nurse huffed and said, "I'm jus gonna put mistle anus." Mistle anus. She said it like six times after that as she shushed the couple who were promising they could find it if she'd just give them a quick second. Mistle anus. Every time she said it I got closer and closer to losing my shit and I'd almost locked it up, but then I looked over at the only other person in the waiting room and her face was bright red and she was clearly biting the insides of her cheeks trying to keep from laughing every time the nurse said mistle anus. I had to put my head in my hands and stare at the floor and say over and over to myself in my head "Holocaust: millions died" to keep from falling over in peals of laughter. Mistle anus. Love it.

I was on a long run the other day and about midway through I passed a grandmother and her granddaughter feeding the ducks and geese along a canal. The granddaughter was at that age, probably four or five, where everything in life is fascinating and wonderful and not at all scary. She was dressed as a butterfly with wings and sequined shoes and slinky antennae and every time a duck ate the bread she'd tossed it she clapped and laughed and went back to her grandmother for more bread. The grandmother had an expression on her face as if she'd just taken a deeply satisfying breath and had nowhere to be except right there. She also was wearing butterfly wings and slinky antennae and seemed completely content to look ridiculous in the service of her granddaughter. Made my day and the rest of the run was cake.                

The Ballad of Squad Zero

Most American guys of a certain age have, at one time or another, fantasized about being an unassailable, shit kicking badass as a member of an elite military unit. Think SEALs or Army Special Forces or Rangers (they lead the way) or Force Recon or, for the most fantastical of us all, Delta Force. There are a number of factors at play here, but being American, under 45 years of age, and having a penis seem to be the most consequential. Some combination of the movies Rambo, Top Gun, and Navy SEALs; GI Joe action figures; video games like Call of Duty and Splinter Cell; and a nearly pornographic American obsession with guns has conspired to lead many of us into thinking that, with the proper training, we could be clearing rooms, fast roping onto rooftops from a Blackhawk helicopter, and piloting Swimmer Delivery Vehicles under the hull of a ship at night to plant explosives.

I confess, I have not been immune to this fantasy. My senior year in high school I nearly caused both of my parents' heads to explode when I informed them that I had talked to the Navy and Marine Corps recruiters who camped out in the hallways of my school and inquired about enlisting with a guaranteed shot at BUDs or Scout/Sniper training. Thankfully, for both my parents and our nation's military, this momentary dalliance with alpha male super supremacy vanished when I was accepted to Baylor University (considerably less badass but minus any log carrying and plus many attractive women) and I joined the ranks of the 99.9% of the American male population who watch the Jason Bourne movies and then try to reconcile their ass kicking fantasies with the fact that they also shop at Banana Republic and just can't start their day without a latte from Starbucks.

Any doubt I had about whether I had made the right choice was wholly and incontrovertibly quashed my sophomore year at Baylor when a group of buddies and I decided to drive to a paintball place just outside of Dallas on a Saturday morning to put our close quarters combat skills to the test. Our genius plan was formulated over beers the previous evening as we had managed to convince ourselves that enough video game playing and action movie watching had somehow imbued us via osmosis with at least a functional knowledge of small squad combat maneuvers and important battlefield techniques like how not to get shot. We were going to be ringers on the paintball field.

Our band of brothers, which we jokingly came to call Squad Zero, was comprised of Aron, of Frogdog fame; Christian, a boy band good looking bartender; Stu, an intellectual communications major; Ted, an aloof guitar playing environmentalist type; Mike, think Brad Pitt from Ocean's Eleven; and myself.

Our first mistake became painfully apparent when we pulled into the parking lot of the paintball place in a cherry red Audi A4 and a beat up Honda Accord still dressed in the same duds we had worn to the bar the night before. We should have driven trucks and we should have changed. More specifically, we should have driven massive, lift kit equipped Ford trucks with gun racks and Ain't Skeerd stickers on their bumpers and changed into as much Real Tree camouflage as we could find at the local Wal-Mart. You know that scene in every White-Kid-Winds-Up-On-The-Wrong-Side-Of-Town movie when Chet or Margaret walks into the hip hop club and the DJ scratches the record to a halt as all of the thugged out black guys turn to stare? It was like that, except with Doomsday militia types and their warrior-to-be progeny and instead of a record scratching to a halt, the sounds of them loading their ridiculously equipped paintball guns ceased.

There was a momentary face off in the dirt parking lot as we were sized up by the regulars who were apparently there for training instead of fun. I'm pretty sure all six of us were wearing black and had on sunglasses. Aron was smoking a cigarette. Stu was bemused in the way an intellectual communications major would be but wisely kept his wisecracks to himself. Mike was wondering why he decided to come to Dallas with us instead of home with one of his many female options the night before. Ted looked terrified.

"Fuck it. Let's go," Aron snarled as he stamped out his cigarette butt on the ground. Not looking to see if any of us were following, he added, "Squad fucking Zero."

As we approached, the locals warily went back to loading their guns but kept one eye on us as we entered the pro shop and inquired about pricing and guns to rent. After the monetary details were hammered out and we were kitted up for the coming war with what I now know to be the paintball equivalent of 4-10 shotguns, the proprietors of the paintball facility asked for our skill level.

"What category are you boys in?"

We all stared back blankly.        

"You know, at what level do y'all compete?"

We stared back blankly again and then started to look to one another for an answer.

"We're Squad Zero," I jokingly offered.

"I see," said the paintball guy as he scrawled something on a roster sheet.

In retrospect, he either thought we were a group of experienced paintballers drifting through town in search of a good fight like the plot to some sort of post modern western movie or, and this is much more likely, he realized we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into and took advantage of the opportunity to inject serious comedic relief into what otherwise a creepily serious afternoon of paintballing by assigning us to a team on which we would absolutely get our asses handed to us.

We stepped outside and began to load our paintball guns and adjust our masks as one of the referees called out that we'd begin in a few minutes. In the lull, some of the younger doomsdayers, probably twelve or thirteen years old, ventured up to us.

"Are y'all agg?"

"Agg?" Mike asked.

We again looked to one another searching for some sign that someone in our group had understood the question.

A word of advice: If ever you find yourself attempting something you've never done before, something like kayaking or rock climbing or lugeing or snake wrangling or paintballing, do not feign knowledge in the face of ignorance. Far better to profess ignorance and look silly momentarily than to play along and look silly for an entire afternoon. Hindsight.

"We're Squad fucking Zero," Aron retorted without looking up from loading his gun.

"Yeah, y'all are agg," one of the child soldiers responded.

Satisfied, they ran off to report to the others.

Do not fuck with kids like these

Stu piped up,"Dude, we don't even know what that means. What if that changes the rules or something or we wind up having to do some shit we don't know anything about? I don't want to unnecessarily get lit up by a bunch of rednecks if I don't have to. Those paintballs freaking hurt."

"Relax, dude," Aron responded. "Those kids were like ten. Squad Zero."

"Squad Zero," a few of us laughed back, overly confident that age precluded a person from being an absolute crack shot with a paintball gun.

The referee called out two teams of names and had us all follow him to the first field, a wooded but relatively small patch of land, and then quickly explained the rules. I don't really remember much about the rules now, but I do remember that Squad Zero was intact on one team, confident, excited, and ready to win glory on the field of battle. We were sort of like The Light Brigade well before The Charge of The Light Brigade.

The referee blew his whistle and the six of us rushed forward while everyone else on our team wisely dove for cover. Stu, Ted, Mike, and Christian were mowed down immediately. Aron and I found ourselves using three of our child teammates as human shields as we plunged to take cover behind a log.

"Holy fuck!" Aron yelled. "We should have come up with a better plan!"

Paintballs whizzed over our heads and popped loudly against the log in front of us as I meekly held my gun aloft and fired randomly without exposing myself.

"Alright," Aron said, "here's the plan: I'm gonna jump up and run to the next tree and you cover me. Squad Zero!"

Before I could dissuade Aron from this course of action, he sprang up from behind our log, made it two steps, and immediately succumbed to what I like to call The Machine Gun Dance. The Machine Gun Dance is a staple of every 80s military action movie in which some minion finds himself in Stallone or Schwarzenegger's crosshairs and, as he's riddled with bullets, maintains the standing position and sort of shakes all over.

Aron looked down at me when the firing had stopped and, covered in paint, yelled,"Medic!"

As he trudged off the field trying unsuccessfully to dodge more paintballs, a kid from the opposite team calmly walked around the log that had kept me in the game, looked down at me in a pitying way, and, as I cowered in the dirt, shot me in the knee.

"You're out!" the referee swooped in to yell.

Squad Zero after action report #1:


Enemies Killed: 0 (probably)


Life Expectancy After First Shots Were Fired: 1 minute


Casualty Rate: 100%

As Squad Zero reconvened on the losing side of a hugely lopsided loss, we realized that we had been assigned to a team essentially made up of clay pigeons. We were fodder for the more experienced players on the other side. To make matters worse, we were far and away the worst players on a team of bad players. I overheard the Vietnam vets on the other side coaching the child warriors on the finer points of coordinated movement and cover. One of the kids on our team wiped his nose on his sleeve. Aron lit a cigarette. Ted confessed that he didn't think he even fired his gun. I survived the longest by laying on my stomach behind a log.

Less this...

...more this

"Follow me to the next field!" bellowed the referee.

The next field consisted of a makeshift plywood compound and a was shaped in a tight triangle with wooded areas on two sides. Squad Zero would be tasked with breaching the compound and eliminating all of its defenders. The 54th Massachusetts had a better chance of storming Ft. Wagner.

The referee blew his whistle and the chaos started all over again. There were probably twenty people on our team and we easily had sixty different ideas as to how best to breach the compound. Squad Zero was a squad in name only and all I remember is that none of us survived and the only thing I'm sure I hit was one of the walls of the compound.

Squad Zero After Action Report #2:


Enemies Killed: 1 or 2 (maybe...and by sheer luck)


Life Expectancy After First Shots Were Fired: 1 minute 30 seconds (best guess)


Casualty Rate: 100%

At this point, someone on the other team must have said something. Fighting us was like playing Call of Duty on the easiest setting and even utter, soul crushing dominance gets boring after a while. Plus, I suspect some of the more militant types really were using this Saturday paintball outing as preparation for when the Feds came knocking. Picking off liberal arts majors at will was probably immensely satisfying for them on a personal level, but it wasn't doing much to prepare them for the coming storm. The referee with the roster sheet made some changes.

We lost the nose wiper and a few others I can't remember and picked up a couple of surly ex military types. I shouldn't be so judgmental. The guys who came over to our team were amenable enough and they tried to give us a few pointers, but there's only so much you can teach when you're in the shit and I'm reasonably confident they were just as happy to let us draw fire while they went about the work of trying to actually win a game.

The next field we played on was 3/4 the size of a football field and had a densely wooded patch right in the middle of it. You couldn't even see the players on the other side when the whistle blew to start the match. After being quickly and unceremoniously eliminated in two successive campaigns, I convinced Christian to stay behind with me as everyone else charged headlong into the thicket. We would slowly creep up to the front after everyone was engaged and try to outflank the enemy.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said to Christian right after the whistle blew and the rest of Squad Zero sprinted into the brush. "Let's hold up here and then try to outfl-"

*splat*

My field of view, previously occupied by Christian, was now an opaque pink hue, my mask covered in pink paint.

"Fuck," Christian muttered softly.

"You're Out!" the referee rushed in to inform me, as if I'd somehow missed the fact that a paintball had miraculously flown the field's entire seventy five yards to tag me right between the eyes.

I started to take off my mask so I could see my way off the field but was quickly scolded by the referee and then had to stumble my way off the field through the trees and over the uneven ground unable to see anything except the pink paint that served as a violent stamp of disapproval on my genius plan.

The rest of Squad Zero met their fate somewhere in the thicket.

Squad Zero After Action Report #3:


Enemies Killed: 3 (surely we were getting a little better, right?)


Life Expectancy After First Shots Were Fired: 30 seconds (my 5 seconds of survival brought down the average)


Casualty Rate: 94.4% (I think Stu lived through the ordeal)

By this time, Squad Zero was well and truly demoralized. It got even worse when one of the child soldiers from the other team came up to us at lunch and informed us that we were not, in fact, "agg". I'm still not entirely sure what "agg" means, but I'm guessing it doesn't involve cowering behind logs, getting shot first in every match, and yelling "Medic!" every time you get hit with a paintball.

The last match of the day, mercifully, took place on a field occupied by inflatable trapezoids and pyramids. Many of the militia types and child warriors had gone home for the day as they had used up their paintball ammunition allowance on absolutely lighting us up in the previous three matches. We still had plenty of paintballs left as we'd not even survived to the midway point of any single match. The final game of the day would be a simple capture the flag affair pitting Squad Zero against whoever was left on the other side. I'm pretty sure the other side had fewer players, but let's be honest, we'd proven ourselves a wholly ineffectual fighting force at this point and I don't think anyone thought our extra numbers were any real advantage.

The final showdown started much as the others had with two or three of us meeting our maker in the opening salvo. After that, the match settled into a cat and mouse game between the surviving members of Squad Zero and the three or four skilled operators on the other side.

Miraculously, we were able to get the match down to two versus one, Christian surviving as our last great hope for some semblance of battlefield glory. He heroically picked his way from cover to cover and was within a few yards of the flag when he ran out of ammunition. With a mighty yell, he broke cover and sprinted to capture the flag dangling in the open in the middle of the field.

Battered and bruised, the eliminated members of Squad Zero watched from the sidelines as Christian approached the flag. This was sort of like the last scene in any overwrought action movie you've ever seen where the hero weaves his way in slow motion through explosions and flying shrapnel to either die tragically or survive gloriously. Think Willem Dafoe in Platoon for the tragic option or Sylvester Stallone in any Rambo movie ever for the glorious option. We got neither.

If there's a comedic version of this scene, Christian's  heroic charge was it

Feet from the flag, Christian tried to put on the brakes so he could turn back after grabbing our coveted trophy and return it to the base, but he slipped on the loose dirt and landed flat on his back. At that exact moment, one of the skilled operators from the other side squeezed off a round that found its way under the chin guard of Christian's mask and struck the underside of his chin with an audible slapping noise.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" Christian yelled.

As he laid there writhing in the dirt, one of the guys from the other team sheepishly trotted up, plucked the flag from where it was hanging, and walked back to the other team's base.

"That's it. It's over," the referee said as he blew a pathetic end to the match.

We walked out onto the field to check on Christian, his mask now off and a grotesque, bleeding, golf ball sized welt forming on the underside of his chin.

"You OK?" Ted asked.

"Is there a welt?" Christian asked back.

"There's a welt," Aron said.

It was silent for a few seconds as Christian collected his things and peeled himself off the ground.

"Squad Zero?" someone offered.

"Squad fucking Zero,"Christian answered. "Let's go get a beer."
       




 
    

     

Alternate John Connor

Spoiler Alert: I'm going to sound like a judgmental prick in this post. I'm OK with that.

I know this guy I like to call Alternate John Connor. He is, in all ways, distinctly underwhelming.

Alternate John Connor is that frat guy you knew in college. Not That Frat Guy; the one who was the Van Wilder of the coolest frat on campus, threw great parties, and managed to charmingly sleep his way through the entire Panhellenic Council, but That Frat Guy; the one who wound up a sixth year senior in that middling fraternity everyone sort of forgot about. You know the one. It wasn't the uber geek frat that won all of the knowledge bowls or the one with all the fratty fratastic frat guys, but the one that all the wannabe fratty fratastic frat guys joined when their first and second choices passed on them.

And Alternate John Connor wasn't a big deal in that middling frat. He was the guy who drank way too much - even amongst guys who all drank way too much - and couldn't wait for the hazing to start every time a new pledge class came down the pike.

And Alternate John Connor didn't achieve this vaunted position of mediocrity at a major university, but instead threw himself full blooded into being That Frat Guy in that middling fraternity at that university that occupies a space in the pantheon of institutions of higher learning somewhere between community college and an actual university you may have heard of. Not Indiana University but Indiana State University. Not The University of Texas but Stephen F. Austin University.

Alternate John Connor graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in inflated egoism and minored in drinking, homophobia, misogyny, discriminatory speech, and date rape. Like I said, Alternate John Connor is, in all ways, distinctly underwhelming.

So why do I call him Alternate John Connor?

Well, he strikes me as Edward Furlong's Young John Connor from Terminator 2 all grown up...after Skynet is destroyed and the audience gets that whole, "There's no fate but the one we make for ourselves," business. Ignore for a moment that Hollywood realized the Terminator cash cow was all dried up once Not Comically Old and Soggy Around the Midsection Arnold Schwarzenegger gave that tear jerking thumbs up as he was dipped in molten steel and assume that Terminators 3 and 4 (were there more?!) never saw the light of day.

Side note: Christian Bale loves this alternative future.

If you're comfortable with that, and I am guessing most Terminator fans are, that means John Connor, son of Sarah Connor, who was raised from word go to believe that he was literally the Savior of All Mankind, received weapons training, fought a liquid metal killing machine in the streets of LA, and destroyed all trace of Skynet with the help of an Austrian accented cyborg is telling anyone who will listen that, had things worked out a little differently, he'd be the indispensable leader of a post apocalypse resistance movement living life on a razor's edge and insuring the continued propagation of the human species.
 

John Connor, Badass

Alternate John Connor, Douchebag

Instead, Alternate John Connor sells insurance, still rides around on a dirt bike, plays WAY too much Call of Duty, and knows all of the lyrics to every song on Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion II album. He's John Connor all grown up but without, you know, the raison d'etre.

"There's no fate but the one we make for ourselves."

Careful what you wish for, Alternate John Connor.

Try Not to Kill Thy Neighbor

I moved into a new place in October and I mostly love it. It's on the third floor of a well renovated historic building in my favorite neighborhood in Indianapolis and has high ceilings and hardwood floors. Every room is accented by massive, mostly south facing windows and even on cloudy days the apartment is flooded with natural light and great views of the sky. It kind of feels like my own private tree house. Grocery stores and good restaurants are within walking distance and a relaxing run on the city's expansive Monon Trail is only a minute's jog from my building. Like I said, I mostly love it. Mostly.

What I don't love, and what I'm trying to come to grips with, is my neighbors. Specifically, the loud talking, salsa loving, often fighting, odd hours keeping, horrible pet owning, boisterous, standoffish, inconsiderate, and generally miserable Puerto Rican couple who live in 303.

I've had bad neighbors before and there's a certain amount of inconvenience one accepts when moving into a living space with shared walls, but Ricky and Lucy are seriously trying my patience. Last night, they seemed to be playing some sort of game that required the random dropping of a bag of bowling balls in various rooms throughout their apartment. This game lasted until nearly 2AM and must have been hilarious because each cacophonous crash was followed by peals of laughter and screaming. Previous to this, Ricky and Lucy were watching Caso Cerrado at insane volumes and struggling to yell their commentary about the show to one another in different rooms of their apartment. How do I know this? Well, unfortunately, I chose to learn Spanish over two wonderful summers in Argentina and now I can be pissed off at bad neighbors in two different languages.

Yelling is easily their favorite pastime. I've had amorous neighbors before and it's a little awkward listening to them have all kinds of sex at all kinds of hours (especially when you're not having any sex at any hour), but I'd take rhythmic slapping and moans over arguing any day of the week. If Ricky and Lucy have sex, it's the only quiet thing they do. By the frequency of their arguing, I'm guessing the honeymoon is well and truly over and their favorite time to fight is just before normal people drift off to sleep.

What do they fight about? All kinds of shit. The latest argument was about the dog they recently acquired. Apparently, taking Precious out to water the grass in the depths of a Midwest Winter is not at the top of the list of favorite activities for either of them. Speaking of Precious, I hate her too. I kid about tying Mazzy in a pillowcase and throwing her into a river, but I really would tie Precious in a pillowcase and throw her into a river. Ricky and Lucy would be close behind. Do they make pillowcases that big? Precious is a jet black Cocker Spaniel who barks at everything and everyone as if they pose an immediate and dire threat to her well being. Ricky and Lucy refuse to leash her or pick up the impossibly huge piles of shit she drops around the common areas of the building in spite of the fact that there are FOUR SEPARATE DOGGY BAG DISPENSERS SURROUNDING OUR BUILDING. It literally requires more effort to ignore the signs and bags and disapproving looks from the other tenants in the building than it does to clean up after the dog.

They have a bird too. Pirates have birds. Teenaged girls have birds. Normal adult couples should not own birds. How do I know they have a bird? The bird squawks randomly at all hours of the day and night. Precious sees this as an affront to her safety and barks at the bird. The bird counters by squawking even more. Ricky and/or Lucy, on edge from a late night of arguing and/or playing the bowling ball game, counters by unleashing a profanity laced tirade in staccato Puerto Rican Spanish at Precious and the bird. If this works, and it usually takes a good five minutes to have any effect, they all celebrate by blaring the same salsa album and dancing around their apartment like they're in a rum commercial.

My options on how to deal with this situation are severely limited. Ricky and Lucy are clearly not the sort of people who have the self awareness to respond favorably to a polite, "Hey, could y'all keep it down please?", as this is a nightly occurrence and even a modicum of consideration for their neighbors would mean that none of these issues would be issues in the first place. That leaves hammer murder, framing them for a crime that carries with it a lengthy jail sentence, buying them a well insulated mansion on a huge plot of land far away from any other living soul, rendering myself deaf, and acceptance as my only remaining courses of action. I don't see any of these things happening.

In Leviticus it says to love thy neighbor as thyself. I've tried and failed to live up to this commandment but I take comfort in the fact that Leviticus also says never to graze different types of cattle together, never to wear garments made of more than one kind of fabric, never to allow people with flat noses to worship at the altar, not to shave, and that psychics and wizards should be stoned to death. Clearly, Leviticus isn't exactly infallible. Maybe "Tolerate thy neighbor," is a better jumping off point. Lord knows I'm trying.

Newt Gingrich Has Lost His Shit: An Open Letter to Newt Gingrich

Newt,

Do you mind if I call you Newt? I've never known a Newt. As I kid I had a tree frog, turtles, dogs, and even a tarantula, but never a newt, much less a Newt. It's quite the diminutive.  I have to say though, maybe you should have stuck with Newton or even rocked Leroy once you kind of figured out you may want to go into politics. Plenty of people go by their middle names (I do!) and Newt just strikes me as a little unpresidential. Like Cooter or Hambone or Catfish. Enough about the name; you're played the cards you're dealt, right?

What I want to know is this: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MOON COLONY BULLSHIT?!?! A moon colony? Really, Newt? Really? What is going on with the GOP? You guys are in a race for the Republican nomination, not a race to see who can be the most unelectable. Rick Perry is a crazy, Christian fundamentalist with an affinity for Carhartt jackets, incredibly well coiffed hair, and epic verbal bumbles. Michele Bachmann is a sharp-faced homophobe (in spite of the fact that she seems to be married to a confirmed bachelor) who simultaneously manages to misspell both her first and last names. Herman Cain is a pizza baron (a pizza baron?) who apparently likes to give his female customers a little extra pepperoni even when they say "Please, no pepperoni, Mr. Cain." Mitt Romney is a Mormon cyborg who is incredibly successful in the business of ruining lives. And Ron Paul, well, he sometimes makes sense, which precludes him from ever doing anything meaningful in Washington.

Newt, you were back in the game! Granted, that game is a game of Who Wants To Lose To Obama Next November, but at least you were in the conversation after an epically slow start off the blocks. And now this? A moon colony? Were all your staffers just sitting around before the Florida primary out of ideas and frustrated and someone said, "Fuck it, let's watch Total Recall"?

Ground control to Newt Gingrich. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

Listen, I'm all for setting a lofty goal to galvanize the nation in the face of stark challenges, but Kennedy's "Land a man on the moon" this is not. We were in the throes of The Cold War and an epic pissing contest with the Soviets. There was a race to be won. The Taliban doesn't even believe in toothpaste, much less space travel and I'm pretty sure John Q. Public would rather find a way to keep his house here on earth than have you fund a program to build him one on THE FUCKING MOON! The moon?!?

This has been like watching a bunch of special needs high school kids run for class office. You guys might as well promise to put Dr. Pepper in all of the nation's drinking fountains or cut the workday by two hours every Friday for a nationwide pep rally.

Seriously, Newt. Stop playing. You guys are all joking around, right? This is like a massive hidden camera show and the entire US populace is the mark, right? That has to be it. You guys are going to put Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live out of business because the Republican debates are more hilarious than anything Comedy Central or SNL writers could come up with. Is that the angle? Shoot me straight. You guys are just ceding this election to Obama in a bid to run the lampooners out of business and pave the way for a Republican win in 2016, right?

No?

WHAT THE FUCK, NEWT GINGRICH?!

I feel like Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek in the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches from Saturday Night Live. Say something that makes sense, anything at all, and you can win this nomination. What's that you say? Fund a moon colony? Jesus.

Hoping you're the first and last colonist we send to the moon,

Doug