An Open Letter to Jessica Simpson

Happy Friday homies. I'm fading into a Kuma's burger coma so enjoy your weekends on be on the look out for podcasts starting next week.

Anyhow......

6 years ago, Jessica Simpson was on top of the world. Somehow she'd parlayed a mediocre John Mellencamp ripoff single into dating one of the best looking guys in the best 2nd tier boy band of the time. She didn't know buffalo wings were made from chicken. Tuna confused her. She was on top of the world.



Well look at her now.



Yes, America collectively gasped as Tony Romo called things off with the talented (shudder) Jessica Simpson.

Seeing as how I have some free time, I decided to write a letter to Jessica documenting what I would say to her if we were ever to run into each other.


Dear Jessica,

First off, allow me to say I was a big fan of "Newlyweds." My favorite episode is when you had lasik surgery and ate at a Red Robin, because I used to think Red Robin was only for 15 year old girls and pedophiles, but that episode taught me it wasn't. And I'll always be grateful to you for that.

Sorry to hear things didn't work out with you and Tony. He seemed like a good guy...you know, for an Eastern Illinois grad. Besides, I think you're better off without him anyways. He seemed was into weird shit, like his career and stuff. Whatever.

I think you need to be worried about what's next for you. The reality TV thing was cool for a while, but it didn't work out all that well in the end for you. It did make you a star in a way your music couldn't, but it also let all of your music fans in on your little secret...you know, that you're an idiot.

It's time to get back to doing what you do best- covering songs other people already became famous with. Loved the "These boots are made for walkin'" cover. Nancy Sinatra who? You know what else I loved? When you covered "Angels" by Robbie Williams. Who else would have the gall to cover the 3rd of 4th most popular song by an artist only marginally more famous than yourself? That would be like LFO trying to make it big by covering a BB Mak song. But I've got news for you Jess- LFO doesn't have the stones to cover BB Mak.

So I think it's time you put your country music career on hold, and start covering more songs by your peers. In fact, you should kill two birds with one stone and put the good girl image to rest also. The song- "No Time" by Lil' Kim.

Think about that. If you could get Diddy to reprise his role, this could be the biggest event of 2009. It'd be the equivalent of the song "Boom Boom Pow" having sex with the premiere weekend of "The Dark Knight" in a theater serving Chili's bottomless chips and salsa.

The time is now Jessica. Even the State Fair circuit is drying up for you. You're one more bad move away from hosting happy hours with Randy from "The Real World: San Diego" at McFadden's.

It's time to show the world what Jessica Simpson is all about (and I don't mean Berlin covers).

Sincerely,

DW



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Lemon Partier

The original title for this post was going to be "2 posts, 1 Day" but I thought I could do better so Lemon Partier won out.





They said it couldn't be done. But oh no....you spend enough hours googling things, and eventually you find out, you too can be the host of your very own podcast.


Be on the lookout for an iTunes link in the near future.

And as always, get ya popcorn ready.



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Captain America

Today is a sad day. In actuality, the day in question was February 5th of this year. But July 28th, 2009 will forever be known as the day I found out Juicy Campus was no longer a live website.



Now for those of you that didn't graduate from college within the past two years, JuicyCampus.com was basically setup across various universities to allow students to anonymously badmouth people they know. You would go on, no login information require, and either start or respond to existing threads.

Now I can only recall going on to the site when it was live twice- once was during a BTW250 lecture (if we're going to hold class in a computer lab, you have put too much faith into me), and the other time was for the sole purpose of listing my catholic friend under the thread of "Hottest Jews."

Sadly, or I suppose it depends on your viewpoint, "Hottest Jews" was one of the least offensive categories available on line. Let's just say specific body parts were an area of emphasis across both genders, with people getting specifics with names, fraternities and sororities, and more. Who was gay, racial epithets and a general disregard for any tact was how most of those who posted treated the site.



And as the above video indicates, the people running the site clearly weren't very concerned with content control, so long as their bank accounts we're getting larger (which begs the question, which companies were dying to advertise next to the thread "Sweetest Bros on Campus!").

Now admittedly by posting, it's a bit hypocritical of me to reprimand the site. But unlike everyone who used the site, I was able to distinguish between what is in good fun, and what on that site was just downright rude.

So while I had initially said this was a sad day for me, the truth of the matter is that JuicyCampus.com wasn't really positive for anyone except the people making money off of it. And the fact of the matter is, I'm not sad to read that they can't profit any longer of the ignorant and uneducated comments being posted on the forums they prided themselves on. While I won't link to it, Juicy Campus continues on at another URL, and a some simple googling can find it for you. But as you'll see, the information being discussed is no less profane or offensive.

The thing that still amazes me in retrospect was that there were people actively using this website. It's not like a traditional message board where there is a common theme people are uniting around, like say a sports team or "Lost" nerds (I'm sure it's the best show on TV). This site was to provide a forum for other students to bash their peers. Only University of Illinois, with the graduate programs, has over 40,000 students. How many people probably went to this site and didn't recognize a single name on it? Who (outside of myself in BTW250) was actively going to this site? I'm concerned to think that students existed who thought to themselves

"I kind of like Guy X. I wonder if I can find more about his genitals, sexual preferences, and disease history online. Of course I can. JuicyCampus.com! Oh no, it says he got gonorrhea riding a tractor in his bathing suit. This date is way off!

The only thing that upsets me in retrospect is that the site is not still live now when I have plenty of time to read it and anonymously talk myself up. I definitely felt like I had some of the most well kept chest hair on campus.

Here's to the only thing that's juicy on college campuses this fall being those overpriced velour sweatpants.

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Beans.

It should be no surprise to any of you that I have a lot of time to think about nonsense. In the morning. In the evening. When I go to the gym. My mind wanders...constantly. And for all of the crazy thoughts I sometimes think, I've had enough time to convince myself that there's reason to think that Megan Fox would like me.



I don't have one or two good reasons for believing this either. I have ten. Walk with me people....

10. We both hate Shia Labeouf.
Now I know what you're thinking. Yes, they dated. Yes, they did two movies together. But both of those facts only convince me further that she hates him. I hated Shia Labeouf the first time I saw him on the Disney Channel, and I have hated him since. Megan Fox broke up with him, presumably because she eventually figured out how annoying he is. How would would one figure this out? Perhaps months of seeing him for 12 hour shooting days.



9. According to Wikipedia, Fox used to eat lunch in the bathroom in school to avoid being picked on. I never did this. However, DJ did on "Full House" once, so presumably, I could relate. This is important.

8. Fox had an uncredited role as an extra in "Bad Boys II." I have never seen "Bad Boys II," because it looked awful. I assume this is the reason Fox did not want to be credited. We can talk about this together.

7. Fox has "Brian" tattooed on her because of her former love for Brian Austin Green. So do I.

6. Fox was born in Tennessee. I am a fan of Memphis style BBQ, which is characterized by "wet ribs, made with a mild, sweet barbecue sauce that's basted on the ribs before and after smoking." We can eat ribs together.

5. Fox starred in the Swedish-American soap opera "Ocean Ave." Ocean Avenue is the name of the only Yellowcard song I know.

4. Fox understands the value of unintentional comedy. She told Harry Smith from CBS News that "Transformers 2" is for geniuses (She further proves this point after Smith says he saw the movie in Imax, to which she responded "God Bless You." Wtf?).

3. Clearly, we both enjoy 90210. She was engaged to Brian Austin Green. I illegally downloaded part of the first season, specifically the episode where Jason Priestly improbably makes the JV basketball team over Ian Ziering.

2. She has said that she wants to be known for her acting before her sexiness. I encounter the same problem with my writing, trying to be known for my blog first, sexiness second.

1. She says she doesn't like watching her work. I haven't seen either Transformers because they both looked terrible. I am the perfect man for her.


So there you have it. I'm not aggressively trying to get this information to her because my concern is that she's probably just a little too smart for me. But let the record state, Megan makes more sense for me than I do for her.

My head hurts.

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Novelty Post

The Summer of 2009 will forever be known to me as the year Ice Cream trucks reemerged. Did everyone collectively band together, watch "The Sandlot" and try to turn back the clock to the 60's? Don't they know at the end of the movie the kids get chased by a kid-eating dog? Whatever. If you want to eat a baseball glove-shaped ice cream confection, knock yourself out.


It was a busy weekend to be unemployed. Two trips to Superdawg, 1 BBQ, 1/2 hour spent looking for my car, which turns out was not towed, and 1 trip to the Kerryman, which has my current vote for "Best bar to be jostled in and not be able to hold a conversation." I'm not sure if that is a Metromix category but it needs to be. You can throw State on that list too.

I'm not here to bitch about restaurants though. Unless of course, that's what my readers want, because there are other restaurants I have beef with too (you know I'm talking about you, Eddie Geovanti).

I visited a friend this weekend who was particularly excited about two new purchases- some sort of Schick vibrating razor, which apparently provides an even closer shave(!), and some new boxer briefs.



Now razor aside (4 blades, 5 blades, it's all the same to me), the boxer briefs seemed like a perfectly reasonable purchase. They actually directly align with the underwear progression most men go through.

For those unfamiliar, it looks something like this.

Standard White Underwear (Briefs) > Boxers > Boxer Briefs (or knit boxers) > Briefs.

So yes, it comes full circle for people who have been wondering.

Now after diapers, people typically wear some sort of decorative briefs for a few years (think popular cartoon characters, Scottie Pippen, etc) before making the transition to just whites. There then comes a time where the cooler kids you know will switch to boxers around 4th grade because their older siblings made fun of them for wearing briefs. They will consequently then make fun of everyone they know who isn't wearing boxers. I would call this hypocritical, but I feel like most of life is just dealing with kids who wore boxers before you.

I still remember when I made the switch. Josh Nacey depantsed (Blogger.com has depantsed show up as a misspelled word, but that's the correct spelling as far as I'm concerned) me during a park district basketball practice in 5th grade, revealing my briefs to the team. Now I think as the point guard on this final four team (we lost to the purple team because Kellerman couldn't guard Nollin......I'm just playin' Kels) this should have been less of an embarrassing moment. But sweet jesus, a scene was created. I'm sure I went boxer shopping with my mom that weekend, which in theory seems a lot more embarrassing than just wearing white underwear, but if that doesn't make sense to you, then you were never in 5th grade (which for me, is also known as the year I peaked in basketball, with the exception of a 14 point outburst in an intramural loss sophomore year of college).

Now for most guys, the boxer phase lasts pretty long, somewhere until late high school through early college*. Abruptly, a point comes along though where boxers just allow too much freedom, and the subject switches a boxer brief hybrid, known mostly as boxer briefs. My knowledge on the subject is limited however. In terms of the next progression, I'm assuming there's a point, maybe around early 40's, where men collectively decide, "I think my underwear is the hippest thing I'm wearing, and that's a problem. It's white brief time again."

*Now it is worth nothing, I am still in my boxer phase, so this progression is merely an overview of what I believe most men go through. I recall people that never even made it to the boxer phase, but instead gravitated to color variations on the classic white brief. I'm sure most of them regret this decision in retrospect. Trust me, the only thing worse than wearing white briefs in high school, was being some normal dude in a pair of black briefs trying to explain to a locker room full of meaty people how because his underwear was black it was somehow cooler than what a 1st grader wore.

So like I mentioned above, I am still in the boxer phase, so I'm not sure at what point in time, if ever, I'll go through the next progressions. Maybe it's a generational thing, like communal showers. Whenever I go the gym, I wonder at what age is it that you decide despite the 5000 towels surrounding me, I'm going to do everything completely naked, except workout. Is my generation going to kill that and the return of the briefs? These seem like cultural losses. I guess I'll never know until later in life.

Now somebody go get me one of those chocolate eclair bars.

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High Top City

My brother and I average about 2-3 trips to the Boston Blackie's in Deerfield a month. We normally go on Friday's, and we sit in the bar area to avoid all of the riff raff who might be from Buffalo Grove (I kid). Now, the food is good and reasonably priced, so my brother and I don't mind the fact that the median age is probably over 65 (although I'm confident the mean is much lower*). Of late though, a somewhat disturbing trend is developing.

*I really wanted to make a standard deviation joke above but exercised some self restraint. Mean seemed like a more universal reference.





We've had a waitstaff rotation that runs about four waitresses deep. Although the ace in the hole bartender who fronts the rotation is getting a little chummy. Perhaps too chummy.

Let's run down her case.

Pros
-Remembers our appetizer order (Nachos). This is pretty good work.
-Quick trigger finger on the refills. But not too the point where it's overwhelming. If I have a 1/4 of a drink or less, let's be ready. If I have a half of a drink or more and you refill me, you're just being dramatic now. This point isn't lost on her.
-Positive Attitude.

Cons
-Thinks she's too good of friends with us now, so she does stuff she wouldn't do with a regular table (Cracks wise, won't come out from behind bar to give us the check, making us get up, a major faux pas).
-This evening she took our ketchup, because clearly, we didn't need it.
-We have yet to get anything free.

Now I'm sure there are former waiters out there reading this right now and taking liberty with the last point. But consider our perspective. We're in there almost every friday. We sit at the same table in the bar. We order the same thing pretty much every week. We put a lot of our money towards their food. And what do we get in return? Not even a free soda.



Now for a second, let's neglect the last point, because I already had a customer service rant in a previous post. That then changes the list to three pros, and two cons, so she still ends up coming out ahead. And in the grand scheme of waiter archetypes, I think there are worse to be had. In particular, the aloof waiter and the chatty waiter.

Now the aloof waiter is hard to spot at first. He probably has a chipper attitude, greets you politely, maybe even has a goatee. But the first sign of things going wrong is after he takes your drink order, he doesn't return. Oh, and forget about drink refills, so anything spicy is out of the question tonight. So eventually when he comes back with your drinks, everyone wants to order fearing he'll never come back, only he doesn't have a pad of paper to write on, giving him another reason to leave again. Once your food is generally ordered, you can expect one meal to be screwed up, and to wait an unreasonably long amount of time in between him clearing your meal, and bringing you the check. This waiter is usually found at moderately crowded, American-food serving chain restaurants. Think Houlihan's around 4:00 or any restaurant in Champaign.

Conversely, the chatty waiter can normally be spotted right away. You haven't picked your menu up and she's blabbering at you about the specials. And a note to all waiters- of course we don't know what the specials are. We just got here. She's a little too excited to be working wherever she is. Asks if you've been there before, and because you're presumably at a chain, the answer is always yes, to which she responds "great!" Now the specials is where this waiter really shines. She tells you how one of the specials is "the best she's ever tasted," before asking if you need a minute to look over the menu, the answer to which is always yes. On behalf of regular people, nobody prints out a PDF of the menu to read in the car so they're ready to go (Although I have seen my Dad rip through the Cheesecake Factory Menu like it's a novel, and with a few more ads, it pretty much will be).

The chatty waiter is probably a relative of the too chummy waiter, because much like I described above, the chatty waiter acts like your best friend, even if you've known her 5 minutes. It's like the last guests from a party that won't leave. "Yes, we're enjoying our food. In fact, we'd even enjoy it more if you got the hell out of here for upwards of five minutes." Expect forced shtick, too many drop-ins, and to have like three full cups of whatever your drinking due to her overzealous refill style. Oh, and if you make fun of us for not saving room for dessert, say goodbye to your 20% tip.

So I guess the lesson to be learned today is to not have me as a customer, because I will analyze the hell out of your performance. This is probably true. But more importantly, be on the look out for these different types of waiters the next time your friend gets off the couch because his NCAA '08 season ended on PS2 and says "it feels like a 3-course menu night from Friday's."

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Worlds are colliding!

So it appears I got a little ahead of myself yesterday with the two posts. Why? Because now I have absolutely nothing to write about today. And I've got some bored friends at work who aren't handling this situation well.





Now I have no one to be mad at but myself for this, but I'm going to take some of the blame out on the Edens Expressway (Why is there traffic at 1:00 going southbound?) and on Touhy (Why is there construction around lunchtime). Both of these elements combined ALMOST ruined my lunch at Superdawg by making it into a 2+ hour fiasco, limiting my writing time. Alas, even bad traffic could never entirely ruin a Superdawg experience. Neither did the fact this lunch was free because I won a gift certificate to Superdawg off Twitter. So who says social media is good for nothing except sexual predators? Because it's also good for free hot dogs. Which taken out of context, could also sound potentially lewd, so what do I know.

Anyhow, there should be ample writing time this weekend so check back early next week for more updates. Somebody cue "Halo" by Beyonce for my outro music.

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Cable Gamer

A Two Post Day!

In honor of Mark Buerhle's perfect game (which I saw most of because you know, I have no job), I'll present you with my top 5 athletic achievements of all time.




5. 7th Grade basketball. In a "B" game against Maple, 6 seconds left, I connect from just shy of the free throw line as time expires. We win by double digits.

4. 8th Grade basketball. In a game against Maple, a hit a mid-range jumper as the 3rd quarter expires. We go on to win by double digits.

3. 8th Grade basketball. In a "B" game against Shepard, I connect on two 3's in the first quarter, the second of which is as time expires from beyond NBA range. We go on to win by double digits.

2. 6th grade park district baseball. In a regular season game, I'm fooled by a fastball (fooled is probably the wrong word when most pitchers only have one pitch, and it's coming at 50 mph) and swing late, hitting one down the 3rd base line. 3rd basemen makes a bad throw which I'm pretty sure I kick into the outfield. Nobody notices. I end up at 3rd on the error, but scorekeeper credits me with a triple.

1. Junior year gym softball. I go 2/2 with two homeruns. Later Mike Salemi discredits both because there was a girl in center. Whatever.


Go Sox!


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Limo to the bowling alley.

So I have a confession, and many of you probably already know this.

I think that Laguna Beach is a fantastic show. The first season was okay. It introduced people to the idea of a show where nothing happened past parties, bon fires, and trivial arguments about the parties and bon fires that happened the night before. The show peaked during second season, which was out of this world unintentionally funny, and the third season was pretty boring because all of the girls wanted to date a guy who looked like a fat Tom Brady (Feel free to google Cameron Brinkman).


But clearly, there was a lesson to be taken away from this show. And that is that even having your own TV show on which you can perform, doesn't mean you are going to make it as a band. And yes, I'm talking about Open Air Stereo, whose MySpace page is still active and available here.

For those of you who gave up on Laguna Beach after the second season, you missed the chance to experience Laguna's own budding rock superstars in Open Air Stereo. Fronted by recurring Laguna character Chase, and featuring Kelan on guitar, Open Air Stereo had everything going for it. Ocean front property to play at. A lead singer who took his shirt off all the time. Excessive use of the word rage. And perhaps most important, a cable television show watched by millions of teens, on which they were featured.



And yet despite, or perhaps in spite of all of this, Open Air Stereo remained unsigned. According to their website, they are on a definite hiatus. I would assume this hiatus is giving the band the chance to think, "Hey, maybe we should have gone to college after all."

Perhaps a low blow. I'm all in favor of people following their dreams. What if's can drive a person crazy. And it's also inspiring in many ways when you talk to people who are doing exactly what they want to be doing. So in many ways, Open Air Stereo should be heroes to people making bad hard rock music everywhere.

In fairness, Open Air Stereo is not alone in having a show and failing to make it big though, so it'd be wrong to single out just them. Who could forget O-Town. Most of the American Idol's not named Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. Cisco Adler failed with Whitestarr on VH1 first, and is in the process of failing currently with Shwayze.

Timing has a lot do with success. The Strokes came out right around when garage rock was having a revival, led by themselves, The Hives and The Vines. They looked and performed like rock stars, but few knew they had significant help along the way. Lead Singer Julian Casablancas' dad is successful modeling school owner John Casablancas. He basically paid the way for the band's first record to be put out and distributed. Not exactly starting out at the Cavern Club.

In the end though, talent and ability typically prevail, if given the opportunity to go noticed. If you take the time to listen to Open Air Stereo, you notice that they're basically an Incubus ripoff. The Strokes had a different sound when they came out, and were able to find an audience who latched onto it(although undoubtedly some of their audience were perturbed by a 35 minute sophomore effort). You could argue forever over which band is more talented, although ultimately record sales do a pretty good job of settling this debate.

The one thing that both bands had in common though, was that they were put in privileged situations, and were smart enough to recognize that and use their connections to their advantage. I'm finding out more and more as time goes on that life is about taking advantage of the opportunities put in front of you. With the exception of Pau Gasol to the Lakers, nothing in life is ever handed to you. You have to dig in the trenches for a while, paying your dues in any position. But if you work hard and keep your mouth shut, in most situations the opportunities put in front of you start to look more desirable. With all of the news recently about institutions and "clout" graduates being accepted, all it made me think about was how people in life just generally play the cards they're dealt. If you're parents are big donors to an institution, you're probably going to mention that fact in an application. I don't see how this is any different from a job applicant parlaying a connection with an employee into getting their foot in the door for an interview.

There is something to be said for working your way up the ladder based solely on hard work, but everybody is a product of their circumstances, and it's important to take advantage of them. Whether Open Air Stereo never sells another record or sells 10 million, they lived like rockstars for a part of their lives, which is more than most people can say.

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The Family Garden is a special place

If you're back today, that either means you're my friend and I've goaded you into returning, you're a friend of a friend and presumably bored at work, or you hate me and are interested in mocking my writing. I think the last point can't be understated. I posted my blog on facebook yesterday. I think it's safe to assume there are at least 2-3 people I'm facebook friends with who hate me but keep me around because they hate me that much, or basically why people read Jay Mariotti.






Regardless, if you are here, it is clear to you I have no job. Only nobody told all of the bands I like this information when they started scheduling shows in Chicago. Of course when Pearl Jam announced two nights in Chicago, I knew I was going to both. This required joining the fan club, an added expense. Then Jeff Tweedy added a date at a Synagogue. As a Jewish Wilco fan, I was all but required to buy a ticket to this. Then Wilco added a date at October at the UIC Pavillion, a venue I had never seen them at. As my favorite band, two tickets were purchased in the presale. Then my friend Paul called me saying I had to buy a ticket to Grizzly Bear at the Metro, while describing their show as "magical."

Note that this list also discludes upcoming Jamie Lidell, Band of Horses and Sondre Lerche shows, and Lollapalooza in its entirety (though the jury is still out on this year's lineup, and losing the Beastie Boys hurts too).

Now I don't lead a particularly lavish lifestyle (I'm aware people I have a pair of Lacoste flip-flops, and they were $15 at the Finish Line. I do not qualify them as lavish. Pretentious maybe). I don't have payments on my Bentley to be making. Unlike Jermaine Dupri, the parties I go to normally stop before 8 in the morning. But clearly, the whole lack of an income lifestyle has made me more conscious of all of my spending.



Now if my mom asks me to buy turkey breast to eat for lunch, I'm not going to complain because my parents have clearly dropped coin on me in the past (and I'm referring to the turkey breast from whole foods, which unquestionably costs more than other turkey breast that isn't diamond encrusted).

So mostly where I'm conscious of my spending is socially. This doesn't include the concert going aspect because the above concerts I mentioned I was attending are what I'd qualify as required viewing in the essence of keeping me, well, like me. What is included, however, is doing an extra round of tequila shots at 2 am at Kirkwoods (total meat market by the way, but that's for another time). I know it's blasphemy amongst most of my friends to suggest cutting back on drinking, but really, that is my only expense. I don't even drink that much to be honest. I've just managed to surround myself with the type of friends who are always encouraging me to drink more. That actually sounds a lot worse than it is. I think they are less interested in me getting alcohol poisoning, and just more interested in an evening that ends with us stumbling home from McDonald's or Flash Taco.

This is not to say I will totally limit myself socially. If you don't go out with friends, I think it's even easier to go crazy when you don't have a job. But I don't have any false pretenses about the situation I'm in. My job right now is to look for a job, not to be spending money. I couldn't tell you if I'm taking this situation any more or less serious than I should be, because I've never been through this before. But certainly, I have my priorities straight right now, and I'm confident something good will come out of this.

Just hopefully it won't be me getting good at golf, because tee times are way too expensive for me right now.


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Mahgeetah

Friends, Family, Haters,

Welcome aboard. Today is the first day I made this site widely available to people. As you can tell, I wanted to inundate it with a few posts so you wouldn't read a crappy intro post (presumably this), get bored and never come back.





Anyhow, for a greater explanation of why this blog exists, you can go to my first post where I explain what I'm writing about.

For a greater explanation of why I exist, check back in a few years.

For a greater explanation of the storyline behind Battletoads, you can look here.



Welcome to "It was all an Unemployed Dream." Feel free to become a follower.




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The Arsonist had oddly shaped feet

I was in the city this morning with some friends having lunch after a game of kickball (0-4 loss, 2/3 in my first call up to the big league) when we had a pretty ludicrous conversation about our favorite vegetables and meats (For me, anything grilled vegetable wise, and anything smoked meat wise).

Now I expect nothing less from my friends then choosing to engage in what I would consider a normal lunchtime conversations. Thus, I was satisfied with them that they had no problem discussing why a bell pepper would be a stronger vegetable candidate than a tomato in developing a top three vegetable tier.





It's worth noting I referred to the vegetable conversation as being ludicrous, but in the grand scheme of things I've hotly contested (best and worst Seagal films comes to mind), this was probably one of the more relatively normal moments of my day. It did lead me to thinking back to one of the dumber conversations I've ever had though, which took place about a year and a half ago, if you allow me to set the scene.

I am a first semester senior at U of I. I'm taking 12 hours, so needless to say, I have free time to watch TV. My roomates and I had gotten in the habit of watching "Beauty and Geek," despite the conflict of interest with Ashton Kutcher being a producer. The odd thing was I think all of us watched for very different reasons. One roomate for the sociological aspect. A few for the eye candy. And one of my roomates was impressed with the "Buff Geek."

One particular week, only me and my roommate David were able to watch. About halfway through the episode, being the inquisitive little bug that I am, I said to David, "Hey, what do you think you'd say to Brian McFayden (host of Beauty and the Geek) if you saw him on the street?"

Now for a number of reasons this was a dumb question. Living in Champaign and Deerfield, I know David would never see Brian McFayden. In addition to the fact that Brian McFayden is only a fringe celebrity, I also knew that David could care less about him, all reasons why I felt this was a perfectly acceptable question to ask David that would probably irritate him.

Predictably, I was correct.

David sharply responded "I don't have anything to say to McFayden," without even looking at me, as if to let me know he didn't have time for such trivial concerns such as pondering what he might say if he were to casually bump into Brian McFayden. Perhaps it is no coincidence David will be starting his 2nd year of med school in the fall, and I am still debating what I'd say to Brian McFayden if I saw him.

Anyhow, his response put me in hysterics. I don't know if it was his tone, or the fact that I was so successfully able to irritate him by asking him a beyond idiotic question, but it was too much for me to handle at the time. It also led to a great series of intoxicated moments that ended with one of us barging into the others room, shouting "I've got nothing to say to you McFayden!" and slamming the door.

While the tendency to talk about the inane and irreverent doesn't ingratiate me to everyone, I can't hide the fact talking about such nonsense is part of what makes me who I am. But I also feel like it's important to talk about the absurd every once in a while to make sure you don't go crazy. Malcolm Gladwell calls this having a "fertile mind."

As an (unemployed) creative, I try to absorb and immerse myself in as much news as possible. On the flip side of that, I also to try to read and catch up on as much bizarre and obscure information as possible because I feel it helps foster creativity, and just keeps my mind thinking outside of the norm. This is how I can justify sending some of my friends a video of a squirrel with a yogurt cup on his head without any sarcasm involved. Or why I continuously ask my 25 year old brother if he thinks he'd be good if he were allowed to play 7th grade basketball at his current size and intelligence level (For the record, he thinks he'd be like Shaq; I think he'd be a good 6th man and locker room presence).



I really believe inspiration comes from the weirdest places. That's not to say any of the bizarre conversations I make my friends engage in will ever lead to something more profound than what I learned in my history courses in college, but I think far too often people limit themselves to what they think is the norm, both in conversations and in life.

I suppose it's good to play by the rules in most situations in life, but you have to put yourself out there once in a while. If you play by the rules, you only guarantee you can accomplish what's been done before. Creativity, and greatness for that matter, comes from changing the game (with the exception being Kobe Bryant, who has managed to manifest his greatness by completely copying Michael Jordan and yes, I am a Kobe hater). I think it's important to have a plan and goals in life, but how you achieve those goals should ultimately be defined by and on your own terms (for me, part of this is creating a blog discussing my unemployed thoughts, only some of which involve Brian McFayden). It's important to honor, learn and respect the past (for most people I know, this came when at the age of 16 they exclusively listened to classic rock music) in any profession, but if your not putting your own spin into your work, creating your own style (which I will hopefully at some point accomplish, with this blog as a starting point), and taking a few risks along the way, then it doesn't really seem like your doing anything at all. Maybe that explains why I hated coloring in between the lines as a kid.


I don't know what the end goal for me right now in advertising, or writing is, but I'm gonna make sure I enjoy the ride.

And as one of my favorite fictitious musicians, Vic Savage, once said,

"Have a good time, all the time."

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King without a Crown

I'm going to try my hardest to refrain from developing reoccurring characters in this blog. Too often I received criticisms that my previous blog was too peppered with "Smitty" and "Freedman" stories and to some of my friends, those names mean nothing. However, seeing as how there is only a select group of people I see with great frequency in the suburbs, if the same name pops up from time to time, my apologies.





Anyhow, my friend Chris and I went to play some frisbee yesterday. Or so I thought. Chris roped me into going to Chipotle with him which wasn't really a big deal on my end. I was kind of hungry anyways, and I'm vulnerable to Chipotle, facts Chris obviously knew, which made his decision to hide the fact he wanted to go there all the more curious. But regardless, it was a beautiful day and we walked the roughly two blocks to Chipotle.

As I was only kind of hungry, I just got a quesadilla. Now, I can hear a lot of my friends laughing and lobbing obscenities at me through my computer, and it has nothing to do with the fact that my quesadilla was tying up one of the burrito presses (A woman in front of me got one too, for the record). At some point in time, it became unacceptable amongst my friends to not get a burrito, and it was equally unacceptable to not finish it. The exception was if we were going after school in high school, when we used to justify not wanting to go "all in" with a burrito, and instead opting for tacos as most of us would be eating dinner a few hours later (I have since picked up marginally healthier eating habits for those of you counting my calories at home).



Not wanting to totally embarrass ourselves, Chris got a burrito. He actually pulled off a move I'd never seen before. When asked what he wanted (after the chicken and beans), he said "everything." As somebody who has spent a lot of time in Chipotle, this was a total first for me. I thought it couldn't be done. The thought of a burrito with four different types of salsas just struck me as being similar to a high powered train that goes nowhere, but Chris insisted he knew what he was doing.

Anyhow, before we could eat, Chris had to set up his burrito, hot sauce bottles, and beverage in such a way that he could send a picture back to his friends in Thailand. Apparently they like seeing really Americanized things. I complied by sitting in the background stuffing my face of my quesadilla.

Now posing inside of a mildly crowded Chipotle while Chris channeled his inner Annie Liebovitz was only making me somewhat apprehensive. Until the general manager came over that is. He was so happy that we were enjoying our food, and documenting it, that he gave us each a coupon for a free burrito.

Now this, was an awesome moment in customer service (that was only mildly ruined by Chris demanding I give him my coupon back because I didn't have anything to do with the photo, which was actually partially true). I feel like the number one goal of any restaurant, is to give their customers an enjoyable experience, which normally includes the food, the wait time and overall experience inside. This manager totally realized the fact that we were both frequent diners and brand loyal to Chipotle, and by giving away $11 in free food, he knew he was going to keep our business for a while into the future.

And you know what? He's right. I actually tried to go back to claim my coupon today, but I couldn't get Chris on the phone and feel at my fattest when I drive to get fast food just by myself, so I exercised some self restraint. Regardless, the gesture he made reinforced the fact that Chipotle, unlike so many fast food chains, has more personality, and is more concerned with overall customer experience.



Now the converse of this was the twenty minutes I spent in Kinko's today. I needed 8 pictures printed off of a jump drive I brought in (in the process of typing that sentence, I initially typed zip drive, which made me think of 8th grade, which made me think of the time I purchased a Krayzie Bone CD, but I'm getting off topic). I didn't assume this would be a relatively smooth process, because the employees at Kinko's always seem like they'd rather be doing anything else than working at Kinko's. The employee who helped me, looked like a Steve, popped my jump drive in and hit the refresh button like 10 times in 12 seconds before the drive showed up. I thought about making a Mac joke, but I assumed he wasn't in the mood. He dropped my files into a PDF, a few clicks later, we're printing. Boom. Painless. I still had to time to stop into Nordstrom Rack to see if I could add to my growing flat brim hat collection (which is currently at one for those of you keeping track).

Six out of eight of my printouts were fine. Two were not printing to scale, so I mentioned this to him. We brought up my original files, and sure enough, it was no error on my end. He then told me his printers cut off the edges a bit and there was nothing he could do. At which point I said okay. Then there was a bit of awkward silence as a I stared at my clearly flawed printouts. After like 7-13 seconds of this, he said "Do you want me to try to fix it?" I could only laugh because this seemed like such an obvious question, but yes, I finally told him.

Twenty minutes later, and several failed print attempts later, I had my ads. All things considered, this isn't even in my top 3 worst experiences at Kinko's, but these things are important. The fact that Kinko's customer service is terrible should be important to the higher ups. For one reason or another, and maybe it's because if you need printouts there aren't a lot of other options, Kinko's employees are never friendly and most of the time they act like you're doing them a disservice by making them do their job. Now unfortunately, with printing there aren't a lot of other options, so I can't just take my business elsewhere. But I certainly don't have a positive view of their employees, or a positive view of how they run their business as a whole.

I don't ask for much when I leave the house (And the waitress at California Pizza Kitchen learned the hard way by giving our family forced schtick, to the point I demanded my Dad tip her less because I didn't want to be the guinea pig for her act). If you're in a retail job though, I don't think it's too much to ask to be friendly, or at least pretend be.

I suppose if I was around rude customers all day, it might make me a bit jaded too, but just know, customers make note of these things, and your managers probably do to.

Although, I've never met any managers at Kinko's, so if they're even angrier than the employees, we're all screwed.

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Broken Glass Everywhere

My brother and I drove to Ben and Jerry's in Vernon Hills tonight. While there (I had a new flavor, Chocolate Macadamia, which was anywhere between awesome and super hot), we discussed how we need to get back to Hot Doug's and Kuma's, some of Chicago's elite purveyors of over the top gourmet hot dogs and hamburgers. Aside from being promised a great bite, they also provide excellent locales for people watching.



Now what I thought about while this conversation was going on was how freely both my brother and I will go out of our ways to seek out food we like. This particular Ben and Jerry's was about 20 minutes away, on a random Wednesday night at 9 PM (though I'm fully aware there is a Ben and Jerry's in Highland Park, neither my brother or myself like going into Highland Park if we don't have to). Kuma's and Hot Doug's are both 30 minutes away without traffic, and with the added wait times for food, you end up with at minimum, a three hour excursion for a hot dog or burger. While they were crowded before, receiving the blessings of Anthony Bourdain and Guy Fieri certainly didn't help these wait times.



As a result of all of this, my visits to both restaurants are infrequent because honestly, I don't always feel like giving up three hours to wait for a hot dog (thank goodness Superdawg's service is excellent), even if it does have fois gras on it.

Now predictably, my recent unemployment has made my desire to eat at both of these restaurants go through the roof again. Without a job, the thought of spending 3 hours outside of the house, whether it's waiting in line outside of Doug's, or spent inside the crammed metal blasting walls of Kuma's, actually sounds pretty desirable.

While it's not particularly profound to suggest that not leaving your house for 9 hour periods is a bit dreadful, I think what I've found out, in just 3 short weeks, is that my progression from lazy college graduate to functional (almost) member of society has pretty much happened over the past year.

If you had told me two years ago that after school I could sit around, get mailed a check, and basically have no responsibility, I would have asked you where to sign up (and keep in mind, two years ago was before I had an XBOX so it's safe to say that would have only provided more incentive). In fact, my last two years of college, and to a certain extent most of living in the fraternity house as a sophomore, would be best be characterized as "non-taxing" years of my life (While my freshmen year wasn't exactly taxing either, there was a period during my second semester where I used the expression "buckling down" a lot, which is why I won't lump that year in there).

These past few weeks have been challenging, and that doesn't even really include looking for work. When you wake up without a job, all you can really think about is "Okay, it's 9, I've already eaten breakfast, now what?"

I've found keeping a normal schedule is definitely part of the solution. I'm up at 8. I'm pretty much at the gym everyday. I'm eating out less (marginally, but I still like meeting with a friend to break up my day). In general, trying to keep a working lifestyle, even if I don't have to.

All this aside, it's pretty easy to still get caught up in the fact that outside of looking for a job, there's not a lot going on during work hours. Thank goodness it's still the summer and I can go outside and play basketball or frisbee to clear my mind. I'm convinced if I was laid off in winter time I'd be knee deep in like season three of "Lost" by now. And no, that's not a good thing.

I think getting a taste of working in an office environment I enjoyed has taught me it's possible to find a job you like, and that makes everything in life all that much better (assuming there isn't a 2 hour wait at Kuma's). Sure, there were days where I woke up thinking about my friends on spring break, or my friends not going to Friday classes. But eventually I realized that's all just a pipe dream. College is only four years (for most people at least) for a reason. And that's because after a certain point, every one is hit with a need to feel like they're contributing to society and find their role in life. This just happens earlier for some people than others apparently.



I used to always thinking that winning the lottery and doing nothing the rest of my life would be an ideal living situation. And it probably would be, just maybe 40 years from now.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I'm not cool enough to be going to Kuma's that often.

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Have you ever seen a one-armed man punching at nothing but the breeze?

Sorry if unemployment has put me in a Springsteen mood. Although I should mention, "Springsteen Mood" could basically characterize the past few months of my existence.

I was listening to "The Wrestler" when the line that is the title of this post came up. Now I suppose within the context of the song, this line works for what Bruce is singing about, and makes sense when considered next to the movie, "The Wrestler," which was excellent and worth seeing. The song is basically about a character who drives anyone who is close to him away because he really only knows how to do one thing, and in this case, it's wrestling.





The line made me think back to an essay I read, the crux of which was how most Springsteen lyrics make no sense whatsoever, and only because it is Springsteen is he able to get away with such nonsense. My counterargument to this is of course the entire existence of the band Phish, who I believe outsources their lyric writing and still end up with garbage. All of which leads me to believe they must be the worst lyricists of all time, but that's not what I wanted to talk about.



I feel like to a certain extent, writers, and musicians for that matter, can lose their fastball. An analogy that holds all the more true when considering Rick Telander's column from yesterday.

Unclear and the cream :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Rick Telander

Now admittedly I've never been a big Telander fan but this column seems almost purposely misleading. He starts off by talking about Pujols, then paraphrases a Sports Ilustrated article about him, opens up a larger can of worms with Hall of Fame voting during the steroids era, and eventually closes by bringing it back to Pujols alone. My head hurts.

The column is by no stretch of the imagination fluid, and if I can recognize that without a formal journalism background, then so can other people.

Perhaps most concerning about some of the writing being churned up is that these are supposedly the good columnists. Enough has been written about all of the writers who have taken buyouts in the past years. Layoffs too have been responsible for a lot of talented writers falling by the waist side.

But when did that give the remaining writers the right to just produce drivel? Telander wrote one of the most famous looks into street basketball culture ever with "Heaven is a Playground" but nowadays he seems more content using his writing reputation to justify cranking out confusing and convoluted columns lacking much punch.

Perhaps there's a new media scare over at the Sun-Times. A lot of the purist sportswriters (cough, Buzz Bissinger, cough, cough) seem a little concerned that the proliferation of sports blogging is dumbing down America, and destroying what's left of sports writing. More and more people paint up an image of an unemployed, overweight, pajama wearing blogger just wearing on the springs of his couch in the basement of his parents' house (and for the record, I write from my room which is upstairs, thank you very much).

To paraphrase, this is wholly untrue. While anyone can start a sports blog from their basement, the successful one's, like Deadspin, KSK, and FreeDarko, require commitment, originality and quality writing. I think there is concern on the old school journalists part that blogs are creating too much of an interest on trivial aspects of sports- endzone celebrations, athlete arrests, and how many kids Travis Henry has. But if there is one thing the internet has taught us, there is pretty much a certain level of interest in just about everything. People go to Deadpsin for different reasons than why they read a Jack McCallum column.

If anything, blogging gives sports fans more access to more opinions. If this means that Matt Leinart ripping beer bongs all of a sudden becomes news because pictures are available, so be it. The writing quality might not be as high with some blogs, but most people who are going to blogs aren't expecting pulitzer prize winning writers. When that day happens, only then will the information being covered on said sports blog become an issue. And for the record, I'm encouraged that Matt Leinart does beer bongs as at least we know he's saved some of the money he received got at USC.

Telander himself wrote an absurd column earlier this year suggesting that Ryan Theriot was on steroids. This Pujols column, all but did the same thing. Telander's writing may be available in a newspaper, but he sure seems to be blurring the line between the old and new.

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Jungeland

My friend Chris is really good at making music. Guitar. Bass. Drums. Piano. Electric Piano. Melodica. Doesn't matter. If given enough time, he'll figure it out.

So when he asked me to come out to a blues jam session in highwood at Gabe's (conveniently located next to the Highwood Lanes), I had no reason to say no. I enjoy live music, and I didn't have a reasonable excuse to not show because I have no job.

So I went, and it wasn't overly crowded, but there were enough people there my age or younger that it had me feeling a little concerned. I immediately thought one of two things

1. Apparently there exist people in the suburbs who go out during the week.
2. There are more people who don't have jobs than I had initially thought.

(Thought not nearly as important, it needs to be mentioned that the Blues jam was taking place in a room adjacent to a bar and patio that appeared to be exclusively playing Flo-Rida and Chris Brown. Feelin' Alright, indeed.)





It's nobody's business but their own if they want to drown their sorrows on a Tuesday, but the bar running out of Miller Lite was at best, concerning. Personally, I'm not sure if I was more depressed thinking that townies exist from around where I live (one suburb over), or that I was among them (not drinking mind you). But perhaps more depressing than that was the fact that a lot of these people are undoubtedly in the same position I am in. Which may or may not explain why they wanted to sing the blues and drink Miller Lite, but I digress.

I bring this up because while recently applying for unemployment (Here's a fun fact- did you know that you can only apply for unemployment from a PC running Internet Explorer?) I went to google to find the Illinois unemployment website. Upon typing in "apply for" in the google search bar, the 4TH state option was "Apply for Unemployment in Illinois," behind only California, Florida and Texas.

At first, I had a sense of pride about this. "Look at all of my unemployed brethren uniting amongst our favorite search engine," I cried out to no one in particular. I felt like I was once again part of a fraternity, minus the whole getting yelled at and eating weird crap part.

But quickly excitement turned to apprehension. Roughly 10% of the country is without work, and that's a number that isn't getting much smaller. If anything, the fact I live in Illinois should have had me more worried.

In my few short weeks of unemployment, I have learned that

1) Most places won't respond to you.
2) Most places that respond to you aren't hiring.
3) Most places that will respond to you and are hiring can pay a more qualified employee a similar wage.



Oddly enough, these realizations, instead of discouraging me, only left me more motivated to find my way back into the advertising industry. It also ultimately led to me making this blog, which you are all so privileged to be able to read.

My parents will tell you that I am the first to avoid stress creating situations. This is why the fact that I enjoy tagging MP3 files correctly is not a coincidence. And as much as I hate to challenge myself if I don't have to, even I was able to realize that this situation is ultimately going to help me grow in the advertising industry, and grow more as a person.

I think the best time to learn about some one is when they're taken out of their comfort zone. Lets be honest, going to Illinois from Deerfield High School wasn't very challenging. Then I stayed at the nice dorm with all of the kids from the suburbs. Then I joined a Jewish fraternity with other kids from the north shore. Then I moved back home, and find myself going out in Lincoln Park with the aforementioned suburban friends. Needless to say, the transition to college wasn't very difficult, even if I remain alarmed with the quantity of Keystone Light consumed in Champaign.

This is the first real challenge I've had in a while (outside of trying to get myself to like coffee, which I lost) and while I'm only a few weeks into the job search, my confidence is high and I'm keeping a positive attitude about things because I know staying patient is paramount right now. I don't know when I'll find a new job, but I know keeping a positive frame of mind about the situation can only help. Whether it's a sign of maturity or not, I've realized that getting all worked up about the economy doesn't really solve anything, because we can't do anything about it (I suppose I could download less Wilco bootlegs and purchase more CD's in stores, but I'm just one man). The job market is going to get better, and in the meantime, I'm going to do everything I can to get myself ready for new work. At the very least, it's refreshing to know that unemployment hasn't brought my spirits down too much...that and the fact I don't have to worry about paying for a lease and my Dad pays for gym membership, which once again Lance, I'm very appreciative of.

I don't know what the future holds, but hopefully I won't be singing the blues in Highwood much longer.

And as my favorite band My Morning Jacket once wrote,

"Always starting over, but somehow I always know where to begin."



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Hello, World.

The title of this post is a reference to a Tiger Woods quote at one of his first professional tournament appearances. Nike said it wasn't planned but they just so happened to have an ad waiting that, shockingly, worked well with his first comment.

I'll give you a minute now....



After the jump, I explain how the only thing Tiger and I have in common is that we're both bad at Wii.



So aside from the fact that this is a provocative and well done ad, it seemed a little contrived of Nike to pretend like this wasn't all a media stunt, especially given nobody believed them. What's important, was that it didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now. Tiger Woods still became and remains a Cash Cow for Nike.



I bring this up because at the moment, I would define myself as the exact opposite of a cash cow. My current weekly income is 0. In fact it is less than that because I went to Potbelly's for lunch today (Wreck on White, no "Big" size because I ate breakfast).


Every week the government sends me a paycheck. But I hardly consider this income. I consider it more the government's way of saying "I think you've played a little bit too much XBOX today, Danny." And in fairness to the government, this is both true and false, because I only recently purchased an XBOX. So one could assume there are people who have been both A) unemployed longer than I have and B) have had XBOX for a longer period of time while remaining unemployed.

In the spirit of my new found free time (read: XBOX time), I have decided to start up with a little blogging again. Don't worry- my first blog, "Things 21 year old White Fraternity Kids Like," still resides on my hard drive if there was a post you want to read again. Considering my readership I think was anywhere from 4-7 unique visitors in the year it was active, I don't think that will be an issue.

The topics I write about will be varied but all fall under the realm of things I've learned without having a job. I will try to write about kind of details that would escape a normal person who during the hours of 8-5 is putting up the facade of being a contributing member of society. For instance, did you know that Daytime TV is awful, and the Sunset Foods in Northbrook is packed at noon? But hopefully, the stuff I write about will never as boring as the two aforementioned facts. It will be mostly about how the things I encounter in my casual life relate back to larger ideas. Like for instance, while watching Tiger Woods play Wii live on TV, I thought about how the marketing people at EA Sports were probably cringing as their video game cover boy lost badly at his own game to Jimmy Fallon. While it does not surprise me in the least that Jimmy Fallon is good at video games, in Tiger's defense, I suppose it's hard to find time to play Wii when you are busy being the GREATEST GOLFER EVER.

For the time being, you can access plenty of my writing here, and over at twitter, where I keep my twitter finger ready at all times at twitter.com/whiteflyte.

Being as how this is more of an introductory post, check back in the future for updates on what I've learned without having a job (aside from the fact that whoever owns the syndication rights to "Saved by the Bell" is probably partying with Johnny Dakota right now).

That's all for now. Don't sweat the technique.

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