Show me a man who wears a flag lapel pin...

While I'm digging myself out of the big pile of dookie that's accumulated while out*, watch this piece from Bill Maher's show.

*This may take a while.

Look what I picked up in Tulsa!

To be fair, I probably snuffled up this nasty cold virus in one of the lovely airports I've enjoyed lately, but last Friday it took me out.

I've missed work, I've whined, I've doubled up on vodka and Nyquil, and worse, I missed a local appearance by our Hellfire Homeboy Dusty Rhoades.

I hope lots of NC Hellions showed up and bought dozens of copies of Dusty's new book, Safe and Sound.

And Dusty? Be happy that I didn't introduce you to my new little friend.

Modern Air Travel

In the past week I've gone through six airports.

Oh joy.

Crowded coach, long delays, overpriced airport food, surly flight attendants, the gaseous seatmate, the scowling TSA employee just hoping you'll say something that will justify a cavity search and the screaming baby that is FFA-mandated for every flight.

I was going to write a long piece here about how flying is like going Greyhound at 30,000 feet, with a hint of Stalin (papers please), but you've heard it all before. You've been there.


And I have a ton of work on my desk. So, I'll just say I'm happy to be home.

In a few days, when I can see some daylight, I'll report on the trip to Tulsa, complete with Mom birthday pics, a story about God's keen sense of humor, and the announcement of a band name for Molly's nine-piece soul group. Until then,

Buh-bye.

Time for some karmic balance.

Yesterday's post was a bit caustic, I admit, and as I'm flying several times in the upcoming few days, I thought it best to end the week by tossing a little light into the darkness. So here, in the hopes that HR will call of its lawyers, is a cosmic corrective cuteness buffer.*



He's flying! Look out for that truck!


This little guy has his heart set on the NBA. Don't tell him that elephants are the only mammals who can't jump!


He's cute until he runs up your pants leg!


Even at this tender age, these cubs brought down a full grown German Shepherd! Awwwww.


Panda baby! Panda baby!

And Cup-O-Kitten Soup! Yum!

That's it for the week. Be back next week with Tales of Horror from Tulsa where we'll determine if Oklahoma is indeed OK or if maybe the residents shouldn't set their sights a little higher.

Until then, be adequate! OK!

*Cuteness Buffer, a trademarked feature of Jen Jordan's Human Under Construction.

In honor of Ann Coulter's new book.

Ann Coulter has a new book out today and she'll hit all the news shows and say outrageous things and get more press and sell more books than you or I will ever sell in a lifetime. It doesn't hurt that her mentor, Richard Mellon Scaife is a billionaire who made his money the old fashioned way - he inherited it.

I went through this before, but for those of you who came in late, let me explain how Scaife's billions made Ann a New York Times best-selling author.

When you look at the Times list, you'll notice that some books have a tiny dagger by the title. This means that the book was sold in mass quantities. So when Ann was just a struggling young plagiarist and needed a skinny leg up, her old pal Scaife put her in touch with Regnery Press, the publisher who specializes in stinking sacks of right-wing ordure.

So Regnery publishes Ann's book. Scaife buys up a few hundred thousand copies. Ann, with a dagger, rushes to the top of the NY Times list and suddenly she gets invited on all the cable talk fests because she's a, you know, best selling author.

Ann gets TV time. Her fans swoon over her biting wit, like calling John Edwards a fag, they rush out and buy more books, proving that she's indeed a best selling author and America's soul gets just a little blacker.

That Scaife then pours his copies into a sinkhole in Indonesia, forever fouling the groundwater, doesn't matter. Ann's on the list. She's got cred.

Which proves that for all the many outrageous and provocative things Ann's ever said, the smartest thing to ever come out of her mouth is still Richard Mellon Scaife's dick.

The video is Hamell on Trial, one man using his First Amendment rigts to stand tall by sinking to an admitted new low. But I warn you, it is not work safe. Put on the headphones.

Enjoy.

Name this band and win a prize.

Since you have generously helped me through some tough times lately, I think you deserve to hear some really good news.

(two positive posts in a row? impossible.)

My daughter's band made its debut last night. It's a 9-piece Memphis soul band with a kick-ass horn section and one little white girl with a great big voice in front. The place was packed, they played one set and blew the room away.

And no, I'm not biased.

I'd show you a picture I took with my new cell phone but I can't figure out how to send it to my email. But other people did take pictures and there might be a recording of some of their songs which I will post as soon as I get them, being a proud father and all.

Molly certainly has earned the right to sing the blues and when she tackled Otis Redding's Pain In My Heart you could tell she'd been there. She has a natural presence, is comfortable fronting the band and was having the time of her life. She's worked hard putting this band together and she deserved all the fan adulation.

It's about time good things came her way.

And today she starts a new job. Yay!

Today, I'm calling all Planeteers to help out the band and perhaps gain a bit of immortality. The band has no name. It's a soul band, with an emphasis on that Stax Volt horn-powered sound, and so far they've kicked around Souled Out, The Bull City Soul Revue, Is That Suede? (Molly's favorite, but the band said nah), and a few other soul variations.

So, name this band and I'll send you something. A book by a friend, maybe a recording of the band, I don't know yet, but it'll be good. And you'll have bragging rights down at the pub.

So send me your names and if the band chooses yours, you're a winner!

UPDATE: Apparently the unnamed band made quite an impression. Owners of neighboring bars have asked them to play their places and they're lining up gigs all over town. Pretty cool. So keep those names coming. I'll keep you posted.

You're soaking in it.

For the first time in over a decade, I'm enthusiastic about my work.

No, not my fiction writing. That's an obsession, my great white whale. My work is writing copy and if you feel so moved, write your redundancy joke here.

Last week I was talking to a colleague about the grand years of advertising. Our conversation was sprinkled with names like Dan Wieden, Ed McCabe and Hal Riney, people who changed my world. When we speak of these people, largely unknown outside the biz, we speak the way music geeks talk about Keith Moon or Don Van Vliet.

I know most of you probably agree with Bill Hicks when he advised all marketing people to kill themselves, but if you'll indulge me, I want to take a quick look at how we got here.

That classic poster up there was created for Maxell by art director Lars Anderson. The agency was Scali, McCabe Sloves, one of the first New York agencies to take the ad world out of the hands of Ivy League WASPs like the guys you see in Mad Men, and put it into the hands of kids with names that were Irish, Italian and Jewish.

This was in the day of Ring Around the Collar, when big companies advertised to your mom as if she were an idiot. A P&G brand manager once told me their standard formula was 2CK. When I asked what 2CK meant, he told me it involves two women talking together in a kitchen, but in much less-enlightened language.

So when Scali started writing to real people and Doyle Dane Bernbach went against all the big-finned, big breasted, Detroit advertising with this, it caused a revolution.

It lasted a few years and then, in the 70's, pants cuffs got big and brains got small again and advertising became as boring as disco. But like punk, surprising things were happening in surprising places, and while the dinosaurs lumbered about in the cocaine haze of Studio 54, eager young mammals in places like Portland, Minneapolis, Richmond and Seattle were re-inventing advertising with smart work.



This is when I started, learning from giants like Tom McElligott who told us we can outsmart our competition, not outspend them. He also taught us that you didn't need a big client to win big awards.

So I wrote ads like this one with art director Mike Sellers. It was for the Durham County Literacy Council and yes, we won awards.

Great work was being done all over the place and it was exciting to be a part of it. Then I started making money. And I took jobs for money. And my love for the business dimmed as I started working for people whose only passion was making money. I burned out and I quit.

I started writing novels. I still worked part time for a small ad agency where I wrote this ad for a real estate developer. You can still see Tom McElligott's influence (as well as our blatant theft of the layout from an Art Director named Tracy Wong).

But writers have a hard time paying the rent with novels, so I'm working again. I came to this job as a temp, then as a full-timer, happy to reduce my patient wife's angst with a steady paycheck.

This is not a traditional ad agency and that has its benefits. It also meant that for the longest time they didn't quite know what to do with me. Then they hired a new creative director. He understands my passion for the business. He knows who Jay Chiat is and why he's important.

For the first time in years I'm excited about the possibility of doing smart work. It's kind of like going through a really ugly divorce and for the first time being tempted to date again. I like this.

Do you love your work? If you do, do you know how lucky you are?

And are there ads that you love?

Talk to me.

Return From The Edge of the Earth.

Standing at the very edge of the continent, I abandoned e-mails, laptops and phones. It's going to take me a few days to figure out how all this stuff works again.

I am but a simple man of the beach. Your modern ways confuse and frighten me.

Couples.

Today is Jeff Shelby's 8th anniversary. What is the 8th? Jello?

I don't know what amazes me more, that Jeff found a woman who agreed to share her life with him, or that any couple finds a way to stay together through the stresses of kids, mortgages, lost jobs, ill health, in-laws, sleeping habits, sex, incontinent dogs, odd hobbies, televised sports, and the unrealistic expectations of women everywhere. But I'm happy that at least half the time, it works.

I'm going to be best man at a wedding this weekend. I have no idea what is expected of a best man. Maybe I should look that up before Sunday.

My old friend, Jerry (regular readers will know him as Secret Dead Artist), is marrying Heather on the Outer Banks, which will be very cool. That Heather is younger, better-looking, smarter and taller than Jerry has all of us shaking our heads in wonder at Jerry's good fortune.

Mazel Tov.

Last April, Jenny and I celebrated 27 years together, a phenomenol thing if you consider that Jenny could have, to quote Mark Twain, laid a trap in the night and caught twelve more able men. It's been great, but it hasn't been easy. They say nothing worthwhile is, but I find drinking more than worthwhile, and surprisingly easy.



In that spirit, I raise my glass to all the happy couples out there. If you're lucky enough to be one of them, take the time to tell your patient SO that your life would not be half as rich, full or wonderfully complicated without her (or him).

We all think we'll have another day, but we all know there's no guarantee, don't we.

Here's to marriage. And here's to the daily miracles that make it possible.

Happy Anniversary, Jeff.

And to Jerry, bon voyage. It's a trip I highly recommend.

So, when do we get our health care, eh?

According to the New York Times, this

now equals this:



and the US dollar's dropped to an all time low against the Euro. So if you've got travel plans you might want to cart around another suitcase full of greenbacks so you'll have enough cash on hand to buy a Guiness.

Our northern cousins get a loon on their money and we get a loon in the White House.

This can't be good.

Stop me before I kill again.

I murdered an old friend last night. It was this 1948 National amp you see up there. In my idiocy, I was packing up after rehearsal, got distracted, forgot and backed over it.

It is toast.

I'm happy it wasn't a child or a dog. It was just an amp.

An amplifier I've played through for years, as much of an instrument as my guitars or my box of harps. I don't know how I'll replace it.

Compared with other things that have happened lately, this is a very small thing, barely rising above annoyance.

Still, I loved that old amp.

I hope your year has been better than mine because so far, 2007 has sucked.

I live for stories like this.

In Minneapolis, a state known to be only slightly less polite than Canada, a guy waiting for a bus assaulted another guy with a folder from an anger management class.

Sweet.

The police say Angry Guy was at a bus stop when he started yelling at a 59-year-old woman. When she took out her cell phone, Angry Guy knocked her down. When a second guy tried to help, Angry Guy hit him with the folder.

Angry Guy has been charged with felony assault. This, not surprisingly, is his third assault charge in 18 months, and he's been convicted twice of domestic assault.

"Our hope is that the court will see fit to allow him to finish his anger management class in jail," a cop spokesman said between giggles. "Clearly he has issues."

Happy Friday, people. Let's hope for an uneventful weekend.

Wanted for arson.

This woman, Janiva Magness, burned down the house last night.

She and her band had people dancing past midnight (on a Thursday!) at the Blue Bayou and if she plays anywhere within a day's drive of where you live, drop everything and go. You'll thank me.

Learn more about this great talent here and here.

Thanks, Janiva, and come back any time. We love you here in North Carolina.

Live Lard!

Thanks to Ed for my new watchword.

Live Lard!

And if you want to see Ed, check him out here. He's the drummer sitting in the aura of light, just as God intended.

Crap jobs.

I was inspired to write this by an earlier post over at Bryon Quertermous' place. He was complaining about his job working a call center and asked what lousy jobs we've had. That got me thinking about all the crap jobs I've had and I had to post this (expanded) response over here.

I caddied when I was 15. I weighed 125 pounds and had to carry two large bags to make 50 cents an hour. That lasted until a guy threw his putter at me.

I took my first real job at a roadside hot dog stand where I made 65 cents an hour and all I could eat. At 15 I could eat a lot, but not enough to make that job pay.

When I was 18 I worked in a warehouse loading grocery store trucks from 11 at night to 7 in the morning, all night slinging heavy cartons into the backs of tractor trailers. The dust was so thick you could sculpt it and there was never a moment when there wasn't a truck to be loaded. I made 2.12/hr.

I worked for Uncle Sam for 11 cents an hour. That was probably the worst job and none of the skills I learned was marketable. Huh.

After the Army I worked short order in midtown Manhattan, spiked ties for the Erie Lackawanna RR, set columns on construction sites and managed a janitorial crew at night.

All hard work, low pay and long hours.

The truth is, I actually enjoyed some of the work. Construction wasn't bad and I made good money working on the railroad. Short order was a sure way to get fed, which at that time in my life was a good thing. All of these jobs gave me people and places to write about.

But I wonder, do young people take these kinds of jobs today? I don't know if they do. I pass construction sites and see nothing by Latinos. I go to restaurants and see the same.

What about you? What were some of the worst jobs that you've had? And are today's crap jobs all that different?

Talk to me.

Republicans attack!

The GOP is in a dizzying snit over Moveon.org's NY Times ad referring to General Petraeus as General Betray Us. I admit, it's a rather juvenile pun, at best.

It might surprise you but I'm not a big fan of this war. Nope. Not even a little bit. And with all the conflicting stories about the surge working and the surge not working and the Sunnis lying down with the Shia and the Kurds singing Kum By Yah and car bombs not counting as violence well, hell, I don't know who to believe.

Unless a member of this administration says it and then I know it's wrong. Completely wrong. Because we're talking about six years of wrong here, setting new standards of wrong, wronger than anyone has ever been at anytime in the history of being wrong.

But back to the ad. You can see it for yourself here. Republicans are angry that the left is saying this decorated officer may be less than honorable in his report to Congress about success in Iraq. And I sympathize with them. To a point.

Then I remember another decorated soldier who was in the news and during the GOP convention, these same worked-up Republicans made light of the Purple Heart the man received in a war our present CINC ducked, even went so far as to put the Purple Heart on band-aids and laughed, oh how they laughed, because he was injured in combat but apparently didn't bleed enough for this howling pack of sunshine patriots. Yeah, funny. Ha ha. Ha ha.




So when they get their knickers in a twist over a childish play on Petraeus' name I just think of those band-aids and I say fuck them.
Fuck them all.

If they honestly gave a rat's ass for our soldiers they'd bring them the fuck home. Let 'em suck on that, the bastards.

What's keeping me awake.

I'm worried about Manuel Noriega, known to his former countrymen as The Pineapple. He's the Panamanian strongman who came to power in 1981 after Omar Torrijos died in a plane crash that was in no way engineered by George HW Bush.

The fact that Torrijos was popular for building roads, schools and hospitals for the working class campesinos had nothing to do with his death while George HW Bush was vice president. Nothing at all.

Torrijos said, "Having finished with the oligarchy, the Panamanian has his own worth with no importance to his origin, his cradle, or where he was born," and while that had to piss off the well-born Mr. Bush, friend to oligarchs everywhere, that does not mean Bush caused the plane crash that killed Torrijos and brought Noriega to power.

Noriega worked closely with the CIA while Bush was the head of the agency, but sometime in the 80's Bush decided The Pineapple had to go. So George HW Bush sent in the 82nd Airborne and boo-yah, Noriega became just another prisoner in Cellblock Hell.

Now Noriega's sentence has ended. He wants to go back to Panama but Panama says no thanks. France wants him to stand trial on money laundering charges, but Noriega is oddly resistant to spending the remainder of his days as a guest of the French.

What to do? I think I have the answer.

See, as Noriega served out his sentence, Bush's son, George W, became president and had his own strongman problem. The son, ever chafing under the shadow of his more accomplished father, decided he'd do something his Poppy couldn't, and that was to remove Saddam Hussein, another former friend of the family who had fallen into disfavor.

But now there's a problem. The Iraqis have proven to be more restive than the Panamanians. Maybe it's the heat or lack of fruit in their diet. I don't know.

But with Saddam gone, the country has fallen into chaos. What they need is someone who knows how to crack a few heads. Someone with a proven track record, a man who is tanned, rested and ready to take his place on the world stage. A man we know. A man trained by our own School of the Americas in the uncompromising art of guerilla warfare.

Enter Noriega, the answer to our problems in Iraq. Come on, let's give The Pineapple another chance. He couldn't fuck it up any more than it is.

What? So, when you can't sleep, what's on your mind?

And don't look at me like that.

What do people who don't read do in waiting rooms?

I asked this question again as we waited in the hospital ER last Friday. What do people do who don't read?

This weekend I finished The Dramatist and Running Blind.






Molly finished To the Power of Three and started Water for Elephants.





Poor Jenny was stuck without a book on Friday so she bought something from the woefully inadequate selection in Duke Hospital's gift shop. She said there were plenty of religious books and inspirational tracts (which I find disconcerting in an institution dedicated to science), but they inspired Jenny to ask where the hell the fiction was.



They found a few books, Jenny bought one but it sucked.

So what do people who don't read do in waiting rooms? How do they pass the time? I can't imagine.

Ever been stuck somewhere with nothing to read? That, my inspirational friends, is my idea of hell.

An update.

Every so often one of you asks how my daughter, Molly, is doing. That's her with my mother from last October.

Yesterday she went into the hospital. There's not much more that we know. I'll know more after we see her this afternoon.

For all of you who have offered your love, concern and support, I can only express my most sincere gratitude.

I'll keep you posted.

Something to entertain you.

While I'm working, here's something to listen to. This is Jake Shimabukuro and he's playing a ukulele. That's right, a fucking ukulele. So before you crack wise about Tiny Tim or Don Ho, shut the hell up and watch the video.

Because I bought a uke last Saturday and I haven't been able to put it down. Jenny's not enjoying it so much, but it beats the screaming drunks and howling crack whores I usually bring home.

I'm working at it, but right now I sound less like Jake and a lot more like, well, this jerk: