[PopUpCommontater]
....Time 2006 Man of the Year :>Who Is John Mayer?
2007-05-03
There's several things I'd like to write about today and they lend themselves to short riffs. Some, a continuum of issues I've commented on before, and some fun stuff.
I'm going to start with something fun today. Imagine that! As some of you know, I like to surf the 'net looking for new and interesting things. Earlier today I landed on John Mayer's blog, Musical Sound. YES! The talented young recording artist blogs! Imagine that. I've heard of the fella before but I didn't really know anything about the genre of his music nor his fantastic talent playing guitar. But most of all, it's his writing that glued me eyes to the page. For those of you who don't know, John Mayer is a musician, singer and songwriter. He can add writer to his list of accomplishments. I had such a grand time reading his very interesting blog entries and listening to some of his music, Gravity, being one of my favorite songs. Mayer's writing is fresh and truly thought-provoking. He has a way with words that had me thinking about putting my pen in a frame up on the wall with these words, "I used this pen to clean under my fingernails." Some of you will actually get it. 
I plan on continuing to explore Mayer's music and musings. He's that good.
I'm Living Proof that Laughter *Is* the Best Medicine!
2007-03-16
Well, laughter *is* the best medicine, and, I, PopUpCommontater, am living proof of this. Here, let me illustrate just one example of this proud boast :) Years ago, I managed to slam my head in the car door -oo- No small feat here, and it's quite all right to laugh, as that's exactly what I did while riding up the elevator to my 12th floor office suite. Ohhhhh, I had a grand time picking out people in the elevator car, looking them straight in the eye, and announcing in a peppy-perky sorta way with an eat-sh*t grin on my face, "HAHAHA,I JUST SLAMMED MY HEAD IN THE CAR DOOR! HAHAHAHA." This, followed by an outburst of hysterical laughter. Those poor people didn't know what to say, really, but I could tell they were concerned by the worry lines between their brows.. and I guess the blood dripping down my face didn't help matters much. But, up, up, up, each floor, someone gets off, and as soon as the door closed, my head would pop up like a jack-in-the-box, "HAHAHA, I Just Slammed My Head In the Car Door HAHAHAHAha!" I managed to stagger into my office and collapsed on the sofa, laughing. My boss came out, took one look at me slumped on the sofa, laughing hysterically, and promptly knew something was wrong! After his, "what the h*ll is wrong with you?" I started off on my story about how I'd stopped at the 7-11 on my way in, and somewhere between walking out of the store and finding myself coming to in the car, I vaguely remember slamming the door shut. Only my head was between the car door and the door frame as I was getting in. Allegedly, mind you. Apparently, there were no witnesses. But, anyway.. WOW. Imagine my surprise! hee hee. I don't remember how long I sat there, but it couldn't have been very long, as somewhere in the back of my mind (what was left of it, I guess), arose the fact one doesn't aHrrife in Jaaa-ACK's office *LATE*. I managed to drive from the 7-11, which was adjoined to the same service road/parking lot of my office building, okay? I vaguely remember after getting out of my car going up to the first person I saw in the parking lot and asking, "AM I ALL RIGHT!?!" along with the affectations of a car backseat window bobble-head. The man said, "I don't think so. You're bleeding." I remember his fearful frozen face with his shoulders keeping his ears warm, before I turned towards my building, and did what felt like skipping up to the door, revolving door, mind you, and going in, and round and round, because I couldn't find a way off of what I was sure turned into a merry-go round. Finally, I fell out of the revolver and schlept up to the elevator door to stand among a group of wanna-be riders. All eyes were on me. It was only when once I was *in* the elevator I started my mantra of "I-just-slammed-my-head-in -the-car-door-HAHAHAHAHA" routine. So, by the time I relayed all this to Jack, he says, "C'mon! I'm taking you to the Emergency Room!" And off to the ER we did go.
Apparently I had sustained a concussion (surprise!), the bleeding gash atop a huge bump on my forehead/hairline was treated, and I was sent home to recuperate - with the stern instructions not to go to sleep for 12 hours or so. (I think.) I remember dragging myself up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment - because it took 3 days (or so it seemed :). I got myself something to drink, as I always do first thing coming in the door, and then threw myself onto the bed and promptly fell asleep (of course!)
I don't know how long I'd been sleeping when the phone next to my bed woke me up to the sound of a woman's voice on the other end, yelling me "go see your doctor immediately, we just found a tumor on your head x-ray!!" Well! Can I say I was stunned. I had never been told so professionally before (NOT), BY PHONE, that I had a brain tumor, thank you very much (/sarcasm).
It was many doctors later and 3 months of panic before finding out what was this tumor. And the news came just in the nick of time, too. It would be a week's time before I was to depart to England, and I had built up enough stress & anxiety over this brain tumor news, that I just knew I would probably lose it on the plane somewhere over the Atlantic ocean. Claustrophobia comes to mind. Not wanting to risk flipping out on a plane especially, without the courtesy of an adjoining room to gather my composure and freshen up before doing so, I was about to cancel my trip, altogether. I finally got the news that what they felt was a pituitary tumor, was in fact, what's called empty sella turcica, which means I'm really an airhead. Not really, but it's assumed by many :) My "empty" sella turcica has fluid in it and leans on the pituitary gland which in turn causes hormones, or whatever, to be sort of unregulated or expressed too much, not enough, not at all.. whatever. It has messed me up in a number of ways and I can't go deep sea diving anymore (like I did to begin with..huh?).
I *know* I got through this ordeal by the grace of God and my uniquely honed sense of humor. Handed down to me by my mother, the Lucille Ball look-alike, both in physical and emotional make-up. It was through her use of humor, looking at things from the sunny-side of the street, undying optimism and strength that got our family through numerous crises and unpleasant circumstances. She taught me & my sibs that we could get through any hardship, tragedy, personal trial or tribulation, if we had faith in God's power, used humor to soften Life's blows, and not take ourselves too seriously. After all, we're really nothing but a fart in the wind - in the scheme of things ;>
I took the fear I was feeling about the prospect of needing brain surgery, to figure out how I'd wear my hair after it grew out, and whether I should tattoo little middle fingers or chain links around the burr holes. And I vacillated on what combo of colors I'd use on my Mohawk. I wrote out my last Will & Testament, bequeathed stupid little things to family and friends, i.e., accessories to a particular person whose spontaneous remark upon seeing the prized possession was "Egaaads, that's atrocious!" "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen....in all my life! Seriously!" "You're actually going to sit next to Very Important Person turd wearing THAT on your very person.n.n.nyyyUK!" They all got their "special pieces" with corny little notes attached to them revealing the fact I could have sold the piece for, let's say, $100,000, but because I remembered their kind remark about the piece, I wanted them to have it - with a gentle reminder that a lot of extremely dear and sought-after ice & heirlooms looked like crap And I wrote those never-to-be-mailed letters expressing exactly how I felt about a particular person, but threw them away immediately when I learned the good news my number wasn't up, when I should have hung on to them for later Revengeful Purposes. heh heh
All this being said, facing bad news is not easy and many slips back to fear are made. But staying positive about an outcome and applying faith that God heals and is in control of Life makes for a better state of mind to face uncertainty and the unknown. There will always be people who are doing better than us, but there's also people who have it a lot worse than us. I heard or read this years ago that if everyone in the world could take their troubles, problems and woes, throw them into a World Pile but take another from the same pile, most people would decide to keep the ones they have because they've learned to live with them, to cope with them, to rise above them best they can. The idea of taking on someone else's burdens is a scarier prospect than dealing with the ones we already have. But no one gets through life without burdens, be it physical or mental. So, I think it's better to be a good model of how to handle Life with dignity, hope, and faith, as an example for others to emulate. That way, we actually are doing something for our fellow Man. This is what's meant by giving others Hope by a different, better, saner way of doing things. Humor is the glue that holds Life together in goodwill. Towards other men. Let your smile/laughter be that invitation to others to hope for a better way.
(We all know life's a drama, then we die :)
Cross-posted from tBlog
ahem.. Baby Needs Attention...
2007-03-03
There's a reason the sage admonishes us to never say "never" and in my case, that it's not wise to tell your readership that you plan to "post here regularly" and then - poof - disappear out of sight! (Hmmm, maybe someone has invented an Instant Repeller device..?)
I won't bore you with lame*ss excuses like I caught my hand in the kitchen Dis-Posal unit, or I was hoisted on my own petard - hard.ly! Nothing as dramatic as that, really.
It was just a run-of-the-mill happenstance not worthy of accolades or a parade*. A dumb thing, really. Although I got an 8.5 from bystanders. I'm sure you've seen it a half-dozen times by now.
All right then, without further ado. You know that TV commercial where the guy in the boat smashes into the dock while a couple is sitting in their comfy home talking about insurance - and he's catapulted out of camera range? Well, I'm that guy......and what they don't tell you is that one of my safety lines was severed and I actually flew 1001 feet through the air...and it was amazing the pine trees didn't stop me as I sliced through them as I approached landing. I had my wheels down...heh heh...the ones that wrapped around my ankles as I was dragged through some backyard with a kid's tricycle smack dap in the middle of my runway....heh heh...except my wheels feet never actually touched ground for another 606 feet...until the co-producer saw me in his rearview mirror coming at him like a bullet as he was driving away from the set. I got close enough to the car to see (I'm a bullet, remember?) his horrified look in the rearview mirror looking at me looking horrified - when - at the same time - we realized my other safety line was hooked to the car's back bumper! Thank G_d, he reacted quickly and slammed on his brakes, preventing me from slicing through the car, back to front, deer-gutting through both windshields allowing me to whizz and wing up and over up and over up and finally over the (not quite) tops of those same @%^#$& pine trees which branches seemed to grab me like arms until I slowed down enough to finally settle on a branch where frozen in disbelief spitting pine needles out my mouth (and I think my nose) to a place where I actually started to breath again. And, wouldn't you know it, at the end of my first sigh the branch broke off and I fell 20 feet to the ground. At the end of my second sigh, I woke up in the hospital. And I just have to tell you this one thing - DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! I'm an experienced stunt man, and obviously, you aren't, and could get hurt.
The above is all a lie. No, really. But I can tell you it's alot more colorful than any lame*ss excuse I could come up with! So please cut me some slack, y'all? 
*A Get-Well card would be nice.
**A request granted.
Mother and Son Open Fire on a Group of Youths Looking for Fight
2007-02-27
My goodness! I saw this news article online and thought, "Holy Cow, what is this world coming to" - that would cause this kind of response from a mother and her teenage son? I'm thinking what an over-reaction to a group of young men, anywhere between 12-30 (30 is pretty scarey), according to witnesses, showing up at another teen's house looking for a fight. Why didn't the mother call the police or something less radical? Please read the article here to get pertinent information.
Further down in the article it states the family had been harassed for years because the father is an out-spoken community activist engaged in trying to improve his neighborhood and crack-down on crime. Therefore, he had installed a suveillance camera on his premises, I guess, to film this alleged harassment. He turned the video over to the police and claimed his wife and son were defending themselves.
Okay, I'm thinking - how long before we see copycat scenarios of this nature? In one sense, it's good. Good, decent, honest-working people are fed up with crime and the laws set up to favor the perpetrator and are going to take care of business themselves. On the other hand, it's really bad because this kind of taking-the-law-into-one's-own-hand can get out of control like wild fire! How did we come this far?
How do y'all feel about this?
Parents Sue Deputy Found in Daughter's Room After Warrantless Home Invasion
2007-02-25
I'd like to know what others think about the $10M lawsuit coming out of Roanoke, Virginia concerning a couple waking up after 1:00AM to their 10 year old daughter's screams and rushing into her bedroom to find Deputy J. A. Woods with a flashlight aimed on the bed and another man (civilian) yanking the covers off the girl. Please read the article here and then my comments below. [It'll just make more sense, you know? :]
There's just got to be something missing from this story. Apparently, according to the story, Deputy Wood knocked on the [front?] door for 30 minutes [hard to believe knowing that LEO's don't tap-tap-tap on doors, but rather beat the living daylights out of them with their nightsticks] before breaking into the girl's bedroom, while a number of LEO's were positioned outside the house. NOW GET THIS. Apparently they had no warrant. The wife announced she was going to call the Police when the Deputy responded by saying, "I am the Police." The parents demanded, as far as I'm concerned, the reasonable question as to what the hay they were doing there in their daughter's bedroom and the Deputy said they had a reason but he wasn't going to say anything more. -oo- [Well, that surely would have satisfied my
curiosity - NOT.] The parents then ordered them to leave. Other details can be learned from the article, but it should be noted the parents filed the lawsuit and the Deputy's office sent them a letter stating they were looking into it. However, the parents haven't heard a peep since then. What gives?
Something's wrong here. Even if there was a "reason" - why no warrant? Why was the Deputy accompanied by a civilian and not another LEO? What mischief could have been perpetrated there under the color of authority?
How do you get this kind of story out there in the Public Eye to insure the proper scrutiny of this totally bizarre happening? Under the so-called Patriot Act - no one is safe from home invasion by the LEO. Just think. If that father had shot those men in his daughter's bedroom because he felt threatened and was defending his family, don't you think the LEO's outside the house would have shot that house into sawdust leaving no witnesses to the bizarre home invasion?
Does this sound like America to you?
WHAAaaaaa' hoppened?
2007-02-12
To My Dear Friends,
I've been told I have my head up my posterior at times, tricksy titters, and I'm the brunt of a lot of jokes, but I have not been able to post on my tBLOG account in, well, foreVER! Or at least it seems so. I can't even bring tBLOG up. It's like it doesn't exist. Either that, or I don't (exist). And I'm in heaven. However, this doesn't l-oo-k like heaven to me. I mean the blizzard and all, cabin-fevered in an RV stuck in the Michiganian tundra...frozen pipes, no water, no shower, no washy-clothesy, no tblogging, no tBLOG friends stopping by to chat :( Nope. You can't convince me this is heaven.
Soooooooo, this must all mean I've been verrrrrrrry, verrrrrrrrrry bad. Cuz, this seems like Hell!.
What gives?!?
Somebody help me?
Laying-down-waiting-for-the-truck-to-run-over-me-PuC
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