I was walking through my neighborhood today, trying to come up with something interesting to write about, and I couldn’t come up with anything.
Sure, I need to finish the Cruise, and I’m sure there’s some fun stuff that happened in Vega$ that I can talk about . . . but on the way back around the block (past the house where the biggest asshole in the universe lives — and that’s saying a LOT. There are a lot of rich assholes where I live), it hit me: I’m just too fuckin’ lazy. It’s summer, it’s hot, I’m overwhelmed with all the travelling I’ve been doing, the audioblog mostly sucks, and I can’t seem to dig up my motivation and get to writing.
In the past, when I’ve wanted to write, but haven’t been able to string words together in the best of ways, I’ve just streamed. So let’s see what happens, shall we?
The SciFi thing isn’t happening. They told me that they really liked me and my friends, but they weren’t too nuts about our idea. So we’re going to take them another idea. It will be just like the previous one, but better. Funnier. More charming. Better looking.
I had an AWESOME meeting today with a very cool casting director, who works with an even cooler producer / director / dude. The best part? He called my manager, and asked for the meeting! See, people just don’t do that with me anymore. I was so excited to be talking with someone who was genuinely happy to meet with me, and who was equally excited about my work, and the prospect of working together . . . I don’t think anything will come of it for at least a couple of months, but I left feeling great.
Ferris is whining behind me, because it’s 20 minutes past dinner-time. I think I’ll feed her now.
Be right back.
Okay. Back.
(Isn’t that weird? The time I was gone was a few minutes for me, but when you read this, it’s not even one second. That’s always interesting. I’m sure some really smart physics nerd can connect this effect to the cat in the box . . . who is dead. I just looked. Sorry.)
Did I talk about Portland? I don’t think I did.
It was a great experience. The place was packed, the staff at Powell’s in Beaverton treated me really well, and the reading went very well. I didn’t feel the emotional connection to the words like I have in the past, which I attribute to fatigue, more than anything else, but nobody who was there seemed to notice. At least, nobody who was there has e-mailed me to tell me that I sucked! Matter of fact, I’ve gotten tons of mail from people who were there, and they were all really cool and complimentary.
I think I’m going to go get myself a Guinness. Hold on.
Okay, I’m back. And . . . the cat is alive again. Cool.
I have all this stuff from Think Geek (like this #include \ glass I’m using) that I need to photograph and send to them for “in action” shots. Hey, speaking of that, any of you hotties own WWdN stuff? You know you want to send photos in for the gallery.
Don’t make me check on the cat again, because I’ll do it. I swear to jeebus.
We were driving to Wild Rivers for Nolan’s birthday (boy, has that place fallen into disrepair. It was depressing to me — my favorite part of the whole day, though, was when I rode some ride on my stomach, and caught major air. I came down, and landed all 150 pounds of my beer drinkin’ fat ass on my nuts. I could hardly stand up when I hit the splashdown pool. And this ride was *intended* to be ridden on your stomach. Ouch.) and Nolan said, “Jeebus!” about something. Ryan said, “Nolan! Don’t steal my word! Mom! Wil! Nolan stole my word!”
“Ryan,” I said, “Nolan didn’t steal your word. ‘Jeebus’ belongs to everyone. It’s the word that’s sweeping the nation.”
“How come you don’t say it, then?” he asked, challenging.
“Because I would rather say ‘Fuck.'” I said.
Okay, I didn’t really say that. But wouldn’t it have been cool if I did? You ever unload an F-bomb on a teenager? It’s worth it just to see that look of shock and horror that passes their face, followed by the pause where they try to decide if they can get away with cussing because you just did.
And Ryan, if you’re reading this, no. You may not.
Before we saw Blueman Group on The Complex Rock Tour recently, I’d never heard of Venus Hum. I bought their CD at the show (ten bucks, and it goes right to the artist! Suck this, RIAA!) and I’ve listened to it way too much since then. I’m not even that big a fan of electroinc music that isn’t Underworld anymore, but . . . jeebus! This CD is fantastic. I give it seven thumbs up. You’ve got to see them live if you get a chance. Their lead singer is this tiny little thing, and she’s got a voice that’s HUGE! And the obvious joy they all experience creating their music is infectious. Whenever I hear “Montana,” I see her cherubic face, and recall her stomping her CFM boots (yeah, a strange dichotomy, to say the least) to the beat while she sang. I think I’m going to listen to Montana while I finish this entry. So there. Hooray for Real Media and stuff.
Uhh . . . making all those links, I lost my train of thought. But that’s okay. I realize what’s wrong with me lately: I’ve been too self conscious about sitting here and commiting thoughts to ASCII characters. I’m putting pressure on myself to be MISTER BIG WRITER GUY instead of just letting myself have fun and enjoy what I’m doing. I’m about to finish Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors . . . goddammit, he’s such a great story teller. I give it my highest rating: seventeen marlin, all wearing berets.
I don’t think I ever told the tale of The Bear Who Almost Killed Me.
A couple of years ago, Anne and I took the kids to Tahoe (our friends have a cabin, so we go there at least twice a year). In the summer, the brown bears who live in the mountains like to come down into the streets at night to eat some yummy trash.
I guess it was about midnight. The kids were asleep, and Anne and I were playing Scrabble (it wasn’t my first choice of vacation activity while the kids were asleep, but apparently getting caught by the kids is somehow worse than getting caught by your parents. Of course, I’m talking about reading aloud from Atlas Shrugged.)
While I was tallying up a HUGE score for some word like ““Kwyjibo” we heard a commotion out by the trash can.

Away to the window I flew like The Flash, tore open the shutter and fell on my ass.
The moon on the driveway, just sitting out there,
illuminated the visage
of a big fucking bear.

Anne and I raced to the back of the house to wake up the kids. By the time we’d wiped the sleep from their eyes, the bear had knocked over the trash can, and taken out the bag I’d just put in there a few hours earlier. (Goddamn bear. Guess who got to clean that up?)
He dragged it around the side of the house, and we watched him, through the window, as he ate garbage.
Yeah, National Geographic it was not, but it was still the closest I’d ever been to a real bear.
For another ten minutes, at least.
He finished tearing apart the bag, and wandered off into the woods. We put the kids back into bed, and Anne again rebutted my attempt to answer the question, “Who is John Galt?”
We went back to our Scrabble game, and I remembered that there was food in the car from the drive up, and the windows were down. After seeing what this bear did to the trash bag, I was less than enthusiastic about him smelling the yummy beef jerky and pringles that littered the floor of my majestic rental mini-van. So I looked out the windows, ensured that he was gone, and carefully headed out to close up the rental beast.
I turned on the car, and sat in the driver’s seat. I closed the windows, and congratulated myself on a jorb well done. I got out of the car, took a deep breath of fresh, clean, Lake Tahoe air, and found my mouth filled with the stench of garbage.
Flush with the success of my “rolling up the windows” caper, I decided to pick up the trash on the driveway, and put it back in the can. I did this for a minute or so, carefully picking up coffee filters, fruit rinds, paper towels and the like, and dropping them back into the green plastic drum.
I was bent over at the waist, holding the remains of something brought to us by Farmer John, when I felt it on my back. A hard, violent, terrifying tug.
I jumped up, and found myself face to face with the bear. 800 pounds of Wil-killing fury. One of his eyes was obviously blinded, perhaps by an unfortunate hunter who’d dared to tangle with him in the past. This bear had gone to considerable trouble to remove my trash from my trash can, and now I’d gone and shoved it all back in . . . he was going to be pissed.
Luckily for me, the tugging on my back was Anne. She’d seen the bear come around the car while I was bent over, and had run out of the cabin and down the stairs to save me. She didn’t make a sound, and neither did the bear, as she pulled me back and away from him. We ran up the stairs at Jesse Owens speed.
Once we got back into the cabin, I was happy to let the bear have the trash.
After all, he’d earned it.