I love you, Johnny Cakes

My internet is acting funny tonight so this might be a quickie.

I've been so very tired lately. Four times last week I passed out on the couch without even getting ready for bed. I'd wake up groggy at like 3 am and stumble into the bathroom. As I was brushing my teeth and figuring out where I was, I'd start feeling the anxiety of the approaching day seeping into my soul. No fun.

And it got me thinking. I need to figure out something I'm good at before it's too late.

I sincerely believe every human being has an aptitude for something. Something comes naturally to everyone. When it's Tiger Woods and golf, you could call it a gift. When it's the guy who can load the industrial dishwasher faster than anybody else, maybe "gift" is too strong. Maybe it's a knack.

Everybody has a knack for something. There are plenty of people wth multiple knacks. There are some people who seem to have a knack for just about everything.

The trick is finding a knack that you enjoy and that people want to pay you money for. Ideally your number one knack is something that commands a high salary and allows you to retire early so you can concentrate on some of your other knacks, like maybe tennis or sailing or binge drinking.

One of the great tragedies of so many of our lives is that we spend way too much time doing stuff we don't have a knack for. Or that we have a knack for but don't enjoy. Or that we have a knack for and sort of enjoy but only nets us eight bucks an hour.

So far, I don't have any knacks. It's frustrating as hell, but I'm average to below average to awful at most things. I'm sure there's a knack out there for me, I just haven't found it yet. And as you get older it gets harder to find the time to try a bunch of stuff in hopes of discovering a knack.

Really, the earlier you start locating your knacks the better.

Here's something I'd recommend: take the year off after high school. Travel. Get some jobs. Meet some people who know more about the world than you do. Try a whole mess of stuff. You'll see what you like, you'll see what you're good at, and then when you're 37 you'll be deep into a satisfying knack-rich life, instead of pecking out lightweight posts on your blog.

Or not.

So as you can tell I'm still questioning my role in the universe and rethinking some of the choices I've made in life. But still feeling hopeful about the future.

Just wait'll I get my knack. You'll see! (shaking fist)

Speaking of knacks, MDilly has a bunch. And apparently moustache-growing can be added to that list:
Wow. The Verbungle Moustache Classic is off to a hell of a start. This picture brings up so many questions, but it also seems to be telling us all that there will be no further answers of any kind and please don't even ask. I would like to know if he's still rocking that 'stache or if it was merely a mid-shave photo op. Either way, it's mighty good.

Deadline is October 1st. Stache up, bitches.

For ten points, what quasi-celebrity does MDilly most resemble in that photo? And no, it's not the volunteer fireman guy who stole Vito's heart on The Sopranos last season.

Oh, and by the way, what are your knacks?

might not help, it can't hurt

Maybe it's because I mentioned it in my stupid blog last week (memo to self: mention it in your stupid blog again next year), but I don't think I can remember a year in which so many people sent me kind birthday wishes.

There were the numerous haloscan happy birthdays you guys posted; each and every one made me smile.

There was the phone message my sister and her kids left me, singing happy birthday.

There was the way one of my co-workers decked out my cube with happy birthday signs and sports-themed knick-knacks. (My colleagues have begun calling me "Coach" because I supposedly resemble a basketball coach on the three days a week I tuck in my shirt and wear a tie.)

There was BJL's cute little one line email, complete with subtle confetti graphic.

There was Mrsmal taking the time to send a sweet note.

There was my almost-80-year-old dad calling me on the phone to say happy birthday and to ask if I had stayed up until 1:30 am watching the Yankees-Red Sox on Sunday night. I had; he had too.

Monday, my birthday, was one of my toughest workdays ever. 14 hours of ups and downs and challenges and triumphs and frustration and plain old armpit-staining hard work. Around 8:30 that night, in the middle of my thirteenth hour with no end in sight, I decided I needed to go outside and get a little air to clear my head and a slice of gross doughy midtown pizza to fill my belly.

Just as I was about to walk down the hall and head out, who should appear but Ma and Baby Bungle, surprising me with a birthday visit! And Ma Bungle was toting four large pizza pies from our favorite pizza place! And orange soda! And root beer! It was only a ten minute visit, but coming as it did in the middle of an emotionally trying day, it nearly moved me to tears. I don't know how she lugged a baby and a carriage and four pies and a bag of heavy soda uptown by herself, but she did.

And my co-workers and I had a really satisfying, morale-boosting pizza party. And I got to see my baby. And my wife. It scooped the day right out of the shitter and I will never forget it as long as I live.

Thank you Ma Bungle and thank you my kind friends, especially any I forgot to shout out to by name. I surely don't deserve your thoughtfulness.
I've been so busy I haven't had time to reflect on what it means to be a 37 year-old saucebag. The truth is I was just coming to terms with being a 36 year-old saucebag so the change is not entirely welcome. If I was an industrious type, a guy who was always looking for actual decent content to put on his stupid blog, I might compile a list of achievements made my 37 year-olds throughout history. But I'm more into just spouting a bunch of crap off the top of my head and so this'll have to do.

One thing I should mention: I am too busy this week to write a proper softball recap, so if anybody wants to step into the void and do it they will get a merit badge. Otherwise maybe I'll do a half-assed job later in the week.

In other updates, "9th and Hennepin" was the other waitsminneapolisdat song we were looking for. Ten points for Finn. Since you guys were so kind to me on my birthday, I will post today not only that small strange nugget, but also the Replacements-Waits joint effort that Finn mentioned, "Date to Church." Maybe not a great song but it sounds like they're having fun.

I have a couple of items from PB and Joe M. to post on verbungle classic; they should go up in the next couple of days. In the meantime, what was the official mascot of my 1986 fantasy football team? Ten points to the winner, and we're just looking for a type of animal here.

come on, boston

I was watching the Yankees play the Red Sox last night and in the 8th inning, an announcement was made at Fenway informing fans that the last "T" of the evening was leaving the station so they better get their asses on it unless they wanted to walk home.

Sure, it was the longest 9-inning game in the history of the sport.

But still, it was only 12:15 when they made the announcement.

12:15 am. No more public transporation.

Fucking Pumpkin-town.

***

DLee gets the points for drunkenwarbledat with his answer of "My Girl." cW gets the points for waitsminneapolisdat with his answer of "Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis," although that wasn't the song we were looking for. So there are still ten waitsminneapolisdat points out there.

you grow old in a bar

I took some time out from my 60 hour workweek to catch up with my old buds Jeff C. and bc mi last night. Two very good men. I hadn't seen Jeff C. in about twelve years. Since we was kids. Time's been kinder to him and bc than it has been to me.
Jeff C. has settled in the Twin Cities, where he works as a teacher. He owns a house with a backyard and he has summers off and his mortgage is half my rent. He seems to have figured things out.

Most intelligent people, it seems, eventually wind up in the Twin Cities.I've only been there about four times, but it seems like a pretty civilized place to live. Teachers own houses. And the houses are actually in the city. That's my impression of Minneapolis and St. Paul: houses in the city. Imagine that. Grilling out. Sitting on the roof.
Quittin' school and goin' to work and never going fishing.

bc mi is moving out here in a couple of weeks and he's debating exactly where to live. I say if you are a single man and you have an opportunity to live in the East Village, you need to go ahead and do that. It's just full of life and energy and every day you hear something like we heard in the deli last night, when one dude said to another, "I need you to last longer. You only came three times."

For ten easy non-googling GP's, name a Tom Waits song that is based in Minneapolis.

No correct answers on shoedat or drunkenwarbledat yet. Keep guessing.

a bunch of beginnings

So I just tallied up the points for physicalfeatdat and I realized I should have put a cap on it. Some people have just done a hell of a lot of amazing shit. Mostly I am speaking of MDilly. MDilly modestly listed a few of his superhuman feats, and I gave him 32 points because I needed to stop it somewhere. If he tried, if I tried, if any of the people he's terrorized over the years tried, we could come up with about 500 GP's worth of stuff that he's done. Here is a sampling:

1) He tore a button off my shirt, and when I began objecting to his behavior, he bent over, picked up the button, and ate it.
2) He beat a much more physically imposing Kissel in an impromptu one-armed pullup contest on a scaffold by a score of Many to Zero.
3) He dunked a volleyball at 5'5".
4) He ran the 40 in 4.4 seconds (so he claims).
5) He (claims he) did something magnificent and unspeakable on an ice patch behind the UW Southeast Recreational Facility.
6) He pummeled his roommate so severely that the roommate a) asked if he could spend the night with the R.A. like a little baby, and b) immediately requested and was granted a transfer to a different dorm across campus.
7) He killed a guy with one punch in Eau Claire.
8) He did a lot of gross bodily stuff that we don't need to talk about here.
9) He did a lot of other stuff that we don't need to talk about here.
10) He benched twice his weight.
11) He sported a mullet that defied all that we as Americans consider decent. (Photo, please.)

I could go on and on. Just take the 32 points, friend.

Also, I gave Vic an extra 8 points because he forgot to list the time he nailed 6 consecutive bullseyes to narrowly win a game of cricket against some douches in a bar. Incredible. Seeing that I knew what the fans at Yankee Stadium must have felt when Reggie hit the 3 straight homers in the '77 WS. It was an honor to be a part of it.
Lately I've been having some ideas for this here internet site. Not great ones, just some regular old ideas. But I've been posting for only about a half hour a night, starting real late, so they've gone by the wayside. One of them would be for each day's post to be the first three or four paragraphs of a different short story. We'd never actually finish the story. Just a bunch of beginnings. Beginnings are so hopeful, and without the pressure for middles and ends you could really have some fun with 'em.

See, they're not great ideas. But let me remind you that this site is free. Maybe tomorrow we'll give it a try.

Tonight I just want to alert you to the presence of a new softball recap courtesy of Kissel. Very nice job, pal. I am rethinking my opinion of this season's recaps. I now consider this the best overall season of recaps because we've had a lot of different people taking a crack at it, and they all bring something different to the party. Good work, men.

After viewing some of the pics over at Moncrief's site, I suddenly feel a longing for the quiet beauty of the upper midwest. I haven't been back to Wisconsin in about six years, and from what I understand nobody even misses me anymore. Fuckers.

I am going to try to catch up with my Midwestern buddies Brian C. and Jeff C. on Wednesday night. Should be fun. I have an interesting idea for a photo. I'll try to take that shit.

In the meantime, enjoy these two incredibly intelligent pictures:


I am about twelve years old.

I never went to a dance in high school. To be honest, I had nobody to go with. Finally, my senior year, I had a GF but by the time we started dating she had already committed to attend the prom with another dude, a (she said) platonic old friend of hers. So they went to the prom, and I went out and got blitzed with a couple of other lonesome dudes I knew. In a performance that eerily and cringingly brings to mind the "white boy sings a Motown song to comic effect" scene that was in nearly every bad coming-of-age movie from that era, I stopped on the corner of 3rd avenue and 12th street to perform an arm-in-arm duet with a homeless man. For twelve points, what song did we drunkenly warble? One guess to a customer and please note that I am not proud of this.

I need a new cellphone/cellphone service. Suggestions?

it don't move at all like a subway

A really really bad day at work on Friday (my own stupid fault, I'll spare you the stupid details) has caused me to think about some stuff.

Stuff I don't think about too often because it hurts my head. Stuff I should have thought about twenty years ago, ten years ago, yesterday at lunch. Right now.

Stuff that makes me actually scream the word "Fuck!" sometimes when I'm alone in an elevator.

Stuff that we all need to think about.

Stuff like, what do I want to do with my life? What did I fuck up along the way? Why have I chosen this particular path? How can I get off it?

Up to now, my guiding principle has been fun. I have based everything I've done, consciously and subconsciously, on squeezing all the joy out of every day like my old pal Pat "Auto" Mattek finishing off an evening by wringing out a bar rag into a shot glass. On laughing like an evil scientist as often as possible. On high fives verbal, actual, and ironic. It's worked out OK. Fun is the way to go, I'm sure of it.

The problem with my philosophy is that as time goes by, you need to do more and more work just to make your fun possible. And work itself is the opposite of fun. But shit needs to get taken care of, money needs to be made, the alarm needs to be set on weekends sometimes. That's all just to make sure you ain't broke on a street corner or selling your baby to pay the rent. All to make sure you can afford a ballgame or a new pair of Air Jordans every now and then.

Now I find myself with a real job working real hours and I'm forced to concentrate like 12 hours a day on stuff that isn't necesarily in the "fun" column. And it's making me wonder.

I turn 37 in 8 days.

It's probably too late, but if I had my choice, if I could do anything in the world to make a living, what would it be? What would it be for you?

Too often as you get older you forget that it's OK to dream. Just because you might not have the talent or the training or the intelligence to earn a living at whatever it is you'd rather be doing doesn't mean you should give up. Pursuing the dream is half the fun.

So I sit here thinking about what it is I'd do if I could do anything. I've come up with a pie-in-the-sky version, a maybe-just-maybe-if-I-gave-it-a-sincere-effort version, and a very realistic version.

I'm not going to tell you what they are. But slowly over the next few months, I will pursue them. On my own time.

Enough with the Tony Robbins crap. There's been a lot of Tony Robbins crap on here lately. What's wrong with me? I guess I've just been feeling overwhelmed and crossroaded. That's not necessarily bad. Need to stir up the old brain or it gets soft.

Now...

On to what you expect when you enter the words "Elia Rant" or "Requirements for anal examination" in your google search box: discussion of really stupid stuff.

I was thinking about moustaches again today, as I often do, and I decided that America's last sincere, effective and important moustache belonged (belongs) to Keith Hernandez.* You could make an argument for a few other dudes, but Keith Hernandez is big-time and always will be.

I decided that while I will never have a moustache as nice or meaningful as his, I can at least try. So I hereby announce the first annual Verbungle Moustache Classic. I invite all of you to join me in the quest for the perfect 'stache. It certainly won't be the first moustache-growing contest of all time, but it will probably be the best.

Just a couple notes:
-I personally won't be starting my 'stache for a couple more weeks. But I encourage you all to begin as soon as possible.
-Goatees and beards of any kind negate the moustache. It has to be a moustache and only a moustache.
-You can email me photos at bungmeister at verbungle dot com as soon as you feel your 'stache is complete.
-Spread the word to your pals!
-Sometime around the beginning of October, I will post all the photos (estimated total: 0) and pick a winner. The winner will get a pack of "Just for Men" haircolor. Unless it's expensive. I gotta look that up. More importantly, the winner will forever me known as the best and baddest man around.

Who's with me? Gentlemen, start your follicles!

I will tally up all your physical feat genius points tomorrow. Some impressive stuff. In the meantime, tell me wheredis:


* This is among caucasian men.** Moustaches still flourish in the African-American and Latino communities. Thank God.
** Keith Hernandez, a Spaniard*** by heritage, is considered a caucasian for the purposes of this argument.
*** "Spaniard" is one of my favorite words.

dimestore horseshit

I saw something the other day on East 44th street that seemed to symbolize the human condition perfectly:

A man was riding up the sidewalk towards me in a recumbent wheelchair. It was a little unusual, I guess. He was moving efficiently, showing no signs of self-pity. Just rolling along on his way to work. Approximately ten feet behind him, another man was walking in the same direction as the wheelchair man. This man was actually pointing at the wheelchair man and laughing out loud, as if to say, Get a load of that freak.

There you have it, the triumph of the spirit and the forces that it must triumph against, back to back. Well done, boys.
It also made me realize that personal satisfaction comes from finding a balance in your life of gratitude and hunger. Meaning, finding a way to be thankful with what you've got while still expecting more from yourself. Stop dreaming and waiting and bitching and go out and do the best you can. And love whatever that is. Wheelchair Johnny ain't complaining. Why are you?

Yo yo yo. For eight points each, tell me a physical feat you've performed in your life that is as good as or better than throwing a tennis ball out of a moving car and catching it on a bounce (see 4.15.03 entry). I reserve the right to say whether your feat does in fact measure up.

And seriously, which recycling bin do milk cartons go in? Al Gore, you out there?

Oh, and this. Don't forget this:

back in biz

Things are looking a little better around here. We had some technical problems with our internet but it looks like we've got 'em figured out now. We rerouted a couple of tubes and put a new gearbox in the ol' truck and now everything's humming along again. Hot damn.

Pretty decent weekend. Laundry, softball, beers, kid. Went out to medium-deep Brooklyn where somehow it still feels like 1977.

What follows is a little theory about my life. My life may not be interesting to you, in which case take comfort in the fact that you are chilling with 99.9999999% of the world's population. You may now resume watching the 1996 film The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. But if you are among the elite few who give a damn, read on.

When I was in elementary school, I was a smart kid. Really smart. I know, we all were. But I was the smartest kid in the class, generally speaking. A good kid. The only time I ever got in trouble was when Kissel ratted me out to Ms. Levy for bending my toy Triceratops's tail back between his legs like a penis. I was mischievous, but still a pretty decent kid. Class President in 5th grade, bitches. And for the most part a happy, happy little fella.

Then I got to junior high school and suddenly I was an average student, nothing more. Some classes were better than others. Assignments started to back up. And I started to carry around a ball of stress in my stomach, probably due to the fact that I felt like I was struggling to keep up with the work.

Then I got to high school and I fell apart. Pretty much completely. I'm not one of those people who looks back on high school and says, what a horrible time thank God it's over, but maybe I should be. I felt severely anxious almost every day.

I recovered slightly in college and I've done OK since then. I always get high marks on performance reviews but never really get anywhere. And I still carry around a lot of anxiety, sometimes over the simplest, stupidest things.*

Usually when I try to figure out where the anxiety set in I think back to that awful time in high school when I was basically flunking out and feeling helpless about it. But the truth is that at some point between 5th and 6th grades, something changed. I got stupider, and as a result I eventually became less carefree and less sure of myself. That dropoff, that feeling that suddenly I wasn't as smart as I thought I was, damaged my self-confidence for life.

I've thought about the possible reasons why school suddenly became such a bitch for me, and here they are in order of likeliness:

1) School gets harder in 6th grade. I had developed bad work habits because the work in elementary school was so easy, and I was unable or unwilling to improve those habits.
2) My parents' divorce screwed me up somehow, and it took a couple of years for the screwing up to take hold (they were divorced in the summer between 4th and 5th grades).
3) I went through the usual adolescent crises and it reflected in my schoolwork.
4) I wasn't really that smart when you really think about it.
5) Some other deeper problem was making it hard for me to concentrate.
6) There are a million more possibilities, including this latest:

Right around that time, my dad became friendly with Colonel Tony Herbert, a decorated war hero who had come under fire for criticizing the military brass during Vietnam. Colonel Herbert took us sailing on his catamaran, he treated us to some nice dinners, and he gave us some lead soldiers. He also gave us the molds for the lead soldiers, and about 30 pounds of lead.

We wanted to make some more soldiers, so my dad and I then melted down the remaining lead in a saucepan and poured it into the molds. In our kitchen. With the window cracked just a little. There was a visible plume of lead smoke coming off the saucepan, and we would try to avoid it as it spun around the pot and spilled out in every direction. Most of the time, you got lucky. Sometimes it hit you right in the face.

Let me reiterate: my father and I would be standing in our kitchen making lead soldiers on the stove and trying to dodge the fumes.

I think maybe that's when I got dumb.

Somebody please tell me if this is possible. Maybe it wasn't lead. Lead melts at like 600 degrees fahrenheit. Can a stovetop reach 600 degrees? Whatever the case, we made metal soldiers in a pan on our stove and that's probably when I got dumb.

Here is an uncomprehensive list of places I've been spectacularly drunk. Truth is I haven't traveled much. Points have been awarded appropriately, and I have decided not to punish people who repeated other people's guesses.

Madison, WI
Milwaukee, WI
Marshfield, WI
Osceola, WI
Star Prairie, WI
Stillwater, MN
Minneapolis, MN
St. Paul, MN
Bloomington, MN
Eagle River, WI
New York, NY
Brooklyn, NY
Queens, NY
Staten Island, NY
Bronx, NY
Riverhead, NY
Boston, MA
Cambridge, MA
Chicago, IL
Libertyville, IL
Mundelein, IL
Los Angeles, CA
Atlantic City, NJ
New Orleans, LA
Kakauna, WI
High Cliff, WI
Appleton, WI
Oshkosh, WI
DePere, WI
Daytona Beach, FL
Cape Cod, MA
Nantucket, MA
San Juan, PR
Florence, Italy
Woodstock, NY
Evanston, IL
San Diego, CA

For five points, one guess to a customer, tell me in which of those cities I slept on a waterbed.

Now tell me song (8 points) and artist (8 points) and for the love of Jesus please don't google:

Back with some shit that gots to bump
As you pull up in the park you pops the trunk
Just to floss it like a motherfucker, clownin an' shit
Got the Dana's on your hooptie and your fly-ass bitch

I just got some tremendous, tremendous news. My friend, hero and Pictionary partner BC the Bigot Slaya is moving to NYC soon! Wow. He's lived all over the world and now he'll be my neighbor. Dude, I hope you get here in time for the final softball game of the year.

New softball recap is up.

* Which isn't to say I'm an unhappy person. Far from it. I love life and I feel lucky to be a part of this universe.

it gets easier when you die

You know what's cool about human beings? How we can adapt as our lives become more challenging. I mean, animals can do it a little bit, too. Like when a cat has babies they make the adjustment and start nursing the babies and stuff, whereas in the past they'd just chill all day licking their gennies and getting trapped on the high bookshelf. But if your cat had kittens and it was nursing them all day every day and then you told the cat that from here on out you'd like to see her pitch in a little more with the housework, she'd be all, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

But human beings man, we can spin a lot of plates at the same time.

The Bungles have a lot of plates spinning right now. But there's always time for a beer in a bag over by second base.
Enjoyable new softball recap from James and Pete is up complete with photos. Any discussion of game action is purely coincidental.

The Metrodome is a real monstrosity.

You guys are in a genius slump. Some definite points left on the board right now. We'll trudge ahead anyway. For four points each, name the cities I've been drunk (like completely out of my mind blind drunk) in.

back to the drawing board

So, the bad news is...no God.

Wah-WAH.

I was able to smack a (somewhat wimpy) CSHR in my first try on Sunday night, but on my second try (after a rather inappropriate crucifix-style home run call) I was only able to hit a line drive that fell somewhere near the fence for a base hit. The severe assiness of the ball overwhelmed whatever spiritual energy I could muster, and that was that. Science & Assiness 1, Faith and Magic 0.

My "religious" period was pretty enjoyable, though. In fact, I don't wholly retract my statements of the other day. I still think there's Magic out there in the trees and in the wind and in 32-ounce bottles of original-flavor Gatorade. I just don't know if a simple man like me is capable of harnessing it.

One thing I would like to take back is the part where I called other people's religious texts "madness". What the hell do I know, really? I just figured, those books were written by dudes centuries ago struggling with the same search for meaning and purpose that we're struggling with today, what are the odds that they are actually historically accurate? My guess is that they were meant to be symbolic and somehow somebody forgot to put disclaimers in there. We saw it happen to James Frey, with all the tools of modern technology at his disposal. Why not to some dude writing on parchment a couple thousand years ago? Still, if one of those books is dead-on balls accurate, let me say: My bad, Jesus, Allah, and company. You know I respect you. You know I'm just out here looking for a sign, trying to figure shit out. We're good, right?

One thing that's cool about the internet is that it's created a forum for hundreds of millions of sports fans to blog about stuff. Twenty years ago, there wasn't much in the way of dissenting voices in the world of sports. You were stuck with the (generally lazy and backwards-thinking) MSSM (Mainstream Sports Media) as your only source. If you were a fan with even halfway decent knowledge and intelligence, you spent most of your game-watching and paper-reading time smashing your head against the wall as an "expert" got away with saying stuff that you knew was just plain incorrect. There was no one to call bullshit. Now, in addition to all the passionate and often creative fansites, we have cool spots like FJM and Deadspin, critiquing the John Kruks of the world. And whether you like those sites or not, it's hard to argue that the infusion of some new thought into sports has been anything but good.

Good softball last night. We excitedly await a promised recap from the always-on-point PBdotC and his mega-creative bud James. We have pics from Leigh. It should be, as the kids are saying, stupid fresh.

Nobody got shoedat yet. I am lowering the value to 5 GP's and I am giving you a hint. They're real comfortable shoes.

Also, for twelve points, what am I bringing to work on Tuesday that I normally don't?