I realized that I have inadvertently done a brilliant thing to improve my productivity here in the office.

(”You mean like not blogging in two weeks?”)

No! Screw you, inner monologue.  He can get so self-righteous sometimes.

I have allowed boxes of printed samples and calendars to fill all the chairs and every flat surface in my glorified cubicle.  (I have a door and a window, but it just leads into another cubicle.)  Thanks to the lack of horizontal space, nobody can sit down in my office but me.  Conversations about nothing have been reduced by almost 100% and my quiet work time has increased accordingly.  Of course, SEC football does start next week…

Knuck got me picking through the ole digital vault for pictures from circa 1986.

Then                      Now

Certainly less hair, and what is left is much grayer, but damned if I don’t look like myself.

It’s not too late to move my crap from my basement to your basement!

Go here for details.

View of my parking lot:

Big-ass gas-guzzling Chevy Z71 pick `em up truck with a trailer hitch

Big-ass gas-guzzling Chevy Z71 pick `em up truck with a trailer hitch

Big-ass gas-guzzling Chevy Z71 pick `em up truck with a trailer hitch

Camry Hybrid with a bicycle on the back

All together now, “One of these things is not like the other.”

You know you want it!

It’s some of my better sell copy. I really should be in marketing. Oh wait, I am…

If you live in Nashville or are willing to drive here in a Uhaul sometime in the next week, it would behoove you to go here.

As you were.  Carry on.

I’ll be absent from the information stuporhighway for the next fortnight.

Until I get back, y’all play nice with each other and let’s maintain that lead, Cubbies!

Arrivederci, adio and hoşça kalın.

If you think you’ve had the worst day ever and are just about as low as you can be, go rent “La Vie en Rose.”

Not only will you sit through 2+ hours of the story of somebody’s life that is much more tragic than yours, it’ll surprisingly make your day just a little bit worse.

The music was cool, though.

When I ride my bike by myself on country roads, I’ve started using my iPod Shuffle at low volume to keep myself motivated and entertained.  My rear view mirror protects me from overtaking traffic and usually I can see a cow crossing the road from a mile away in the hinterlands.

But when I ride from home through downtown up Hermitage Avenue and the hooker/day laborer/hourly hotel/spooky cemetary/quonset hut tavern route that is my daily commute, no headphones for me.  I need 100% attention on the road and my surroundings to have a chance to arrive intact.

Unfortunately, that means whatever silly-ass song that gets in my head will stay there for my 35 minute ride, often hummed and whistled in single stanza segments on both the inhale and exhale as I climb hills.  Some recent brain-worms that have haunted me:

“Hot dogs.  Armour hot dogs.What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs?
Tough kids, sissy kids, kids who climb on rocks.
Tall kids, short kids, even kids with chickepox
Love hot dogs… Armour hot dogs…
The dogs-kids-love-to-bite!”

“Mid-south bizness furniture.  Mid-south bizness furniture. Mid-south bizness furniture.” (repeat x 1000.  I’m not kidding.  That’s all there is to the damn song)

“It’s the New Zoo Revue.  Coming right at you.  With three delightful animals. They have fun with what they do.  They learn from their friend Doug.  (Their friend Doug!)  And his “helper” (quotes mine) Emmy Jo.  (Emmy Jo!) With Charlie! Freddy! Henrietta! They have fun learning what they don’t know.”

“867-5309. 867-530 ni-ee-yine.”

On the rare occasion, I can force these brainworms from my head by singing a verse of “Mustang Sally,” but I doubt the performance is too convincing to the “thirsty-two ouncer lunchbox special” set sitting on the bus stop bench considering I’m wearing skintight spandex pants with a padded crotch pad and a clown-suit jersey with Italian written all over it.

The worst is when I happen to catch a snippet of a commercial just as I go out the door in the morning.   I have a real fear that someday I will find myself in an emergency situation that is not necessarily life-threatening and I’ll end up on hold after dialing 1 (800) 588-2300.

Because the NAMM show has returned to Nashvegas, we can expect to see some incredible music in town this coming weekend.  And some of it will be in unexpected places.

A little birdie (OK, really it was a musician friend of mine) told me about a show on Saturday night that I cannot freakin’ believe.

At 9:30 upstairs in the pool room of the Sportsman’s Grille in Hillsboro Village, Jack Pearson, Tony Monaco and Jim White will be playing as a jazz trio.  For free.  In a sports bar.

For the underinformed, Jack Pearson is a virtuoso guitar player who has played with everyone from Bobby “Blue” Bland to the Allman Brothers.  Tony Monaco is probably one of the top three Hammond B-3 organ players on the planet.  And Jim White, well he’s just plain a motherf*cker on the drums.

It should be an amazing show!  It’s nights like this that make me feel very lucky to live in this town.

Something I really don’t like about myself that is embarrassingly transparently self-revelatory:

When loading or unloading my car, I almost always try to carry more things in my arms at one time than I can handle.  I invariably drop something and break stuff.

Hmm…I wonder what that says about my tendency and inability to attempt to manage multiple projects?

…but even I can do basic math.

Voila a barely legible phone photo from a sports bar menu in Atlanta.

$5.00 for a large and $7.50 for a small?  I showed them.  I ordered two smalls.

I figure I’ll make it up in volume.  My tummy doesn’t feel too good, though.

Dear Pottery Barn, Wine Spectator, Magellan Travel, Target, Sears, Amazon, Red Envelope, Brookstone and any other mass marketer who has sent me an email over the past week reminding me that Father’s Day is coming soon and suggesting the perfect gift for my father,

He’s dead,  OK?

I hope you’re proud of yourselves.

We already bought him a freakin’ urn.  Sheez.

Well, it wasn’t really at Fan Fair, but it is really me and it was really about 1978 and I was really funny looking…

Dear inbred, beer-swilling hillbilly occupants of the caravan of three rebel-flag-flying black SUVs and pick `em up trucks who damn near ran me off the road on my bike ride home in your haste to get downtown on Hermitage Avenue because you were apparently running a few minutes late to see Kenny Chesney tongue-kiss George Strait on his booty-hole,

Screw you and your contribution to the local economy!  I’m pretty sure we don’t take Confederate money anyway.

Douchenozzles.