I love the smell of Inappropriate Golden Books in the morning...

The HOBO-LYMPIC Games

If you've been watching the Olympic Games in Beijing, you know the excitement of watching these great athletes perform. There's the Women's Beach Volleyball, ....that Micheal Phelps swimming guy, and.....the women's beach volleyball. Really exciting stuff.
Well I just got back from my trip to a different kind of China. Chinatown, San Francisco to be exact. That's where this year's Hobo-lympics are underway and BOY what a great year! The opening ceremony was amazing! Hearing the Hobo-lympic theme being played only on washboards and the spoons is truly beautiful.
I was lucky enough to see famous hobo-athlete 'Skitts McRash' compete against rookie 'Janky DownFly' in the 100 meter Run-n-Babble event. Then we grabbed a couple cans of Hobo-lympic sponsored baked beans and caught 'Stinks Malloy' go head to head against 'Professor Scabs' in the Floor Spare Change competition, brought to you by Subway. (Well it was in front of a Subway, anyhow)
There was even some alleged scandal when 'Knifey "the knife" Stabstab', attacked 4 time gold medal winner 'Twitchy SkullCap Jitters' (pictured above) with the metal lid of a cat food container during the BackAlley Dumpster Diving competition. Even with deep lacerations, Jitters took the gold and during the awards ceremony, used his middle fingers to show the audience who was "number one". (It was ironic considering the "metal" around his neck was made from a cat food lid.)
We were about to catch my favorite game, the Individual Obscenity Screaming event, when the police showed up and put an end to the games early this year. But before that, I did get to talk for a bit to 8 time Gold medal winner for the Bindle Toss, hobo-lympic star 'Gums McRazor' which was a treat. I asked him how confident he felt this year about bringing home the gold, and he said to me, "I can gold MY OWN time with the devil and a wiffle ball bat, scruffy." Then he picked a fight with a parking meter.

That one movie everyone saw

I camped out in front of my local IMAX cinema for 4 days, by myself (apparantly all my loser friends have "jobs" and "families"), just to catch the first showing. The theatre owners and people passing by scoffed at me, called me names, and asked me to leave the premises, but I wasn't going anywhere. I had been waiting for YEARS for this highly anticipated sequel to finally be released, and I wasn't going to miss it for the world. FINALLY, I was allowed inside and the movie played. It was fantastic. All my favorite characters were on screen again, with all the action and humor of the first movie. It was a blast. I may be alone on this, but I think this was one of those rare sequels that is better than the original. I think you'll agree. Make sure you check out 'SisterHood of the Traveling Pants 2'.

Then a few days later i saw that batman movie. It was alright.
It didn't have any traveling pants in it though.

My Bucket List

There's a popular fad going 'round these days with aging movie stars. They make Bucket Lists. These are things written in a "list" that you want to do before you kick the "bucket".
This is nothing new. I've had my "Dirt Nap Directory" written on a framed napkin hanging in my living room for years, and I've almost completed everything on it.

1. Dance with the Stars
2. Become the King of Kong
3. Make a woman faint by winking at her
4. Crash a Shelby Mustang
5. Kill/consume a polar bear
6. Flip a house....literally
7. Get my full body tattoo removed
8. Streak during a NASCAR race
9. Get an entourage
10. Learn to ride a bike
11. Skydive from space
12. Roundhouse kick a knife out of someone's hand
13. Get knighted by Queen Latifah
14. Help a complete stranger commit a crime
15. Waste time by writing a blog
16. Get adopted by an angry, rich bald man who I soften with my singing
17. Find Waldo
18. Jump over a shark on a motorcycle
19. Perform surgery (legally)
20. Prevent someone from completing their Bucket List

AfterWorks 3 is GO!

Check out the early designs, sketches, artwork for the third installment of Afterworks.

It's gonna be so awesome, you'll punch a hobo.

LOOKIT WHAT I MADE!!!!!! (my wife helped)

Sorry for the recent lack of postings, fellow blog viewer. I've been a little busy supporting our dwindling population problem by bringing human life into the world. Kinda puts YOUR week into prospective now doesn't it? I'm busy helping our species thrive, and your at home probably pants-less, drunk on Cocoa Pebbles and watching a continuous loop of Flight of the Navigator on TBS the SuperStation.

I envy you.

9 months ago, the oversized softball of fate was thrown at the target of life, and on July 7th, the platform fell from underneath me and I was dropped into the dunk tank of fatherhood.
Lola Belle Cooley is my new toy, and she brings me more joy than infinity hours of Flight of the Navigator. She likes to eat, poop, sleep, and she likes breasts...so we have a lot in common. I'm sharpening up my fathering skills by watching the Bill Cosby documentary, Ghost Dad. It's good to know even after my demise, I can still be a good father.
I've already started laying down the rules like a good dad should. Lola told me she wants to go to Burning Man this year and I was shocked....especially since she's only a week old and she can talk. I told her absolutely NOT, she will have to wait until she is AT LEAST 4. So she got all mad, told me I sucked, and threatened to bludgeon me in my sleep with a Lite Brite.
Ha! Kids say the darndest things!

Happy 4th of July Day!

Growing up, my family had a great ritual every fourth of July. My dad would pile the family into the car and we would drive two hours on a dirt road to the county line where there would be a row of beat-up, rust encrusted, toyota pick-ups, that had "convienently" lost their license plates. Sitting in the beds of these trucks, were our local sketchy illegal fireworks salesmen.

These men were lost souls, rejected from society, and forced to sell their illegal Mexican wares far from the outstretched arms of the law. We would walk along the row of truck beds, inspecting the merchandise as if we were at Wal-Mart...a very VERY scary Wal-Mart. I remember once a guy tried to interest my dad with a box of M-80s, and when he didn't look interested, offered to sell us something with a little more "punch". A Hand Grenade.

These men were modern day pirates...well at least some of them were missing body parts like pirates. There were always about 12 to 13 guys, and there probaly wasn't a full set of teeth between them. Every year, the same guy was always parked on the end of the row. I soon came to realize HE was the reason we came out here every year. We gave him the nickname of "Old Faithful." Not just because we were sure to see him every year like clockwork, but because he looked like he too had been blown up every 8 minutes. He was propped up in a lawn chair in the bed of his truck, knawing on beef jerky with his good tooth. His lazy eye always looked South, like a broken compass, while his other eye looked East, through an old pair of binoculars he would use to watch out for cops. It looked like he had used his fake right arm, to construct his fake left arm . It consisted of extra long cardboard tubes stapled together,wire coat hangers, and salad tongs on the end. His fake right arm was a plastic bloody arm halloween prop with a motion sensor inside it. Every time he moved it, his arm would cackle then wish you a Happy Halloween.
My dad would make us stand there and stare at Old Faithful, until he noticed we weren't buying anything, then Old Faithful would start cussing our family out in the jibberish language he spoke. That's when we knew it was time to leave. We would walk along the dirt path back to the car, empty handed. Then my dad would turn to us, look us in the eye, and sternly state..."THAT is why you don't buy fireworks."