Saturday Night Lullaby

Greetings from Long Island!!

Have a fun and safe Saturday night.

Remember don't drink and drive. Designated drivers are sexy. :)

Ohhhhh Billy. What else could I play . . .

They're sharing a drink called loneliness

You're not my teacher

But if you were . . . this song might have applied to you at some point.

The best read in a while, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder

For Alison Wonderland, Ruby Dee's first play was "Alice in Wonder." :)

I'm going to NYC for the next few days!!!




If you care . . .

I do chalk most up to coincidence, but if you're helping any of that along I'd really just like to be left alone. Burn the net please. Save face, it's cool.

P.S. And while I'm used to cutting out for a multitude of reasons . . . I'm really just upset I never got the chance to tell you how I feel. It wouldn't have been perfect, but I really wanted to try.

It was directed by his brother . . . come on now.

People always like to categorize themselves into groups in hopes that they'll be understood. This is crap. If someone won't spend time with you . . . they won't understand you. I understand it's easier to have some sort of discussion prompt, "Oh hey the Boss is a real jerk." "Did you understand what the Professor said?" "How about those Pat's?" etc. I think, again, this is bull shit. Some of the people I love hanging out with the most, I have the least in common with. When you work with someone or go to school with someone you get a chance to bond. If you don't well . . .

That being said, my friend from NH and I have heavily debated this next topic sitting in traffic in Boston (the only time things like this should really be debated, when you have nothing better to do) . . . there were two camps of kids growing up . . . kids who payed homage to The Karate Kid and kids who payed homage to the lesser known, Sidekicks. The former came out almost a decade before and I will give in to my friend's first argument, that Sidekicks very, well may be a cheap roundhouse-kick knock off of The Karate Kid. But I don't care. Jonathan Brandis (yes the cutie from The Never Ending Story II) was a huge crush of mine. I looked forward to seeing him each week on Sea Quest. His posters had a place next to my Omri Katz posters. Oh how I miss Bop magazine and the 5-7-9 store (Who remembers that place?).

Here are the rest of the arguments

Jonathan is cuter than Ralph.

Sidekicks has Mako AND Chuck Norris, but yet I will agree, even combined they will never trump Pat Morita. Never.

Danika McKellar and hot Asian, teacher babe, Julia Nickson-Soul kind of beat out Elisabeth Shue. Admit it, cute, sassy Winnie Cooper + hot cougar exotic Asianness = far more wet dreams than the girl next door route.

Every kid had day dreams about their heroes. Even though the movie "critic" I'm about to show you shits all over that, Sidekicks makes those dreams a huge part of the movie, and I respect the movie more for it.

Sidekicks was actually a movie for Chuck Norris. And I'm okay with that. It was directed by his brother, I mean come on now.
Let me explain my love of Chuck Norris. He's ridiculous. He's absolutely fucking ridiculous . . . and I don't think he has any idea. I watch Walker: Texas Ranger and die of hysterical laughter. Has anyone ever noticed that Chuck's favorite way to enter a fight scene is cowboy boots first? It's fantastic.

In all actuality The Karate Kid is a better movie (script, acting, directing . . . etc). That's probably why it was never on the shelf of VideoCraze by the time my brother and I got there. But Sidekicks always was--- it was a sure thing. And when you're like . . . 10, you kind of don't give a shit about the things everyone tells you, you should care about. But Chuck Norris was still ridiculous. Again, he's the only one not in on that joke (well him and the whole mid-west, that is). Snark attack!!!

This guy is pretty hilarious.

And my friends Walker and Texas Ranger would like to finish the blog post for me.

Laura Marling

I love Laura Marling . . . her "love songs" are honest.

The Ten Minute Hustle

Look, I've provided a bit of insight on this blog before as to how to be a better consumer. Most people (and I whole-heartily believe this) don't want to be an asshole. I think every now and then we get so wrapped up in our own lives we're completely unaware of how our actions may seem to others. Like coming into a store right before they close to "browse." It's cool if you know what you want, or you're just doing a return and you have your shit together. Regardless, ten minutes before we close is my favorite time of the night. We like to pick customers (especially on a beautiful Sunday like yesterday) and basically be a haunt. I may come right up next to you and ask you if you need help looking for anything, I may even casually drop a few hints that the store is about to close. I'll start tidying up all extra around you . . . basically I make it so uncomfortable to shop, you'll want to leave. But it has taken years of practice to become tactful about it. And I don't answer questions in depth. My favorite answer (and I'll say this to any question) is to just say what time we open the next day,

"Excuse me could you tell me what kind of Juicy Couture stuff you have in?"
"9:30."
"What?"
"We open at 9:30 AM tomorrow for your Juicy shopping convenience."

By that time you're so stunned you usually just walk away. Or I pretend not to hear you. I have no problem doing any of this to complete strangers. I don't care. I'll tell friends and family (I've kicked my own mother out before) to go home and get a life . . . kidding, well only 1/2 kidding of course. But most people understand and just don't stick around that late. Then there are the awkward few, who by social constraint you're obligated to be nice to but . . . you don't really know them well enough to tell them to get lost so . . . you're stuck. This happened to me yesterday so I decided to send a newbie out on the job. What a disaster, but in a funny way.

I was knee deep in bathing suits when I heard a customer clink two hangers behind me. I turned and was about to do my too close for comfort move when I realized who it was. Hmph. Doesn't matter who, it was just one of those in between folks that if I did my normal routine I'd probably hear about it later so I just decided to let it go. But then I got fucking annoyed. I want to go eat pizza after work and catch up on True Blood. Get the fuck out. So I call over this girl that's been here long enough to begin her training in the "Ten Minute Hustle." As I'm trying to explain how to go about kicking people out, the customer moves, and then the new girl wants to know why I can't do it (it really is one of my favorite things to do at the end of night because I'm kind of mean like that) and then we have to get into that and then she keeps asking who and we fight over the customer's hair color, the whole time talking about the customer like she's not within earshot, finally the customer's on her way out (way past the point we'd normally bother with) and the new girl yells, "Go home!!" and waves her fist in indignation at her. Priceless.

Oh yeah, moral of the story, don't go shopping in a store about to close. Trust me, if you don't know what you need, you're not going to find it in ten minutes. Let it go.
And we open at 9:30 on weekdays and Saturdays, and now 10 o'clock on Sundays for your bathing suit shopping convenience.
Peace,
C.M.

Scratch the first

Now this is a Saturday Night Lullaby