And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds

...and binding with briars my joys and desires.

In one of my favorite films, Lone Star, Chris Cooper plays what I think may be The World's Saddest Sheriff. I've finally found a companion to the film, the 1950 Robert Bresson film Diary of a Country Priest, in which Claude Laydu shows us what inner torment really means as The World's Saddest Priest.

I haven't finished watching the movie yet -- I've been digesting it slowly, much like the priest with his stomach problems, and his absurdly bleak self-imposed diet of stale bread and wine. But I've certainly gotten far enough to feel certain that nothing will ever go this poor guy's way. He can't even bring himself to pray... although he reasons that the desire to pray is as good as prayer in God's eyes.

Anyway, not much to report. It's a well-made, affecting film... and one that has done no favors for my own mood, to be perfectly honest. Once this is over, I think I'll need to pop a couple of Father Ted episodes in the DVD player. As an exorcism, of sorts.

Now there's a priest who isn't cursed by an excess of self-examination.

Rob

Hot Tub Alarm Clock Machine

Last night I dreamed I had dinner with Mitt Romney.

It was private dinner, with Mitt and a bunch of my friends and me. It was mostly just genial chit-chat. And then someone made a joke about another friend, with connections to the media (and, in the dream, the Obamasphere), having attended a hot-tub party with Bill Clinton back in the 90s. And Mitt just laughed and we moved on, but then the person emphasized that they were just joking about the hot-tub party. And suddenly it seemed like we were covering it up. Like there was actually a Clinton Hot Tub Party, and my friend was there, and Boy Did He Have Stories. And for the rest of the night—even as Mitt was washing the dishes as we were leaving—we just continued to deny and deny this totally made-up hot-tub party. Which just made the made-up party sound truly scandalous. But Mitt just chuckled and scrubbed a pot, saying, “I know; relax; it’s no big deal.”

And I’d say, “No, really, we were joking.”

And he’d say he believed us, but we could see the gears spinning in his head, planning to use this fabricated hot-tub party as opposition research. (As if he were running against Clinton, but whatever.) But the more we denied it, the more credibility we gave the story. Hell, suddenly I wasn't sure if it had ever happened, either.

So when we got back to our hotel—where, coincidentally, a hot-tub party was going on, and my buddy was there. I told him, “Dude, I think you’re gonna be on the news.”

And then, after all the talk of hot-tub parties and Mitt Romney washing dishes in his sink, I woke up, realizing I had to pee.

Rob

P.S. Special Behind the Scenes Info! You'd think by Googling "Bill Clinton Hot Tub" I'd have plenty of (photoshopped) images to work with, but there was really just one, and it was awful. So use your imaginarium for this.

Celeb Sighting...and Simultaneous Celeb Overlooking

So, a few hours before I started realizing that the world was a complete fabrication, Kathy and I were sitting in the airport waiting to board our plane, when the plane's previous occupants begin disembarking. And points to a guy in sunglasses, dressed mostly in black, and says, "That's Walton Goggins." Which it was -- one of my favorite actors (Shane Vendrell on The Shield, and now Boyd Crowder on Justified -- both nuanced, always surprising performances) had just left the plane and was walking right past us. I leaped to my feet to talk to him, and then immediately realized what a stupid idea that was. So I just smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. He gave me a little wave of acknowledgement and kept on walking.

Little did I realize, but I'm now 90 percent sure the guy next to me in the waiting area was also someone I admire... and have a couple of his albums, to boot. Bobby Lounge, an eccentric New Orleans piano player (he begins his performances by getting wheeled onstage in a prop iron lung, and keeps a nurse reading magazines at the edge of the stage while he plays piano), was two seats down. I even spoke to him for a minute, and never caught on. Thing is, somewhere I even have a picture of me with Bobby, taken during the last Jazzfest. And still, I only had the slightest ping on my radar that he was familiar... most likely because his picture isn't on his CDs.

But anyway, for your listening pleasure, here's "I Will," from Bobby's album I Remember the Night Your Trailer Burned Down.

Enjoy.





Rob

Moment of Random

I google-imaged the words "booger fight" and this is the top result... regardless of whether or not the phrase was in quotes.

Think of this in the event you ever need to remember what disappointment feels like.

Rob

PS. While this top entry still doesn't get the job done, it does make me think Bing might be a better fit for my search engine needs.

Strange Phenomenon

Sunday night around 9 p.m., Kathy and I were flying over Washington, D.C., landing in Dulles to make a connecting flight to Newark. We were sitting on opposite sides of the airplane, and both noticed the same strange phenomenon. We didn't talk about it at the time, but I mentioned it to Kathy a few hours later, and she said, "You saw that, too?"

Here's what we saw: Lights in specific areas of the city were blurry -- but strangely, there were areas night nearby where the lights were sharp and distinct. The blurry lights--whether they were street lights, building lights, or the head or tail lights of cars -- looked somehow rounder than they should have, as if blurred by a computer effect. It made me think of how satellite photos of sensitive areas are blurred out by Google Maps... but, of course, these weren't photos. This was real life.

I've no idea what caused this. Atmospheric conditions seem the most likely cause, but there were also places we could see lights clearly. Other notions that crossed my mind were that the government had set up subtle cloaking technology over D.C., to help prevent attacks. Or, that were were actually staring down into Google Maps, and were experiencing The Matrix as we flew over (and landed in it, and are living in it, still). Maybe Agents will be after me just for writing this.

Anyway, I would have forgotten about it, if Kathy hadn't noticed it too, and independently of me. But now I wonder: Trick of the light and air, cloaking technology, or a privileged glimpse to see how far down the rabbit hole goes?

Rob

In which Rob realizes he did not grow up in the center of the universe

D'oh! Want to know the source of my woe? Click here and share my disillusionment, fellow Cougars.

Rob

Off the Map

So I'm watching The Colbert Report, and he flashes the treasure map (available in his Super Pac Super Fun Pack) up on the screen. And I pause it, because I realize the trail for the treasure map is a series of dots and dashes. Morse code.

So I take a little time to translate it, and I found the secret message! It read:

"NOT THE REAL MAP NOT THE REAL MAP."

You win this time, Colbert.

Rob

Striking a Chord

So there's apparently some new dangerous fishing show on the National Geographic Channel called Wicked Tuna. We see a promo for it, and I turn to Kathy and say, "It's like Deadliest Catch, but it's set in Boston."

And she says: "And it stars the guy who fixes your piano."

Pretty much every day, I get confirmation that I definitely married my match.

"Dorrreen! The keybaad is shaahp, stahting around middle C. Call in the wicked tuna!"

Rob

P.S. I got yer wicked tuna right heah!

War an' Peace an' Sushi an' Udon

So I went to my meeting this morning, and as I suspected, I dropped a bit: lost 3.8 pounds, or as photoblogger Drew McDermott put it when he posted this photo back in 2008: "3.8 pounds of Russian Literature. Fuckin' thick book."

I think he was actually reading it, not dropping proportionate bits of it from his body. But both are to be celebrated, and hopefully I'll get around to reading it one day, too.

Anyway, 3.8 pounds is nearly two puppies that have found a good home away from my belly. So that's somethin'. Altogether, I'm 6.2 pounds down since I started this fistfight with my own mortality. Lunches were the key this week, I think, choosing udon and sushi over sandwiches, for the most part.

Plus: I'll be riding my bike in the Five Boro Tour on May 6... which means I'll have to be riding it for long distances a lot sooner than that, because that damn ride is 40 miles long and part of it is going up the Verrazanno Bridge. Never mind that part of it is riding down the bridge, part of it is riding up that big ol' hump. But hey, that's what the Humpty Dance is all about, huh? It's your chance to do the hump.

And with that horrible moment of word-association, I bid you a fond adieu.

Rob

Thursday's Meeting

So: Went to a meeting in the city (where I'm working this week), and was up two pounds.

Which is, apparently, one Chihuahua/Westie hybrid puppy.

Which means simple math tells me that if I weigh myself in puppies, I weigh half as much!

I weigh 120 puppies! Which is terrifying, if you think about how much poop I'd produce.

Anyway, I'm not gonna stress about the gain. I was wearing heavier clothes than I do at my home meeting, and had already eaten breakfast (including a couple of bananas), rather than just ingesting a couple sips of coffee on my way out the door. So 2 pounds is a rounding error. In that I am rounder than I want to be, and would like to correct it. Hopefully this week will turn out better.

But in the meantime, puppies!

Rob

A Close Shave in Gotham City

Dreamed about Batman last night, so that’s a win.

Of course, the context of that dream was pretty unusual. It started out normal enough: a crime scene, and Batman was checking out the body of the murder victim. He’d been scalped, and part of his scalp was on the floor of the warehouse next to his body. Batman could tell—and therefore, as the audience, I could tell as well—that the murderer was no ordinary hair-thief, scalping innocent victims and wearing their hair on his head. Instead, from the position and condition of the leftover scalp piece, Batman knew that the murderer was using the dead man’s hair as pubic hair.

I recall thinking, “Of course, they can’t say that outright, because kids might read this. But it’s pretty clear to a grown-up.” Ah, the magic of sequential art.

Cut to the office storage closet that Batman operates out of. (Editor’s note: This story takes place in the days before the Batcave!) As he’s analyzing clues on the Bat-computer, he notices that there’s one less fine red felt-tip pen on the shelf than he expected... and there were red dotted lines at the edge of the incision point on the victim’s head! Which meant the killer was inside the office!

My alarm woke me up before Batman could do a company-wide pube inspection at Wayne Enterprises, so I’ll never know who the killer was. But giving it some thought this morning, I wondered what his (or her) supervillain name would be. And then it hit me: The Merkin Psycho.

The only problem is, which one will Christian Bale play in the movie?

Rob

More Success.

Even after a Mardi Gras party that I think has to be characterized as a blowout, I managed to shave another 1.4 pounds off my enormous frame. Hopefully, I will look less and less like a giant king cake baby as time goes on.

Anyway, the way I handled things this year was I completely ignored my weekly allotment of special points all week -- knowing that they'd all be used up in food and drink on Saturday. Plus, I added more points into the mix by going to the gym a few times, and exercising at home a bit, too. (Also, Sunday was a pretty light eating day, for understandable reasons.)

In honor of this particular Mardi Gras party--and its terrifying guest of honor, a crystal skull that so many of us were drinking god knows what from--here's that 1.4 pounds, represented in a hand-crafted tiger-eye skull.

Ghost Rider, eat your heart out.

And in profile!

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

And it can be yours for $3,000 bucks or so!

Rob

Lost Three Pounds!

That's a backpack. (No butter included.)

It's kind of nice thinking I stopped carrying a backpack this week. Now if I could just get rid of this baby kangaroo...

Rob

Bear-Ass Naked

The other day I was at the gym (I know!) and while I was listening to my audiobook (Stephen King's Duma Key), I got to witness a long commercial for giant teddy bears. Which means it must be Valentine's Day.

In the commercial, gorgeous women were presented by a giant stuffed bear (only $99!), and would hug it and squeeze it and fall against it on the couch, or jump into bed with it.

Now, I couldn't hear the sound. But I could read the look in the eyes of all these beautiful women. And--I swear this is only 20% imagination--that look said:

"I'm going to fuck the stuffing out of this bear... and you can watch!"

The photo above is actually less lascivious than the impression I got from the commercial, which can be viewed here.

So, happy Valentine's Day. 'Specially you, silly old bear.

Rob

Square One

I found out the last time I tried this that if I don't do this publicly, I won't have any success at all. So I went back to Weight Watchers today, after who knows how long flailing about without it, which followed several half-hearted attempts to return. I've been exercising a bit these past few weeks, and now it's time to work on the intake. Got in, weighed myself (in clothing): 248.2 pounds. Which means that, after all the time I spent since I first tried this, I've lost .6 pounds.

Woo. hoo.

You know what weighs 248.2 pounds?

This 92-cubic-foot Rubbermaid shed, that's what.

They will bury me in this someday.

It's 10 by 10 -- I weigh essentially as much as a small room in Dungeons and Dragons. Too small to fit the whole party in it, but big enough to fit eight kobolds.

Holy crap, I've got a long way to go.

Rob

I Think I've Just Been Offered a Job as a Drug Mule

Just got this unsolicited e-mail this morning, from an address that registered as both a man's name (Warren C.) and a female's (Rhoda V.):

Hello.
Our corporation is pleased to offer you a position.
Postal Agent will receive correspondence, sort it out and send the list of incoming correspondence to our office.
Minimum qualifications of employees consist of :
- Location: USA, all states- Ability to lift packages weighing up to 15 lbs.
Responsibilities:
- Check your e-mail box regularly for new tasks- Fulfill tasks given by the organization- Prepare reports for the organization
If you are interested, please reply to: [E-MAIL ADDRESS REDACTED]
Have a happy day.

Moving 15-pound packages? Location USA? Fulfilling tasks for the organization? Checking my e-mail for new tasks? Filing reports? That sounds exactly like what I want to do... if it sounded like anything at all.

Seriously, what the hell?

Rob

Who Is He?

He's not Joe Don Baker...

He's not Anthony Michael Hall...

He's not Philip Seymour Hoffman...

He's not Lou Diamond Phillips...

He's Philip Baker Hall!

Philip Baker Hall!

PHILIP BAKER HALL!!!

Rob

Ninja Pine

The other night, we took down our Christmas tree. It was a good tree, possibly my favorite of the ones we’ve put up since we moved in to our house seven years ago. A full body, and branches that could hold a lot of weight—perfect for some of our heavier ornaments, which meant they didn’t all get clustered at the one level of branches that were up to the task.

Anyway, the tree spent a night on the curb, and it has since been taken away. But before that happened, we needed to spend some time taking all the lights and ornaments down.

This isn’t as simple as it sounds. Because there’s one ornament—a little evergreen tree—that knows how to hide. That special place you put it when you’re trimming the tree, that you’re sure you’ll remember once January rolls around? Forget it; it’s gone. It swings from branch to branch like a little pine Tarzan, finding the perfect spot to hide. It’s the Moby Dick of Christmas tree ornaments, something you hunt for until it drives you mad. Hopping mad, if you’ve got a peg leg.

In a way, it’s the last tradition of Christmas season… a little game of hide and seek we play with the tree. Eventually, we find it, tucked under a branch, using a nearby jingle bell as a distraction. By that point, nearly all the ornaments are off, and the tree is free to go. But on its way out the door, the big tree leaves a thick layer of needles on the floor… just in case the little tree ornament wants to hide again.

Needless to say, we sweep those bad boys up right quick.

Rob

Happy New Year!

Don't start counting yet... there's 16020 seconds left to go in 2011, or thereabouts. But we here at Laughing at the Pieces (well, me here at Laughing at the Pieces) wishes you a 2012 with all the promise that a smoking baby in a top hat implies.

See you... in the future!

Rob

The Soap Opera I've Always Wanted

Cartoon Network's Adult Swim is currently airing the soap opera I've always dreamed of: The Heart, She Holler. The premise is fairly conventional: a family squabbles over the control of their dead father's estate... which is left to a son none of them knew he had until his death.

Of course, the son (Patton Oswalt) has been hidden in a windowless room for decades, never seeing light or hearing language. And his sisters are a scheming, hilariously (and hideously) oversexed moron (Kristen Schaal) and a crazed telekinetic who listens to the voices in her head (Heather Lawless). And the entire holler (The Heartshe Holler, of course) is populated with the finest assortment of mouthbreathers and knuckledraggers to ever escape from a Jeff Foxworthy routine.

There's freaks, and mayhem, and more Just Plain Wrong than you could bury in a steel drum in the backyard.  The entire miniseries airs its six 15-minute episodes all this week, and then repeats them next week. (Or, you can catch up on the Adult Swim website.) I hope you enjoy it as much as I do... because otherwise, you'll never forgive me for asking you to watch.

Here's a taste. A sick, crude, ridiculously gory taste.

I can guarantee you never saw that on Days of Our Lives.

Rob