Well, This Stinks

Last night my 6-month-old son decided to "do his business" one more time before he went to bed. As he was sitting on my lap, he was straining & grunting. "Greeeeeeeat," I thought. In almost 5 years of being a parent, I still hate changing diapers. I hate it with a burning, flaming passion. In fact, I still cover my nose with my t-shirt when I'm lucky enough to get a gift-wrapped baby bomb. So after the straining & grunting session, I brought my son to the changing table to freshen him up. Little did I know that life as I knew it was about to change.

I unzipped my son's pajamas & began to remove his diaper. It was a lot like opening a gift--a very nasty gift--since I didn't know exactly what to expect. When I pulled that diaper back, I saw the nastiest mess of poo I've ever seen in my life. I dunno what he had eaten last, but it caused him to take the mother of all dumps. I quickly pulled my t-shirt over my nose, pulled out a wipe, and began the fruitless attempt at cleaning the steaming brown pile from his skin. After I pulled out a second wipe, I realized that THERE WERE NO MORE WIPES. After screaming in horror like a little girl, I called for reinforcements. My wife arrived at the scene with a new stack of wipes, but it was too late. Because of my son's glee at being changed, he had begun to move his limbs around as if to dance with joy. And as a consequence, bits of semi-liquid turd began appearing on his feet, his legs, his hands, his stomach, his pajamas, my hands, the changing table's terrycloth cover, and a silk pillow nearby. Holding back my freshly-eaten dinner of tostadas, I quickly finished cleaning his smoking exhaust to the best of my ability while my wife filled the bathtub with water. As he dangled precariously from my outstretched arms, I raced to the bathroom to toss him in the tub. The impromptu bath freed my son from the remainder of his megacrap, and my wife rescued the pajamas & other contaminated objects.

As of right now, I'm still traumatized by this terrible experience. I may seek counseling to help me get through this. I don't know if I'll ever be the same again.

Who Needs Electronic Tuners Anyway?

Now seems like as good a time as any to put in writing the most hysterical and most humiliating gig of my musical career.

About 9 years ago, when I was in the thick of being a full-time musician & gigging 4-5 nights a week, I had a gig at a popular local club. This gig was a little unusual in that I was scheduled to play with the opening group as well as the main band. I had gigged many times with the first band, but this was the second band's first (and last) time performing together. I had recently been a musician on the second band's first album, so this was sort of our big debut. And I need to stress that I had no plans of becoming a permanent member of this group. This was one of my rare good decisions!

I played with the first group, and the gig went well. During the break, I carefully made sure my instruments were in tune for the second band's set. When it was time to crank it up, the lead singer/lead guitarist walked in with a crappy Peavey or Ibanez electric guitar in one hand, complete with unclipped guitar strings protruding wildly from the machine heads, and a tiny practice amplifier in the other hand. The bass player followed with some cheap-ass bass. I knew right away that this was not going to end well.

We started playing a song, and something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Somebody was out of tune. I did a quick tuning check during the song...nope, it wasn't me. Then I realized that the guitar & bass were out of tune. Actually, they were in tune relative to each other, but not to me! During the song, I tried my best to detune my guitar so that it would match their tuning. Every time I thought I was in tune with them, which was actually out of tune, I realized I still needed to detune further. Finally, after one of the songs, one of the other band members realized that something was out of tune. "Look, why don't we all just use my tuner & make sure we're in tune?" I suggested as I held up my trusty electronic tuner. "Nah, we tuned up outside," said the bass player. "We tuned up to this..." And he proceeded to pull a pitch pipe from his pocket & blow into it, as if to demonstrate that it worked. At this point, I didn't know whether he was serious or playing a cruel joke on me. I realized that he was serious! That pitch pipe was so inaccurate, I don't think its notes were on the musical scale.

We made  it through a few more songs and then we took a break. During the break, I chatted with some friends & discussed the horror that was unfolding on the stage. At some point during the break, the singer got word that we didn't need to bother playing again. Apparently he was so upset, he went outside and cried. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), we never performed together again. 

This is a story that I'll be telling for decades.

Total Randomness

Since the last time I posted, I've celebrated the 9th anniversary of my wedding. That's almost a decade! Unreal. It's been a wonderful 9 years, and I'm a lucky sumbitch to have such an awesome wife. Yes, I'm still on a taco high (my wife just made the best tacos I've ever ingested), but these are my true thoughts.

I also lost some weight a couple of days ago; I got a haircut & clipped my fingernails. I'm still 220 pounds of pure flab, but at least my hair doesn't look like a mushroom struck by lightning anymore. And I can play my bass without my fingernails making "plink, plink, plink" sounds on the strings. If there was some way to stunt the growth of my nails, I'd be all over that.

I have a couple of kids to bathe now, so I'm done blogging for now.

Today's Time Warp & Great Food

It's a confusing week. Monday was Memorial Day, so I didn't go back to work until Tuesday. To mix things up a bit, my daughter went to gymnastics on Wednesday evening rather than Thursday.

So......

On Wednesday, it felt like Tuesday and Thursday at the same time. It's like I was in some trippy time warp.

I guess that's why my head is screaming for a bottle of Aleve right now.

My wife is cooking some kind of barbecue concoction at the moment, and it smells GREAT. I'm a lucky guy to have a hot wife who's an excellent cook. Without her I'd probably be eating moldy bread & spewing hot vomit like a geyser.

I Need a Haircut

My hair looks like a mushroom that's been struck by lightning, so I really need to get a trim. I started letting my hair grow longer a couple of years ago...not '80s hair band long, but just a little longer & shaggier than it used to be. I guess my thought was that I needed to have a bit of an unkempt look since I already play the part of a rock musician on the weekends. However, that logic was completely flawed from the start since my fat-ass gut hangs over my belt, thus canceling out any attempt at using my hair to look cool. Any hope at hiding said gut with my bass guitar is canceled out by my double chin making a prominent appearance below my face. And this dewlap of mine is only accentuated by the fact that most of the time I'm on a stage, so the audience (and their cameras) get a good view of it from below.

The wise thing for me to do would be to lose weight. But what fun is life without pizza, chocolate chip cookies, enchiladas, & fried chicken fingers? I could simply cut back on those foods a bit & actually work out, but I'm entirely too lazy & lack willpower to do that. Besides, I exercise every day at work when I climb the stairs to get to my cube. That should count for something, right? After all, I could use the elevator instead. Maybe I'm not as lazy as I thought. Or maybe I just don't want to get stuck between the first & second floors, which the elevator is fond of doing to unsuspecting co-workers.

Yeah, so, I need a haircut.

I Need a Photo on this Blog

Okay, I feel the need to post a photo here to break up some of this text. So, here it is:

I took this photo a week or so ago when I looked out my office window & noticed these men kicking back in the parking lot of the hotel next door. I thought it was pretty humorous. My guess is that they were waiting for somebody to check out. But I'd think the lobby is a more comfortable place to wait.

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning

So this morning as I was driving to work, I was behind an SUV with a personalized license plate. The plate read "2N1MOM." I had to wonder...is this person a hermaphrodite?

The other day I was heading home from work, and I noticed that the McDonald's on one of the surface streets near the interstate was having a new sign installed. I almost ran off the road. You see, the old sign had been destroyed by Hurricane Gustav back in August of '08. All that was left of the sign was the top portion of the arches and the frame itself. The sign was pretty much hollow. In January of this year, I decided to keep an eye on that sign as I passed it every day. I wanted to see how long it would take before it was replaced/repaired. Every afternoon as I creeped along the interstate at 5mph, I'd check out the McDonald's sign. After a few months of this, I determined that whenever the new sign went up, it would be a huge deal to me since it would end my little daily watch. Well, it finally happened. Last week on my way home, there it was...a shiny new McDonald's sign. I did a little celebration dance in the driver's seat. The funny thing is that the new sign went up just in time for the start of the 2009 hurricane season!

Okay, time for me to get to work. Yeah, I'm a slacker.