I Could Write Better Stuff Than That!

I have been watching a lot of ball games lately. It's what I do. And something has been going on during these broadcasts that is driving me absolutely BATTY. So now that I have a bit of rest, it's time for a little post I like to call:

"Fatdaddy's Not So Random Rantin' N' Ravin'!!!"

Sometime around Thanksgiving, advertisers on TV start to flood sports shows with stupid commercials to convince gullible men to buy useless Crapola for their wives or girlfriends for Christmas. The nice thing about being broke is that I don't really care if it is an effective ad or not because I couldn't afford most of their junk anyway.

But there is one group of advertisers that need a really stern talking to. I'm talking about....Jewelers.

WHAT THE HECK?!!! I guarantee you that any human being that has made a jewelry commercial in the last year has, without question, a failing grade on their college transcript right after the words English 1010.

They have all forgotten the most important part of that highly useful course. What is the First Commandment of writing?

KNOW THY AUDIENCE!!

For me this is simple. I may write about Man Police, wrestling matches, and destruction. And I do have devoted male readers. But my audience is CLEARLY the honored, noble, and exalted Housewife (please observe the capital H which is used to denote an additional honorific). Because Housewives are the ones who deal with most of the stuff I deal with. They get me, and I'm learning to get them.

Now guys, if you are not a Housewife, don't go getting all offended on me; you know you still have fun with this stuff. But if you haven't tried this gig, you are missing something. Since I know who I am writing to I can tailor the style of my musings to appeal to MY readers, and they will feel a sense of connection and camaraderie with me. Hence the "Been There/Done That" responses.

Not so with the morons who write Jewelery commercials to run during ball games. They clearly have no idea how to connect to their audience.

There was one particularly bad commercial this year where a dopey-faced yuppie in a scarf is dragging his cutely dressed girl all around a city to visit places where they had their first date, first kiss, blah, blah, blah. They get to a snowy park bench and she purrs, "I don't remember this place" and he quickly drops to a knee and without betraying the slightest hint of "cheese" says, "You will".

Gag! Somebody get me some insulin; stat!!!

In the background, if you look hard enough in the back of the park you can clearly see the shadowy figures of Jerry Sloan and Vince Lombardi waiting to take this dude's Man Card away at the end of the shoot. I hope they roughed him up some.

Then there are the REALLY bad commercials where the girl tries in vain to hide her joy when a friend comes into the room. She fails miserably and then announces "He Went To Jared!" and the two women screech like ten year olds and jump up and down while the unlucky fiancee has the decency to look sheepish in the corner.

That's not firewood he's tossing on the fire, kids. It's his Man Card and the accompanying Manly Manual.

Give me a freaking break. You know why real dudes go to Jared? So they can vomit on the display counters. It's a knee-jerk reaction to the visual ipecac they use as advertisements.

These dopey ad agencies are barking up the wrong tree. They are targeting women, not men, during shows that are blatantly male viewer oriented.

Ladies, I put it to you. Do you attentively watch ball games with your spouse or significant other?

Even my mother and the Boss, two ladies who I believe know as much about sports as most men, are usually knitting, playing Nintendo DS or reading while the game is on. These ads are aimed at single women who aren't watching sports. Period.

(Now that I think of it, why would you market engagement ring commercials to women anyway? How many women buy their own engagement rings?)

But if you want to run these sappy, saccharine ads, do it on Lifetime. People on that network are begging for treacle. Then when the time comes, girls can hint to their fellas that they like what they saw at this place or that.

Otherwise, if you're going to market engagement rings to men watching sports, you need to sit down with the folks who are truly successful at reaching the male 18-35 audience.

The beer commercial guys.

They know how to sell stuff to guys. Heck, I'm a devout, Sunday school teachin' Mormon. But after three Bob Uecker spots and a shot of a freezing can that changes colors, even I'm looking for a cold one (Take it easy, I said looking, not drinking. And it's called poetic exaggeration).

In that spirit, I think I could write at least two commercials this minute that would be more effective to market overpriced, clarified carbon to men watching ball games. Both are Man Card approved for personal use, should you be so inclined.


Commercial One (In the spirit of those awesome Foster's: Australian for Beer ads):

Girl in t-shirt and shorts kneels down in a crowded fast food restaurant. She looks lovingly up at a guy who hasn't shaved in a week. He has unkempt hair and is wearing flip flops.

Girl: "I want to take our relationship to the next level, so I have saved two months salary and just bought us seats at center ice on the glass for game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals!

Guy: Gasping dramatically, raises his hands to cover his open mouth and whispers "Yes, Yes, Yes!"

The scene cuts and the man is now on his knee in a fancy restaurant, cleaned up and in a tux. The woman, in a slinky evening gown, is standing up, showing her giant chunk of rock to the applauding couples in the dining room.

A store logo pops up on the screen and an announcer says: "Diamonds. They're chick-speak for "No way that just freaking happened!!" and the waiter high fives the guy as the scene fades to black.


See? Tell me guys. Was that better than those clowns? You gonna buy your next ring from me, or are you going to Jared? Took me less than 15 minutes to write.


Commercial Two (the k.i.s.s. method. Keep it simple, stupid)

A black screen with an announcer asking dramatically:

"What has two thumbs and can make a girl squeal in public?"

There is a pause, while the viewer ponders this riddle. The announcer, Don Pardo style, shouts:

"This guy!"

And then pops up a photo of a man giving the camera two thumbs up, engagement ring perched on one thumb and a small sign that reads "Marry Me?" tied around the other. He is winking rakishly, and his tongue is roguishly sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

I tell you, sales would double, if not triple.

Do I know my audience or what?

I could make millions in the ad business. But here I am, writing a blog for free.

What's a guy gotta do to get discovered?

They All Roll Over And One Fell Out......

When I was a kid Sesame Street had a little skit with ten bears piled into a bed. There was a cute song where the littlest bear says "Roll over; I'm crowded." The song continues "So they all rolled over and one fell out, nine bears in the bed and the little one said...." and it counts down until just the baby is left in the bed.

Guess where this is going?

After a REALLY long day (you may have noticed I didn't post) the Boss was feeling pretty run down. We ran errands from the time we woke the girls up for school until two thirty when she went to work. She stayed there until near midnight. I had a class last night (sort of..Long story, maybe later) so Ma and Pop took on the runts for a while.

And by a little before midnight when the Boss could finally settle down a bit, she started feeling sick. As soon as she started coughing, the baby woke up and made some of the most pathetic noises I have ever heard. Whatever the Boss was catching, she probably got from Squizzle.

****Editor's note
Sorry Pop, here's a quick heads up for ya. My kids, who spent all afternoon at your place, may have in fact been little "Outbreak" Monkeys. Sorry 'bout that. My bad.
****

So she took Squizzles down to bed and snuggled him up. I finished watching Lebron kill off the Jazz when he hit a thirty five footer with less than a minute that put the Cavs up by four. I got frustrated at the blankety-blank Jazz and went down to bed as well.

****Editor's second note
Oops! Saw on sportscenter this morning that the scrub replacement the Jazz signed on a ten day contract drilled a three pointer at the buzzer to send Lebron packing. DOH!!!!! Figures.
****

I climbed into bed and my head (which was still visibly emitting smoke and flames of frustration from the end of the Jazz game) had not hit the pillow when a panicked knock shook the bedroom door. Moe had had a nightmare. She did not want to go back to bed, so my compassionate yet drowsy spouse told her she could sleep on the floor by the bed.

Uh-hu. Right.

She wound up between me and the Boss, hogging all the covers. I shrugged over and managed to doze off until at some point, Peff made his way downstairs complaining that he didn't feel good either. He spread himself over my feet at the end of the bed.

Now we have established that I am not a small man. But my queen-sized bed is normally plenty large for me to get a good nights rest. If you've lost count, this meant the Boss, Squizzle, Moe, Peff and perhaps part of one of my arms were all on the bed at once. What was this, the Walton's?

"'night, John-boy".

Enough was enough.

"So they all rolled over and Dad fell out, nine bears in the bed, and the biggest one said...
...Forget this, I'm sleeping on the couch."

And since I don't have Beak's kids today, I'm gonna go take a nap now, in my bed. By myself. OK. Maybe Squizzle can come too. But that's it! No more.

When I wake up later today, I have a really good idea for a post that I thought of while watching the ball game last night.

So more later.

Where's that FedEx Envelope?

I am pretty sure that I'm going to Hell.

That's a bold statement, I know. But I just fed four children under the age of five Ice Cream for lunch. If that doesn't earn me Damnation, nothing will.

It's not the first time my sense of what to eat and when has been called into question. Early on in the blog, I wrote a post called "Bill Cosby is a Liar". That day, I had fed the kids chocolate cake for breakfast. They sang me no praises, and did not dance in my honor. They just got really hungry again, really quickly.

I started today with good intentions. There was no cake for breakfast, just bowls of cereal. Squizzle started screaming at about 9:00 which meant he needed an early nap, but didn't want one. While I was fighting him, the other kids snuck into the kitchen and helped themselves to the last of the string cheese, some apples, crackers and they may or may not have eaten the last brownie in the house. They didn't finish any of it, they just took a bite or two of everything and put it on the counter.

So when I finally got Squizzle asleep and found the mess when I came in to check the blog, I knew the three horsemen of the Dadpocolypse were full of it when they told me they were hungry.

But I'm a sucker, so I decided to give in rather than have them hollering at me every thirty seconds that they were REALLY hungry. I looked in the fridge and because tomorow is grocery day, the fridge is devoid of even the basic elements of food. I found some hot dogs in the freezer, but that would have made it four of the last ten days and I could not bring myself to cook them. As soon as the door opened, Peff started the call for ice cream and the others quickly picked it up and turned it into a Benedictine-like chant.

"Weeeeeee Wanttttttt IIIIIIIce CRRRRRRRREEEEEAMMMMMMM!!!!"

"Weeeeeee Wanttttttt IIIIIIIce CRRRRRRRREEEEEAMMMMMMM!!!!"

"Weeeeeee Wanttttttt IIIIIIIce CRRRRRRRREEEEEAMMMMMMM!!!!"

What's a dad gonna do?

I dished 'em up.
I'm Evil.
I'm an abomination.
I sinned.

Whatever.


It's not as bad as trying to sell them on EBay. I do that all the time.

And really. Let's be honest for a second. Ice Cream is essentially milk, sugar and flavor. Hot dogs are....Well, hot dogs are hot dogs. Why is it ok to have hot dogs for lunch, but if I feed them ice cream, someone calls the Mommy Union?

The only good news is that the probation officers from the Man Card Police showed up while I was dishing the kids their vanilla scoops. When they saw the dirty dishes, the half-naked baby sprawled asleep on the couch, and ice cream on the counter at 11:30 they immediatly removed my probation and returned my Man Card with benefits and privleges intact. One of them told me he was going to put me up for honors and medals.

So I got that going for me.

Even if I will be a little extra-crispy in the afterlife.

One Man Wrecking Crew

First, thanks to everyone who has visited and commented. I'm starting to pile up the visitors and it is an ego boost to see that people might be listening to what I have to say, no matter how messed up it is. I am especially grateful to see so many nice comments about my story "The Roof Top". I was a little nervous about putting something out there that is as personal as that story, but the response has been worth it. And now, for our regularly scheduled post.

***************************************************************************

Squizzles is earning his nickname.

He wiggles and squiggles (^)and generally flat refuses to sit still for longer than two tenths of a second. He wall-walks along the couches in the living room and the edge of the beds in the bedrooms. (^) He crawls at lightning speed, and shoots up the stairs like he robbed a bank and the sheriff has the posse a minute behind. Naturally, he still won't go down the stairs. He crawls to the edge (close enough to give his mother heart attacks) and calmly says Blah-Bwah-Bra-Ma!!!. (^)

Loosely translated this means "I have found a place that I cannot escape. Pick me up or I will scream." You then have (^)two tenths of a second to take him down the stairs or the previously discussed Iron Maiden auditions begin anew. No sooner do you set him down than he takes off up the stairs again and the whole scene repeats itself "Dad Nauseam". (^)

It's a really sick form of the game we call "Pick it up, Stupid" or "Testing Gravity". All parents play this game. You know, you put the miscreant (^)in a high chair, set them on you lap, or some other elevated seat. You give them a toy or bottle to occupy them and they promptly throw it on the floor.

Unaware that you are being trained, you pick the object up and hand it back to B.F. Skinner, Jr. who drops it again as soon as you are settled. The object for the child is to:

1) Make sure that Gravity works the way they think it does.(^) It is not a coincidence that this game begins about the same time that they learn to stand. Babies become quickly accustomed to having things fall down and I think they want to see something else take the fall (Pun certainly intended).

2) See how much they can put Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa or other unsuspecting idiot through before the game wears them out (^). Hence the name of the game, "Pick it up, Stupid". How (^) long can I make someone do what I want them to?

I fully expect to see many, many check marks in the "Been there/Done that" section of the comment box for this post.

ALL BABIES PLAY THIS GAME! (-)

Now some of you careful readers will have noticed the symbol (^) peppered throughout this post. I will now explain it. In James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" he writes the dream of his main character Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker.

Every once in a while you will be reading along and a sentence (perhaps word segment is a better word choice here) is interrupted with the words Tip-Tip-Tip or Tap-Tap-Tap. To Joyce, this represented the striking of a tree branch against the window of H.C.E's home and the resulting intrusion of the outside world upon Earwickers dream. Joyce said that he inserted these Tip-Taps whenever the wind would blow and brush tree branches against the windows while he wrote, intruding on his own fantasy.

For this post, I have inserted the symbol (^) for every time I had to get up while writing in order to extract Squizzle from impending disaster or destruction. The symbol (-) at the end is the point where I finally had enough and parked his tucas in his high chair.

Fascinatin', ain't it?

Speaking of Squizzle and his tucas, the worst part of his wild man attitude lately has been trying to change his diapers. I kid you not, it has turned into a two person job. He will NOT hold still to get his bum changed. Twisting, turning, straining, screaming; he has mastered them all.

Last night, I held his arms down, the Eldest held his legs and the Boss did the dirty work with the wipees and diaper cream. Come on! He weighs what, twenty pounds? It still took all three of us and even then he screamed like the Banshee. I cannot wait to put this kid on a wrestling mat. No way some kid his own size is gonna keep Squizzle on his back. The boy has skills!

Anyway, he has tired of his chair and is throwing his bottle on the floor for me to pick up. Time for a nap. Has anyone seen where you can buy a straight jacket for a one year old?

Hitting a Ref Can Really Make Your Weekend

Spent the weekend with the worst migraine I've had in about 5 years. Went to the wrestles anyway. I wasn't going to miss wrestling just because of a headache.

They put me on a scoring table and I spent the time getting to do what every wrestler in America would like to do but can't...Hit a Ref.

I was the "towel runner". For the uninitiated, the officials in wrestling have WAY too much to be watching to keep an eye on the clock. You can't just use a buzzer because at a large tournament there can be as many as eight to twelve mats going at the same time and buzzers would be impossible to differentiate as to which buzzer went with which mat. It's tough enough with just the officials whistle (My career as a wrestler came to an abrupt and tragic end due to mat-whistle confusion...Long story, I'll tell it another day). Since the official can't be looking at the clock all the time, they send a runner onto the mat to count down the final 5 seconds of each two minute round, and then hit the ref with a towel or foam pad in case the crowd yelling drowns out the countdown.

It is a really fun job and hitting the refs is only one of the perks; Mat side seating being another. The only problem is that my eyes really aren't good enough for me to be doing it as I could barely see the large time clock on the wall. I got really nervous when the action took to the far side of the mat because the further they got from the clock, the tougher it was for me to be accurate. I got really good at pacing the seconds down from :15 when I would leave the scorers table and just count it off in case I lost focus on the clock.

No one screamed at me, so I'm assuming that I didn't cost anyone a match. My nephew wrestled pretty well, winning two matches and then losing in the finals. The picture is from his first match on Friday night.

The other picture is from my hey-day, because no one; and I mean NO ONE who did not know me in high school believes that I was a 135 lb senior. Or that I did indeed once have hair. And good eyesight....Crap! I went downhill in a hurry.

If nothing else it will explain to the doubters why someone as awesome as the Boss would continue to put up with me. I was a handsome lad, once. After the Resurrection, I may be again.