A New Cat

08/29/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

My neighbor Matt adopted a new cat last Saturday. He’d always had dogs but wanted a cat for his wife. After a few days, he came over and reluctantly asked me to visit and play with it to see if I could determine what was wrong with it.

When I went inside Matt’s house, I could see the cat’s eyes peering at me from under the sofa, hiding as far under it as possible.

“Here, kitty kitty,” I murmured to it. The cat suspiciously poked its head out and then scampered stealthily around the sofa and table to stare at me through slitted eyes. Each time I raised my arm, the cat retreated slightly, watching every movement in the room.

This went on for about five minutes.

Matt asked me, “X, what do you think is wrong with my cat?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “He’s just purranoid.”

Personal, Springdale

Just a Moment

08/27/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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Because I skipped walking the day before, I loaded an unintentionally melancholy playlist on my phone instead of listening to TED or anything noteworthy. The hour was too early and my enthusiasm was too high but the darkness was beautiful. I walked the width of Springdale, down Emma, and a circuitous path toward nowhere in particular.

Someone I once knew too well called yesterday and told me that his days were now numbered and that he was tired of the pain and mediocre tenor of life. Like these things always do, it left a bruise on me that wasn’t readily apparent.

So, I left for a long walk this dark morning.

I found everything I wasn’t looking for.

I walked so far that I texted my wife to see if she was up. 30 minutes later, I tried Uber to discover that no one wanted to drive around Springdale at that hour. Another 30 passed and I decided that I would wait for Uber’s system to either get me a ride or kick me off the system. A driver pinged me in less than 5 seconds. My legs were numb at that point, so I leaned against the utility pole on the street and watched the sun come up above the skyline somewhere near the roofline of AQ Chicken.

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As I sat in the back seat of the stranger’s car, I was surprised by how far I had walked, mile after mile. The raccoons had greeted me across from the Apollo Theater, and someone’s tiny tuxedo kitten ran and jumped on my side as I warmly rubbed it and whispered to it. I left him purring underneath the front bumper of his owner’s truck. A solitary worker moved in the darkened interior of Neal’s Cafe. Several empty storefronts looked out upon me as I traversed Emma.

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In the distant geography beyond, I knew that the person who called me yesterday was awake and restless, shuffling through his memories and attempting to reconcile his time.

There are no easy answers and no direct path to peace. But, there is time enough to walk and to look out upon the unknowable expanse of people and places around us.

Whimsical

If It Pleases the Court…

08/27/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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Office Depot has a WWE / WWF corner…

“Fruit of the loon” is the best way I’ve ever heard to describe someone who is as inexplicable as his or her parents.

2 lessons I’ve learned from Oregonians:

“Never ride a horse in the living room.”

“Only shut the fridge door if you head isn’t in it.”

The first time I sing “Happy Thursday” to the melody of “Happy Birthday,” it’s funny. The 40th time, though, Identifies those with impulse control.

I give you the bird.

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I think the studio should do two versions of the movie biopic about Queen’s Freddie Mercury: one normal version, and another in which he substitutes yodeling for the normal lyrics of all the big hits. The studio could record all the angry and confused moviegoers and release THAT footage as another movie. You’re welcome, Hollywood.

…Instead of saying ” Hello ” or ” Good Morning, ” I used one of my old favorites and told 40 people ” DiGiorno ! ” to see how many understood what I was saying. Conclusion: the pizza company will undoubtedly experience a sales spike thanks to my subliminal nonsense.

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“Sauerkraut is what you eat when you need a reminder that all your gastrointestinal parts have a role to play. Sauerkraut is the bassoon of the bowels.” – X

After an hour of listening to the manager drone on and on about trivial buzzwords, I realized why we all were required to wear safety gear in the conference room. The sign above the manager’s head indicated: ” Extremely High Doltage – Danger of Elocution. ”

My enthusiasm was so diminished that I had only had enough energy for one shenanigan.

I asked Marvel to include a new superhero in the Avengers: The Yodeler. Can you imagine the strange looks from surprised villains as he enters a room, yodeling at the top of his lungs? Plus, if the character is killed off, it’s a given that he doesn’t have any friends who will mourn his untimely death.

Springdale, Whimsical

Springdale Horror House Afternoon

08/15/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

By way of preface, I live in a relatively new neighborhood. It abuts an older area behind my house. As a bona fide weirdo myself, I can only say that a couple of the people behind me would be ideal characters in any movie plot involving dysfunctional and possibly homicidal misfits. When I was having internet fiber cable installed, I only had a few seconds to warn the crouched technician as one of the eccentric neighbors made his slurred and erratic approach toward us and the fence line.

“Pretend that the ‘Adams Family’ is real. You’re about to meet all of them rolled into one person,” I told him. The technician quizzically looked up and then over at the approaching person. “Wow” was his description of the encounter afterward. “I’ve seen a lot in my years.”

This afternoon, I went outside to chase a squirrel from my bird feeders. Like most houses with questionable pedigree, the residents of one of the houses behind me strive to let the yard grow wild, possibly in hopes of concealing whatever might go on there. I’m constantly battling the encroachment of the foliage and critters which call it home. Everything about the house indicates that its current trajectory will land it on an episode of “Hoarders” or “Crime Scenes of America.”

While I’m not positive that the sounds originated from the yard in question today, I froze as I stood in my small backyard. Even if I were given 20 guesses, I’m not sure I could have determined the real origin of the squawks and murmurs I heard as I went outside. The overcast sky and rain-filled air didn’t add anything wholesome to the fact that the back of my neck was tingling as I listened.

I went back inside and found my Nikon digital camera in hopes of capturing the unnatural sounds just as much as the visual if anything ran out of the house missing an arm or shouting in an unknown language. While finding a clear space in the overgrown foliage, I noticed something unusual: a 3-foot blue and white bunny rabbit hanging by a rope about 10 feet from the dark porch.

“Oh hell no!” I told myself as I went back inside and pretended it was just a normal day in East Springdale.

I enjoy a good horror movie but choose not to be the guy getting told “Don’t go in there!” by those watching.

Whimsical

The Invisible Post

08/10/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

NBC has opted to pick up my latest TV pilot tentatively titled “Unfinished Business.” It’s a prank show in which we scare the daylights out of people momentarily after they enter the bathroom.

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“Take a bite out of crime” is the worst diet advice I’ve ever heard.

Motivational quote By the time you get there you're gonna stink.

Motivational Quote: By the time you get there, you’re gonna stink.

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Friends in their 20s, stock photo.

“It’s not rocket séance.”

This should be the new cliché, especially given the current trends.

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“You can run but you can’t hide” is a really strange saying to teach a kid, if you think about it.

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Bean Burrito Day at work…

The first time I sing “Happy Thursday” to the melody of “Happy Birthday,” it’s funny. The 40th time, though, Identifies those with impulse control.

“80% of people dislike their jobs.” – Whoever cited this study is an optimist.

She had Bette Davis eyes; unfortunately, though, she had Danny Trejo’s face.

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Most people are familiar with albino animals. For whatever reason, most aren’t aware of melanism, which is the opposite of albinism.

Concert attendees of last night’s Luke Bryan AMP performance were initially perplexed by the show commencing 30 minutes early. It turns out one of the stage crew members had accidentally hammered his own hand near an open mic.

I’m glad he went to medical school after the RN program in Oakland expelled him. ‘Nurse Dre.’ Is way less cool than “Dr. Dre.”

Entertainment, Review / Critique, TV

“Casual” on Hulu

08/06/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

When the show “Casual” started on Hulu, I thought it might be at least an interesting diversion. It turned out to be a delight at every turn. Even when everyone was being a literal pain in the ass on the show, it was engaging in ways that most shows aren’t. In so many ways, it evoked some of the same sentiments in me that “Six Feet Under” did. The show deserved all the praise it earned, even as it ignored the supposed line between comedy and drama. “Smart people behaving badly” has been done many times, but rarely with the contained breath of this show.

I expected the show to excel in its final season, even as I complained to myself, as all fans of a show meeting its demise so often do. Now that the curtain has closed and I’ve seen the finale, I can only wonder about how all these fictional characters are doing in their separate lives. The writers convinced me that all these people were indeed real and that I would no longer be a voyeur in their lives. It was an elegant dance to watch it wind down.

The antepenultimate scene was of Alex’s empty house, the center and crucible for so much of the show. As that scene faded, a door somewhere within slammed with finality. Oddly, I felt the door close. Alex was in the autonomous car with his daughter, heading for his new life. The selfish man we knew was looking forward and making choices he couldn’t have made several years earlier. As he teared up, he smiled and as this scene faded, he looked down and to the right, obviously seeking memories of those now gathering in his absence. In the last scene, we saw everyone else in a jovial room together.

It was a moment filled with inevitable nostalgia. I think many people joined me in thinking that this couldn’t be it and that Alex wasn’t really moving away.

Alex, never the sentimental type, hid a few precious photos inside the Ova box (a digital personal assistant) for Valerie to find. All of them were combinations of Valerie, Alex, and Laura, the essential heart of the show. Valerie wiped the tears from her face as Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On” began to fill the room. Much like “Parenthood” opened my heart a little for Bob Dylan, this final scene gave me an appreciation for this Petty song, one I always disregarded.

The scene blurred completely away, letting us know that life was going to continue for all of them, out of sight, but perhaps lingering in our heads instead of on our devices.

“Casual” is one of those shows whose name conflicts with the complicated joy of humor and pain being blended together.

I hate to see its departure. That’s a sign of how crafted it was. Many people forego television for their own reasons. “Casual” is one of those few shows which can make you feel that subtle immersion you experience when reading an exquisite book. When the last page passes, you look up at the room you’re in, wondering if the other world contained in the book still spins on its own axis.

Television can be magic. If you haven’t watched “Casual,” it’s your loss. It’s filled with old friends and people you’ll be fascinated by.
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“Casual” seasons 1-4 are available on Hulu, and some are available on DVD, for the few Amish among us who have DVD players.

Allegory, Whimsical

An Allegory Of It

08/03/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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The light summer evening rain faded after a couple of minutes. I walked for quite a while along the edge of a long ridge as I admired the vista that was unfolding in front of me.

The air pressure seemed to plummet.

The horizon’s colors evaporated and the air slowed. The lazy blue sky darkened as the lighter clouds coalesced into ribbons of black. Insects ceased their instinctive chatter. For a brief moment, I could hear the faint murmur of what sounded like thousands of voices. Though I could see no one, something on the horizon was watching me.

Whatever it might be sensed that I was observing it and the voices immediately ceased. I could feel it shift to make its approach. My hair didn’t stand on end but I felt like falling to the damp ground. My stomach gurgled and my neck constricted like it often does at that moment immediately prior to nausea. “It” slowed as it crossed the flat valley, stopping near a large solitary tree. As it hovered, the tree lost form and its living leaves began to swirl and shimmer as if they had become thousands of imperceptible insects. The nothingness of the ‘it’ enveloped the tree and began to coalesce along the fertile ground.

Oddly, I stood my ground, my curiosity in defiance to self-preservation. After decades of walking the earth, it seemed as if the worst truth would still be a comfort to me.

“Not today,” a quiet voice whispered, literally in the air.

My chest compressed as ‘it’ passed over me and through me. I could feel the interminable nature of it as it passed.

After it went, I stood motionless, watching the sky infuse with sapphire hues again.

As I stepped toward the place where the tree once stood, the insects began to chirp and hum again.

My pace quickened. I knew that all my steps were now counted and measured.

Humor, Northwest Arkansas, Razorback Greenway, Springdale, Uncategorized, Washington County, Arkansas

Downtown Dummies – An Art Installation Sponsored by Prank Sinatra

07/30/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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I keep lists of jokes, ideas, and amusing things to amuse my amusing self. Last year while I was walking before sunrise in downtown Springdale, I burst out laughing with one of them.

I’ve been secretly fantasizing about an idiotic prank for quite a while. I’ve browsed on eBay, Amazon, and retail clearance websites trying to get a reasonable cost to purchase several dozen mannequins. The best cost I could devise was about $750. Three weeks ago, I could have purchased an entire lot, clothing included, from a defunct retailer.

After purchasing all the mannequins and keeping them in a self-storage unit, I’d rent a U-Haul. Early in the morning, I would drive around downtown Springdale and strategically place the dummies in key places. (Benches, leaning on walls, astride Spring Creek, behind patrol cars, etc.) It occurred to me that I could create a story if I was creative enough in my implementation. (With the epilogue involving me getting bailed out of jail, I presume.)

I even had a list of explanations if I were caught. I’d say, “It’s an art project for the Revitalization District.” Or, I’d say, “Look at that!” and as the person looked, I’d run like hell in any possible direction.

If I keep my movements low-key, no one will think twice about dummies downtown. There are always several standing or loitering around down there and several have been elected to keep the city running. Just kidding, Doug. I’m a big fan, with the exception of that horrendous city logo – the one which invokes an image of the floor of a New York City Taxi when I look at it.

I’ve had more fun thinking about doing this than you might expect.

I’ll probably never do it now, especially after sharing it with everyone.

If there’s anyone out there reading this, though, it would make an excellent prank.

It would also make a beautiful art project if it were planned with care.