Happy Birthday To…

It all started with salt.

So it was 1995, and the place where I worked had just started using e-mail. We had a program called Pegasus, which I’m tickled to see, is still going. It was supposed to be a work tool, but its real purpose quickly became clear: to share jokes. A short time later I discovered I could create email groups and have the names hidden so the recipients wouldn’t see each other’s addresses. So I created a group.

Guess what it was called.

It wasn’t long before I tried writing some stuff of my own. The first thing I remember writing that got a tremendous response was about the instructions on the packets of salt you get at fast food restaurants. The thrill of feedback was intoxicating, and addictive.

Twenty years have gone by in a flash. I’ve read somewhere that the average blog only lasts three years. If you never come here again drop by on April 1, 2025. I intend to destroy the average.

In the meantime…there will be the book. I have no idea when, but it will be a collection of humorous pieces and short stories, because there’s nothing publishers love more as you can tell by the fact that such books always end up in the three-for-a-dollar remainder pile.

I do at least have a title, which is a good start.

Subtitles include:

Never pick apart a golf ball or it will explode and other lies our parents told us.

The true story of a boy and his aardvark.

Don’t pick up this book—you don’t know where it’s been.

Chuffed, Naff, Barmy, Wanker, Git, Bollocks, And Other Words I’d Use Constantly If I Were British.

Contains Material Not Included In Previous Editions.

A shoe, a canoe, and a didgeridoo.

Or It Will Be If I Ever Get Around To Writing It

A post-Freudian analysis of Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood as examined through a Barthesian dialectical lens.

A helpful guide to just read the damn book already.

I don’t know if it really started on April 1, 1995—I don’t remember the exact date, frankly—but it’s close enough. And I always wanted to have a birthday in the spring. My real birthday is December 20, . And I have to give full credit to my mother who always made sure my birthday was celebrated as its own event in spite of its proximity to Christmas. There were advantages to having a birthday at that time of year—including being a Sagittarius. I remember the first time I read the description of a Sagittarius. Three things stood out:

-Loves the outdoors

-Loves to dress up in costumes

-Scatterbrained

Check, check, and mate. I’ve spent the rest of my life avoiding reading anything about astrology because I suspect the description of a Leo is completely different but would fit me just as well.

April 1st is also the birthday of Lon Chaney. Apparently loving to dress up in costumes is an Aries thing as well.

Thanks to Scott MacLean who created the original website, and Jeff Goebel of Frogstar, both of whom put an incredible amount of work into rebuilding this site as a blog I could call home. They created a fantastic design which I immediately tore to pieces. This was not an editorial comment. It’s just that I’ve lived with dogs long enough to know that the only way to make the yard yours is to pee on every tree.And now…let loose the tarantulas of foolishness! Here are videos I’ve made on my real birthday for the past three years.

And now back to the usual foolishness.