Yet it’s OK to wear a shirt that proclaims a girl is “too pretty to do homework”? This is what’s wrong with America.
Currently, 56% say that an “All the cool girls are lesbians” t-shirt is inappropriate.
Tumblrbomb to show that “lesbian” isn’t a swear word, please?
Tumblrbomb! Fly my pretties!
I wish I was a foodie. I imagine that if not for my tight budget, I’d be quite adventurous about new tastes, a “pioneer of the palate” as the phrase goes. Not wanting to spend hard-earned money just to be disappointed, I lean toward the same dishes at the same restaurants. For under twenty bucks, my guaranteed happy is found at Boscos. One Palermo pizza and a glass of Hillsboro Brown, please.
My kids are drifting off to sleep next to me while I listen to Pink Floyd’s Animals on my iPhone. I’m waiting for one of them to perk up in a minute and ask me if I hear dogs.
Sleep well, my kiddos.
A young man sits alone at his laptop in the middle of the night. He remembers sitting by his apartment pool earlier in the day and seeing all of the skinny young men with their wives and girlfriends and he wonders how he got so soft in the middle. Well, for one thing, he drinks beer and eats cookies every night before he goes to bed. Another thing is that the first line is a lie. He’s forty-one years old, not a young man anymore. Beer and cookies. He’s at peace with the results.
COFER COFERS THE CLASSICS
‘I Don’t Wanna Grow Up’ as sung by Mark Cofer
I am trying to cover one song from Paste’s list of the greatest living songwriters. I have gotten behind on doing this, but here is #4… Tom Waits. This is a Tom Waits song off of Bone Machine. I had a hard time picking a Tom Waits song, because I love so many of them. I attempted to do one of my favorite songs ever, Ol 55, but I couldn’t quite capture it. Lyrically, this is one of my favorite Waits songs, it is so great, I wish I could have written it!
By the way, Hayes Carll did a great cover of this song too.
A post inspired by Jim damn Reams.
I just read the tumblr bio of Jim Reams and was reminded of a story. His bio: “Turns out that Leroy Brown was actually the second baddest man in the whole damn town.
I’m on the Twitter @jimreams”
A long, long time ago, I was on vacation with my family. I might have been thirteen or so and my dad and I were walking along Myrtle Beach when we came across a band playing a bunch or rock ‘n roll cover songs. Being a couple of dudes who love rock n’ roll, we decided to walk over to just how good this little beach band might be. As it turned out, they were a Christian band who rocked only as much as a Christian band who plays covers does. Still, hearing dudes play electric guitars beat walking on the beach so we stuck around for a bit.
After a few Doobie Brothers tunes and maybe an Eagles song or two, they launched into Jim Croce’s “Leroy Brown.” I remember sharing a look with my dad and both of us wondering if they were going to cuss during the chorus. After all, Leroy Brown, according to his author, was the “baddest man in the whole damn town.” The anticipation was awesome. Palpable even.
And then it came. The moment of truth. “Bad, bad Leroy Brown / Baddest man in the whole downtown.” Ahhh, crafty were these gentlemen on the stage before us. Dodged the bad word and kept rocking along. My dad and I nodded and we smiled. Then we got back to walking along the damn beach.
Another interesting person at the hotel
I met a woman last night who I wished I could be best friends with, if only to have her around as a mentor of sorts to my girls. She was visiting Nashville for an engineering and technology conference and had lots of wise and passionate things to say about giving girls a fair shake when it comes to envisioning careers and futures in the world of math and science. She told me about how her own high school guidance counselor had tried to guide her away from her passion for engineering and toward literature, seemingly just because of her gender.
I’ll certainly do my part to make sure that none of my children feel limited in life just because what they’re interested in isn’t what other people think they should be interested in. I’m a good dad like that.
I see nice stuff at work sometimes.
Standing at my workplace post at the hotel today, I observed a sweet and interesting moment. There was a dad talking with his little girl. She was maybe six years old. He reminded me of a modern day Don Draper, dressed casually on a weekend, but with a certain tone of voice and way of standing that made me imagine the suit he probably wore on weekdays. He was sweet with his daughter though and I was happy to get to see that.
After observing the moment for a bit, it became clear that this portico was the meeting place where the divorced mom and dad were to make the custodial exchange. Now their story (of course unknown to me, but wondered about anyway) was even more interesting. What was the divorce like? What was the marriage like? How’s the little girl handling it all? It was all the more bittersweet watching them talk while waiting for mom to show up. He seemed like a pretty great dad and I was hoping that I was right about that. I knew from talking with him earlier that he lived in another city, so there was certainly a lot of traveling involved in making everything work out. I smiled as I watched he and his girl hug. He said, “I’ll see you in three weeks, kiddo. Three weeks.”
A car pulled up and they both waved excitedly and happily in its direction as it approached. At least he seems like a very happy and supportive ex-husband, I thought. The car came to a stop and a woman got out from the passenger seat and gave the girl a big hug. Still watching from my official position, I assumed that this was the mom. The dynamic between mom and dad seemed genuinely friendly. A man stepped out from the driver’s side and he and the dad smiled and shook hands. It pleased me to watch such a kind moment between a small group of people. What took this little observation from simple to slightly surreal though was the fact that I recognized the driver immediately. He’s a pretty famous singer-songwriter in my town and is quite well known internationally. I won’t reveal his name, but he’s had hits on the Billboard charts and he is one of my favorite artists.
This went from me watching strangers interact to me reflecting on the first time I ever saw this guy in concert. It was 1991 and he was opening for someone else at a local club. I had never heard of him at the time, but he was so good that after only a few songs, I sought out a payphone and called a buddy and told him to come down to the club immediately. “I don’t know anything about him, but you will thank me later if you get down here and listen to him right now,” I said. Now I have all of his albums and I can’t even remember the name of the group he opened for that night.
Today’s exchange was made with dad and step-dad putting the daughter’s suitcase into the trunk and everyone hugging and waving and being super cool with one another. I hope it all goes well for everyone involved, especially the little girl.
