How to Make A Mix-Tape

They say that music soothes the savage beast. I don't think you can call me a savage-- beast maybe, but not a savage... but I agree that music can be soothing. It can also stir a lot of other emotions and feelings but right now I need it to be soothing. I have had a rough morning so I have put in my ear buds, kicked up my iTunes and I am going to hide under my desk, close my eyes and put everything else out of my mind for a few minutes...

There, that's better. It is pretty amazing how that works. Certain recordings can take you to happy places and better times in the same way that a picture can, or a smell or taste. All of our senses have the ability to affect us physically, mentally and emotionally, but music goes a step further by blocking out other distractions.

As a performer, I have had firsthand experience seeing how music can affect, effect and infect people. For some it may be a rock 'n roll song that "pumps them up", almost to a point of an aggressive frenzy. For others it may be a mellow ballad that makes them cry or a peppy pop tune that brings a smile to their face. Christian music and religious hymns can be very powerful, bringing the listener to their feet in a moment of joy and classical music or other genres can be very spiritual, as well, to some. It is very different for every person, but I think everyone has some degree of instinctual, internal rhythm that is keeping time to a song in their head.

Having dealt with many challenges with anxiety, I have a collection of songs categorized by attitude adjustments that they bring on. Music to help make me happy, relaxed, energized, concentrate or reflective is all grouped in different playlists on my computer. My calming tunes have even been burned to a series of CDs so I can listen to them in the car-- to prevent road rage or at the office-- to prevent work wage. I also have other song sets that I listen to if I want to get in the proper mood to do something like workout, mow the lawn or get romantical.

I love the idea of playlists because it reminds me of the mix-tapes that we used to make before the Internet age and the invention of the CD burner. A mix-tape is a group of songs recorded to cassette tape with the intention of reflecting the producer's chosen theme. Anyone could make them with very minimal equipment and with vinyl, 8-tracks, cassettes or even compact discs but a true mix-tape artist would toil hours-upon-hours to get the best possible reproduction of the perfect, 60-minute, combination of tracks.

Mix-tapes have been around since the early 1970s when compact cassettes were made readily available to the public and hit their peak in the 80s and 90s before fading away in this millennium when consumers were able to record music, as well as data and video to compact disc. The amateur recordings were vaulted into mainstream pop-culture with the release of the 2000 film, High Fidelity, starring John Cusack and based on the novel of the same name by Nick Hornby-- a great flick that I would highly recommend, especially if you, like me, are a big fan of Cusack.

Some would argue that the CD Compilation is the mix-tape of today, but the purist knows that the shiny silver discs could never live up to the small, twin wheels of fragile, thin tape embedded in that smokey, plastic shell and that no one could cue a song with a pencil, blindfolded, with one hand tied behind their back, as well as them.

Today, as with many other days, this went a different direction than I intended. Visit How to Make a Mix-Tape if you would like to read more of what I have to say on the subject. Be sure to check back soon when I will post the article that I was planning or writing about how the music of today and the music of the past is impacting each other.

Until then, Read This. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Designs We Like 1.02

The December blog exchange features The Copy Editor-- All About Style. To be completely honest, I have never been overly fond of Copy Editors in my professional life. I have always thought that they thought to much of words while, as an artist, I know that the picture was more important.

The same holds true for this cafepress shop but, although the designs offered here are lacking in the graphics department, it more than makes up for it with some of the funniest stuff I have seen on the Internet. The category named headline bloopers features product with real headlines found in national or international newspapers. It may sound simple, but with double entendres such as Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks, One-Arm Man Applauds the Kindness of Strangers and Iraqi Head Seeks Arms as well as over a dozen other hilarious clunkers you have to wonder if these headline writers didn't know exactly what they were doing.

This shop is full of other fun stuff in categories like Language at Large, Unsung Heroes, Journos, The Copy Desk and Dept. of Corrections with lots of cool products to choose from including T-shirts, bags, caps and desk accessories, as well as a large selection of value Tees. Overall... a lot of neat designs that you should make it a point to check out as soon as possible.

Now, to get this published, all I have to do is run it past my copy editor. Wish me luck!

This blog is part of a crossover blog. Other Participants in this crossover blog are:

http://ateasetees.wordpress.com/

http://getyergoat-goatgifts.blogspot.com

http://www.nanwrightart.com

http://randomshirts.blogspot.com/

http://skeetzteez.blogspot.com/

http://idesignbrian.wordpress.com/

http://www.shopkeeperdesigns.com

http://autismshowucare.blogspot.com

http://www.gocamelphotos.blogspot.com/

http://einselgaenger.blogspot.com/

http://beflip.blogspot.com/

Read this. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Let's Roll! 1.08

I figured I would go ahead and do a special edition Let's Roll for the holidays now because there is so much cool stuff that I run across on the internet this time of year and I don't know if or when I'm going to have another shot to get it all in. I have included a wide variety of links with everything from ideas the get your shopping list going and tools to make shopping easier to places to shop online and fun stuff that is used to entice you to shop at a certain store. I'm sure glad that shopping... I mean Christmas, hasn't become commercialized. Let's Roll!

ElfYourself- If you have been sent this via email in the past, there is a good chance that you deleted it as spam, an e-chain letter or just another annoying e-greeting card that you wish no one would send because then you feel obligated to remember to send them one on their birthday. This one is actually pretty cool, however, and may be worth a few minutes of screwing with. It's free to elf yourself and send the short movie to your friends, though, it'll run you $4.99 to download the dance and more if you want to buy product with your elf pic imprinted on it.

PaperSnowflakes- Ever make paper snowflakes as a kid? This site is titled Paper Snowflakes for Children but I cut one for a project at work and it took me 45-minutes and I have take college courses on how to cut paper. It provides folding and cutting instructions as well as patterns to make about 600 different designs and tips and tricks from the pros (do you believe that there are professional snowflake cutters?) that will soon have you on the level of Will Ferrell in Elf.

2008 Christmas Specials TV Schedule- I made mention of this site in a posting earlier in the week, The Twelve Days of Christmas Specials: My Top Twelve Holiday Programs, but it is worth another plug. It has an extensive list of movies, special presentations and even regular programming holiday episodes by date with times and channels. Be sure to check out some of the old reruns of shows like Three's Company, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies, to name a few, Christmas shows on TVLand.

Amazon.com- is one of the biggest e-retailers in the world so it wouldn't be surprising if you had heard of them or even made a purchase from the Website in the past but, until I was laid up last year and did all my shopping online, I was unaware of the many member features that the industry leader offers. Gift and wish lists based on your buying and searching habits are pretty common now but Amazon takes it a step or two further with special Gold Box discounts on merchandise on your list in addition to the Deal of the Day and Lightening Deals up to 66% off regular pricing.

Also when you are shopping at Amazon or similar sites, check the More Buying Choices sections. You can often find the same item in a new or like-new condition for a fraction of the price. When purchasing merchandise with this option, though, be sure to look over reviews of the seller and read things like the shipping policies to make sure you know what your getting into.

SkeetzTeez- If you are reading this blog because you enjoy it and not just because you're my wife's second-cousin, you feel sorry for me, or you owe me money-- I absolutely, positively guarantee that there is something that you or someone on your holiday shopping list (probably someone that is usually very hard to buy a gift for) is going to really dig at SkeetzTeez! I am still adding new designs almost every day but there is a ton of cool stuff to choose from, including the new seasonal stuff featuring Will Ferrell's Elf- Cotton-Headed Ninny-Muggins and Pete Schweddy's Balls shirts. Other popular items this holiday season include TV's Smallville and Suck It Trebeck, movie's Shermer H.S. Bulldogs and Slapshot's Charlestown Chiefs, the Old Time sports collection as well as some really smart, cool fashion designs.

SkeetzTeez has all kinds of T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies, hats, office accessories, drinkware and other fun items for adults and kids, men and women, boys and girls, babies, expectant moms and even something for the dog. You certainly won't regret giving these unique, custom holiday gift items this year-- and if your are my wife's second cousin, you feel sorry for me or you owe me money... you might even find something you like.

Read this. Peace.

Let's Roll! 1.07

Cafepress revealed the new Website design this week. I was concerned, at first, that the navigation was misdirected because I didn't make a sale for the first two days after the change but then my old standby, Big Brother '09, came through for me last night. Americans must not be too worried about the economy because they are still having babies and there is a lot of maternity and children's stuff that sells on that Site. I would assume that now since Halloween and the election are over the Big Brother and Big Sister along with a few of my designs for expectant mothers will be my top sellers until the holiday season.

Speaking of the holiday season, I guess all of the stores now start pushing Christmas sales in October. They might as well include Halloween with Thanksgiving in the holidays. 

This is my first year being involved as a Internet retailer but, from what I gather from more experienced shopkeepers, it is not uncommon to have sales from November 15 to December 31 that equal all the sales from the rest of the year so I'll be ready. Be sure to keep SkeetzTeez in mind when you are looking over your gift giving lists and check back often to see all of the new designs for the Winter! Let's Roll.

Michael Jackson- Thriller

Yes-- he's a freak but this 13:41 video was the most anticipated release in the history of MTV and is still regarded as one of the best even though it was premiered over 25 years ago. Sure-- it's a little hokey for today's times. The outfits are dated, the acting is overdone, the special effects are antique and even the dance moves, considered cutting-edge in 1982, are punchlines for modern, comments on pop-culture but, back then, even though most people won't admit it, MJ and this video in particular, was the coolest thing around-- right Cox?

64-Voice A' Cappella Thriller

This is too cool and perfect for Halloween. One dude, self-recorded on 64 different tracks. He does all the vocals as well as the instruments and special effects with no assistance from any tools or devices. The guy is a little freaky (I think he's French) with his accent and there is an eerie picture of Michael Jackson in a werewolf getup from his 80s hit video, but this is just too freaking cool to pass up this time of year.

Filipino Prison Thriller Remake

That last one reminded me of this video which has gotten a lot of YouTube hits and been featured on a bunch of nationally syndicated entertainment shows. Again-- kind of freaky but, still, something about it makes you have a hard time not watching it all the way through. Go ahead... try it... See? I guess if you have to be in prison there would be a lot worse ways to spend your time than dancing to 80s hits but the orange jumpsuits look like they would make it hard to get your groove on.

Thriller- Wikipedia

Did you know?

• Thriller was ranked number 20 in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of Top 500 Albums of All-Time in 2003

• Several members of the band Toto were involved in the recording and production of the album

• Thriller was released and immediately went to number one on both the US and UK charts-- the first album to do that

• MTV played the almost 14-minute video twice an hour everyday for several weeks after the release to keep up with demand

Happy Halloweenie. Read This. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

What did the Headless Horseman say to Frankenstein?

I guess I was probably like most kids when I say Halloween was one of my favorite holidays-- and why wouldn't it be? You get to dress up in cool costumes, get a bunch of candy, you don't have to visit relatives house that smell funny (the houses, not the relatives) or church and you are, basically, expected to run all over the neighborhood causing havoc. Times, certainly, have changed in the last 30-some-odd years since I last went trick-or-treating. Gone are the days of dads taking the kids in their homemade outfits door-to-door, where they would be asked to tell a joke or sing a song by the friendly neighbor before receiving a generous reward of sweets while the moms waited at home and handed out candy to all the other children coming to their house.

Changes in the social environment and the society's decline in common values make some of the differences between 2008 and, say, 1979 obvious but I don't think they should make that much of a impact on our decision to deprive our children of the fun, Halloween traditions we enjoyed as kids. I still, to this day, have many fond memories of the Autumn holiday from my childhood but it seems that, as I have grown up, Halloween has become more of a matter for adults to be concerned with all of the rules and restrictions put on everyone.

Having a paranoid, over-anxious, very protective parent we had rules that we had to follow went we went out but nothing like they have today. We were told that we could only visit houses of the neighbors my folks knew so there were maybe two or three houses per block that we had to skip. This was to prevent us from walking up to a situation with a kid-napper or other predator that would hurt us, though I really didn't understand the point because my Dad was waiting for us at the street and wouldn't let us get into any trouble.

Today, communities are passing legislation that requires registered sexual offenders to leave off all the outside lights and post signs stating that there is no candy here. I support this initiative, although I don't believe that there is that many more perverts living in today's society than there was in our day, only that we are more aware of them because of the media and the noble efforts of law enforcement. I still think that my mother's rule about knowing your neighbors, however, is a good one but that could be difficult to do now because parents, in most neighborhoods don't know nearly as many people as ours did.

Parent's are not involved as much, altogether, as they used to be. Mine made all of our costumes every year until we were old enough to make our own. Made is the key word here. Kmart had a few cheap costumes (mainly a hard plastic mask with a elastic string and an apron-like thing that tied in the back) but there were not Halloween dedicated stores that popped-up in vacant strip mall spaces the week after Labor Day. 

There were no fancy, expensive, store-bought, fire-resistant, safety-tested outfits for us-- or most of the other kids at that time either. One of the earliest of years I can remember, I was a Christmas tree and my siblings were presents. Another Halloween I was Oscar the Grouch-- made from an old green rug and a plastic trash can with the bottom cut out. I did a couple of years as a headless horseman and a few others as an old stand-by: vampire, mummy, clown, ghost or hobo-- complete with burnt cork beard.

They were not the best disguises but we had fun and learned a lot by building them with our folks. They weren't fire-proof, in fact, many of them were fire hazards and they were not engineered while keeping in mind that we would be traveling from house-to-house on dark streets so I'm surprised that there weren't more serious accidents as we often couldn't either walk or see well. Bad weather meant that we wore turtlenecks and long-johns underneath the costume or clear plastic bags on top of them which really made my brother mad one year because everyone thought he was a cat when they couldn't see his bat wings.

We started making our own costumes by the time we were 11-12 or so. Most of those were things that we thought were cool which, apparently, was Saturday Night Live at the time because I remember dressing as a wild and crazy guy, King Tut and the Blues Brothers. One of our neatest, though was the Conehead outfits we made by cutting a Nerf football in half and putting it over our head with leg of my Mom's nylons. We went out to Trick-or-Treat-- or at least said we were doing that when we were actually out starting trouble-- every year until we were old enough to drive and went to work in the neighborhood Haunted House. We had at least one parent with us until we were 13. That was the age when you were allowed to go it alone but there were still enough adults that we knew on the streets that we couldn't really get away with that much.

There are municipalities in our area that are limiting Trick-or-Treating to children of certain ages and between certain hours. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about these restrictions. On one hand, I have answered the door at a time that I thought was a little late even for Halloween to a masked bunch of juveniles six-inches taller and 100-pounds heavier than me silently holding their bag out and thought that scene eerily reminded me of a bank hold-up and wondering if they did say anything if the voice would be more baritone than mine and they would be saying Trick-or-Treat or Stick 'em up. Either way I'm handing over enough candy to surely satisfy the young lady and getting the deadbolt back engaged as quickly as possible.

On the other hand, I think the age that they did set (12 I think in this case) was a little young and really leaves nothing for the younger teens to do but sneak out of the house after 9:00, soap our car windows, tepee our trees and hurl the jack-o-lantern that we worked so hard on into the street. Besides, how are the cops going to enforce this policy anyway? Do the children need to bring two forms of identification and pass-through barricaded roadblocks strategically placed in front of the houses handing out mini-Snickers bars? I would think that the boys in blue would have something better to do and I think we are missing an opportunity to encourage parents to get more involved with their kids' activities instead of just letting the man deal with it.

As an adult and an artist, I got into Halloween for a while. In college I made a great costume for me and G-money that we took on the contest circuit and won some prizes. We were each a giant roll of toilet paper and we had a big air-brushed replica Charmin wrapper that went around the two of us. We did that for a few years and then lost it somewhere. Other years I got a lot of use out of monk, priest and Chippendale outfits and hooked up with friends to do the Village People and Scooby Doo and friends (I was Freddy Jones). I won a contest as Ozzy Ozborne the year after his show premiered on MTV and dressed as Tanya Harding, complete with lead pipe and Rollerblades when she was in the news, but didn't really care for the drag thing (unlike Cox, who seemed to be wearing a wig, lipstick and fake boobs every year). My favorite adult costume, though, would have to be the Hanson Brothers-- it's fairly simple, a little obscure yet most people know who they are and I get to where my blades again.

I have lost some interest in Halloween in recent years. We used to go to parties but they seem to be more about the party and less about the holiday now. The outfits that adults are wearing are all about shock value instead of creativity and that has taken some of the fun out of it. Since I now have M3S, I want to make the focus on him and make it fun again. 

MLW and I have talked about what we are going to do Friday night. Our neighborhood is full of old folks so it is not a good place to go out. By the time I get home from work it will be almost six and, even though daylight savings time is still going on, it will be getting dark and the kids will be heading out. This makes it hard to get out and go anywhere good and since MLW has to work early Saturday morning, we don't want to be out too late either. It may sound horrible but we were almost hoping for rain so we can Trick-or-Treat at the mall but the weather is supposed to be beautiful.

I think it is time to suck it up, put my money where my mouth is, quit trying to make excuses and do exactly what M3S wants to do... eat a taco and watch his TV. I guess we can save worrying about Trick-or-Treating until next year. Maybe then he can remember-- and understand, the punchline to his Halloween riddle...

Bolts! Why didn't I think of that?

Happy Halloweenie! Read this. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Man on First...

We went to a graduation party in the Summer so, naturally, there were a lot of teenagers there. I'm not the type to sit around and make conversation with people I don't know very well so I grabbed a Wiffle ball and bat and asked my Dad if he thought we could get a game started.

I should have known what we were in for from the condition of the equipment-- still in it's original packaging-- not a scratch on it. Wiffle balls are best used after they have been well broken-in for a season or so. They are made from a space-age polymer that resists cracking even after hundreds of long balls. Incredibly enough, I have seen more shattered storm windows from well hit Wiffle balls than broken Wiffle balls under normal use.

After a few minutes of "sidewalk scuffing" (a proven technique of rubbing the ball on a rough surface, such a concrete, to speed up the aging process) my Dad and I were playing a leisurely game of catch. It didn't take long for us to collect a few spectators, as the only type of people that like making conversation with people they don't know very well more than me, is teenage boys. It didn't take very long for us to have enough people to start a game either because teenage boys find it hard to turn down a challenge-- especially from a guy old enough to be their father and his father.

Two things became, painfully, obvious shortly after the game started. One, they had never played by these rules before. Though we explained all of the rules prior to the first pitch, we had to stop several times to go over them again. It really is very simple: you swing and the catcher catches the ball-- your out; foul tip is an out; a caught fly ball is an out; over that sidewalk on the fly is a home run; any other fair ball is a single. No... you don't run the bases. No... there are no walks (or even balls), doubles or triples.

Now these are not the official rules of Wiffleball. These are the rules I learned from my Dad and he learned from the street when he was a kid in the late 40s and 50s. They are, probably, closer to stick ball rules as that's what they played before the Wiffle ball was invented and easily accessible to everyone. These were our rules when we played in our yard or anywhere else that we had numbers on everyone else.

We ran into many different rules growing up. Many were regional, by neighborhood, but even then, there were sometimes different variations of the game played on the same street. Some gave you three strikes or didn't require the catcher to catch them; some didn't count the foul ball as an out or counted a cleanly caught ground ball as an out. I've seen games played that they try to keep track of balls and strikes and Cox's group used to play with a trash can behind the plate-- if you hit it with the pitch, it's a strike... nonsense!

The Official Wiffleball Website, has the official rules and there are sanctioned leagues out there now that play by there own sets. All-in-all there are some differences, but the one thing all of the rules have in common is... no base running. That is why the phrase "Man on First" was first uttered and why it is one of the most common memories of a man's childhood. 

One of the best things about Wiffleball is that it can be played with as few people as two or three. The game was also developed to be easily played in backyards, side lots, city streets and alleys or even indoors. These two important features didn't allow room for bases, much less, running between them, therefore "man on first" was stated after a single was hit and often between batters and even pitches to remind all the players that there was an invisible "man" on first base and that a dinger would score two, instead of one.

The other thing that I noticed very quickly, is these kids had, not only never been taught how to properly throw a Wiffle Ball, they had probably never seen anyone who has. This was obvious in that, besides watching me pitch like I had two heads, the confident (almost to the point of arrogant) little bastages, literally, couldn't touch any of my stuff with the bat. They would step their cocky punk-arses into the box and then quickly duck back out as the little white ball, that seem to definitely be directed right at their head, curved away, crossed the plate, and landed, gently, into the waiting hands of my Dad-- right down the middle. 

I would let up a bit on the second and third pitch to reassure them that, even if they do catch one in the face, back or nads, it isn't going to hurt them. It's a Wiffle ball, for God's sake. The laws of physics won't allow an object with this light of a mass to accelerate to speeds greater than 23 mph. Then I come in with a riser that looks so inviting as it floats to the plate, tailing in slightly towards the right-handed batter, that the kid can't resist swinging for the fences-- Whiff! (How Wiffleball got it's name.) 

My Dad still moves pretty good for an old guy and there aren't too many that I got past them that he didn't scoop up. I think I saw a little more of a pep in his step, too, when we started to gain a little respect from the juvenile delinquents. The kids were pretty amazed with our skills and even asked us to show us a few tricks. Some of them even listened when we explained how to throw a screwball or slap at the ball with the bat instead of swinging for power.

 

I feel bad that those little twerps made it through there whole childhoods without playing Wiffleball. What else did they miss out on? 

I learned a lot of lessons growing up from Wiffleball and other games like it. I could go on-and-on about the secret to curving the ball (don't try so hard) or other uses for the Wiffle bat (snipe-hunting, bottle-rocket-launching, sword-fighting) and things like that for hours but I, unfortunately, don't have that time right now. I will find it, though, soon and write about some more fun stuff in future postings. Right now, we will leave it on hold... Man on First. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Monday Morning Quarterback 1.06

Let's start off with some football talk today. The Scott Linehan era (or you could describe it as error) ended today in St. Louis. I saw a on-line poll that asked if this was a good idea. 78% of the respondents answered "yes", 19% said "it doesn't matter" leaving only 3% that thought he should remain as coach of the team... I didn't think he had that much family in town. 

Personally, I don't really think it will make much of a difference this year. The team's problems go way deeper than the Head Coach's positions and, unless they are going to make some wholesale changes, I think it is going to be a long while before we see anything close to another Superbowl caliber team in here. It is a shame, though, as I went to the game yesterday and saw thirty-minutes of decent football being played... and then the Rams had to show up at the start of the second half.

Here's my notes from the weekend:

• Speaking of football, something needs to be done about the NFL's excessive celebration rule because it it too subjective for the referees to call. The Rams were penalized when Stephen Jackson pulled a "Lambeau Leap" into the stands after his first rushing touchdown of the season but the Bills Special Team's six-man, sausagefest, patty-cake, hug-party in the end zone after a kickoff touchback, of all things, was overlooked. Which celebration seems more excessive to you?

• On Saturday we took M3S to my nephew's birthday party at a place called SkyZone--a very cool place with basketball-sized courts covered from end-to-end with trampolines, some of which are not flat, but placed at 45-degree angles. The kids that worked there can do some pretty wicked stuff. I wish I could of given it a try but my (uh-emm) groin didn't allow that.

• Now that I have a three-year old and am lucky enough to attend all these birthday parties, I have some questions that need to be asked. Don't any kids have parties at home anymore? And if mine do, are none of their little friends going to want to come because there are no multi-million dollar facilities with enough dangerous equipment to seriously injure, not only every kid at the party, but several of the parents that are just standing around hoping that none of the other parents talk to them or semi-comatose 17-year-old hostesses licking her chubby, little fingers because they are smeared with icing off the cake that she was not supposed to touch, under any circumstances, even if you have gloves on?

• My folks had the Christmas catalogs at their house last week. Although I think it is a little early for this, as a cafepress shopkeeper, I can understand why the retail stores get them out early. I can't understand, however, how there are already pages folded over and toys circled in the books. Do the kids get ahold of them before we bring them into the house?

• Because I wrote about it last week, I'm not going to go into more depth about the economic bailout except to say, "Told you so."

• I heard that if the government took the money that is being spent on the bailout and divided it, equally, between adult Americans, it would come to almost $400,000 per person. I'm almost sure that this is an exaggeration but, even if it was $4,000, I think I would feel more comfortable with that money in my pocket, or on the wall of my living room, in the form of a high-definition, 68" flat-screen TV, than with the banks and borrowers that let us get in this situation.

• A big shoutout to my good friend Mona who I can't thank enough for introducing me to MLW and for reading the blog. We collaborated on a cute little design for her daughter, Maddie's (did I spell that right?) Sweet Sixteen. Happy Birthday, Kiddo!

• Word of the week that you haven't heard in twenty years and probably never used, yourself, because you would just, outright, curse instead: Jeepers!

• Funny cap: My Dixie Wrecked.

• Saw a news story, over the weekend, quoting a Chinese, 2000 Olympic medal-winner, Yang Yun, that the recent age controversy was caused be a slip of the tongue. Yes... she accidentally didn't lie about her age to a reporter... ooops!

• In another story about a recent survey of married couples, it was determined that it is the women in the relationship that make the "big decisions" in a ratio of 5:2 over the men. However the wives participating in the study thought their husbands were making those decisions 90% of the time. The husbands were confused, though, with only 9% of participants being able to correctly determine who was making the decisions in the household. Of the remaining 91%, 32% were wrong and, an amazing 59% were unsure-- apparently thinking their answer was a "big decision", in itself, and leaving it for their wife to answer.

I've got some more, including stuff on my attempt to save the environment and a buck with my hybrid car and a boa constrictor (this one can't be missed) but I'm thinking about doing full articles on them later in the week. With the economy being a big issue, as well as the local football saga and the Vice-Presidential debate going down in St. Louis on Thursday, it looks to be a busy week so, for now, I'm gonna say... Buy T-shirts. Peace... until tomorrow.

Mell This!

A recent Web Poll question asks, "Which of your five senses would you most likely give up for $5 million?" 84.8% of the respondents chose smell. Although I can understand why they feel that way, I can't imagine going through life without any one of my senses, for any amount of money, but I think it would be especially hard to not be able to smell.

I am an visual artist by profession so, I suppose, being blind would be just incredibly tough to deal with. Music is also very important to me as a performing artist so losing my hearing would be very hard too. The sense (and scent) of smell, though, is very powerful. Smells can, among other things, cheer us up, calm us down, wake us, put us asleep, make us hungry, make us sick or trigger emotion or memories.

I have a new found respect for smells having recently quit smoking overnight (http://skeetzteez.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-quit-smoking-overnight.html). It was really strange, at first, how smells were so strong. I smelled something burning in my buddy's basement that no one else could find the fire. It was the neighbor's bar-b-que pit... two houses down. The way I found the cafeteria at the hospital was to sniff out, like a bloodhound, the only thing they were cooking at the time-- potatoes... just boiled potatoes. People would tell me for years how bad the stench of my gas I passed was, but I didn't believe them. Now I have a hard time staying in the room with myself when I fart.

Perfume and cologne products have been around since at least 2000 B.C. and are now a multi-billion dollar industry. I wish I had realized how important smell was a long time ago. Apparently there is a reason why the "good stuff" cost $50-$60 or more-- the Chicks dig it! At least a lot more than "the essence of some fragrance you've heard of" offered in the vending machine in gas station men's rooms for 25 cents a squirt.

Not that I ever used that stuff! I was a Polo man. In fact, I'm still a polo man. Not the Polo Sport or Polo Platinum stuff, either. We're talking dark green bottle, gold bulbous lid, smellin' like you just got out of high school gym class and didn't want to take a shower in a public locker room so you'll just throw on a bunch of this, original 1980's Ralph Lauren Polo. MLW hates it so I don't wear it much but I keep a bottle around because the smell reminds me of when I was cool (or at least thought I was cool).

During a recent trip to the mall we got turned-around in a department store and ended up in the middle of the men's' fragrance section. MLW who, by the way, smells everything before she buys it (and I mean everything), went about sticking sample bottles under my snout and asking me what I thought of this scent and that scent. M3S, imitating his mother and I, proceeded to grab the samples that he could reach (and some that he couldn't) and took a sniff himself. I don't know if is in his genetic makeup or if was pure, darn luck when he proudly showed us that green bottle of Polo and exclaimed, "Mell dis, Mama. Dis mells sooooo good! Dada should buy dis pray!" 

That's my boy!

He's only three-years (and has trouble with his consonant blends) but he doesn't get the concept that there is a difference between him and the older kids, or adults for that matter, so I give him a couple of sprays of my fancy cologne when I put it on. It makes him feel big and it makes me feel good that he wants to be like his Daddy.

I almost feel bad, though, that I used this little routine to trick him. M3S doesn't like to take a nap, or should I rephrase that? He doesn't like to sleep anytime! (He thinks he's going to miss something.) Well, he was getting excited when we did this cologne routine and I thought it would be fun to also spray his Teddy Bear (named not Teddy, but Barry). Barry, though, gets his own cologne, which is actually an aromatherapy, pillow spray that is supposed to make you sleepy. Since he takes Barry in the car seat and to bed with him, he has been much easier to get to sleep. Now if I can only find a smell to wake him up and clean the house.

See-- smells are powerful things, and we didn't even touch on the power that it has over your appetite. My mouth will start to water at the first whiff of a food that I really like. I bet you can't tell me that you don't get up from your desk at the office and track down the person that just microwaved a bag of popcorn late in the afternoon. 

Other smells can bring back memories. After my stroke I had the strangest thing occur (besides being able to burp for the first time in my life). My memories were so vivid that I felt that I could really smell them-- almost like a photographic memory with my nose. I could smell mornings after spending the night with my Grandparents when I was very young... bacon and eggs and cigarette smoke, as well as other things like the way my 5th grade teacher smelled of BO, coffee, moth balls and Old Spice. Weird, huh? I told my recovery psychiatrist and that's all he said... "weird, huh?"

There is one smell, though, that I remember from the years in my teens when my friends and I would hang out at Six Flags. It wasn't just the smell of the park itself although it had many distinctive odors like the wooden turnstiles, landscaping mulch and lemonade stand in the humid air in the line to ride Thunder River; the strangely appetizing combination of tasty funnel cakes, popcorn, freshly airbrushed T-shirts, fryer grease and electricity from the bumper cars through the game booths up by the Screaming Eagle; or the strong fragrance of vomit, consisting mostly of-- a powdered sugar donettes and Canadian Mist-- breakfast, behind the Galaga machine in the Pac 'em In Arcade. 

My favorite smell was, simply, the peaceful, clean odor of a strong, late-afternoon thundershower meeting the fresh blacktop that was heated to a comfortable 112º in the unbearable, hot, August sun. Every once in a while I will catch a bit of it drifting across my nostrils and it brings me back to our days and nights in that amusement park when our biggest worry was, "where did we park the car?" and we thought we were cool cause you could smell our Polo from 120 feet away.

No-- if you ask me, I am not going to give up my sense of smell. I'd just as soon cut my nose off. Besides, speaking physiologically, as I understand it, you would automatically lose your sense of taste if you lost your ability to smell. Therefore, you might as well just pick taste. Think of all the weight you would lose!

Buy T-shirts! http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez

SkeetzTeez

I recently opened a shop on cafepress and it said that it was important to blog and get you name out there, so that is what I'm doing. I really like the creativity it takes to develop the designs I'm putting together. It's odd that I, basically, do this for a living and hate it, but when I'm doing it on the side it is fun!

The site address is www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez. When I came up with the name I thought I would do, mostly, T-shirts (and I do), but there is some other "unique and custom gift items" available also. I would wear most of the stuff but, then again, it was designed for me-- me and my idiot friends.

It is a lot of somewhat obscure stuff that we would think was funny, cool or stupid (or a combination of the three). I am trying to be a little different, though, by not being too obvious with the designs. For instance, instead of having a design that says: "Save Ferris" for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I did the Shermer H.S. Bulldog design. (That's the High School in all the John Hughes films.

Besides the Classics Movies category, there are Classic TV (The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Morning Cartoons) and Fashion (for guys, gals, kids, adults, and maternity) sections. I will post some designs and provide more details in the near future. I will also be soliciting input through comment discussions and polls to determine what designs I should add. Hopefully, I will be able to add some fun and entertaining posts to my blog that people will find interesting.

If you happen to stumble across this blog and would like to see the stuff that is available, go to: cafepress.com/skeetzteez and be sure to bookmark and check back often to see the new designs.