November 4: Lou

Do yourself a favor. As soon as you're through reading today's post, I want you to put on some decent clothes, grab your car keys, and make your way to the local Tower Records. Walk to the Rs of the R&B section and flip to Rawls. Get yourself a "Greatest Hits" or a "Best of" Lou Rawls. After purchasing whichever album you choose, get back into your vehicle, drive home, and write me a thank you letter.

As a part of this project of converting all of my parents' vinyl records into mp3s, I have to record them in "real time" which means I have to sit and listen from beginning to end. I have sat through quite a lot of (in my opinion) crap, but then I come across a Crystal Gayle or an Alabama. Now, I had heard all of these albums when I was much, much younger, but I never really knew who the artist was when my dad played them. I just remember what they sounded like. So when I grab a new record to transfer, the cover rarely means anything to me.

Occasionally the record will start and I'll instantly remember how much I enjoyed it as a kid. Lou Rawls was definitely one of those records. When the first track started and his silky-smooth voice sang You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, I found myself cranking up the volume and tapping my toe. This is how the entire album went. I thoroughly enjoyed each track; from one through nine. In Let Me Be Good To You when he crooned about pouring a glass of wine for his lover and massaging the stress of the day away, I wasn't creeped out. It was the exact thing that Chef from South Park sings about, but it wasn't funny. It was good old fashioned groove.

Seriously, though. Lou Rawls is the man. He's upbeat, sexual, and smooooth. His is the kind of music you want to listen to with a glass of wine and a hot bath. You can't listen to him as background music, either. You have to blast it unapologetically and as soon as I have it transferred to my iPod, I plan on doing just that.

November 3: Neighboring Nuts

I don't really know what's going on with my parents' neighbors. We think the son is a high school boy and we know the daughter is a UCSB graduate from last year or the year before. We don't know if the parents are still together, but we know the grandmother is living in the garage. To make matters worse, we don't even know which one is the grandmother and which one is the mother.

Not only is there something unusual about the inhabitants of the house, but there is something very peculiar about that house itself. There have been three owners since it was built. All three have been complete nut jobs. The house has never been properly landscaped, yet each owner has felt a certain obligation to mow the weeds on a regular basis. The first owner planted some really ugly trees and never tended to them. The current owners put in a pool, but nothing else. It's literally a fenced-in patio with a hole of water and a sun-bleached slide on two flimsy looking poles. I have no idea what the inside of the house looks like, but the outside looks like Hell.

It's not just us, either. The first owner hated us for no reason at all. When we were building our retaining wall (below her line of sight, mind you) she called the police to make sure we had a permit. When her giant oleanders grew out of control and reached over to our side of the fence, my dad pruned them up so they didn't look ridiculous when he just chopped off the branches that reached over. Her reaction? Cops. I used to play basketball on my hoop every evening when I was done with my homework until dinner was ready. She once told the cops that I played at five in the morning. She was a horrible woman with frizzy hair and she only got along well with my then five-year-old sister.

The second owners were the most normal of the three, but again, they did nothing to their yard. They could have completely remodeled the insides, but it still looked like that old vacant, spooky house on the hill from the street. The real problem, however, was that the lady would not shut up if you started talking to her. I can't count the amount of times I went outside to see what my dad was doing in the yard only to find him stuck at the fence as she went on and on about worthless matters.

You may think that just because my family doesn't know about the current owners, I don't have a right to label them as being nut jobs. That's where you're wrong! My parents have done everything in their power to be "neighborly." When we see the spooky mother/grandmother figure walking, we wave. She'll see us and simply look down. She never waves back. Remember those oleanders? My dad received permission from the owners to trim them up and he's been on their side of the fence as the family drove down the driveway. He has actually stopped his pruning, turned, and looked right into the car to wave and not one person waved back. Their driveway is maybe two feet from the oleanders!

My parents are the original owners of our house and watching three groups come and go is a big enough sample size to officially label the neighboring house as cursed. I'm convinced that if the current owners were to move out, another freak show would move right in. I'm looking forward to seeing what the people look like when my sister and I take over in twenty years. I'm taking bets on whether or not the yard will have any color all all. Who's in?

November 2: Bonfire

While most people were making last minute stops to the polls and with the weather absolutely perfect in southern California, my mom, dad, and I loaded up the truck with scrap wood and drove down to the beach to have an early November bonfire. We left the house around four in the afternoon, sailed past the rush-hour traffic heading out of downtown to the suburbs of San Diego, and arrived to a completely vacant bay.

Within minutes of unloading the truck, we had our little tepee of kindling crackling and popping as the young flames licked the dry wood. We continued to toss bark and other small pieces of wood on to the pile and before long, we had a pretty nice fire going.

As the sun sank lower and lower over the horizon, we watched San Diego State's crew row eights, quads, and doubles. We stared in awe as a man had his remote-controlled airplane do flips and rolls over the water. We watched the sailboats and we watched the birds; alone. We spent a good four hours on the beach and only once did we see another bonfire and it was wonderful. We didn't have to hear any boom boxes or worry that someone was going to open their car door into the side of our truck. It was absolutely wonderful having the entire place to ourselves.

One of the many conversation topics that kept arising was how long we thought it would take to get a fire ring on a Saturday or Sunday. We all agreed that it would be pretty difficult to find one for the upcoming weekend and absolutely impossible in the summer. We couldn't believe we were the only ones there with the weather being so beautiful and the views so clear.

In a word, the night was perfect. We burned everything we had (including the hair on my right wrist) and I never even considered putting my sweatshirt on. It was one of those nights that simply went flawlessly. It made me remember how much I love bonfires and how I wish I could have them more often. I don't know if there are any places in Austin to have one, but I definitely need to look for one.

November 1: Milk Mustache

In order to grow into a healthy and happy adult, there are a few paramount events of childhood that every little boy and girl should experience. Learning how to ride a bicycle is one and having sleepovers is another. To write every one down would take a very long time, but the one that I never got around to when I was younger, was sporting a great milk mustache.

You see, I grew up on 1% milk. In order to get a real good 'stache, it's important to drink a milk with a higher fat content. Nonfat (or skim) milk is white water and 1% is one small step toward a more creamy consistency. Because the beverage has so little (for lack of a better word) density to it, it can't cling to the upper lip. Even if you hold the cup to your mouth for a minute or two and let your lip soak in the liquid, the milk will simply drain off the lip leaving it clean and maybe a bit shiny.

For 25 cents, a child could get a small carton of milk at lunchtime. This milk was not 1%. If I remember correctly, it was "Vitamin D" (whole) or 2%. The latter would have worked fine for a nice milk mustache, but unfortunately the "small carton" was just that. The opening to the cardboard container was always too narrow to adequately be a source of mustache growth.

While kids were moving on to skateboarding, dating, alcohol, sex, and drugs, I was stuck trying to get milk to stick to my lip to make people laugh. My life hit a wall and it has never progressed passed that crucial point in my childhood. If my mom would have only served a percent more of fat, I would have developed into a normal adult. This very well could be the reason I come up with ridiculous New Year's resolutions.

October 31: Only 55 Days Left

Halloween is a day for little kids to flaunt their dress-up skills. It's a day for eating candy, walking around the neighborhood, and dodging cars. It's a day for girls to wear scandalous outfits without consequence and for guys to dress as girls without consequence. All Hallows Eve also happens to kick start the holiday season.

It's a pretty unoriginal thought, but it bothers me nonetheless. It seems as though stores bring out their Christmas decorations a little earlier each year and it's beginning to get a bit ridiculous. In fact, I was in a Home Depot last week and they already had their miniature village displayed throughout the cotton snow. Last week! A week before Halloween.

I understand that it's a dog-eat-dog world and business owners don't care about Christmas as a family holiday. Money talks and that's all they care about. How can I make a buck? How can I get people to buy their decorations from me and not my competitor?

In eight weeks, Santa will be sliding down chimneys and tripping over train sets circling trees. Until then, you can expect every Sunday ad featuring kids in pajamas holding new toys. You can expect the mid-term election propaganda to be replaced with "This Weekend Only" commercials and door-busting prices. Stores will feature glittery snowflakes and synthetic Douglas Firs.

And then Thanksgiving.

Once Turkey Day passes, then the yuletide sh*t will really hit the fan. Those holiday commercials will now be placed around holiday made-for-TV specials. Claymation specials about flying reindeer and magical snowmen will dominate the airwaves. Radios will play nonstop carols and the news will be littered with stories about homeless victims of the recession.

Eight weeks. Are you ready? Why are you still sorting your trick-or-treat candy? Shouldn't you be hanging mistletoe and stockings? Do you have your 55-day advent calendar set up? You better get started.

October 30: $#*! My Dad Says

$#*! My Dad Says is a television series based off of a Twitter account. Apparently, the creator and author of the account was a 29-year-old man that lived with his 74-year-old father and he simply posted the various things his dad said on a daily basis. How they created a successful show from a 140-character count posting is beyond me and I've never seen it so I can't actually comment on the show itself.

While sitting through one of the countless promotions CBS ran for the sitcom during Surivor, I began thinking about how I could relate to the premise of the show. I don't know if either of your parents are like this, but my dad had a special saying for every day objects that he used with frequency in the days of my youth. Because he used the terms with such consistency, I grew to assume that these were the proper names. It wasn't until I got to junior high, though, that I began to learn the truth behind these "father-isms."

Thanks to my dad's quotes and my mother's refusal to teach me what the quotes actually meant, I went to junior high school calling my Chapstick "lip jizz" and my sandals "Jap flaps." I didn't know what either meant beyond what their connection to the product was. A car was a car and a tree was a tree. The balm that I applied to my lips was simply lip jizz. The thin slice of material that slapped the bottom of my bare foot was a Jap-flap.

I suppose in a way, it makes sense that my dad would use these terms to label these items, but how can you send your small, innocent child to school with cherry-flavored lip jizz in his pocket? How can you expect your child not to get in trouble with the Asian community when he's casually referring to his cheap, and poorly assembled flip-flops as a product of the Japs?

They call it junior high humor. Fart jokes and sexual innuendo-laced sentences. When a little boy arrives claiming to be applying jizz to his lips, he will eventually get ridiculed for it and so it didn't take me very long to start using a different term. The same thing happened when referring to my sandals.

Looking back on those terms, it's easy to laugh and brush them off. I'm pretty confident my dad didn't do any permanent damage to my psyche so I'm not upset by it. He still uses his convoluted vocabulary with regularity as though his words were real definitions to every day objects. It makes me wonder if the choices I make when referring to items will be hard-wired into the vocabulary of my children. After all, it's just $#*! my dad said.

October 29: February 6

I don't know anything about astrology. I don't know what sign works best with mine. I know that I should have sex with one, but my marriage would be more successful if I married another; I don't know which ones to do those things with though. I don't know what my sign says about me and I don't know if I fit the profile. I follow a different set of principles: I look at the celebrities I share my birthday with and form my opinions of myself off those people. Today, I will share those discoveries with you.

Ugo Foscolo (1778) - Foscolo was an Italian writer and poet. One might argue that I'm somewhat of a writer myself. After all, today is my 302nd post of 2010. On top of that, I love spaghetti and lasagna. This makes sense!

Mary Rudge (1842) and Wilhelm Cohn (1859) - This is starting to get a bit creepy. Rudge was English and I speak English! I even took an advanced placement English class in high school. Cohn was German and guess what my main ethnicity is. German! My grandfather translated it for the Americans in World War Two! Rudge and Cohn also happen to be chess masters. I suck at the game, but I own a board.

George Herman Ruth (1895) - "Babe" Ruth was an American baseball player and is arguably the best player in the game's history. I am obsessed with the sport. I love (attempting) playing it, watching it, and talking about it. I recently quit my job so I could watch the team I root for in the playoffs; and they didn't even make it!

Ronald Reagan (1911) - The Great Communicator and 40th President of the United States. Reagan was also a popular actor. I was an active member in my high school's drama club and I won "Most Likely to Win an Oscar" as my senior standout. I don't get too involved with politics, but my major in college happened to be Communications. Weird, huh?

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917) - I just like saying her name. Zsa Zsa.

Tom Brokaw (1940) - Brokaw has a great voice. I have a great voice! People tell me all the time that I have a face for radio and that could only mean that I have a voice for radio too, right? I love pretending I'm the voice over for movie trailers and commercials.

Bob Marley (1945) - Pot-smoking Jamaican and Rastafari lover? Not me, but it's still cool to say I share a birthday with the lead singer of the Wailers.

Axl Rose (1962) - The lead singer of Guns N' Roses wants to be taken down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. I have to admit. It sounds kind of nice. Maybe I would want to go there.

There you have it. Based on the aforementioned names of celebrity I was able to learn a lot about myself. Everything about my life makes sense now. I can die without any questions. With that being said, here are a few famouse people that have died on the day I was born:

St. Photius I the Great (891)
Prince Alfred of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1899)
Emilio Aguinaldo (1964)