Doo-Doo Voodoo

I was chatting with my pal Tim about curses (don't ask me why; it was just one of those things that came up). He told me that a high school classmate put a curse on him once.

What was the curse for? I asked.

Overall failure, he replied.

The classmate, who was up against Tim for an art scholarship, ended up winning the scholarship. So Tim hoped that was it. No more curse, which seems more than fair. (The guy got the scholarship, but ended up being a meth head. So who was really cursed in the long run?)

We chuckled a bit and decided that it was egregiously bad karma to put a death curse on someone.

BUT...

How bad is it really to curse someone with... say... chronic diarrhea? It's annoying and exasperating and cuts road trips very short, yes. But if it only lasts a week or so, it's not deadly.

Doo-Doo Voodoo, we decided, might be ok.

Next time I go to New Orleans, I'm hittin' Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo to see if Doo-Doo Voodoo exists. You'd better stay on my good side just in case it does. :)

It's winter. Put on some pants.

Living in Colorado, I've gotten used to a great deal of weather-related silliness. We get thunder snow. We had a rainbow during a snowstorm once. A 20-degree day followed by a 70-degree day. Snow in June. Folks with $5,000 skis mounted on top of $500 cars. Folks who'll get up at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning to hit the slopes but can't make it to work by 9:00 a.m. on weekdays. Infants in winter sportswear worth more than anything I have in my closet. Men in big-ass pickup trucks who can't understand why they're sliding all over the place while my little Honda chugs along and leaves them in the dust. People who dress their dogs in coats and shoes. The list goes on. But there is one winter anomaly that is so stupid that it deserves my ridicule (and yours).

I'm talking about Shorts in the Snow Guy. 

Really, dude? Does your blood run that hot? Why is it that you need a parka, but not pants? If I can wear pants during the summer when it's 90 degrees outside, why can't you wear pants when it's 20 degrees? We don't stare at you because we're in awe of your great testosterone levels; we stare because you look like an idiot with your little blue goose-pimply legs poking out from under your Eddie Bauer goose-down.

And, just in case you're wondering, no woman ever thinks that's a sexy look (that goes double for the guy I saw in Rite Aid who was in a coat, shorts, loafers, and KNEE-HIGH SOCKS who was--oh, I bow to you, great and mighty god of irony--in the heating-pad aisle).

So the next time you look out the window in the morning and see the ground covered in white, remember that that's snow. Snow is cold. Cold temperatures are what brought on that snow. So do yourself and everyone else a favor. Put on some pants.

This morning...

On my way in to work, I noticed that the woman in the car next to me was gesticulating wildly. I immediately went on the defensive. After all, what did I do to her? NOTHING! Leave me alone, crazy lady!!

Then I looked a looked a little closer and realized that the crazy waving lady was my mom. :)

Part of the Madding Crowd.

I’ve been to a number of concerts. And while I love seeing bands live, the memories that stick with me the most are the ones of the concertgoers around me. Of course I remember being filled with happiness and thoughts of John Cusack with a boom box when Peter Gabriel sang “In Your Eyes,” but I can also vividly picture the dude next to me who was so drunk he swayed at the most gravity-defying angles and never once fell over—a stunning achievement. Here’s a list of some more memorable concertgoers.

Huey Lewis and the News—(Go ahead and laugh; you know you perk up when you hear “I Want a New Drug.”) It was one of my first concerts. There was a couple next to my friend and I. The girl was much older and more sophisticated than we were (probably around 20), and she was disgusted that she and her date had to sit next to children. When she crawled over us to buy a T-shirt, she gave us the nastiest look she could muster. It gave us great pleasure to note that her fly was wide open.

Norah Jones—The guy behind me repeated the same mantra for the duration of the show: OhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHot OhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHotOhMyGodShe’sSoHot.

Hank Williams III—Half of the show was an old-time country tribute to his dad and his grandpa; the other half was ear-bloodying, hair-curling death metal. Three elderly women came to the show and really enjoyed the first half; they also sat through the entire second half (surrounded by head-banging, purple-haired, pierced metalheads), and smiled and clapped politely after each song.

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood—A woman in the next row slept through the concert (in a $150 seat—that’s an expensive nap). She did wake up eventually, but it was only to go buy a cookie.

Death Cab for Cutie—It was at an outdoor venue. The kids in front of us (early 20s) were so excited to see the band that they jumped up and down… for the entire show. Ah, youth.

The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular—I had overindulged (over-overindulged, to be honest) the night before at the company holiday party, but I’d promised my family I’d be there to enjoy the show with them the next morning. I arrived on time (a little green) and settled in. Everything was fine, until the little kid in front of me (who must have overindulged in something as well) puked all over his row. That was the longest show of my life.

Super Diamond—Everybody seemed to be chemically enhanced at this Neil Diamond tribute (Mr. Diamond, by the way, was my very first concert). It’s hard to pick out one memory from this show, but it would have to be the woman who was so swept away by the music (and whatever she’d taken before the show) that she climbed into the lap of the wheelchair-bound man next to her and rode him and the chair around for the rest of the concert.

Aerosmith and ZZ Top—The fellow in front of us seemed very popular with the women around him, even though they didn’t seem to know each other very well. It became clear to us later that he’d hired his dates. Ohhhhhhh.

Robbie Fulks—My date kept screeching “Play Burn Together!” at the band. When they finally played it, he leaned over and whispered, “This is our song.” The song is about how we’d burn together in Hell. You’ll be shocked to know that the relationship did not last, and he’ll be experiencing eternal damnation with some other lucky lady.