1.  WHAT YOU TALKIN’ ‘BOUT JUDGE?….42 year old Gary Coleman is guilty of misdemeanor criminal mischief charges filed against him. Who has to be the poor sap he assulted…Tootie? You know you’re getting old if you even understand that one.

2. Target is pulling lead contaminated Valentine’s Day gifts from the shelves…at least the one’s that Elin Nordegren hasn’t collected for a Feb. 14 gift barrage she has planned for Tiger Woods.

3. Drew Brees was voted Superbowl MVP after ballots were cast by the sportscasters covering the game in South Florida. But just for “ol’ times sake” Al Gore is demanding a recount since the voters used punch cards.

4. Scientists now warn of THIRD-HAND SMOKE…which is like touching something that someone who was near someone who smoked touched. This is similar to the theory John Edwards tried to use to explain his secret love child to his wife…and about as likely as catching chlamydia from a toilet seat…unless you are at the Waffle House.

5. 24?  To the Big screen?  They better plan on some kind of nap break in the middle of the show if they are going to go for 24 hours…or some combination movie theater/toilet seat. You’d really pay attention to who was sitting next to you and what they were eating if that were the case.

This is an on-going series about me trying to do a little joke writing when I can.   This blog was about story telling  for years, but since I don’t usually get seven minutes on stage to tell one of my stories, I have been reduced to trying to come up with much quicker material.   It is a nice exercise, so I bring you…

My Five Thoughts…2/7/2010.

1. Kenny Rogers has announced that he will have a concert celebrating his 50 years in the music industry. Congratulations to him…that is no small task. In another 50 years, and probably 40 years after his death, he will still be able to celebrate his face being intact.

Photo credit here.

2. This week, a NY City 12 year old was discovered writing her first and last name on her school desk. She was promptly removed from the school in handcuffs…not for defacing school property, but for showing off. NY City public school kids normally can’t write both of their names until they are 15.

3. Is there a crappier town than Chicago? A hockey player, Chicago Blackhawk Patrick Kane, was arrested and charged with beating a driver because he didn’t have 20 cents in change to give him after a cab ride.  What referee has the guts to call a penalty on this guy during a game?  I heard a rumor that he beat up the paperboy for delivering the Sunday paper without the coupon inserts.   Times are tight in the NHL too!!!!

4. Hopefully the Superbowl hype has reached its’ crescendo. If Adam Sandler is being paraded out as any kind of expert because he played Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy, they have run out of people to talk to…” Mama says alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush.”

5. This Superbowl is the biggest week in Broward and Dade Counties since the Presidential “Hanging Chad” Recounts of 2000. Even though the game is being played tonight, the NFL isn’t going to be allowed to crown a champion until sometime in March.

Photo found here.

Writing has been tough lately.   Performing even harder and I think it will take another month to develop a new system.

1.  Thanks for hanging in with me while I get this all worked out…this post was going to be a rant about a non-employment situation unfolded and how trusted (or so I thought) people who actually knew what was happening  just sat and watched instead of helping, or even warning,  a friend.    The great thing about secrets and things said “in confidence” is that people do not value that confidence and trust anymore.   

It is why I trust very few people…and maybe why people trust me.   I knew it would just be a matter of time before word of my situation would make it back to me by a path that, legally, it shouldn’t have.  It doesn’t bother me at all…it is what  knew would happen.   It is why I haven’t discussed it with ANYONE…so I would be able to identify the source.   I will do nothing to encourage this and I will not respond to any of them to make sure I am not violating any laws myself. 

But he information, and the way it is coming to me, can only get here by a method that guarantees the source…

We’ll count that whole “not-a-rant-but-really-a-rant” as “THOUGHT 1″…but I’ll up the count to six to balance things out today…

2.  A North Carolina Judge wants an alleged sex tape between John Edwards and his “baby-momma” under lock and key…Tiger Woods wants her phone number.

3.  A Virginia Beach man was arrested for growing pot in his house and using the U.S. Mail to distribute. The plot was discovered when the postal carrier started carrying Fritos and Twinkies on the route with him.

4.   Someone stole Charlie Sheen’s car last night and drove it off a cliff. As much as I want to believe he was drunk and did this himself, I just can’t bring myself to believe he is capable of this one…after the Heidi Fleiss thing, shooting Kelly Preston, attacking his girlfriend with a knife…this is just too much for me.

5.  Umemployed? Want to make $1 million? Just follow Charlie Sheen around and you’ll get a breaking story and photos to sell two or three times a year…trust me.

Photo source here.

6.   Michelle Obama is taking fire for discussing her concerns regarding her daughter’s weight…but NO HEAT for talking about Joe Biden being a doofus.

The SR22 Cirris experience was incredible.

The only difference between our plane and the plane I flew in was that ours was grey.  This is a four seat plane…with the pilot occupying one of the seats.  We all wore the headsets and got to listen as we were handed off from one ground control to another and were able to converse with the pilot as he was flying the plane.

To top off a completely wonderful trip, I was even allowed to take the stick for a minute…that was enough for me.    I know that I really wasn’t in control of the plane…but he did his best to let me think that I was the one with the fate of three people in his hands.

The pilot, employed by our company is a retired Navy pilot and is kind of on call status.  He made me feel very the experience a relaxing one.   I think there was something about sitting right next to the pilot and watching him work that made the trip more relaxing than any commercial flying experience.  

Flying commercial will be such a let down in the future.

It looks like if I am flying somewhere by myself I will be flying commercially.  But once there is two of us, it is cheaper than flying on this plane. 

The choice isn’t mine.  I go to someone with a place, date and time and I get the itinerary.   Be here, the re will be a rental car waiting for you there.

And that is EXACTLY how it happens.

To top it all off, I made it back into the office by 3pm and was able to get a couple of hours of work completed on other projects…the whole reason that the boss decides that this is how we do business.   

His way.

His theory is this…If you want to do things your way, start your own company.   Five years ago, I might have had a hard time with this level of control, but it works well.   

Today worked perfectly.   And it was the smart way of doing business…

And FUN!!!!!

The Flight plan is for just under two hours on one of these…

A Cirrus SR-22.   They needed to know my weight before they filed the flight plan.  Off at 6am for an 8:30 meeting near Philadelphia and back in town by 5 pm.   Almost four hours of total flight time…I’ll try to remember to bring the camera.

The advantage to traveling like this is that there are no airport screeners.

I hope there are three parachutes. 

It was nice knowing you…hunt for my camera in the wreckage.

What a January!!!!!

Let’s end the month with some funny…

1.  It has been established that the UN based claims of disappearing ice from a college student’s paper. Not to be outdone, the President has brought in a group of pre-schoolers to work on the 2011 budget. It’s alright…half of them are potty trained…the same ratio as the Senate.

2.  A drunk Rip Torn, you’ll know him best for his role as Chief Zed in the Men in Black movies, was arrested again….his third time. This time, he was armed and being charged with trying to break into a bank after it was closed. He almost got away with this one…but his Neuralyzer didn’t work…too bad the breathalyzer did.

3.  After missing the mark on Health Care, jobs and the economy, the White House is going to look at something a bit more within their grasp…College Football. Instead of meeting with doctors, they are in south Florida advising Tim Tebow to switch to tight end and for Boise State to try to join the PAC 10.

4.  Ohhhh….big news in the golf world. Phil Mickelson is accused of cheating. But, because golf is so boring, this is a dispute about golf clubs and not about Phil shagging beer cart girls at the turn. Golf isn’t the same without Tiger.

5.  Egyptian historians are holding a press conference in two weeks to announce results from DNA tests taken from boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun who ruled Egypt around 1300BC. I am going to ruin the surprise. If you don’t want to hear a “spoiler” turn away now…

He’s dead.

After a two-day trip out-of-town, I had a number of  funny things happen…

1.  Running into a former boss in the middle of the busiest airport in the world.

2.  Going into a restaurant and pretending to be obsessive-compulsive about my seat location,  positioning of my glass, plate, food on my plate, not allowing the delivery of my entrée while I was eating my salad.  Please note that I didn’t make the wait staff do anything special or me…I just acted weird enough to give them a nice story to blog about.

3.  The plane’s wireless internet so severely locking up my computer while trying to connect that I had to do a complete restore to factory settings to allow it to recover.

But, what would a trip through multiple airports be without a story about an incident with a security screener?

It would be boring.

Sure…maybe messing with a waitress would be entertaining to most people. 

But not me.

The process of security screening in an airport is pretty serious and I made it to the grey bins at about 4:45 am.   The system is pretty simple…

1.  Shoes off.

2.  Belt off.

3.  Keys, change and wallet in plastic container.

4.  Laptop out of bag..I was carrying two.

5.  All liquids in 3 oz. containers inside of a quart size ziplock bag.

6.  Walk through detector where they can see everything including your blood type and sperm count…which gets reduced each time you pass through.   Seven more trips and I wont need that vasectomy.

As I walked through the machine the first time.

“beep-beep-beep-beep”

Screener #1:  Sir.  Step back.

Me:  Looks like I have some change in my pocket.

Screener #1:  Pleas remove all contents of your pocket and place in this container.

Me:  Yes ma’am.

“beep-beep-beep-beep”

Screener #1:  Sir.  Do you have anything left in your pockets?

Me:  No ma’am.  Maybe it is my glasses.

Screener #1:  Sir.  Remove all watches, jewelery and glasses and place in container.

Me:  Yes Ma’am.

 As I walked through with no noises…

Screener #2:   Who is the owner of these brown shoes?

Me:  I am sir.

Screener #2:  Sir.   Are these yours?

Me:   Yes.  I am sorry.   Do I need to use some Odor Eaters?

Me:  Do you guys draw straws in the morning and the person who draws the shortest straw gets shoe duty?

Me:  Wait…I guess the shortest straw gets underwear duty, huh?

Me:  Audible laugh…I said underwear duty…get it.

Screener #2:  Sir.  Please come with me.

As it turns out, the saddle soap I use to keep my Doc Martens in decent shape set off a shoe alarm.   They rubbed the shoe a little bit with a round pad and placed it in a machine.

I was given the go ahead to pack up my stuff and go.

Lesson learned.

Don’t test out material on airport screeners.

I am off on a pre-dawn flight to the ATL tomorrow for two days.

If I am going to go to an airport…why not make it a big one.  Dealing with screening people, flight attendants, rental cars…just to go meet a couple of strangers (and we know how much I like strangers) about an out-of-town project.

This can only be a great material gaining experience.

I am going to drink a gallon of  Trilyte before I go… so I can be screened for my flight and a get colonoscopy all at the same time.

Today marked my first bathroom encounter at my new job.  I was initially afraid that my new position wouldn’t give me the situations required to develop my “funny.”

But when all else fails, just go to the room where people remove their clothing.

While standing at the urinal passing the time as I normally do…trying to get my whole name “written” on the back wall of the urinal with my own fluids before the stream ends, the door to the bathroom burst open…

A man, about the age of 24, stormed in holding his stomach with a phone to his ear saying, “…IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE WINGS LAST NIGHT….SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY STOMACH…REALLY WRONG.”

I am not sure WHO could have been at the end of the phone listening to this information about what was about to happen to his colon, unless it was a representative of some emergency call center…or a twelve-year-old boy.

Actually, hearing him explain his precarious situation to someone on a phone didn’t register with me initially.

It was the three seconds it took him to get from the entry door to the stall that alarmed me most.

Just as the “jingle” of his belt buckle sounded, I ended my spelling lesson despite only being half way through my last name.   Stopping mid-stream is normally a difficult task, but when confronted with a possible underwear bomb in the stall next to the urinal…miracles CAN happen.

I am ashamed to say that my hands might not have received the most through washing of their lives, but I think it was better than the alternative…

Finding out if the rushed visitor had Honey Mustard or Ranch mixed with his VOLCANO wings.

1.  A man from Alaska was sentenced to one day in jail for throwing a Double Decker Taco at a Taco Bell manager.  He still got off lucky. He’d have spent THREE days in the crapper if he’d actually eaten it…Four days if he ate a chalupa.

2.  It was announced that Jay Leno will be the featured comedian at an upcoming White House dinner. He is the only person in America whose favorability rating is dropping faster than the President’s.

3.  How far has Andy Dick fallen? After his stand-up show in WEST VIRGINIA, he was arrested for groping two men in a neighboring bar.  Just because he’s performing at The Funny Bone, doesn’t mean he has to touch everyone’s funny bone.

4.  Kim Kardashian filed a restraining order against a Los Angeles man for being “extremely delusional” and pursuing her inappropriately. The Screen Actors Guild has filed a similar Cease and Desist Order against her regarding her pursuit of an acting career.

5.  “Brangelina” are no more…divorce papers signed.   Hollywood couples are vying for the new top couple spot. Jessica Simpson and Billy Corgan might take the title. How about a tabloid name of “Jessilly.”