August 29, 2005
what not to say
sorry to all my faithful reader. i regret that i have been neglecting my oBLOGation to this site. and yeah, i know nobody is reading this anymore because i never update it. but here i go with a new entry anyway in the hope that i can re-energize my fan base and begin my campaign for blogger of the house.so, i'm in the grocery store today and as i'm placing my bunch of cilantro into my shopping cart a cute girl is absentmindedly placing a cucumber in my shopping cart at the same time. so i ask her, "are you going to buy me a cucumber?" and she says, "well, i thought that you might want one." then i said, "well not really, but i can take it with me if you want me to." then she said, "no, i think i'll take it with me." then i brought the conversation to a screeching halt when i said, "yeah, you probably need it more than i do anyway." after that she just kind of let out a little "Oh, ho, ho," which i really only understood in hindsight.
here's the thing that you may come to realize about me if you hang around with me long enough: at any given time, i have the uncanny abilty to say the exact wrong thing. particularly to women. the story recounted above is just one example. here's another.
once, when i was in college, i was seeing this girl and we were sitting at the table talking about our relationship. well, she was talking and i was in a state of what i like to call "inert attentiveness." anyway, she kind of paused for a second and looked at me as if she expected me to say something so i did. i asked her, what i thought, was a perfectly polite question. it's the type of question that i always thought women really liked to hear..."are you through yet?"
that was the last time i saw her. that is until i was throwing cilantro into my cart this afternoon.
so here is a challenge to you, my readers. given my vast knowledge of what women do not want to hear, i think that i would like to write a book on this subject of what not to say to them. each page would be a different phrase that i have either said to women or have started to say to them but was unable to because i was abruptly cut short with a slap in the face or the screeching of tires. phrases like, "when was the last time you went to the gym," and "wow, your sister is really hot!" but even though i am admittedly an expert in such things i could always use some assistance in finding more fun phrases to include in my master work. so if any of you have ever heard a man say anything incredibly boneheaded or insensitive to a woman, or maybe you have said something boneheaded yourself, please pass those words of whit along to me so that i can publish them, make tons of money and assist other phrasiologically challenged men from inserting their foots in their mouths. and who knows, with a little practice, god willing, i won't ever let another cucumber come between me and a beautiful woman again!
Posted by adamgraves at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2005
"just like coming home"
thanks to all the peeps, all my friends, who try to keep up with this, including all my new readers which now include the staff at exit productions for pointing out that i do not post to this blog nearly enough. i appreciate your enthusiam and wish that i could accommodate all your requests but i am a very busy guy with a great many obligations and so consequently my attention to things like blogs tends to suffer from time to time. case in point...driving to alabama.now the first question i that i inevitably get when i tell people that i was recently in alabama is, "why?" there's really no good reason for this except that alabama is where my friend barrett lives and since i am on vacation i determined that this would be the best time to go see him. you know, between hurricanes. also, i had been to alabama once when i was a kid touring with bob dylan and the band but i don't really remember it since all the southern states east of texas just seemed to blend together into one big backwoods gumbo. however, i'm glad that i went because i got to see my friend and as an added bonus i got to come home to mississippi. that's right i said "home to mississippi." i have photographic proof that mississipi is "just like coming home" which i will show to you as soon as i get digital reproductions of the photographs. anyway, i drove pretty much straight through from dallas to birmingham stopping only briefly to eat, pee and take pictures of strangers, the strangest one being me.
birmingham is a city of unexpected size. i wes thinking that it would be about waco-ish in proportion but was actually quite taken aback to discover that it is nearly the same size as our fair city of austin. i was also kind of amazed (and pleasantly so i might add) to discover that as a city of unexpected size birmingham has both indoor plumbing AND electric street lights. although i'm not sure that could be said of my new home of mississippi. one of the other things that birmingham has is the civil rights institute. i was informed of this by my mother who also informed me that if i were in birmingham and did not go visit the civil rights institute my status of "son" might have to be re-evaluated. so, in an effort not lose the positon that i had worked lo these 30 years to acheive, and because my mother is a very bright woman, i took her advice and visited the birmingham civil rights institute.this is the part where i get serious.
see, i think about civil rights alot. that's how i was raised, you know that whole "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" philosophy that was popularized by one of those radical left wing thinkers, what was his name? chris something i think. or maybe jesse somebody or other. no, i remember...it's jebus cripes. that's it. anyway, the point is this, i was taught to treat other people with respect and kindness and dignity. and i was struck with the irony that the day i left alabama eric rudolph was was convicted of bombing an abortion clinic in birmingham (a place known in the sixties as "bombingham" due to all the bombings of churches and homes of prominent black activists) to which he unapologetically pleaded guilty and referred to the work that took place at the clinic as "barbarism." you know how white southerners referred to interracial marriage forty years ago? would you also like to guess which ethnic group has the highest rate of abortion in birmingham? and would you also like to guess which ethnic group has the greatest number protesters outside of abortion clinics? you can probably see where i'm going with this.
the point is this, the bigots of birmingham, like bigots everywhere, have gone from bombing churches to bombing abortion clinics and gay night clubs, and poisioning radio and tv by spewing vitriolic bile into our airwaves, sowing the seeds of domestic terrorism (that's right, i said terrorism) by trying to create a divisive atmosphere of "us versus them." which is why birmingham has an "institute" of civil rights and not a museum. see, a museum would imply that the civil rights movement is a thing of the past, that the struggle for personal freedom and indivdual liberty have been acheived when really, the struggle is just beginning. there's opprtunity for freedom in that we don't have jim crow around any more, now all we have to do is work on that respct and dignity thing. that would be the "as you would have them do unto you" part of that little...what did jebus call it? oh yeah, COMMANDNENT. and it's easy for me as a white man to pontificate about civil rights being an ongoing struggle but i really have no clue, nor will i ever, as to what that really means. which is why i, as a white person, need someplace like the civil rights institute to sort of put in perspective how truly awful discrimination can be and what it might mean to have to fight for the right to vote or sit wherever you want to on the bus or go to whatever school you want or marry whoever you want and not be hanged by a crazy bigoted mob.
on the way home i stopped in vicksburg, mississippi where there is a significant civil war battlefield. i drove through the dense kudzu forest of the lower mississippi river basin past monument after monument and cannon after cannon. 12 miles and 2 hours of a reminder of how our nation was nearly torn apart because of a difference of ideology. each side had their artillary trained on the other trying to wear them down and break their spirit in the hopes of gaining some ground in support for their cause. after i had seen all the war memorabelia i could stand i drove off trying to find a radio station that wasn't trying to convince me that the spread of AIDS in africa was being encouraged by the distribution of condoms. or that gay marriage would lead to the complete and utter demise of each and every american family. or why iraq shouldn't be allowed to become a state that is governed by islamic law but the united states should allow alot more biblical law into it's schools, courts and other public institutions and that anyone who thinks otherwise is barbaric, godless and immoral and i thought to myself "you know, mississippi IS alot like coming home."
except that, you know, MY home has my mother in it. remember her? ...the one who insisted that i visit the civil rights institute and taught me to "love your neighbor as yourself." wait, was that her or that cripes guy? i think i first heard it from cripes...but i wouldn't be surprised if he stole it from my mom.
Posted by adamgraves at 03:18 PM | Comments (3)
July 05, 2005
a LO ha
i love hawaiii know that it's not a tremendous revelation to anyone anywhere to extol the virtues of the 50th state but until one has been there it is pretty much impossible to relate to just how wonderful a place it is. everything about hawaii is perfect. the beaches: perfect. the water: perfect. weather: perfect. the food: perfect. the drinks: over-priced but strong. it's been three weeks since i got back from the island of oahu but i am still existing in an aloha state of mind...lounging around the pool (seeing as how austin lacks a beach)...spending my days drinking texas mai-tais (or as some like to call them "beers") and generally operating on a lower wavelength than that of the rest of the world. something about visiting hawaii just reaffirmed my belief that life is way too precious to go around trying to do or be something other than that which you are, and that trying to change the world takes time and constant attention. so if you're going to try it you should probably be patient because the chances are you're not going to see it in your lifetime. surfing is great metaphor for all of this.
consider the humble surfer. he does not go out into the ocean to create waves. he goes out into the ocean because the waves are already there. and once he finds them he must be patient and wait for the right wave to arrive at the right time. if he gets too anxious and tries to ride a wave too early he does not gain enough momentum to carry him along the atop the rolling water. however, if he waits too long he risks catching the wave after it has begun to crest which will throw him into the sea before he even has a chance to ride it. but if he is patient enough to catch the wave at just the right moment and if he works in harmony with the wave he can leap and dance and carve beautiful patterns into it's face before they both return to the sea waiting for the time that they can dance again.
damn! i wish i knew how to surf!
but enough of this waxing philosophic. let's get to the point which, of course, is that i got to go to hawaii and you didn't and if you are not insanely jealous than you really should be. because i had an amazing time and got to hang out in one of the most beautiful places on the planet with some of the most beautiful people on the planet and you didn't... unless you did. in which case, you know why everyone else should be jealous of me. i wanted to have pictures of my excusion included in this entry but i don't have any yet, plus you can't really photograph perfection. so i'll put up the pictures next time and underneath each one i will be sure to include a caption so that you can all know what i was thinking when i wanted to have that picture taken. you know, something like nyah, nyah, nyah, nayh, nyah, or similar. but that's for another entry and another chance to rub my joy in everyone else's face. because really, what fun is joy if you can't flaunt it in front of those who do not share in it?
Posted by adamgraves at 03:19 PM | Comments (2)
June 03, 2005
another desultory epistle
who knew that maintaining a blog would be so much work? why didn't you people tell me that i was going to have to update it and get it all gussied up to attract members of the oppoosite sects. that sort of work really cuts into my goofing off time so i'm sure that you can forgive me if i go 3 weeks between posts and two months before adding links and photos and whatnot. getting to do whatever you want with your time really limits the number of things that you can actually get done in any given day which is why the old blog is just now getting a new paint job and oil change.in the meantime i'm sure that you will all be delighted to know that i have been wisely using all the extra time that i have been given due to the summer break to break stuff, set things on fire and generally run amok. not that i needed a summer vacation in which to do that but it's nice to finally have the time to dedicate to my avocations. also, yesterday i got to watch the national spelling bee on espn. damn that's great television. it's so much fun to watch those kids run the gamut of emotions when they lose. from hopeful optimism to bitter disappointment and finally to unadulterated terror when they anticipate the beatings that will be forthcoming once their parents get them back to the hotel room. boy does that take me back. i read somewhere that the national spelling bee was once one of espn's highest rated programs. i belive it. i don't know what it is about watching smart kids fail that elicits such a morbid fascination with people but damned if it doesn't make me want to drop everything i'm doing (which in the case of yesterday's viewing included finishing off a seemingly interminable bottle of jim beam) and start yelling at the tv screen, dispensing such valuable advice as "of course sphygmomanometer is of greek origin. so is idiot! quit stalling and just spell the damn word." which leads me wonder...do they sell beer at the national speling bee? if not, i really think that they should start. it would certainly make the bee more interesting. can you imagine how much fun it would be if there were seats behind the contestants where people could sit and heckle them ala spike lee at madison square garden? just picture some guy, possibly me, telling some ten year old kid "don't let your ornithorhynchous shnoz block the microphone while you are tring to formulate your persiflage. unless you want to be relegated to the ranks of the derelict and saturnine." that's the kind of stuff that really gets under their skin and into their heads. and if that doesn't work, i can always pour my beer on them.
or maybe people could hold up signs like at football games where people make cute little acronyms out of the letters of the network broadcasting the game that either laud their own team or denegrate the opposing side. for example, someone (possibly, but not limited to, me) could take the letters from espn and make a sign that might say:
ethan
spells
pretty
nicely
or if someone from nebraska wanted to show off their own spelling prowess they might could make a sign that said:
erin
spells
purty
nowledgeably
(p.s. if you don't get that joke here's a hint: what does the "n" on the nebraska university football team's helmets stand for?.........get it now? i know, it's cheap, but it's funny. plus, i don't like nebraska).
so after much consideration i'm going to propose these rule changes to the people at scripps-howard who run the bee. they seem like a pretty open minded buch ready to embrace change and bring the national spelling bee into the 21st century. i'm more than willing to sit down with them and explain how these changes could increase the popularity of the bee and bring in big advertsing and sponsorship money. and if that doesn't convince them, i can always just pour my beer on them.
Posted by adamgraves at 06:24 PM | Comments (2)
May 09, 2005
post time
oh, my poor neglected little blog. it's a good thing that this blog is not a child or one of those pocket pets that were so popular back in the early 90's or they would surely be long since deceased by now. but lucky for me both children and pocket pets have long since lost their popularity and so the only thing that's left for me to try to kill, besides my brain cells, is this blog. but fear not faithful readers...oh wait, that's right. nobody reads this any more because i haven't posted anything on it in almost a month. well, good this way i won't feel so bad about writing a little something about horse racing. specifically, the kentucky derby, which i watched this past first saturday in may with some of my fellow equine enthusiasts at leela and mike's house. i love everything about the derby. the clothes, the drink (mint julep mmmm) the fact that it takes place in kentucky, a state where dueling is still legal method of resolving ownership disputes but wearing white after labor day is considered very bad form. my love for the kentucky derby is very deep and very nearly illegal.let me just begin by confessing that, not unlike a bookie, i know next to nothing about horses or handicapping races or how far a furlong is. and i'm not really a huge horse racing fan. in fact, i have been to the track one time in my entire life, placed one $2 bet on one horse and walked home with $56 in my pocket. which i took to mean that i should either go to the track and bet alot more often, or quit while i'm ahead and never ever return to the track again. so far, i have opted for the latter. unfortunately, thanks to off track betting i'm currently in for about 13 g's to some guy named "freddie the mole." however, that having been said, i honestly cannot remember the last time i missed a kentucky derby. i remember my first derby party though. it was in grand junction, colorado. many people don't know this but there's a tremendous thouroughbred industry there on the western slope of the rocky mountains. of course, they don't so much race them as they grind them up into dog food, hot dogs and, of course, glue. but i digress. as i was saying, the first derby party i ever attended was when i was six. our neighbors accross the street were from louisville so naturally they had a huge derby party at their house every year and, my father being a minister, we took every opportunity we could to drink booze and gamble away our life savings as a family. in our house, this is what we liked to refer to as "quality time." after we moved we tried unsuccessfully to throw derby parties of our own. unfortunately they were almost always cut short when my mother, already plowed from the 3 mint juleps that she'd had for breakfast and the 5 that constituted "lunch" would begin ogling the jockys as the horses came out of the paddock and then berating my father, telling him "you're half the man that willie shoemaker is, and he's only half a man as it is!" at this point the party would generally dissipate before the race even started. however, despite our ill-fated attempts to introduce public intoxication and legalized gambling to my father's parishoners we still managed to make it through the race every year and every year my father would drag my mother off to bed at "post:05" re-assuring us that my mother was simply "not feeling well." and that perhaps we might want to pray for her in church the next morning while she was "recouperating".
thus began my long love affair with the kentucky derby. since then, i have been to churchhill downs (which, even if you don't like horse racing, you should do because it is a gas! but that's another story.) a thouroughbred farm, started growing my own mint specifically for julep purposes and spent i don't know how much money on clothes just to wear for the one day out of the year when i can watch between 13 and 19 "half-men" straddle a one ton, one horsepower...um...horse and tear down one of the most storied furlongs of dirt in the world for two and a half minutes of mind numbing exhileration. oh, and the race is not that bad either. now if you'll excuse me, i am not feeling well. i think that i may need a little time to recouperate. in the meantime, here's a recipe for mint juleps.
kentucky straight bourbon
sugar
mint
water (optional)
2 asprin
mix bourbon, sugar and mint to taste
get off the bathroom floor in the morning, take asprin and pray for death or pancakes.
Posted by adamgraves at 10:04 PM | Comments (178)
April 17, 2005
something to look forward to
as you can probably see by now i still have not gotten around to fixing the place up to much. but in my defense things have been pretty hectic for me lately. between tending to the crops, preparing my tax return and trying to keep up with my crystal meth habit, this week has just gotten away from me, like so many prom dates who got their corsage and free dinner only to leave with someone better. and in my confusion i think i may hvae accidentally switched the garden fertilizer with the crystal meth. however, the upside of that is that now that i am 7 feet 3 inches tall i'm thinking about trying out for the nba, and the the corn and tomatoes have gotten out of their lazy garden beds and are frenetically cleaning every inch of my house. i'm just a little worried though about what they might do once they start to crash. i don't need a delinquent gumbo of hopped up veggies tearing my house apart trying to score their next fix.another reason that i haven't been able to get this place looking a little snazzier is that i have been feeling very old for the last couple of days. not old as in wizened and mature. no, i look forward to that old feeling. i'm talking about time to replace the factory parts on your vehicle because they are about to crap out kind of old. i feel like some of my parts are starting to give out although i won't bother to tell you which because some of them are kind of gross and i don't want to be like your father, who feels that a discussion of possible gastro-intestinal disorders that could be leading to the blood in his stool is perfect fodder for dinner conversation. i will just say that i have been uncomfortable for the past three days and ailments that i used to be able to get over in the course of half a day or so are now deciding they'd like to stick around for the weekend. and this vexes me. primarily, it vexes me because i am not, in fact, old. i turned 30 a mere six months ago. and as we all know, 30 is the new 20. yet here i am already spending great lengths of time in the bathroom and making special trips to the store to purchase the pills and salves and topolgesic creams used to treat old people ailments. i've been rubbing, drinking, popping any number of over the counter pharmaceuticals to aid in my discomfort only to find temporary relief. this is not how i pictured spending my golden years.
now i know that some of you are going to say, "adam, why don't you just go see a doctor? it's probably just a simple parasite or calciun deficiency" however, i have a much better more well thought out solution and being an eternal optimist, i am choosing to look at the full half of the glass. which is why i have decided that since i am already suffering from old people problems, i should get to live like an old person i.e. ...retired. i've informed my employers of this and that i expect to be paid full pension and medicare benefits for the next 40 years but have yet to hear back from them. i'm sure it's just a matter of getting the paperwork together. so next time you from me don't be surprised if it's from a golf course somwhere in florida or arizona enjoying my well earned, if occasionally physically uncormfortable, old age retirement benefits.
Posted by adamgraves at 07:26 PM | Comments (7)
April 11, 2005
new digs
before i wecome everybody to my new place i just want to send out a huge thank you to mark phillip for letting me crash at his mouse pad for a couple of weeks and for letting me rent out this space from him. i know it's not much to look at right now-no pictures on the wall, flashy signs in the windows or other fancy accoutrements-but once i get settled and give it a new paint job and maybe some elegant house plants it'll be much more me. also, if you are a hockey fan looking online for information on the other adam graves, i hope to eventually have some stuff to help you out there. i would not want it to be said that i was less than helpful in that regard. i know how frustrating it can be to try to find facts about your favorite hockey player only to find that someone else has unapologetically stolen his moniker to set up a domain in which all they do is blab on endlessly about themselves with no useful information at all on how to find the person that you were actually looking for. not to worry sports fans, i will not be that guy. i promise. also, i don't know if he concept of spinning off a blog has ever been attempted before but i think that we may be headed into some pretty exciting and relatively uncharted territory here. perhaps during sweeps we can have a double episode where all the characters from markphillip.com come to visit all the characters on adamgraves.com and some sort of hijinks ensue, probably due to a comical misunderstanding such as someone overhearing a portion of conversation from behind a closed door, in which the dialogue between the two conversing characters could be misconstrued as sugggestive when taken out of context. or perhaps it could be a very special episode in which all the characters from both blogs must band together to come to the aid one of the other characters because said character has suddenly become entangled in a web of deceit and self-destruction due to some sort of socially abhorrant addiction (drugs, alcohol, gambling, transexual turkish prostitutes). these are just the ideas i could come up with off the top of my head. they're probably not very good but i'm sure that the execs over at network can give us some less edgy, tried and true formulas of plot scenarios that have worked well in the past. in the meantime, stay tuned because, unlike the nhl, we have a great season ahead.Posted by adamgraves at 08:36 AM | Comments (6)