Only 10 albums but unlimited batteries

Since we last spoke on this oft-frequented blog, I've watched the first 41 episodes of Lost. This has nothing to do with why I haven't updated this blog since May 19.

The fictional series has bumped Six Feet Under from my fictional "Top Five Television Shows in the Past 20 Years" list (The Wire, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Lost, Friday Night Lights).

Slightly warmer than both six feet under (RIP) and the island on Lost, we sat on one of those new wooden picnic benches on Saturday afternoon at the EGG. Humidity near 100, sun out and temps getting to third base with upwards of 85 degrees, I sat in a jacket sipping my 11th or 12th beer without having eaten all day. The USA had just tied England 1-1.

No Third Base albums made the upcoming list.

Scratching my jeans and turning a brow-wiping into a full-on vertical face rub with a chin-scratching twist, I then redirected my attention toward that 130th ounce of Bud Light.

"If you only could listen to two albums for the rest of your life, what would they be," I asked Paul. The question marked an abrupt change to our conversation with the med student following my proclamation that the only outfit a girl should wear in the summer should involve a gray v-neck T-shirt and aviator sunglasses.

Before Paul answered I said, "isn't it odd that The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby sound so different yet only came out four years apart?"

We then would crawl to three of the least popular bars on the east side of High Street (Buffalo Wings & Rings, The Sloppy Donkey and The Out R Inn). We'd stop to eat at Pizza by the Slice and Raising Canes.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

1. int. bedroom. night.

A MAN lays in bed and looks at the clock. It reads 1:01 a.m.

dissolve to

2. int. bedroom. night

The clock reads 2:58 a.m. The MAN looks at it.

"There's no way I'm falling asleep tonight before four thirty."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Got to thinking last night about Lost and how I'd survive on an island. I did not have to think about how I'd survive on a deserted island because I wouldn't. A normal island would be tough enough.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Which ten albums would I choose to listen to if I could only listen to 10 albums but also had an unlimited supply of batteries? This always strikes me as odd. How come you only can listen to five albums or watch five movies from here to eternity but SOMEHOW have enough battery power to do so on a deserted island? You'd have to rock a portable CD player to do this. Couldn't really do it with an iPod. Might explain why most of the albums on my list debuted before the advent of the iPod.

I chose not to include greatest hits albums because being able to select those is like judging a person solely on his or her Facebook photos when they don't allow themselves to be tagged in other peoples photos. Fleetwood Mac is the big loser here as The Dance definitely would have made this list and Mirage and Rumors also would have made a Top 15/20 list.

I also really like album cover art and this gave me an excuse to Google all these albums.

Here's the list (in alphabetical order by artist):

The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989)


The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)


Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003)


Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction (1987)


Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002)


Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005)


Outkast - Aquemini (1998)


Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)


R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (1991)


Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Soap, people want no part of dirty bathtub

I'm a polished kid guy.

I know the colors of my bathtub have no business resembling the same colors as a Wyoming Cowboys football jersey.

We're all about the exposed brick and hardwood floors in the German Village but one's shower should never look like a mashup of those two hues.

The shower at my place, the one where three bachelors who eat nothing but fast food live and sometimes sleep, needed a cleaning after seven months of about 2-point-5 to four showers per day.

Soaps from around the world sweated at the thought of being called into duty. We feared the spray that comes out of those plastic things like Windex bottles would stop flight midway to surface and attempt to scurry back into the bottle.

"Move, bitch, get out the way," said the dreadlocked cleaning particle on the way back to the comforts of his old home.

Mr. Clean, well that bastard, he tried Rogaine. He wanted no part. Plus I don't even know if you'd use Mr. Clean on a bathtub or even if there's a product called Mr. Clean. I just know he endorses some product but have never seen him in real life. Where does he live? We can assume his bathroom is clean. This we can do safely.


Juggling the duty and dealing with the distraction of how small my hands looked in a pair of yellow rubber gloves, I thought of things like how the weather needs to improve because I've seriously made the comment that "this weather isn't too bad because Thanksgiving is only two weeks away" to varying degrees of laughter like 22 times in the past five days and I'm running out of "bad weather in May" material. I thought about how I've been robbed in never having a friend with the last name Campbell because I'd just call him "Soup" like every single day but that'd only be on the days that I actually saw him in person because then the rest I'd just call him Soup via text messages because I only use like 47 anytime-minutes a month on my cell phone and I haven't had a land-line since 2002 when I lived at 64 E. 12th Ave.

Brighter minds always have pondered better questions. Monday night I went downstairs as we prepared to head out for Elyse's 21st birthday party. My roommate was watching a History Channel special on the history of the United States. They were discussing electricity and the roommate said, "That's got to be the best invention of all-time, right?"

I said, "well, there's soap." I only said this because I remember a similar discussion during the movie Donnie Darko and didn't have a real answer because that would make my head hurt and I didn't have time for that because I always prefer the activities which make my head hurt 12 hours later. I'm a procrastinator in all senses.

My mom, the one who knows me best, probably spends hours awake at night wondering how much better my life would be if I ever put any effort into using this brain for good. She actually probably wishes I made other people's lives better because she's just good that way and goes to church two or three times a week. When I told her Merle and Paul were going to be painting Paul's porch one Saturday afternoon and said "I just wasn't feeling the job" she immediately shot back that I should, "at least grab lunch for them!" The woman who's done more for me than anyone else constantly wonders why I'm not doing more for other people and holy shit this is going to make me depressed and good thing she doesn't know the best I've probably done for someone recently is contribute to a soft-core porn-esque blog on a near daily basis during 2009.

My dad? He's cool.

Our favorite player on the Cleveland Indians like 10 years ago was little-used utility player Enrique Wilson. We just liked saying "En-reeeeeeee-k WILL-sin" in a real Spanish accent and would say Ennnnnnnreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk WILLsin like a dozen times an inning and there's nine innings in baseball so do the math, you no-good motherhubbard. 108.

I'd be up in my room reading old Sports Illustrateds or whatever (Homework? Ha. That's what Nate was for. In terms of cheating off someone else's homework, no one abused the relationship more than me but Nate did end up marrying my sister.) and my dad would ring the doorbell unbeknownst to me and answer the door.

"Dave, there's someone at the door for you."

I'd walk over to the top of the steps and my dad would bellow out:

"It's Enreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekk HhhhhhhhhhhhhhaWILLsin."


I fell for that at least seven times between 1997 and 2000.

Shown only a photo of what our shower looked like, those two years listed above also would be two of the four choices in a multiple-answer question regarding the last time we cleaned our bathroom.

If an elbow produced actual grease during that thing we call hard work, the component would have been an improvement to the scum I scrubed away. Breathing in the type of toxins you usually have to pay for, I spent 75 minutes cleaning.

Congrats on a job ... done. - J. Peterman

Without any beer in fridge, I had to answer what it is that beer drinkers drink when they're not drinking beer. Sure as shit wasn't going to be O'Doul's. I have two rules when it comes to beer A the beer is not allowed to include two apostrophes in its name and B the beer must include alcohol.

Not feeling tap water, I instead had two ... seven popsicles and wondered about the type of stuff Mr. Clean would do when he'd finish an arduous task.

Doing hard work actually is rewarding. LESSON.

When I clean my bathroom again right around my birthday (Dec. 13), I know what my birthday wish will be. It'd be cool to sit down and have a beer with Mr. Clean.

We'd probably have a lot in common. Given his bald head, he's probably a polished guy too.

This too shall pass you by

Jon O'Leary looked at me funny.

I had just thrown a shoe at a television. The Browns were losing 21-0 to the Bengals in an early season game that had virtually no bearing on the outcome of the season. I would wake up and report to my fifth-grade class 16 hours later. Jon had his own troubles with math as a seventh-grader at Southampton Middle School. He always had Diet Mt. Dew at his house though and we'd spend hours trying to throw away empty cans from outrageous distances into his trash can. We'd always miss and always not clean them up.

Dominating elementary school math competitions myself, I've always been a tad off when it comes to watching sporting events. Friends make up excuses not to watch with me. I go places and sit alone. I probably look utterly ridiculous. I look fucking stupid.

I take the shit seriously and it's often sad and depressing. I repeat the same lines over and over again and not in a Tim McGraw f/ Nelly type of way either.

"I'm done."

"I'm just not going to watch anymore."

"Why do I do this to myself? This isn't fun!"

"My teams never win."

"I really thought this year was different. I'll never believe again."

"[I'm] done with sports forever."

"Look at me? This is not how a [insert age here]-year old should act."

"This is just sad."

"I can't believe it's over."

"This always happens."

"We all knew this would happen."

"I hate that I was born in northeast Ohio."

"God hates Cleveland."

Tonight when Boston closes out the LeBron James-era in Cleveland, I'll utter some of that stuff almost verbatim. I'll have that moment when I know it's over. It'll come. It'll hurt and then you begin to move on. Over the years, it's gotten easier. I remember when the Indians lost the 1997 World Series, I went to bed at 6:30 p.m. (sometimes with the help of over-the-counter drugs) for a week straight because I couldn't bear to be awake. It'll sting tonight. It'll sting into the morning but by lunchtime tomorrow, I'll be over it. Tomorrow night I'll be with friends drinking, laughing and telling funny stories. I'll be with smug Boston fans who tell me it'll eventually one day happen, all the while hoping it never does. I've come to those terms. It's never going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

And I still watch. I still will watch the Indians play the Orioles tomorrow night. I'll have a totally unfulfilling and excruciatingly boring Sunday afternoon watching those same two awful teams play again.

This is no "woe is me." While I'm willing to admit not all aspects of my life are thrilling or even marginally un-boring-as-fuck, I love the lifestyle in which I lead. It's not so much that I lead it, it's that I follow it around when I feel excited enough to take a shower.

Jimmy Fallon, one of the least funny "funny" men to ever grace a television screen, said something along the lines of how it's exhilarating "putting all your faith into something you have absolutely no control over."

I'm that way. I consistently reach. I consistently move at a speed different than most. I take things slow. I am patient. I am as easy-going as they come. I'm pleasant to be around 99 percent of the time. People like being around me. I don't cause problems. (Well, usually.) I always am willing to play defense even if my basketball box scores from eighth grade tell you otherwise.

Once I reach the point of knowing my resigned fate, I become remarkably relaxed and almost happy. And while I'll get pissed and throw shoes at televisions and be generally unpleasant to be around when watching playoff games, my mood in elimination games or do-or-die affairs is markedly different.

1999 - Boston closes out Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. I watched quietly in a dorm room and treated myself to a giant sundae from UDF following the epic meltdown. The sundae had no time to melt down as I ate it in about .8 seconds.

2001 - Seattle closes out Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. I watched upstairs in my bedroom (on mute) in an apartment on East 12th Avenue.

2007- Boston comes back from a 3-1 deficit and eliminates Cleveland in Game 7 of the ALCS. I went to a movie and didn't watch a single play of the game.

You get the picture. Sometimes you just know.

I've watched a bunch of Cavs games with my roommate The Godfather. He hates watching games with me but he can remember Game 7 of the 2008 Eastern Conference semifinals when Boston took out Cleveland. We went on to have one of the most fun afternoons of either of our lives.

Last year when Orlando eliminated Cleveland in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, we left the bar at halftime and I half-laughed/half-sighed in telling Kirk, "Look, you can join me, but I'm grabbing a 12-pack of Miller Light and I'm going to sit in my living room and drink them all without watching any TV."

I think I'm just fighting a battle (WOW that pretentious) during a playoff series, hoping, wishing, nearly praying something goes differently than all I've ever known. I just want to stick it to those fans who always root against us. I want to be the champs for once. I want to be on top. I want to see a Cleveland team win a championship.

It's never going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

Yet I feel fine. I know the outcome. And when you know the outcome, it's difficult to be upset at its actualization.

Tonight around 10:40 p.m. or perhaps earlier, I'll get really quiet for a second, bite my lower lip, look down at the ground with my eyebrows raised, nod my head a few teams and then let out a heavy sigh.

It won't be the last time I complete the motion. It'll be easier next time.

I don't mind easy.