That's Four...

Four years ago Alison and I got into the car and took off to Florida. We go to Destin just about every year and sit on the beach and eat too much and live like typical upper-middle-class white Americans.

We stopped in Santa Rosa beach and got married. We planned it, but tried not to make a big deal out of it or build it up inside. But we did anyway.

Neither of us have much religion, or use for it. Luckily, Alison isn't one of the uncountable masses of women in the world who think that Their Wedding Day needs to be a 5-star affair involving bands, white horses, shiny party favors, doves, dollar-dances, bride-and-dad pictures, 13-story cakes, and guest books.

We stood in a courthouse and got married without hundreds of dollars of makeup and hair. I had a red Hawaiian shirt and jeans on. She wore a pretty red blouse that made her look like a hippie chick, which she is. And we got married without our folks knowing about it. The witness was a clerk with hockey hair and jean shorts. Our J.O.P. was in an orange crop-top and she had a little bit of a lisp.

Aside from the rings we smuggled to the event, the whole thing cost us $110.

It was awesome.

I complain and make fun of My Lovely Wife™ all the time when I blog. I do it because I am grateful to have a Lovely Wife™ like her. I had little-to-no interest in getting married after I left college and left a relationship that was particularly difficult for me to get over and past. I think Alison knew that, considering we were together for about 6 years before the trip to the courthouse. But I really need to say it: I dig the hell out of Alison, and she's really the only lady in the world who I would WANT to be married to.


That's about as sentimental or mushy as I am capable of getting. It's very difficult for me to gush over someone. I'm not the kind of person who thinks that 'love' is some sort of overwhelming force that controls our actions or that heals any sort of problems that two people might have without it.

But it certainly makes it easier to be happy when it's there.

This whole entry would probably be a lot more touching if I didn't mention that I am listening to a Samantha Fox song on my iTunes as I type this.

Elitism

Lounging
Originally uploaded by Rwilliams718

Ahem (taps microphone, draws breath)...

elitist

noun
Someone who believes in rule by an elite group.

Let's go a bit further...

e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism

noun

The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
-The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
-Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.

I wanted everyone to know what the words meant, since they are throwing it around the same way we threw around 'Communist' in the 50's and 'Freedom' in 2001-2002.

If you have had more than a single beer with me at any given time, you probably have gotten at least HALf of my fumbling attempt to explain my 'Cult of The Ignorant' theory.

That's my well-shared belief that we encourage each other for being stupid, that we celebrate ignorance, and that we even go as far as to reward the criminally moronic as being icons that we wish not only to emulate, but that we look up to in order to feel like we belong.

The list of examples is, sadly, a mile long. Highlights include the following:

Jackass
Rock Of Love
Viva La Bam
Paris Hilton
Lindsey Lohan
Owen Wilson
Ben Stiller
Jessica Simpson
Brooke Hogan
Amy Winehouse
Heidi Montague
Britney Spears
Matthew Mchau... Mac... fuck, the guy who always takes his shirt off.

This isn't a list of people, movies and shows that I have a particular problem with. It is a list of people who are considered on a constant basis by the media to be celebrity-worthy. And each has, in the last 6 months, done at least one or two incurably stupid things that the media has jumped on. And so have we, as consumers.

This entire campaign against Obama, this angle that he is 'elitist', smacks more strongly of hoedown politics than anything I have ever witnessed. It's straight out of a schoolyard playground or a scene from Idiocracy: "What are ya tryin' ta be? Some kinds ed-e-cated faggit? Smartypants Mcgoo?! We don't take kindly ta people comin' in hare n' puttin' on aires!!"

WE LIVE IN A FUCKING REPUBLIC, PEOPLE!

In a Republic, we elect officials who are brought in to make decisions FOR us, based on our needs and goals.

Has the last 8 years worth of brainwashing us into thinking that a sweet-faced "good 'ol boy" is the best our country can elect as a leader?

Are we THAT afraid of bringing in a person who might have our best interests in mind as a country?

I'm really fucking annoyed at this crap. If the worst you can do is imply that a candidate is a better man than most other Americans... (shakes head in anger).

I don't endorse any candidate. I am still on the fence about a lot of stuff concerning this upcoming election. I hope you are, too. It's too soon to align yourself with a particular candidate. there are too many things to consider.

But what I HOPE you will start doing, if you haven't already, is that I hope you will start looking at 'news and information' regarding each candidate as it surfaces, and I hope you will start thinking to yourself: "Did the rival campaign/party put this out there? Is this the BEST they can do to smear their opponent?"

Jon Stewart said it best the other night:

"Not only do I want an elite president, I want someone who's embarrassingly superior to me."

So do I.

I am sick of catering to idiots and masses of people who are proud to be ignorant and downright stupid.

Chuck's Budd

Chuck's Budd
Originally uploaded by Rwilliams718

Chuck is a Silver Maple that started out when I thumbed a helicopter seed into the ground. It was at the first apartment that My Lovely Wife™ (at the time she was still My Lovely Girlfriend™) had in Nashville. Two years later we moved into a condo and I brought the 17-Inch-Tall 'Chuck' with us, and I planted him behind our condo near our fence.

Well, eventually we moved from the condo to our current home. When we left, I was a little bit distressed because I was so proud of the fact that Chuck started out as a seedling and he was easily 6 or 7 feet tall by then. I mentioned my concern to a good friend of mine named Craig Smith, who understood completely and who selflessly came to my condo one Saturday Afternoon and dug up Chuck's root ball. He kept it at his home for several months while they built our house, and afterwards he sacrificed ANOTHER Saturday hauling Chuck out of his yard and into mine.

That was 3 years ago, and Chuck is about 10 or 12 feet tall now. This week he woke back up and is starting to get busy again.

I'm very, very fond of Chuck.

Hanzo

Hanzo
Originally uploaded by Rwilliams718

This is Hanzo. He is the world's greatest salesman.

Hanzo won us over by sitting on our back porch and meowing at the door for hours on end. He didn't want food, we gave him plenty of that even though he was a stray and we knew what it would lead to. He just wanted to be petted and loved.

So we did.

Now, he's a house cat; one of four (his salesmanship got him in the house alongside his snowy-white brother, Pai Mei). And he's the one who will climb up your leg, just so you will pick him up and carry him around with you.

Hanzo's a pretty good cat.

Breffast

Here’s what you need to know about today’s entry:

1. I’m still trying to maintain my South Beach lifestyle by eating a consistent breakfast. In my case: a hard-boiled egg and a can of V-8 every morning at 10.

2. My Lovely Wife™ is a hippie-chick. Not one of the annoying Late 1960’s Love Child types, but the sexy and exciting 1963 post-Beat Generation mod types who doesn’t care about macramé and bell bottoms but loves being nice to Mother Earth.

3. I am vowing to take a photo a day for a month, just to give myself something to work for.

Okay. Now we can blog.



This was breakfast. My Lovely Wife™ insists on buying farm-fresh, cage-free, vegetarian-fed eggs (all of which I am all-for).

I rarely get one with spots, though. I sort of feel like I am eating a tiny dinosaur egg.

Taking a picture of it was the least I could do, considering this guy’s mum laid it with the best intentions of procreation and here I am about to put it in mah belleh.

NOM NOM NOM.

News. Coverage You Can Count On...

I don’t know if I have ever talked about this before, but my hatred of local news has no bounds.

Not MY local news, per se. I have lived in about 20 cities in my short and miserable life. They all have had one thing in common, and that’s a VD epidemic by the time I split town and move on.

Well, they really have TWO things in common, because every town I have ever lived in has also come complete with a ’local on-the-spot news team.’ WE ARE THERE FOR YOU.

The team always includes the following:

1 Conservative-but-pretty female anchor with short hair and a comforting smile. The kind of smile that reminds you of the woman who takes your insurance ID and hands you a clipboard when you are at the dentist’s.

1 Conservative-yet-attractive-in-a-non-gay-and-non-threatening way male anchor. He is usually named Dennis. Or Andrew. Or Matthew. You can picture your dad playing golf with him. He is the guy who stands with his hands in his pockets near the cluster of husbands at the cookout and smiles, but is always looking across the yard at something else.

1 Black male and female to fill in and meet a bit of criteria. Put ’em wherever you need em. If you are in a fairly white community, give ’em Sports.

Wanna stick with a white sportscaster? I’ll give you two: You get the young, fresh-outta-college frat guy who likes to pause while the tape is playing back the hot point and say things like ’Snap there you go for two points Warriors!’. Your other choice is the old guy who obviously still smokes Chesterfields and who’s face is puffier than a baseball mitt. If you pick the old guy we will give you the kid on weekends for free. Hell, I’ll even throw in the black guy. Take em. Now get off my lawn.

Local news is the biggest waste of time and energy on Television. I say this with full knowledge that there is a television show on VH1 called Rock Of Love with Brett Michaels.

I live in a city with FOUR prime local network affiliates: ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. That amounts to FOUR news teams who are combing the streets, looking for juicy stories like The Woman With Sewage In Her Yard and The Guy Who Made Shea Stadium Out Of Toothpicks. If you are dowton on a Friday night, you will see two of the four networks; news vans out and about, just dying to come up with a story or an angle.

And don’t get me started on the fucking weather guy.

Complete. Waste. Of. Time. All of it. In this day and age when we have CNN repeating their stories every 4 hours, and The Weather Channel giving us accurate forecasts "On The 8’s"... the whole system is useless.

What every city needs is ONE news team. They can work with the local paper. We can broadcast local stuff like house fires and Old Ladies With 200 Cats on CNN once a day. YOU ARE DONE.

"Hey Ryan!" You say, indignantly, "What about important things like tornadoes and riots and bank robberies and The Chinese Buffet On Nolansville Road With Roaches In It?"

Exactly, answers I.

I fucking hate the local news. That’s all.

To celebrate: here is a FINE link (courtesy of Shelley) of a compilation of all those terrible things that happen to local asshat ’news reporters’ when they try to make their mark on the media map.

Click HERE to see idiots and fuckwads get beat up, scratched, knocked over, dumped on, and almost blown to bits. I swear to god I laugh my fucking ass off every time I see that guy wind up with a lizard on his coat.

Eat me and live forever...

It's been a while since I hit you kids with an exciting blog, so I figured I would burn up this precious at-work time to give you a little update on my life.

I'm fine.

Well that about sums it up, now doesn't it?

In the mean time, here's a chance for you to learn a little something about life...

I have become obsessed recently with health. Namely- my own. I have lost almost 17 pounds in the last month or so by sticking HARD to stage 1 of my diet and cheating like hell during stage 2. I've knocked out eating candy and greasy stuff almost entirely, and the last time I had an actual non-diet/non-'Zero' product was five weeks ago.

And of course, it goes without saying I have had to abandon the meth. The sweet... sweet meth.

Anyhoo... what I have become specifically enamored with is the whole Antioxidant thing.

Did you know that YOU can avoid cancer and not become old and creepy if you just eat a shit ton of this stuff:

Berries. Namely: Strawberries and Blueberries. If your blueberry has a tiny red spot on it then it will be bitter. This rule goes for any red spots you find on any part of your body that you might call your blueberry.

Broccoli. Yeah, yeah, yeah, George Bush Sr. didn't like it. Let's move on. It's delicious, and if you steam it semi-whole then you can eat it with your fingers and pretend you are a giant devouring a tree. At least until your wife sees you dicking around with your food. Then it's a case of HELLO, MISTER RIGHTY! 'HEY HONEY?' KA-POW! Now you can go back to playing Pete's Dragon. RAAAAAAAR!

Garlic. I had no IDEA that garlic was as good for you as it turns out to be. Garlic is LOADED with Antioxidant properties. Once you get past the 'gah! that stinks!' aspect of it, it becomes a tasty treat to enjoy sauteed, roasted, ground up in sauces, and speinkled in 'salt' form over your favorite bowl of popcorn. I'm telling you, garlic sounds terrible and stinks on the first pass, but after you open yourself up to it and really start getting into what garlic has to offer, it's marvelous stuff. What I think I am trying to say is that garlic is the Bob Dylan of food.

Here's an added bonus! All those weepy, sad-faced, too-much-black-makeup, clove-smoking, Jesus-And-Mary-Chain-listening goth douchebags who fancy themselves as vampires will stay away from you and your food if you cook with a lot of garlic. It's that whole 'ooh, vampires hate garlic and so I do too' thing. It's a win-win for you, because now you don't have to deal with those ass hats.

Tomaters - By LAW I have to spell 'em and pronounce 'em that way. I also have to use the word 'em instead of them when I explain how to pronounce them. Er... 'em. Eat more. They are delish.

Red Wine. Neil Diamond has said more about this Godlike fluid than I ever could. Why you aren't drinking a big old goblet of Red Wine right NOW is a mystery to me. If Little John can do it, so can you. Tell your boss Ryan says it's okay. It's good for your heart. Screw your liver.


Spinach. Do you know why you hate spinach? You hate spinach because your mom served it to you out of a can or a frozen brick. She probably scooped it out of the metal saucepan with that grotesque 1950's-style slotted strainer that looked like a spatula that got the shit knocked out of it during a rumble in the silverware drawer. Who WOULDN'T be turned off at the idea of a slimy, greasy wad of green-black goo swimming in boiled water, dangling off the edge of your plate? Nobody blames YOU, honey. Your parents were just lazy.

I've always loved spinach. Mainly because I was that annoying little kid who would eat things that looked gross just to get attention and make the other people at the table say 'ew!'

Carrots. I wasn't allowed to touch carrots for 2 weeks because Phase One of the South Beach Diet said they were full of sugar. Total bummer, because a day without carrots is like a lesbian video without a strap-on. Eat more carrots. Watch more porn. If that is at all humanly possible. You might need to quit your job.

Soybeans. I'm not a fan of tofu. Something about the texture makes me think I am eating flavorless Jello. Even when you grill it or try to dress it up like a piece of fried chicken, my tongue knows the difference. That's why I endorse the consumption of edamame. Edamame is a soybean steamed in its' shell and rolled in salt. It's what you eat as an appetizer when you go out for sushi. You can also buy it shelled in bags in your local grocer's freezer. If I was a LOL Cat I would end my endorsement of this stuff by saying NOM NOM NOM.

NOM NOM NOM!

Here we have the ACTUAL reason for me to compile a list of my favorite Antioxidants. You paid your dues, and read this far, so I will reward you by revealing my latest obsession, and my most favorite Antioxidant to date.

Green Tea.

Oh my LORD yes. Green Tea is mind-spankingly delicious. I just finished my third mug of it.

And subsequently, I have just realized that I have been sitting here for 30 minutes with three mugs of green tea inside me. Which means I have just now come to discover that I have but one choice in my immediate future... I can sit here and eke out a few more paragraphs of self-serving ha-ha's for you that recount my newfound love of The Healthiest Beverage You Can Enjoy In Your Life, or I can go take a monster piss.

I REALLY gotta pee, you lucky bastards.