Funny thing about the covid world that we live in now days, time doesn't really seem to matter anymore. Things happen, you move on. You catch the rona, your down for 10 days, you go back to work. Those 10 days are just lost to the whims of the great magnet.
Everything now just feels like a never ending time sludge.
We are wearing masks. Then, well, looks like we got on top of it, maybe we can go back to normal. Our sports are back and stadiums are full and things are great! Waterski events, well, nothing changed there...as we don't have events where people go anyways, but, then, Boom, the flight craft variant comes along and we are all back to wearing masks again and trying to find testing sites and hoping our quarterback or point guard or whatever is able to play in the playoffs.
We were talking in the CRB office about what concerts we saw this year, and came to realize shows we saw two, three years ago seemed like we saw them this year.
Early 2020 we saw a dead cover band in san diego, and that was the last show we saw until we saw dead and company at wrigley this summer.
That was, what, a year a half gap that just got folded up and tossed away, time doesn't matter.
In our head it was, yeah, we saw the black keys early this year (note, we did not, that was 2019), then saw the dead then guns and roses then kings of leon and then your mom.
So its either getting older and time just goes by or this world we live in now is so strange that we look at the passage of time through a different lens.
/huge bong rip
What if like, time just doesn't matter man?
Anyways, now that this random construct of time that is given a number is about to switch over to a new certain number of days and given a different, yet slightly higher, number, we thought we would ask a few people in the office if they thought about making changes in their life for 2022 that they will immediately forget about, not do or laugh about later on like, "lol, like i would STOP micro dosing before dropping the kids off at day care, you fool"
ODBF
"Why would I need to change anything, everything i do is perfect, i have never made a mistake and therefor do not need to alter my life in one way, but, fine whatever here are my resolutions for 2022"
1) Catch more bass
2) Drink more PBR
3) Eat less carp
4) Get this fishing hook out of my finger
ODBF is one of simple pleasures and outlook
DIG DUG
"As the CEO of CRB INC, a multi-national zillion dollar a year enterprise, which some refer to as a financial rocket ship with a trajectory heading straight up, it is also important to take inventory of ones life and methodically remove the bad, emphasise the good and continue to strive towards excellence and efficient use of ones limited resources, and as such this is a list of items to enhance that effort"
1) Splice strands of various DNA into the Hadron collider to great the worlds first nuclear powered Golden Retriever
2) Continue efforts to replace my own blood with a synthetic organism that enhances both sexual vitality and allows the human body to effectively operate at extreme levels of focus, temperament and passion.
3) Be the first ever to get 6 buoys at 75 off
4) Be nicer to squirrels
5) Full and complete transformation into a xenomorphic scrote pod
RoboCop
"I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. ED 209 is a conqueror? No! I'm Alexander! He's no Alexander! I'm the best ever. There’s never been anyone as ruthless as me. I'm Sonny Liston. I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their cloth. There is no one who can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to CRB!"
1) Serve the public trust
2) Protect the innocent
3) Uphold the law
4) Hidden*
Rowboat Abides
Ed note: Rowboat Abides was the sites original organism. In the time since things have changed.
lol, cosmic rowboat
"YOUR POWER AND DESIRES ARE USELESS, I HAVE ASCENDED TO A HIGHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE, NO LONGER BOUND BY THE LIMITATIONS INHERENT IN THE HUMAN BODY I AM ABLE TO TRANSCEND THE LIMITS OF TIME, SPACE, DIMENSION AND YOUR MOM
THIS EXTREME LEVEL OF METAPHYSICAL INTERDIMENSIONALLY HAS NOT ONLY ALLOWED ME TO LEAVE THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE SUFFOCATING EARTHLY INHABITANTS BUT ALSO TO ACHIEVE A LEVEL OF REALIZATION AND INCENDIARY SPIRITUALIZM THAT HAS RENDERED ALL A LEVEL OF NOTHINGNESS YET COMPLETENESS THAT CAN NOT ONLY NOT BE DESCRIBED BY THE SIMPLE HUMAN ALPHABET BUT ALSO WOULD CAUSE MASSIVE INTERPLANETARY AND INTERDIMENSIONAL DESTRUCTION WHICH WOULD RENDER THE ENTIRE PLANE OF EXISTENCE INTO A COMPLETE VACUUM OF LIFE.
ALSO, I FINALLY LANDED A WAKE 180
HERE ARE MY RESOLUTIONS, WEEP AT THEIR PERFECTION AND SOUL BONERING WISDOM"
1) UNLEASH UPON THE HUMAN RACE A SUBSTANCE THAT HAS ZERO FRICTION
2) FIGURE OUT HOW THE HELL ALMOND MILK IS MADE
3) CONTINUE ASCENT TO BECOMING THE ONE TRUE ALL-BEING, MASTER OF TIME, SPACE AND DIMENSION
4) ELIMINATE FISH
"AS YOU WISH COSMIC ASS FISH, WE WILL HAVE AN INTERDIMENSIONAL WAR FOR THE SOULS OF ALL LAKES"
Sally from HR
ENOUGH with the ambiguously-defined employee roles complaints!
"In my job as head of HR for CRB, there are many challenges and obstacles to over come, mainly because everything at this place is so centered around cold cuts, snacks and miller high life that trying to maintain a functional work environment for the employees to succeed can be tricky. That being said, the 20 hour work week with mandatory wakeboard wednesdays and use of the company's fleet of ski masterbus contributes to quite the work/life balance. Below, however, are a few things I would like to do to become both better at my job and a more rounded human being and partner for my partner"
1) Take a deep breath when I am feeling angered by a situation or person, try and empathise with their situation and not take it personal
2) Would really like to get back into my rosetta stone spanish lessons, i feel like being able to speak a second language would aid both in my work and life and open doors professionally that may be closed now.
3) Really try and get out and jog 2 or 3 times a week, I feel like the exercise would aid in both my physical well-being but also my emotional well-being and general demeanor.
4) Help rowboat abides fuck up that cosmic fish!
Here is to a kick ass 2022 with way less covid nonsense, way more afternoon beers and to finally someone, somewhere, hitting a double whirleybird!!
* robocops 4th prime directive is "Any attempt to not cut later and/or be hella sick will result in shutdown
Yes, the last few years have been rough, the Covoid Era, its been a few years right? At least a couple, a year and a half...a decade? Who knows now anyways, and whatever, it doesn't matter, its been long enough that between the time the first case of covoid happened and today we have got married, had a few kids, got divorced and lost the house because of, as some would call it, "extreme arson" and "revenge plot" and "contract killers" and "just really shocking buffoonery".
Which sounds scary and awful, but, its not what you think.
We borrowed a very large sum of money from real shady loan sharks and didn't pay them back and they burned down our house in an attempt to kill us in a revenge plot. Oh, that is what you thought? La-De-Da smartypants. We do not appreciate that sort of attitude.
Never the less, between all that above and politics, shootings, the aforementioned revenge plot, the "supply chain" disruption, everything else crummy in this world, we do need to focus on something important.
Christmas Music.
Yeah, I Said It.
Christmas Music. We've had enough and its time for it to GO!
woo-woo-woo we have a Type 3 Grinch Alert!
"All CHRISTMAS MUSIC?", you say outloud to the person next to you at the bar at an applebees (wtf are you doing there btw), "How dare you even say such things?"
Pretty easy really, just use your mouth to say them outloud or possibly your fingers on a keyboard to type them out. These are things we learned a long time ago, surprised you needed clarification as to the nature of human communications.
But, no, of course, not ALL christmas music.
We aren't heathens over here.
However, we have to have some sort of system in place to weed out the bad, some sort of classification system maybe to keep us from all becoming grinch like characters around the holiday season...In a way, modern christmas music is alot like modern country music.
There is no filter to keep the bad from popping up and spoiling it.
Any idiot can sing a song over a guitar, wear a cowboy or trucker hat, talk about a pick-up and call it country music and a wide swath of idiots in this country will eat it up. There are two big culprits here, Hootie and the guy from Staind. Think about it, and you know we are right.
Its the same for christmas music in a way.
I'm looking at you Martina Mcbride and Katherine McPhee and Christina Perri and the cast of Glee and Harry Connick Jr and you get the idea.
You present this in the sugar sweet box of christmas and family and love and celebrating the season and really your just an opportunistic capitalist vulture tearing shreds of money off the christmas carcass for your own self interest.
AND ITS GROSS!
On top of all this is the amount of time we are exposed to this, it started this year in our neck of the woods the day after thanksgiving...ITS NOT EVEN DECEMBER YET!
Just stop it!
So, lets figure this out quick and maybe we can devise a better way in which to deal with the god forsaken month of December.
1) The Classics.
These are the ones we all know, we all love, and are untouchable. They are canon.
Silent night, Jingle Bells, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, let it snow, Its Beginning to look a lot like christmas, its the most wonderful time of the year, Sleigh Ride, Santa Baby, etc
You know these and know what we are talking about, they aren't sung by Lance Bass or Jason Mraz, these are sung by people like, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Gene Autry, The Ronettes, Dean Martin, Eartha Kitt, etc.
For example:
Yep, thats some christmas music right there. This is the good stuff.
2) The Modern Classics.
Here is the part where it gets a little more complicated, as we have christmas songs from the last, say 20 years or so, that have risen above the nonsense to become classics on their own right, but, maybe not quite pantheon like the others, but, that is debatable.
Modern classics, you know where this starts right? Mariah Carey and All I want For Christmas...that...shoot, that may as well be in the first category as no one can deny it.
Right? Thats a modern classic, of course, and in addition to this you have stuff like Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC or even Last Christmas by Wham!
Those are two pretty dang good christmas songs.
Now, there are two that may be controversial as being either modern classics or not, and thats Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney and Happy Xmas by John Lennon.
Lets debate their merits and reach a verdict.
Wonderful Christmastime
Pros - Its Paul McCartney who seems like a nice guy, makes some good tunes and was in the beatles for whatever that is worth.
Cons - This song is a crime against humanity and deserves to be brought up in front of a military tribunal and executed.
Verdict - Shot into the sun with extreme prejudice.
Happy Xmas
Pros - Its catchy as hell, has a soaring chorus with kids singing and also somehow ended a war, which seems nice.
Cons - in complete reverse from above, John Lennon seems like (seemed like, past tense if you believe the government lies) such an insufferable doofus, but, the man can write a hook.
Verdict - Safe for now, on probation.
3) Accepted Current Christmas Groups/bands/singers.
You know what we mean here, around middle november or so, these people come out of the mothballs and start lathering up to make their annual christmas season return to the public conscience. They sort of cover all the genres and styles, but, of course we are talking about: Trans-Siberian orchestra, manheim steamroller, michael bubbles and I guess like, Josh Groban or something.
/shreds for santa
Right? So are we agreed on the music that is acceptable?
Lets do a quick recap, we have the classics, we have a few new ones thrown in and then we have a few groups/singers that are allowed to roam the landscape.
4) The Quality Filter.
Here is the hard part. There is so much lousy christmas music out there, so much crap like, "REO SPEEDWAGON'S SANTA SAC SURPRISE" christmas album that we have to come up with some sort of way to eliminate the bad, separate the wheat from the chaf so to speak.
Because, someone like, say...John Legend puts out a christmas album and you would tend to think, "oh, of course that's good because John Legend is good"
THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU!
Don't allow that to be a guiding force in your Christmas music consumption, you are not a vessel of money that is allowed to be drained to help finance someone rich persons lifestyle! BE SKEPTICAL!
So, here is one idea as to how to do this.
1) Every christmas song ever that isn't included in the above classifications has to be loaded into a database somewhere, maybe we just use spotify as the organizational tool.
2) There will be a gigantic playlist with all the songs in it.
3) Every American is required to vote up and vote down on three songs a day for one week, in return you either get a $1,000 tax credit or one (1) Pontoon boat.
Boom! A democratic way to determine christmas music once and for all.
Only the top, say, 25% of the songs are allowed to be used the rest have to wait until next year to be re-voted on and if it doesn't make it above that 25% mark in 3 years its lost forever into the bowels of the internet and forever will bring shame on the artists home/family and heritage.
5) The Time Factor
Finally we come to the part that really affects us, and that is the constant exposure to said christmas music. And its everywhere, and its time that we figured a just way to adjudicate this properly.
In the comfort of your own home you can do whatever you want, mainline harry conick jr. via a airpod suppository for all we care, its your life champ, live it up do your best.
No, this is a two fold attack on the over reaching corporate retail take over of this sort of music, here are the two steps.
1) Every retailer that plays Christmas music must pay $1,000 a day into a federally mandated coffer. They are tracked, of course, by the meta tags, we think they are called, but, whatever system they use to play music in the store, pandora, spotify, sat. radio, whatever, if it plays you pay.
That money then at the end is used to compensate everyone in the country when they file taxes, if they are considered median wage income for a household or below, you receive whatever percentage of that money that applies as a tax return boost, meaning however much is paid in vs. the number of filers who are considered middle middle class and below.
maybe, not the best campaign slogan ole bern dog
2) Christmas music on your television, in either commercial form or say a concert of something playing that your mom wanted to watch because Michael bubbles is dreamy or whatever.
The cable companies or whoever makes things work, will utilize the SAP button to change whats coming out of the tv, like, instead of it switching to spanish like in sporting events, you can program it to play say, Neil Young's greatest hits instead of the boston pops concert. However, there is one obvious problem with this, in that, if your mom turned it on and its her house, you can't change the music to Neil Young or whomever you like, because thats not what she wants to hear.
So, dig the airpod out of your bumbum and stick it back in your ear. Turn on the noise canceling function and it will then realize the SAP button is active and start playing Olivia Rodriguez sings Barry White for you.
How on earth would your airpods know that the SAP button has been pushed? Are you serious? They know everything that we do, our phones, our smart devices (i.e the alexas and such), shoot, we had a Alexa with the camera and screen in our bedroom.
You're welcome for the show Jeff Bezos, if you want tips or anything, hit us up, we will show you how to "fold the laundry" if you know what we mean*
*shove it in a drawer.....if you know what we mean*
*seriously we mean it, whatever, just stick it in, no folding necessary....if you know what we mean*
*NO and ouch
/deep breath...
We feel that both this metaphor is pained and stupid and the idea of a bum bum air pod playing neil young via the SAP button is maybe a logistical hurdle to tall. So, lets call an audible here and try this out.
2B) Your air pods or whatever ear phones you use, will automatically pick up that same meta-tag that we talked about before, and instead of doing the SAP thing, it will emit an acoustical wave noise that permeates your brain matter to increase the level of dopamine or seretonin or cocaine, or whatever it is thats in our bodies that make you feel good.
So, there we have it! We have solved it. The existential crisis that is christmas music and its affect on our brains, or pocket book and our mental health.
Biggest thing though, is this.
Everyone knows that christmas is, for most people, really, a time to celebrate the season, be with family, all the good and happy things, but, its become (not recently, its been this way forever), a horribly crass commercialized awful exploitation of our own good natured beings.
It would be nice to start drawing a line somewhere, and if it starts with the music, great.
We are tired of mediocre to bad musical artists trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of us with a lousy "christmas" album, and for that matter, going to the grocery store because we need food to survive shouldn't also be an adventure in christmas excess.
Celebrate at home, put up lights, put airpods wherever you want, be merry, wear your santa suit with no pants and eat ham all day, its all good.
But, for the greater good of us all, lets just cool it a bit with the music and if not, pay up.
Because, as we know, Christmas time is very much about money.
now its waterski related. /gets refill on xmas music suppository
Hey! Its one of the best holidays that we have! Its here!
Thanksgiving 2021!
U. S. A! U. S. A!!
Thanksgiving and the 4th of July are the two best that we have in the USA, and this is an undisputed fact. Check it, and come back to us crying! Cuz facts stand strong son.
"But," you may be saying to yourself, "what about Christmas? That has to be the best holiday that we have, it's a day of giving and cheer for all, what about that you big scrooge jerk?"
/FLYING NINJA JUDO CHOP TO THE HEAD.
How wrong you are you stupid peasant, Christmas is a pagan ritual that is now one giant circle jerk of commerce and nonsense.
YOU WORSHIP A FALSE GOD!!
Your selfish nature and slavish devotion to over priced consumer goods is a stain on your families name and a POX ON OUR SOCIETY AS A WHOLE.
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!
No, thanksgiving being in the top two of holidays is as it should be and was foretold in the elder scrolls recently uncovered in Patrice Martins house.
As noted, the fourth of July is the other top 2. There is no specific order, they both rule. 4th of July is BBQ, Fireworks and patriotism, thanksgiving is turkey, football and naps.
With the obvious caveat of the covid god damn plague that basically turned the world off for most of 2020 and 2021, there were still a few things to be thankful for.
1) webcasts! and specifically the world broadcasting service of waterski. Or whatever its called. Tony's deal on the youtubes. The CRB has beat the drum for waterski tournaments to be in more public locations for years and years and there is no need to rehash it now, seeing as it appears, other than moomba and maybe the us open? there really isn't anything for the public to enjoy in person. The malibu open which WAS in the downtown of a major city is now out in a corn field somewhere.
Never the less, cameras and internets and microphones and we can watch waterskiing live on our phones while taking a shit.
God works in mysterious and wonderful ways.
I'm Watching Montavon in Here!!
2) Freddy Being A God.
This is Freddy at, what, 85 years old beating Dorien Llewellyn. I WILL DEFEAT YOUR WHOLE FAMILY.
Real talk. There is an argument to be made that Freddy is the greatest skier of all time. An argument, one that doesn't hold up, because Sammy Duvall exists, but, the longevity and dominance in one specific area of the sport, man....Freddy is so good. In the Jump discipline there is no one that comes close, for the sheer dominance and length (quit giggling), right? There are people that may have eclipsed for a second or two, a comet across the universe, Scotty Elis or whoever, but, no one that could consistently kick your ass year after year after year.
/freddy nodding along
On the womens side, that argument is over real REAL quick, and its Regina Jaquess (pronounced: Jaquess), by far the best female skier of all time and we don't think its close...in fact, you could make an argument that Regina is the Serena Williams of waterskiing.
Meaning, her dominance is so supreme and all encompassing, that it transcends gender and into the pantheon of just the best.
One could, and without being chastised for being silly make this list of all-time greats and stand tall.
1) Sammy Duvall
2) Carl Roberge
3) Regina Jaquess
4) Patrice Martin
5) Freddy Krueger
Of course this doesn't take into account wakeboarding and such, because the bonifays or shaun murray or dallas friday or whomever could claim a spot, but, thats a CRB blindside so...lets move on.
Actually, no, lets not move on. Wakeboarding takes a similar space in the mind as skateboarding in so much as you don't really know who is the best....list wise.
Each sport has its known greatest.
Surfing -> Kelly Slater or Layne Beachly
Skate Boarding -> Tony Hawk (and his orbit is so big there is no one else like...even not around)
Wakeboarding -> Shaun Murray
From there, its really a matter of taste and style and years and environment.
One of the greatest things we found in the last year or so was the world surf league app on our phone, and it would let us know when there was some surfing on to watch. All of it. Anywhere. Any surfing anywhere and seemingly any competition was on our phone, which meant, at work, on that tv and we were watching some long board surf competition in Malibu on a random October afternoon.
my legs are weird?
We know zip about long board surfing...if you listen to the beach boys or see videos of that sort of thing, thats long board. Its not doing rad moves on a wave and whatever, its more like, style and grace and such.
Look, we fired up a joint and kicked back and watched for about, oh, 2 minutes before the security guard kicked us out of that specific red lobster*
*never going back to Bangor, Maine
Jokes on him, battery in our phone was almost dead anyways. DORK!
But surfing is a sport that engenders a very strong following, engenders love, inspires a clothing style and a lifestyle...even as a poser you're welcome in because you understand the vibe.
We don't have that in our sport, we don't have a style or a look or a vibe that inspires anything to anyone, and AS GOD AS MY WITNESS, we have some of the best athletes of all these sports. The most dedicated, the hardest working and seemingly the most averse to self promotion there is!
The surfer who fell off their board while in the parking lot has 5,000 followers on instagram because it looks dope...and lord help us we follow them because it does. We have freddy and dodd and elizabeth and regina and neilly, and so many more that deserve so much more then they get.
Its time that this changes and people understand what we have.
3) Some People Aren't Dead!
death?
Thats a good thing, some of us can still go to visit family and friends over the holidays and most aren't dead! thats pretty sweet if you think about it. Some people aren't quite that lucky, of course, but, that just means MORE TURKEY FOR YOU.
..are you a dark meat or a light meat person? COMMENT BELOW FAM, SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON!
This has been a shit last year and a half or so. February of 2020 we were in San Diego for a corporate retreat*
*Drinking Karl Straus beer while falling off our surf boards INSTANTLY!
and we went to see the Dark Star Orchestra, which is a pretty damn good Grateful Dead cover band at the House of Blues, and for most of the show had a good time.
However, as it dragged on and the group of like 20 idiot kids were dancing all weird in the staircase we started to get annoyed, it has been a very long day (up at 7, after going to bed at 2 and the CRB corporate folks expect you to be present at all the training sessions) Another 15 dollar beer and a 10 dollar piece of shitty pizza and our moods soured.
"Yeah, that was a great jam on the Eyes of the world, but, its time to go"
Side note. if you look at the setlist linked there, just so you know, that was a real show and it was great..holy shit did it start to drag as it got to about 'that' point of the night. :)
Point being, at that point in time, we were all still allowed to be annoyed. There was no caveat like, "well at least we get to see live music!". Right? we could go out and experience things without fear of getting sick or whatever. You were able to go experience the world with basically your eyes wide open, or cynically, or however you wanted to experience the world...there wasn't an additional variable thrown in the mix.
Ironically, given our current state of the world, and adjusting for psychopaths, there is actually two additional variables we all have to account for now....
1) covid
2) assholes with guns*
*in some places assholes with cars driving through a parade
This is the climate that we live in now. We have to worry about our fellow neighbor and both their predilection for guns and their cable news viewing habits*
*you know what we mean
Now when we go out to a concert or a play or a sporting event or your moms house, we now need to think about, do I need a mask, where is my vaccination card...do I need to also get a test, is security here good so some maniac doesn't shoot me, is that person in the corner a tweaker..just some harmless person or someone to be concerned about.
Those thoughts really suck and there is really, only one way to combat that and its to just go live your life.
You can't prepare for a maniac to drive through a parade route and kill you, you can't prepare for someone to shoot you at a concert you cant prepare yourself to get hit by a drunk driver, you can't prepare yourself to die of cancer.
You can be vigilant and careful but, we have to live. If we live in hiding and in the shadows for fear of whatever may come, then whats the point in the first place.
So, go out and do.
Get eaten by a shark while surfing
Get Covid and die
Drive your car off a mountain holding hands with a girl
Start a pod cast only talking about gold fish crackers and their personalities.
Completely rewire your partners vibrator so instead of vibrating it plays classic neil young jams
lol, why not!
We only get so much time. Make it good FOR YOU, not whom you think it would be good for. FOR YOU. You are the captain of your ship...look, when you masturbate, you're doing the work. no one else.
trying buddy
4) Some People ARE Dead!
Looking at you Alfred Fish! That guy is a real JERK!
5) Seeing Things Live
An actual picture we took!
Speaking of the Dead, this is the CRB at Wrigley Field this year at the Dead and Company show. Two things quick.
1) This kicked so much ass
2) Other then maybe the Metallica show a few years prior, never have we experienced such a wonderful group of people around us having so much fun. Seriously. Dead heads and metal heads, thats a 90% venn diagram.
For real if you don't believe, metal heads and dead heads provide such a good vibe, from both sides (really, less giggles), in so much as, dead heads are a chill out dance get in touch with music and the world vibe and metal heads are some aggression and adrenaline but, wanted that to be pumped into the music.
Quick aside, at the metallica show, a couple dudes came down the aisle hella drunk yelling for slayer! and we had aisle seats so we are in the aisle kinda jamming along and they bumped into us and it wasn't a "fuck you bro" moment, it was...for real...
Dudes. "BRO YOU LIKE SLAYER!?"
CRB "yeah man i guess"
Dudes "fuck yeah bro!" /high five "oh shit, master of puppets fuck yeah!, my seat is over there tho bro"
CRB. "YOU GOD DAMN RIGHT IT IS!"
That was it! just happy positive vibes.
But, that was at a live show, and to be able to go back and do that again in such a large environment was like a Irish Spring commercial. A wash away of so much bad, and into what is hopefully a better future.
And there was of course, moments all around that reminded you that we were coming out of the covid world. We parked at a off site location to take a bus in, and at the site there were people checking your Vax card and you got a wrist band to show you were ok to go in.
During the show, as much as you wanted to dance with the people around you, maybe share a joint, you were cautious because of...well..everything, and coming from someone who had covid and while it wasn't near as bad as some, it put us on our ass for a week solid. No joke. If you can avoid getting fucking covid, we suggest...you know...doing that.
We had just moved into a new place and thought, "dope, 10 days off work, can get this place spruced up nice, get things set up solid"
NOPE.
You wake up...eat some soup...turn on the tv and go back to bed. We were lucky in that it didn't get our lungs, or anything that made us fear for our life, but, this is the deal and if you haven't had it, here is a listicle and you can play along.
1) Remember your worst hangover.
2) Laugh remembering how fun that previous night was.
3) But, you know that 2 pm feeling? where the hangover is lingering and your so tired, the pain is starting to leave but your brain is mad?
4) All your muscles hurt
5) Add the flu onto that.
6) Your depressed, which makes no sense, you should be able to justify being sick, but, no you just get down.
Thats every day, you wake up and you feel like shit, you can't taste anything (maybe the worst part), your so run down you do nothing but lie in bed (not sleep mind you, just curl up in bed and watch the news all day. You get up to use the bathroom and make it like half way and need to sit down.
The taste part, by the way...we are lucky and have people who brought us all this great soup to eat, stocked up the fridge because we couldn't go to the store, and IT DOESN"T MATTER!!
YOU CAN"T TASTE ANYTHING!
"Hey how was that Panera Bread soup I brought you, you love that right?"
"I have no idea man! I CAN'T TASTE!"
And that taste thing? months and months. You always had bits and pieces of taste bud action the whole time, but, it took a long time to get it back and not quite sure its all the way there yet.
Its so weird. Your brain KNOWS that what your eating is good so it tricks you into thinking that, but honestly, you could be eating a spicy curry or water soup and it wouldn't matter
Anyways
Thats what our version was. It sucked.
covid is NOT vaginal
The covid era has presented such a strange and life altering skew to our lives that we can't help but come out the other side (seriously, no more giggles) different people. Hopefully, we can all appreciate what we have maybe a little more then before. As above, the part about being annoyed at a show, at an event, is now taken with a grain of salt, because we can now do some of those things again.
We have spent the last SO LONG going through this and all we want is for things to go back to normal, and even if you are someone who thinks what has happened is garbage and a lie and a conspiracy, well..our world is big enough for all...because.
There is a great quote from Norm Macdonald, who just passed away a bit ago, which WTF 2021, and it goes like this.
The idiot sees the world as Good vs Evil. The cynic sees the world as Evil vs Evil. The truth that no one seems able to see is that the world is, and always has been, a battle of Good vs. Good.
Meaning, you think your view point is good and right and proper, and well, so does the person you are arguing with, and they think you are the crazy one.
I think if we really do sometimes put down our outrage glasses, put down our immediate knee jerk reaction to things, our instant outrage...we will see that most of us are like each other more than we think.
We are all trying to get through this nonsense we deal with everyday, with our lives, its not always easy and its like that for all of us. We all view our lives through our various lenses and defend ourselves in such a way.
Maybe this thanksgiving we extend a bit of compassion for those we want to do battle with, for those we want to yell at over their opinions, try and prove how smart and wise we are vs. their dumb shit. Guess what they think the same of you!
We are all trying and lets be grateful for that, that we are all TRYING....and with that in mind, press play and relax into the thanksgiving coma with some tunes.
There may be TV segments as funny, maybe, but there is nothing funnier then this clip, norm macdonald and dennis miller from the Dennis Miller Show on HBO a hundred years ago. In the past few days we have all rewatched alot, but, this is so good.
if you haven't seen this, watch it. and if you dont laugh...alot....your funny bone is wrong.
This is pure comedy, abstract, silly, dirty, dirty for the sake of being dirty (which is fun), but, also smart and understanding of its premise...but in the guise of a talk show, which allowed two masters to do their thing within the confines of that structure and kill.
His show on HBO from which this clip is from ran from 94 to 02, more or less, our collegiate life.
Back in those days, before 200 dollar a month cable bills or 200 dollar a month various streaming services bills, hbo was just like...idk...included in the cable sometimes. At our place at our college...which I think was charter communications? or maybe TWC?? cant remember exactly.
Never the less, we had cable and had HBO.
So, we watched Dennis Miller every week. We knew Norm a little...he was SNL from 93-98 or so...which wouldn't quite put him in our scope in so much as there are video games and girls and captain morgan to drink and we never really watched tv like that.
Saturday night live was some show on tv that just sort of never got paid attention to.
Then we saw Norm on Dennis Miller.
That clip above.
Instantly hooked. May not have understood the comedy or the point or the whatever...its weird. He is a weird...was...a weird comic. But its funny and dirty and lol, he said cock.
Then we got something like dirty work...a silly movie. not to the level of like, billy madison or whatever, but, man that dude had alot of dead hookers in his trunk.
Thats sort of where it landed...ended for us for a while.
We started on the path towards being a grown up. Trying to get a foot in the door at the company, figure out the path forward, meeting people for drinks after work, etc.
Remember, if you are younger, that back before iphones, and really it was the iphone...not you tube, not anything else that really seismically changed the way in which we consumed media/viewed the outside world/interacted with people.
But, back before iphones and that the more mobile way in which we take in content, we all would actually watching shit live, or if your rich ass buddy had a tivo! we would go to their place to watch it. And it was something that was planned we were recording this show and this show and then we go to Sara's place to watch it monday.
sheesh, anyways
Early 2000's, we were simply trying to keep our heads above water in the world. Figuring out how to be an adult, how to maintain a relationship, how to pay fucking rent!
Everyone...well most anyways, graduate college with a mind full of ideas and with a chest full of piss and vinegar.
You / we are going to crush. Going to set this world on fire. Motherfuckers don't know what they have coming! They don't know who I am and when they do, those fucks are going to give me SO MUCH money and blowjobs...or oral sex...whatever, we are gender inclusive. whatever gets you off, but, like alot of us, and especially our age, we were fed a load of shit. Go to a 4 year, get that degree, go into debt, wear a suit, have an affair, thats life.
Its not though, life...real life...doesn't care about you at all. Fuck around and find out.
You go out and have to put in the work, even those in the specialty degrees....not doctors or whatever that require extra college. But us idiot normies, the marketing degrees, the english degrees, the fucking advertising degrees.
Its hard though as you go through life in keeping up with pop culture, as you age out a bit from the youngster life you tend to drive on the roads that were made for you and not the ones that were designed for the younger crowd, and its a weird....
REALLY WEIRD!
Moment when you realize that.
It comes in many shapes and forms but, if you are a sports fan once you become older then the players you root for...it shakes you!
When you play a top 40 station....well. thats age right there.
When you play the pop music station on spotify and maybe you know about 20% of the artists, you kinda want to crawl under a rug.
When you go to a bar that you went to "back in the day" and see a bunch of little fuckers not respecting what this place is....man....
Its time to go!
But, here is the fucked up part.
Given our current climate of consumable culture, the things we liked, or gravitated towards are there so easy for the picking now. We can enjoy the things we enjoyed without any sideways glances.
But more important, this allows the younger folks to experience it as well, and not just watching golden girls late at night while stoned in high school. Everything is out there for everyone to consume. I see some weird Japanese pop music on youtube and think I 100% don't understand what the hell is going on and then realize that my parents saw me back in the day in that same circumstance and just straight up went..
"I don't know, i guess we have to drown it"
Thats pop culture. You aren't supposed to understand it at a certain point, because, its not for you anymore. dummy!
Now, that being said.
The norm moth joke is, while maybe not known to everyone, is probably known to almost all people who enjoy funny shit.
it would be a surprise if someone say, in their teens, didn't or wasn't away at least of this.
Its universal.
Never the less.
There are people that every generation hang on to and love that mean something to them in a way that can't quite be described to the generation before them, because they are living in their generation and its not fair to pile that on to them. In so much as, we didn't see Johnny Carson but will watch clips and maybe not "get it" in the way that the people that grew up with him in the cultural zeitgeist they lived in do, but, get the talent.
My age, people are going to see clips of Letterman and Norm and such and think, sure thats funny, but why does this mean so much, why are there tears sometimes in the funny??
Because there is someone, probably, on tik tok now that means what this people did to us, that in the future won't be able to be explained in the same way to the younger crowd.
Life moves at this almost immeasurable pace that wants to crush us all under the wheels. We sit here and enjoy our late night with david letterman show and wait, what the hell, its the late show?
We grow up with these people, they were on our tvs and and our tivos and grew up to be on our tvs and our computers and dvrs and then got older and ended up on our phones and our tablets. They created consumable content for us to view and in the process we became part of their lives and they became part of ours...probably a 25/75 if you think about it.
I would bet that Norm has no idea who we are, but lord almighty do we know him.
Lets be real. of course he has no idea about who we are. Because we hide behind a shell corporation.
That's Omar...thats Michael K. Williams.
He was on a tv show called "The Wire" on HBO from 02 to 08, he also just passed away.
The wire is a show that came across our brains, like alot of people on this show, after it actually went off the air and we found it on DVD.
This is a show that with rage and pain and grace and smarts, explained what the drug war was/is, what the real world behind our lives was. Not what we thought it was or might be, but, the actual brutal truth behind what cities in our county were.
Omar, that character was not someone that should be someone who would be celebrated, but, what that character brought into our devices was a humanity and a entry point (so to speak) into what that culture that we are all so quick to distance ourselves from actually was.
That phenomenon of that show and that character, cut a path into the conscious of those of us who don't live in that environment, and if they admit it or not, have done more to change the discourse in this country for not only minorities but, for the LGBT community or whatever other disenfranchised group thats out there, because..
and this is big....
because he brought a humanity and a pulse to a person who we all hated and it made us question our own thoughts on everyone we had or have shit on..
So...
While Norm may have been...While Norm is one of the best stand up comics ever, The Wire is one of those shows as well, top 5 of all time and Omar, his character, is one of those that transcend the show to become a pop culture phenomenon.
Both these people were institutions on our life, in our pop culture inclusion.
They were forever people, we looked forward to whatever they did, whatever talk show or youtube show they were on, we would watch.
The drastically changing landscape of our consumption, doesn't change the way in which we appreciate really quality art.
However, both of these people are dead.
Leaving the viewer, the consumer, the fucking fan of these guys in a weird state of cutting something along the lines of 20 years or so of entertainment and reshaping it.
The great characters and entertainers in our lives and supposed to be there to support us though life, supposed to help us along our path, and when you are young thats exactly what they are. There is no death expectation there is no worry about the future, its just, what are we doing now and this is sick.
As you age. As you get old.
You lose these various parts of what made you what you were, what made your tastes what they are and for the most part you are ok with that.
You are ok with not understating pop music or certain tv shows, or whatever, because the things you like are still there on whatever device you have to be enoyed still and forever.
However, when there are people, not a character or a show or a song, that break through the clutter and grab you by the heart, it means something, and its so silly because again, they don't know you, but, its what they present to you and how it affects you that matters, and thats why they do what they do.
Not because they know you specifically, but, because they are aiming at people like you. Your ilk.
Jerry is another one, a bigger then life figure that when we were young was part of an active and relevant band, and now some 30 years later, the music is still strong the culture is still strong but, what that man meant to the older dead head crowd is lost on someone like me who wasn't aware as much back when it would have mattered.
Art and its integration with our souls is one of those things that some fucking marketing jack ass is going to try and monetize in the future, the way in which we interact with our art within our soul will somehow be able to be in-app purchased while we play the Allman Brothers Downhill Ski game.
But these things, the Music, the TV the entertainment are...at their core...only allowed to interactt with us at our core level...we then make them mean more then that via our emotions and our feelings.
They occupy a part in our souls...in our collective fabric of being.
Very few of them, of those options of entertainment exceed that position, for alot of people, Jerry Garcia meant something more then the music he played, whatever that is that it meant to them meant it to them and not for others to figure out.
Someone like Norm Macdonald meant that to us, he was someone who was just so funny and had such a properly dissatisfied outlook on our oddly overly concerned life that it provided that proper counter weight to our dumb ass lady liberty hand.
These people were supposed to be there for us, on the talk shows on the you tubes, on whatever, they were a part of our lives, they had carved out a spot in our hearts to live and be and assist in life, but as we age they do to, and while that is of course the nature of life, the representation of what they are and how the affect our lives dramatically changes with them when there is that change in their life.
It reminds us that yes, we do get old. Our favorite baseball player could be our son, our compadre of comedy died of cancer, the beacon of what we hoped would be a port in our storm forever is gone. We pilot our boat alone, we lose those we love along the way.
Life is one of those things that just doesn't fuck around. We will die. Cherish your people along the way, those lights that help guide your path, help you navigate your future, because you don't know when they will leave you.
If you were to talk to any competitive athlete, basketball, football, yes, even a waterskiier, almost to a person they will have a scene, a play, a circumstance...or many of those, that drive their desire for improvement, desire to win, desire for excellence.
Competitive people will often refer to, usually, one of two things.
AYYY I gotta chip on my shoulda ova heeaaa
1) a chip on their shoulder. This one covers alot of ground, but, typically its about proving the doubters wrong, or feeling as if people doubt you for some real or imagined reason.
2) the hatred of losing, vs. the love of winning. I.e, i work so hard because I hate losing so much!
Of course there are the bullshit inspirational quotes that people pretend to live by, but, to really keep yourself moving forwards towards whatever goal we all tend to utilize the above two ways to do so.
There is a fear of failure, there is a fear of getting passed by, there is a fear of getting out worked, there is always a fear.
Fear is the most powerful emotion that we as humans have and the one that is forever able to be mined for success and for failure.
We have all had that moment in some competitive endeavor. You may have stayed up a little late the night before, or real life got in the way of a training session or two, or you just didn't perform at a level that you expected of yourself. You lost that tournament, or say, didn't reach your personal best, or missed that shot.
You will go over and over in your mind what you could have done better, what you should have done to not let that happen. Thats the fear. That is the poison that we put into our own minds.
my tan line!
/shifting to first person
I have a very specific scene in my head I play over time and again, I was at a three event tournament at a sweet lake in a little town in the middle of a state. They had made a second..or third? lake to handle just the slalom event. We all stayed up late the night before partying, which...cmon we were in our early 20s, but, we were fogged out that next day.
I was super late for the 2 ball and just cut like a maniac and laid out to get to it and crashed super hard and skidded up onto shore (it was a narrow lake). It was sweet as hell, but, i think back to that alot because that was probably as good as I have even slalomed in my life and it was the best lake i have ever skied on and I biffed and it bothers me still because did i do everything I could to succeed?
/shifting back to silly crb style.
Rarely, but sometimes, you actually do everything right, perform at a high level and still lose. You can accept those right? You work hard you perform well and yet still.
That is ok.
Its the gnawing little parts when your own brain poisons your psyce and starts putting things into you that are not helpful or do nothing but nag at you, bring you down, etc.
"oh, you think that tuesday night margarita was worth it?"
"maybe if you had worked out a little more in the off-season"
"feel pretty stupid now don't you that you didn't do WHATEVER!"
And this is a problem that we all have and its not just for sports its for everything!
We focus on our own negatives so hard because that is such a powerful driving force that we don't give proper credit to what we do well, or what we have that is good! Life is such a mental fuck that maybe it does take a cheesy inspirational quote to help you along, but, that real driver is fear.
This is why that is a problem.
omg no way you silly little scamp!!
Because for alot of us, it seeps into your just normal ass daily life. You don't look at the good you do, or the positives in your own life. Shoot, even taking that into account in your skiing or your athletic endeavor, we don't appreciate enough what we have that is good, because that defeats our own internal narrative that we aren't good enough and need ot be better.
Social media accounts are probably partially to blame simply because we see other peoples ideal life as they wish to present it. Its not the down moments when they are sad or bounced a check (do we have those still?), or fucked up a relationship with someone or had a bad day at work or are fighting with an addiction or disease or mental health issue.
Because we look at other peoples idealized life and compare it to our own...which we are living in RIGHT NOW, and not just the picture we post on instagram showing ourselves in our own best light!
Its a ring light for life, vs. the normal ass flourescent light where we look like hell.
Right? we all do it and it makes no sense. we judge ourselves against some arbitrary external viewpoint of other peoples lives, or approximated lives and then beat ourselves up over the imagined gulf between what we see in them and what we feel in our own!
Here is probably the most common, relatable example of this. And again, its true for EVERYONE.
You and your significant other are out with another couple. In that moment you and them are all happy and having a great time, you'r at dinner at a cool restaurant and holding hands and making jokes and all that. You begin to see the other couple and thing, "why can't we be like that, they look so happy", because maybe that morning you had a little tiny argument about your dirty clothes on the floor, or you forgot to take out the garbage or your are having doubts in your own head about where this relationship is headed.
So these little tiny seeds of doubt, which should just whiter and die on the shelf in your brain with no light, for some reason you go into that room, with that shelf, and pour some water on them, you make them grow!
Like a dummy
You are creating a situation that isn't there because you are conditioned to believe that you need to have something to fight against, then to appreciate and love.
lol totally....imma fucking murder you later Todd
An example that has come up alot within the past year..year and half...during the pandemic, regarding our days jobs, with a weird kicker at the end of this question and answer.
"Hows it going here? How are sales in this time?"
"Not great bob..but, shit, lucky to still have this job, could be alot worse"
And here is the part that matters. We use, "could be alot worse" as a cover. But, fuck that. yes it could. and two years ago it could have been and 5 years from now it could be as well.
Things could be worse! Things could be better!
We are not at the bottom looking up, we are in the middle somewhere floating in some odd state of homeostasis where we have the ability to go up and down but, we tend to ignore the up and focus on the down as a means of motivation to not go there.
We are so much more cosmically aware of mental health these days, in others, in terms of overall policy, but, do we actually take the time to take care of ourselves anymore then we used to or do we fight with our own demons in private because thats what we feel we should do and that is something to motivate?
To provide the fight and the power and the energy to succeed?
There is an interesting tipping point in any timeline related to a sad or painful event. Be it losing a loved one, a broken relationship, a bad circumstance that eventually instead of looking back on memories of that thing with a frown or tears you look back and it makes you smile or laugh.
At the CRB offices our tv will cycle through our photos on icloud as a screen saver, which natuarally brings up memories of days gone by, in them are some photos of people that are either no longer in our lives or no longer in anyones lives.
There are also hella nonsense too, its not all heavy duty nonsense.
But, for the vast majority of those pictures of the people that meant something and left us, or meant something and left all of us, most of those bring smiles now in remembering that situation and being happy that we experienced that.
That is such a nice lens in which to view those circumstances, however, in our daily and in our own owlds we create, do we utilize that lens to give ourselves the smile instead of the frown?
We cast a critical eye on our own proceedings, for example, at lunch we were complaining about our apartment situation, its to small, not enough lawn, neighbors are loud, is this what we really want, landlord is a weirdo...etc. And a friend said, "huh, i dont know, I thought that place was pretty cool...nice little place"
All those negatives all the problems that we see as some sort of wall in which we can't go around was blown to bits by someone saying, "yeah, dummy, place is tight"
Focusing on our own negatives as if that is the light we want to shine into the world, instead of being grateful for what we do have.
This is why as a competitive person who uses that fear as a power source for success, we also have to learn to turn that off, turn off the desire to always win/defeat others and appreciate what we actually have!!
Its the simple axiom, replace "i have to" with "I get to" and it changes your whole outlook on life.
I have to go work.
Nope.
You get to go to work.
I have to replace a tire on my car.
Nope.
You get to replace a tire on YOUR!!! car.
Holy shit right? You have a car. Good ass job by you!! Vroom Vroom son!
Or lets try this one.
Like alot of people, I assume, we have put on a few pounds during the last year or so. A big part of it was we figured since we can't go out, lets learn to cook those items at home.
And so you watch youtube and dick around on recipe sites and learn to make all sorts of different things.
So, how do you look at that now, now that we are coming out of this pandemic and go back out to places and ride your bike or go to the park and not be worried as much?
Well, you can look at it as "I was a lazy and gained weight" or, "well, I tried real hard to be a better cook and turns out I kick ass because I ate all my food!!!"
We need to focus on our own positives and not our negatievs by default.
Not that we ignore them, lets not be silly, but, by our own default logic we should appreciate our gifts, our place in life our abilities to do what can and not conflate them with what we can't/don't/won't/haven't.
Back in day we crashed out hard on a slalom course (in front of pretty girls too, dang it) when we were feeling frisky enough to get into some short lines and put up some numbers.
All these years later, thats still something that burns, but, we were able to crash out in front of some pretty girls while feeling frisky enough to get into some short lines and ski great.
Thats pretty fucking awesome...and that is something we would like to feel again.
We don't get there, to that feeling to that mental space, by weighting ourselves down with the could of would of should of, we get there by lifting ourselves up with the, "right, but, how many people can actually DO what you did and besides all that, maybe they are in awe of what you did"
Again, never assume...we should never assume...that the other persons life is perfect, that their relationship is what you see at that nice dinner...they probably had an argument in the car on the way there about the cable bill or the lawn mowing or whatever.
Defining our success via a prism of light from other peoples lifes will only further your frustration into your own because you/we don't know that other person and the trials they go through, the battles they fight on their own.
Negativity is easy, its cheap and it can derail
positivity is hard in the face of all that gets thrown at us.
and this is certainly not some bullshit inspirational quote where you...
gibberish bullshit.
You are comparing yourself to someone else and somehow its not a zero sum game, you can just "outwork" them, as if they aren't doing the same.
Appreciate what we have, what we have been able to do. See the positives in life, in your own life, as the true beacons of what should inspire.
Not a bullshit quote about work or limits or "never be afraid to fail"
Be afraid!
Thats ok! That means we have a brain and a soul and a life.
But allow life to work in equilibrium.
We can always strive to be better and use that fear as a motivator, as an energy source for the furnance of internal power.
But, that can't supersede the ability to appreciate what we have, how we got it and let that mirror off the dark and illuminate the light.
