from happyrobot - updated 6/9/2026 3:07:19 AM https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp en-us https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=10332 I don't like Sting. I can't explain why. I don't have any good reason for disliking Sting. I never got into The Police.  Now, I don't find their music to be "bad" or revolting in a Coldplay sort of way. For me it's just sort of there, doing nothing. His solo work sounds like bland, unispired adult contemporary radio station fodder. He might as well be Richard Marx.

But it goes deeper than that. I look at Sting and my brain goes "I don't like that guy." You know when you were a kid, and you'd watch a TV show or a movie and it was very clear who was the "good guy" and who was the "bad guy"? You'd know the good guy when you saw him, you'd know the bad guy when you saw him. Yeah. When I see Sting I get that same childish "this guy is the bad guy" reaction. It's completely unfair, unearned, and undeserved. But it's there.

Okay, maybe it's not completely unfair, unearned, and undeserved. I know exactly where my hatred of Sting comes from. I was probably the only seven year old in the world who was way, WAY into the Dune movie when it came out.1 And Sting played Feyd Rautha -- the silent, fierce looking thug nephew of the evil Baron Harkonnen. So, of course, my seven year old brain gets to thinking. "Sting. Bad guy in movie. Goes by 'Sting'. Plays rock and roll. He must be a mean tough guy. He has a knife. I bet he knifes people in alleys and laughs at them. Sting is bad!2" And this was the version of Sting I've always kept in my head -- the knife-wielding, innocent-person mugging bully. That's what I see when I see Sting. Well, there's a little more than that now. Now I see him and think "that guy can have sex with his eyes closed and without moving for 12 hours straight. He is better than you. He must be brought down."

Of course, he doesn't seem like a bad guy by any stretch of reality. I mean, none of us know the guy, but he seems like an affable chap. He seems to have a sense of humor. Does all that stuff for Amnesty International. His music isn't bad, it's just kind of there. He's done nothing to deserve this. But every time I see Sting, I have that "he is the enemy" reaction, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it.



1 It really sucks being the only kid who was way into Dune. I would always want to play it on the playground, in the way that you play Star Wars and pretend you're characters from the movie. Do you know how hard it is to try to convince other seven year olds to play fucking Dune with you?
"Everybody follow me to the desert planet! We're gonna go mine some spice!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Okay, now you put my hand in a box."
"Why?"
"Because you're testing me to see if I'm the Kwisatz Haderach."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Huummmmmmmmmm"
"What are you doing?"
"I'M KILLING YOU WITH SOUND!!!!!"

2 On the other hand, Kyle MacLachlan became a huge hero of mine. Fucking loved Kyle MacLachlan when I was a kid. Like, up there with Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Mouth from "The Goonies". I watched Twin Peaks when it originally aired. I didn't get it, but I watched it. My dad took me to see Blue Velvet in the theater when I was eight because he thought it was the sequel to Dune. Afterward we went out for PBR tall boys and amyl nitrate. Good times, good times.


]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9993  "I don't want to get ahead of myself here, cuz the Suns are still in it.... but man do I want a piece of those smug jerks in purple and gold.

BEAT L.A.!
BEAT L.A.!

(You taught me that when I was little. BEAT L.A.!)"


He sends me emails (which he never does) telling me he loves me and that "You've done all right, all things considered.  You do good things for good people, and it sounds like your friends do right by you".

He's gonna be OK.  He's just a little freaked out because his father died of an aneurysm that was close to his father's heart when his father was 7 years older than he is now.  And my father hated his dad, my grandfather, until the months before his death when they finally made peace with each other.

He's afraid he's gonna die without the two of us ever being friends.  And I'm not gonna let that happen.  I am half him, and he is half me.  The half that he and I share, he's afraid of.  He's afraid that his half of me comes from his family that he dislikes so much, and the other half of me comes from my mother that he loves dearly, but is not his, so he hates that part of me that is not his.  (He's wicked self-loathing, my dad)

We're all adults now, so I'm getting on a train hours from now to have a Memorial Day weekend together.  My dad's gonna make "margaritas" in his "Jimmy Buffett Frozen Concoction Maker", and I'm not gonna give him shit about it.  I don't like margaritas, I hate "Jimmy Buffett", and I really hate anything made in something called a "Frozen Concoction Maker".

 But fuck it.  I love my dad, and I am without doubt his son.  We walk alike.  We talk alike.  We grew the same damn beard.   So when you find me yelling "BEAT L.A.!" on the streets of New York the next few weeks, what I'm really saying is " I LOVE MY DAD, THAT BASTARD!"







]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9976


]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9975 Moms, you ladies do all right.

This is what happens when I let a mob of 4 and 5 year olds give me a makeover on a Saturday morning.


]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9691 (Okay, not really.  But he said this in concert when I saw him, and I'm posting it because I love it and think more people should hear it.)

I always wonder,do people say “WOO!”, or is that an impulse? Is that, I mean, "should we applaud him or ,maybe he’ll really, like, have to make up for it and we’ll get, like, double the patter?"

So this is a song... I get self-conscious about this because I’ve told this story several times on this tour but this doesn’t mean I script my stuff, it just means it’s a true story. So... So, I was on tour in Sweden and, uh, because, ONE, because I’m a hypochondriac, ONE! and because I probably have a fatal disease TWO, I became persuaded that I had “The Cancer”. Now, those of you who don’t have any hypochondria can’t really imagine what it’s like to have a chest pain and have this thought take hold of your brain the same way that if you wonder if “did you leave the stove on?”, you know, and you have to go back to the house no matter how far you’ve driven West, if you’re all the way out to Oklahoma and you say “oh, fuck, is the stove on? I’m gonna burn something down. I have to go back!” You know? (I have that problem also, um...)

So yeah, I mean, I’ve been in a car, scrunched up in the back seat for five days. Couldn’t possibly be that, could it be? No! It’s got to be The Lung Cancer from all the smoking all those years. And so I went to the Emergency Room and even though it turned out I was fine the doctor told me that I had “Lutheran Syndrome”, that I feel I need to pay for the things that I did before. A Swedish doctor told me that. It was one of the high points of my life, I have to say.

But during the hour waiting in the waiting room in Stockholm, I mean, I was gonna die. That’s where I was at in my head. It was like I’m gonna go in there and they’re gonna say “yeah, you have three months. What will you tell your family?”

“This is a terrible life to be living” I thought to myself. So, as anybody would do, since I don’t understand the language on the Swedish television, I wrote some lyrics. And then, six months later when I had forgotten the whole affair… I was paging through my notebook looking to see if I had anything I could put on an EP I was gonna make with Kaki King, one of the finest guitarists on the face of the planet, and said “Oh! What’s that fuckin’ weird lookin’ lyric that has all the crabby tiny handwriting... looks like it was written by a suicidal guy? Oh! I kinda like that one!”

So, we did this one…



]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9651 So, uh, yeah.  Stu and I are heading up to Watkins Glen tomorrow to go camping with The Mountain Goats.  STU AND CHRIS ROAD TRIP TWO-KAY-NINE!

You might know "The Mountain Goats" from... oh, I don't know... the videos I've posted and both of us talking about them, you know, a lot.

So, uh, yeah.  Stu and I decide to meet up for a drink after work-hours... and who walks through the door?  Yeah.  Franklin Freaking Bruno. 

You know.  That guy who sometimes plays keyboards and other things on Mountain Goats albums.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9625 As I get more into this whole teaching the younggins things, I find that it’s pretty much all I think about these days. It makes me think back to when I was that age – 3 and 4 mostly – and what it was that I did and what was presented to me that got me to learn.

I was a pretty smart kid when I was a kid, so whatever happened seemed to work well. And, luckily, I can actually remember back to when I was very young. Some people call bullshit on me for this. But I honestly can. I remember playing in my playpen before I could walk. I had this plastic animal set that had a hippo in it. I loved that hippo. It was funny looking and was like nothing I had seen before in the real lifes. The hippo fascinated me.

As an emerging teacher, I think about what I want to do for the kids. What I think I needed at that age, what I wanted at that age, and how to give it to them. For me right now, I know I need to be able to do three things.

One is present the fundamentals. This is not something I do a whole lot of. But as they get older, reading/language, counting, phonetics, etc… it’s important to give them the building blocks for these things. The older ones are just learning to read and write. The physical-mental connection for writing seems to be the most difficult for them. Getting different parts of the brain to work in sync, it takes practice. And it takes guidance.

Two is that they’re emerging personalities, and as such, they are for the first time starting to take an interest in the world around them. Up until now, they have spent most of their lives as babies, where the people around them feed them and hold them and love them and do everything for them. But as they get social with other kids around them, they realize that there’s a whole world out there for them to explore. And man, do they want to explore it. Something I want to do is present the world to them – art, music, culture – and not so much in a “kids” way, but what we see as adults and what they’re about to merge into. They eat it up, and they’re hungry for more. Sometimes I struggle with that. I want to show them so much of what is out there, art and music and culture-wise and find what’s an appropriate level of sophistication for what they’re ready for without overwhelming them.

Three is that they need friends. The great thing about nursery school is that it’s an introduction to Sociology for emerging young minds. And they’re in a place for 3, 4, 5 hours a day with their peers. They learn a lot about being social just by being around people of their own age for a sustained period of time. But they also need to be trusted and get to know the other new, foreign grown-ups who are guiding them through the process. It’s important to become friends with these little guys and girls. And it isn’t hard, because as you get to know them and work with them every day, you can’t help but be friends with them. They talk to you about things that are on their minds, and what they talk about is more sophisticated than you might expect. And as you develop a vocabulary with each kid, and your conversations go further, you find that they trust you and you trust them. That’s how friendships form at the fundamental level, and there’s nothing more gratifying than the moment when you discover these little emerging people are, in fact, your friends. And not in the bullshit “I see you every day” sense. In the “I’m excited to spend a day with you” sense.

That third part I feel I’m really good at. And in doing so, I’ve gotten to know some of their parents reasonably well. And the fact that their parents are happy to see me every day and take the time to spend a few minutes a day with themselves, their kid, and I… well, I feel like I’m doing some good for a lot of people.

When I think about all of these things put together, I am reminded of the way I learned numbers. I’ve never been good at math, and though I learned to read rather early in life (I had just turned three and took a Richard Scarry book to my mom and read the whole thing to her. My dad picked me up on his shoulder, kissed my face, and fed me cereal while tossing me in the air. Yes, I remember this.) numbers always gave me trouble.

So, what I did was give personalities to the Base Ten numbers, plus one. This is what I came up with.

0 – 0 Wasn’t a person, but more of a state. 0 was empty. 0 was nothingness. It was at the bottom of the scale, and it was what all of the numbers were afraid of falling into. 0 existed as a warning. What not to become, but was right there in the pit of it all, always there to fall into and something to rail against and never be.

1 – 1 is baby. The baby of the family. I never decided on a gender for 1. 1 was the baby. Brand new, just ate and pooped and added a Plus One to everyone around her. 1 was a pleasant baby, though. Never crying too much and not giving anyone much of a fight.

2 – 2 is 1’s older brother. Has learned to walk and be verbal on an elementary basis. Loves 1 and looks after one. He’s a good bigger brother. He doubles everyone’s enjoyment factor. Likes to eat. Is interested in food. He’s a lovely child.

3 – is the Bad Boy. He’s a little older than 2 and older than 1, and he causes trouble. He throws things, is a picky eater, and makes life difficult for his parents. That said, he’s an inquisitive mind, and as difficult as he can be, knows the people around him love him and he loves them back. But he makes things difficult for everyone around him. He loves to throw tantrums.

4 – 4 is the older sister. And at this point in her life, she is fascinated with 5, who is her older brother. She feels removed from 3, 2, and 1, but 5 is closest to her in age and everything he does is Gold. She calms 3 down when he’s being a pain in the ass, and gives snacks to 2 and is extremely thrilled when her mom lets her give the bottle to 1. She wants to take care of everybody.

5 – is the second-oldest kid in the family. 5 is an interesting case. 5 looks at everyone around him and thinks “where do I fit in?” He’s kind of done with all the attention 1,2, and 3 get. He's really close to 4, since she’s closest to him in age, but gets annoyed with her constant attention-seeking. Yet he tries to be good for her. He gets annoyed with her, but will never put her off.

5 is also enamored with 6, who we’ll get to in a minute.

6 – is not part of the family. 6 is the teenage girl in the neighborhood that 5 knows, and 5 thinks he’s madly in love with her, because she’s the older girl who gives him a lot of attention. 6 babysits for 5. 6 is maybe 13 or 14. She dates 7. 5 HATES 7. She’s a sweet girl who’s become part of the 1-5 family trust-tree, and she adores the family. But she’s a teenager and she’s starting a life outside of kid-dom. It’s a tough balance for her. She struggles with her schoolwork and is ultimately a good kid, but confused.

7 – is a greaser. He’s probably about 15, and the older boyfriend of 6. He thinks he’s a bad-ass. He yells at 6 all the time because she’s not as cool as he is. He’s verbally abusive to her. He thinks he’s soooooooo cool. But he has a cool car and smokes, and 6 thinks he’s awesome. So she puts up with his crap, because she wants a cool boyfriend.

5 is always giving 7 crap for being such a douchebag, but 7 just laughs him off because “hey, he’s just a kid.” And it kills 5 to see 6 with him, because 5 think he’d be so much better for her, but knows he’s too young to have the cool car and cool hair and will probably never be cool enough for 6 to like him.

8 – is the grandfather of the 1-5 family. He’s big, fat, and jolly. He’s always around playing with and looking after 1-5. 5 especially likes him. He’s just a good guy who’s found his way in life, is retired, and wants to enrich the youngsters around him. He doesn’t bullshit them. He likes his whiskey at night and plays poker with his other retired friends who like cigars. He hides nothing and is very truthful. He’s just a damn good guy.

9 – is the Grandmother. She’s even older than 8, and she has a hard time getting around. But she makes the effort to play with the kids and cook a great damn meal for the entire family. She walks with a cane, and when the time comes, will most likely be the first to go. 3-5 recognize this, and take extra care to spend time with her when they can. She is fragile, but able. And the older numbers recognize this.

10 – 10 is removed from the entire situation. He is the oldest in the 1-5 family. 10 is something like 22 years old. He’s graduated from the single digits and has moved away from the family. He has a college degree and wants to spend all his time with 11, 12, 13 and up. The 2-5’s look up to him like he’s some kind of God and really want to know what the 11s, 12s, and 13s of the world are really like. He comes home for holidays and likes to play with the kids, but spends most of his time on the phone, looking for something else to do.

Even still, he is what the 1-5’s want to be.

And yeah, that’s how I learned to count. And though no one believes me, I thought of all that when I was very young. How young, I’m not sure. But I remember looking at the Alphabet Giraffes on my kid-room wallpaper and devising that. And that wallpaper didn’t last long. I’m more articulate about it now, but that’s the gist of it.

I hope I can get the kids to think kind of like that. Not entirely like that, because there’s so much else out there and so many other things to learn about in so many other ways. But I think the approach I took as a kid opened me up to other things. And I hope that what I share with them opens them up to be able to think conceptually about the world around them.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9617 I don’t say much these days. And I think that’s a good thing. Because it means I’m kind of happy.

For you happyrobot n00bz, if you wanna know who Honkycracker was, there’s a little “archive” tab on the left side. That goes back to 2002. There’s some good stuff there. And I’d say there hasn’t been much good stuff since 2005. And, hell, it’s been a ride.

For those of you who don’t know… I teach nursery school these days. Yeah. I didn’t see that coming either. But I was laid off (as J’s dad said this weekend, for those of you who know my good friend J,  “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Get laid off?”) and, well, I subbed for a week at a nursery school.

It kind of snowballed from there.

My first day in the 3 year olds class, one of the kids comes up to me and says “I know you. I saw you yesterday.”

I’m kneeling so that I can hear in my good ear, and she climbs up on me and proceeds to pull off my glasses.

“You know, I need those to see” I say.

She says “But I can’t see you. And I want to see your pretty eyes.”

Kid is three, and she’s already breaking my heart.

Over the course of that week, I find her playing on the toy phone in the classroom, crying.

I ask her what’s going on. She says “Shh! I’m talking to my grandmother in Florida!”

“Are you okay?”

“It's my gramma.  She’s going to die.”

I’ve met her grandmother. She might be close to 60. She might be over 60. I don’t know. But she is in no way “close to death”. But her grandmother is the oldest person she knows, and she’s smart enough to know that someone she’s close to is gonna die first.

So we read a book about sea life together , and what Whales eat. And she asks “What happens when Whales die? What eats a Whale?”

Now, as you know, I know my Sea Life. But I had no answer for that. At least not what a 3 year old should hear.

I tried to tell her that I’m gonna turn 32 soon and my Grandmother is 84 years old and could get any teacher in the school to submit in a Mixed Martial Arts fight.  But how do you tell a three year old that she’s right, and that person close to her is most likely to be her first experience with death?

Well, you don’t bullshit. You tell her that, yeah, it’s gonna hurt when it happens. But it’s so far off that she’s gonna have so many more years of life experience that when it finally happens, your grandmother is gonna have seen you grow up into the emerging awesome person you can’t help but being.

The other day she and I were hanging out after school while her mom talked to the school director and the other parents who were around. We have a large, heavy door at the school, and as she was leaving I waved to her as it closed. And as it was about to close, she shouted “CHRIS!!!!”

I grabbed the door handle and opened it slightly, saying "Oh yeah? What?"

She blew me a kiss and said “Chris, I love you”.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9562 Every minute of every day over the course of the past two weeks, I did exactly what I wanted to do at all times. I go to bed tonight the happiest I've ever been in my life. And it's only going to get better.

An extra-special "thank you" and "I love you" goes out to the entire Klutch.xls family.  There was a day last week, in between tour stops, when I went to the .xls compound in Connecticut  to watch basketball, and Klutch wasn't even there.  Papa.xls introduced me to all his friends as "This is Romine.  He's an old family friend."

I have never felt more loved ever than I did in that moment.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9552 An email response to a very knowledgeable baseball friend of mine.  Roster to be posted after the text, if you care to see the roster.

Yeah, I'm pleased with my infield. I got Gordon late because everyone forgot about him, but he improved last year, is still kind of young, and with his third go-around in the league I think he might be a steal. Worth waiting for in the 3rd base spot so I could nab Phillips and Markakis early.

Also, Hawpe fell to the 13th round or something stupid, so he bolsters my avg, runs, and power numbers cheaply. Hermida fell too, but with the guys left he had the most upside, and even if he produces what he did last year he was still the best option at that point.

Pitching is always a crapshoot, and this year I decided to forego top-shelf pitching in favor of getting five-category guys on offense (Han-Ram, Markakis, Pence - first pick of Round 5, McClouth who fell to the last pick of the 4th round) I figured I could get Garza late (last pick of round 10) and as much as it pains me, that fucker is good and ready for a breakout season. I've had my eye on him for years. Josh Johnson is healthy, big, and young. He was great once he came back from surgery last year, and is only 25. I'm a big believer in that guy. Scherzer, SMOLTZY, Zimmermann, and Buchholz are upside-picks, but for where I got them I think they were the best choices. I have as many worries about Lester's workload as you do. But he's young, strong, and tough. And I got him with the last pick in the 6th round, followed by Gallardo. A perfect way to start assembling my rotation after building up a 5-category offense.

You and I differ on Pence. The guy can hit for average, can run, and showed a lot of power in the second half of last year. He swings at everything, but in a 5X5 league I think he's gonna be a monster in his third full year. I feel fortunate that I got him so late. I've always had a weird man-crush on that guy, even if he doesn't fit my patient-hitter mold.

And for those of you who know or care about such things, your 2009 The Rusty Kuntz

13 team mixed 5X5 league

C - Chris Iannetta
1B - Carlos Delgado
2B - Brandon Phillips
SS - Hanley Ramirez
3B - Alex Gordon
OF - Nick Markakis
OF - Nate McClouth
OF - Hunter Pence
OF - Brad Hawpe
OF - Jeremy Hermida
CI - Hank Blalock
MI - Ian Stewart
Util - Kevin Kouzmanoff

Bench:
Chase Headley (3B-OF)
Taylor Teagarden (C)
Ryan Church (OF)

Starting Pitchers:
Jon Lester
Yovani Gallardo
Matt Garza
Josh Johnson
Max Scherzer
Randy Johnson
SMOLTZY!
Jordan Zimmerman

Relief pitcher:
Jason Motte

Pitching bench:
Kenshin Kawakami
Clay Buchholz

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9513 People tell me I’m crazy and I must be lying when I tell them that I remember things that happened when I was 2 and 3 years old.

In my new life, I kind of teach 2 and 3 and 4 year olds. And geez, some of the things they say, I hope they remember that they said them. Because they’re kind of brilliant, and it would be a shame if some of those things get lost in the infantile shuffle.

I remember being little more than a baby in my diaper. I never slept as a kid. I never sleep now.

But I remember being maybe 2, maybe barely a 3 at the most, and watching Saturday Night Live with my parents. The house was very different in those days. We had a little tiny black and white TV sitting atop a beer barrel – yes, an actual beer barrel – where my future awesome fish tank would sit. And we’d watch SNL cuz, fuck, I was never one to sleep on a Saturday night.

I remember being horrified by the Mr. Bill bits. “He did nothing wrong! Why is he getting hurt all the time! He’s such a nice guy!”

Not in so many words, but that was what I was getting at.

But anyways, what I remember most were the bits when Paul Simon was co-hosting. My mom and dad would STFU whenever that happened.

I couldn’t make my mom and dad STFU for anything in those days. So when someone could, I kind of paid attention.

I don’t remember what happened in those sketches. But what I do remember was that, as a child, when my mom was at work on days my dad would be home with me, he would sing “Still Crazy After All These Years” to me.

My dad still had crazy Charles Manson hair in those days – almost similar to the hair I have now. But there was that one night my Mom went to a bachelorette party. (yes, I remember this and knew what it was, probably because my dad told me what it was, repeatedly) And he knew I liked lemon-flavored things. So he tried to make a lemon meringue pie for me. While singing “Still Crazy After All These Years”.

I don’t know what the fuck he did, but the meringue blew up all over the fucking kitchen and onto the ceiling.

I can’t tell you the last time I’ve ever tasted a real lemon meringue pie. But I can tell you that, to this day, I know every word to “Still Crazy After All These Years”.

Many, many years later, when I came home for Thanksgiving, my parents threw me in a car and parked it at Mohegan Sun, where we would see Simon and Garfunkel perform live as a surprise present to me.  I'm pretty sure it was 2005 because they knew I was having a shitty year.  I'm not a huge Simon and Garfunkel fan, but some songs of theirs. fucking kill me.

And we sang along the whole time. Me, mom, and dad.   It was like a non-verbal, non-commital "hey, son.  We're gonna be okay."

My parents are weird, wonderful people that I wouldn't wish upon anyone else.  Because if they were anyone else's, they wouldn't be mine. 

I was wearing my underpants and nothing else at all these times. That is where I was going with this.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9500 Things I got from my parents and crap.

The absolute terror of not locking a door, any door, before/after I close it – Dear ol’ Dad

An insurmountable need to cry like a baby anytime someone tells me my actions have upset any kind of cute corporate icon, a la the Snuggle Fabric Softener Bear -- MOMS! (Really, thanks for that one.)

Eyelashes that make acquaintances stalk me and put pictures of me making out with girls on the subway up on their blogs that they took while stalking me, like my friends would never know – That would be Grammie. Gram, you’re awesome.

My cousin used to call Grammie “The Gram-Rambo”. That was awesome. I still call her that. Thanks, Tommy.

My rabid, angry, unflinching desire to see the Boston Red Sox and UConn Huskies destroy all competition at all times because the other team and their gang of fans is out to get us, and it’s Us vs. Them, bitch, and you can’t be out because I BROUGHT YOU IN and THIS IS OUR ARMY! -- Dad. And I mean it with all of my heart when I tell you that I would love you for that reason and that reason alone.

This is probably also the same reason I have a recurring episodic dreams where my Dad and I are able to raise the dead for a short amount of time during special events (Pop comes back to life for weddings, etc., and currently in the saga my brother is dead and we have to raise him, too) but when we do this, our resurrective energy also raises a huge-ass army of zombies who are out to eat our brains. These inevitably end with my dad and I riding aloft in an inflatable raft down the polluted, shitty Quinnipac River, beating zombies’ brains with our giant-ass battle-axe oars.

The giant-ass battle-axe oars are just as awesome as you might imagine them to be.

My extreme love of Whiskey – That’s Pop. (grandfather) Gave it to me for colds, teething, baby-PMS. It’s the only thing that ever made me feel better, and the only thing that ever does.

My desire to punch that douchebag on the street who tried to steal the cigarette out my mouf – Stu.

My desire to punch you right now – Stu.

My sense of pretty much everything – Klutch.xls

The realization that, at best, even the worst decisions you make at least keep you regular – Dad

Answering a query with “If I were to answer that honestly, I'd crush all my enemies and become a porn star.” -- Tim got that out of me.

The realization that it’s okay to just make people wanna feel some rhythm – Bruce Springsteen

Quit??? Son, you don’t quit til they quit on you. And even when they do, fuck them. Because you’re better than that. – Dad

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9490 Exes? Really? This is what we’re talking about.

Cool.

Go and look through my archive. From Post One and Post Two from 2002 til my last post. My whole oeuvre (thanks, Stu) is about exes. Ex girlfriends, ex-grandparents, ex-friends, ex-lovers (LOVERS! LOVERLY LOVERS!) ex-experiences, ex-exes, ex-oskeletons, ex-temporaneous assholenish, ex-facebook friends who are no longer my facebook friends.

Everything I’ve ever posted is about what I was bright enough to gain and dumb enough to lose.

So if we’re talking about ex-anythings, I have nothing new to say. It’s all there.  Except that, as easy as it is to simply say this, I think you'd all like me better if you met me just now rather than knew me when.  Even those of you I willingly let go away.

You may think this is a cop-out, but I can’t do it better, and simultaneously worse, than I already have. I’ve been there. Don’t need to go back again.

Of course, as I am about to post this, Eli The Barrowboy comes up on the iPod.


]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9452 April, 1992. Finishing out my Freshman year of high school. Our chorus, which was pretty fucking awesome, was supposed to play some parade at Disney World. Now, Disney World has parades every fucking day because, you know, YAY! UP WITH PEOPLE! and shit. But somehow some administrative shit got fucked up, and we weren’t playing Disney World, but we had our tickets booked and we were going to freaking Orlando whether Eisner wanted us or not. So we ended up doing whatever we do at La Mercado, an outdoor mall in the middle of Hell, Orlando.

The high school band came with us. The band was full of tuba players who played electric guitar better than they played the damn horns. They were also older. The band doods were Juniors and Seniors. Us chorus doods, we were frosh and sophs.

The band doods thought Pearl Jam’s “Ten” was the be all and end all of rock and roll. Me, at that time, I thought Nirvana’s “Nevermind” beat the hell out of that Pearl Jam poseur shit.

In the meantime, I’m rooming at the Caribbean Beach Resort in Disney World with two guys – one is my good friend Seth, who is (I hope) still my good friend to this day. The other was a Junior that we’ll call Meff. Seth kind of idolized Meff and I got lost in the shuffle. Whatever, that’s fine. I like being on my own anyway. But I’d wake up to Seth and Meff comparing how awesome their pecs were in the mirror. Such is the way of the world.

Our chorus had a 22 year old graduate student named Dawn that served as our accompanist. She, Meff, and Seth would often disappear together after hours.

Which, again, would be fine. Except that, at fourteen, I had a ridiculously huge-ass crush on Dawn. In fact, in six months from then, I would buy her a ring in Quebec City on a field trip she didn’t even go on and give it to her six months later. Because who can resist a pre-emo 15 year old with a ring?

Seth and Meff were cooler than I, and those two and Dawn would sneak off after-hours to go do… I don’t know what. But there were only two keys to the room, and they took them both. So every night, while they were out with the girl I was sure was the older girl of my dreams, I was left alone to watch the fake waves on a fake beach and hope an unaffiliated female mouse might wash ashore. Til the damn keys came back with Meff and Seth, and I could sleep in Pectoral Pissing-Match Hell.

This went on all week. Til the last night of the trip, when Meff and Seth probably realized they were being dicks. Dawn comes up to me the night before we’re leaving and says “Hey, Honky. While everyone else is sleeping, we’re going to EPCOT”.

In retrospect, that was a Pity Move if ever there was one. At the time, I didn’t give a shit at all. This was my time – MY TIME DOWN HERE [/goonies] and fuck if I wasn’t going to make the most of it. I bought her a monkey puppet and she named it Floristan. There’s some composeriffic reference to Floristan that I can’t place, but she named it. And it was hers. And I provided it for her.

We rode “Journey Into Imagination” twice and held hands. When we got out after the second time it was Fireworks Time over the lagoon overlooking the “countries” at EPCOT. In retrospect, it was total “let’s-placate-EmoHonky” bullshit. But she held my hand throughout the entire fireworks display and the bus ride back to the hotel. And I can’t express in text what that felt like or what it means to me this day. Even if it was fucking fake.

After everyone went to bed, I stayed up and looked from out balcony upon the fake waves of the fake beach and thought how lucky I was that, for once, someone recognized what I needed from them and gave it to me.

And as I did, the band teacher – who we’ll call Captain Doucheberry – wandered out of his room, drunk off his ass, and caught me up after hours.

“Honky!”

“Yes?”

“Man… ‘Ten’ is way better than ‘Nevermind’. What’s wrong with you? Go to bed.”

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9440 You know, I think it's somewhat silly to celebrate the inauguration of one man as much as we have. I don't mean to shit on your post, and I certainly don't mean to shit on what the past week has meant to America and the world.

We can celebrate this moment as much as we can. And we should. But one man, no matter how powerful he may be, is not going to change the world as one POTUS. It's on his charges. It's on us. We elected him. And I never thought we would. Which says to me that, as a Nation, the US is wrecked and rambled enough that the most biased of us are ready to put those biases-of-centuries aside and stray from what we've known because those things of old don't serve our self-needs any longer. And that is fucking beautiful.

I celebrate what this inauguration means to everyone as a statement. But not as a celebration of one man and, most of all, one party. The onus is on us as a people, not him. It's on us to follow through on making sure that We, The People, get what we want out of our Country. And get what we want out of ourselves. And give the world what it needs from us.

So remember that. Not who you were standing next to.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9427 The Goonies is my favorite movie of all time. Last weekend I was back visiting my parents in Connecticut, and one of my friends IMed me to tell me that the Goonies was on in HD and we need to watch it. At 1 AM. So I sat up all night, like a geek, and IMed with my friends through the whole movie.

I was 8 when that movie came out, and there's a river that runs about a block away from my parents' house. Abut a quarter-mile from their house the river starts to widen, and when I was little I would swear that once the river started to widen I'd find a pirate ship. On Saturday afternoons I used to steal my dad's rubber fishing pants and wade up river looking for One-Eyed Willie, every weekend making it farther and father. I never did find him. But I did take a long walk along that river at 3AM last Saturday night, thinking maybe that 25 years later I'd know where to better look.

When Mouth says to Stef "you know, you don't look so kinda pretty... when your face doesn't screw it up."... still kills me.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9410

Happy New Year, robots.  I'm fired up for '09.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9396 You should probably listen to this in the background. Open it in a new window.

I've been sick today. Which means I slept til 3 PM today. Because I could, and I couldn't see myself doing anything else more productive than getting myself healthy through sleep.

Well, that's not entirely true. I woke up around 9 AM after having nightmares where zombies tried to drag my brother into the ranks of the undead. The zombies infected squirrels with their disease, and the zombie squirrels set up shop in the unbuilt parts of my parents' rebuilt house. My dad and I fucked up some zombie squirrel shit, and that was awesome. But what was more awesome was that I knew how to beat the zombie squirrels, and my dad actually listened to my methods. And we herded the zombie squirrels onto a plane bound for St. Petersburg, Russia. So my dad, me, and the zombie squirrels got onto a plane. When we arrived, we were welcomed by people who remembered me from my visit in 1993 They fed us with smoked fish and caviar and weird gelatinous meats which my dad enjoyed so much that he said to me "tell your mother we're dead because I'm never going back after this".

At which point I was woken up by a large dog vomiting on my foot. So I got up, put some pants on, let her chase some squirrels and mini-dogs and picked up her warm, warm poop in plastic bags. My father would be so proud.

THEN I crashed on the couch and woke up at 3 PM. My iTunes was blasting the whole time. Same song I went to sleep to the first time. On repeat. Song at the top of the page.

Holt boulevard
between Gary and White

I always hear this as "Holt Boulevard, between Berry and Wythe".

I hooked up with some friends at the Travelodge
set ourselves up for the night

Those intersections make no sense. But my friend J, whose last name is Holt... we always seem to meet at the Levee in Williamsburg off Berry and someshit. Which I pretend is Wythe. So whenever I hear the opening to this song, I figure I'm meeting my old friend on his boulevard which connects to one of my favorite bars.

Thing is with J, though, he's full of surprises. It's never just you and J and that's that. No. He's got some surprise guests up his ass which you're not expecting except that you should, because he's J, and he's gonna bring all the guns to town.

The opening to this song says to me "J's in town and we're hooking up at the Travelodge for the night, because we've all got a shitload to catch up on". And J's guest is my first girlfriend who lived 2 houses down from him when we were in high school. The girl that, the morning after I lost my virginity, J climbs up on the roof and through her window and seems surprised I'm there.

She's moved to New York now. And here we all are.

Carpenter ants in the dresser
Huge black flies in the screen
It's gonna be too late by the time we learn
what these cryptic symbols mean

Holy fuck. Here we are in our thirties and unbeknownst to me when I woke up that day, mother of God, we're back in the mid-nineties.

And I dreamt
of a house
haunted by all you tweakers with your hands out

Going back to my dream from this morning. My brother is being courted to the Dark Side by zombies. I'm siding with my dad but never really vanquishing the zombies or saving my brother... just relocating the problems. Goal #1 is finding a place where we're happy without all the crap. Goal #2, taking the zombies on head-on, is a fallback. And seems the least realistic. I'm trying to convince my dad that we can't stay in St. Petersburg. That we shouldn't stay in St. Petersburg. We have family. We have people to take care of and we sure as hell can't stay there if we like who we are, cuz you taught me we don't stand for this. And I'm being told "that doesn't matter". That "we gotta take what’s given to us and run."

And the headstones climbed up the hills
And the headstones climbed up the hills

Yeah... ya think? Out of nowhere, my teenage nirvana shows up in my home 12 years later and I'm having nightmares about my family abandoning itself.

Send somebody out for Ativan
comb through the carpet for clues
reflective tape on our sweatpants
gaping holes in our shoes

I'm looking through shit. You know. For clues. Dad. Family. Ninety-four meets Aught-eight. I think of my friend Justin from high school. He's married now. Inherited a construction company. Everything was on the up and up. First two kids he had.. died. He was the "perfect guy". Smart dood. Worked out. Was a health nut since the day he turned 16. He did everything "right". By the book.

He wants kids. He's got everything else. Why is everything fucking up for him?

Every couple minutes
someone says he can't stand it anymore
laugh lines on our faces
relief maps of the civil war

"relief maps of the civil war" is the key line here. The line in the album version is "scale maps of the ocean floor", which is all well and good. But "relief maps of the Civil War" is so much better. There comes a moment when, whatever it is, you just can't stand it anymore. And you stop hearing the noise around you, what people are saying and what they have on the tee-vee, and you just sort of see shit as it is. Some of your friends doing stupid shit over here, some other things where you're doing stupid shit over there, and some shit is just stupid and you want some clean drinking water.

And I dreamt of a camera
pointing out from inside the television
and the aperture
yawning and blinking

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9346 There was a time,  before I moved to New York or New Jersey or wherever it was that I moved to, that I was instructed not to like Stu.  I don't remember who instructed me to do that.  And frankly, it's stupid to expect me to like or dislike anyone without my meeting them.

But I met Stu drinking whiskey at the Nancy Whiskey Pub, and even though I was told not to like him .. I couldn't not.  Even when I lived in Jersey and he lived in New York, and I'd meet him after work.. he'd call me "10 PM Chris" because I had to leave at 10 PM to get back to Jersey.  And he'd give me shit, but we'd carry this on.

And once I moved to the city, he was my constant companion.  I dunno, I guess most of you know Stu as the snarky guy who likes to show how much smarter he is than everybody else.  That's fun for some people.  Funny for others.  Hurtful to a few.  But I know Stu as the guy who said "Oh my god, you just broke up with your girlfriend in Jersey and now you're in the city and, by god, we are gonna fuck shit up every night all the motherfucking time, because we kind of rule and shit." 

And we did just that.  Like every other night or so.  For like 2 years. At least.  Probably more.  But that Stu guy saw what a shit fucking wreck I was after Jersey.  And he stuck with me.  And let me talk.  And listened to me yell and stuff.  He saw me at my worst.  And he still liked me.

Stu has seen most of the worst of me and some of the best of me. And he still sticks with me.

I remember being gone on vacation at the end of September-- which is something I never go on because I'm usually on it or gone somewhere -- and  getting a call from a friend saying "hey, you should show up."  And I heard why.

And then I watched this  and this

They cut that dude's fucking heart open.  And you know what?  He is the fucking BEST.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/honkycracker.asp?id=9319 You know, I'm not proud of much I've done.  But what I am proud of is that when I was 10, I made some fish make babies that I was told could never make babies in captivity.  And those of you who know me know I bring this up from time to time.

So it pisses me off when I read something like this.

Especially this part:

"Breeding: No reported successes. It is believed that they spawn on coral reefs and the young migrate to the freshwater and brackish areas near river estuaries. When they mature they return to the open sea."

Well, I  thought I did an OK job for a 10 year old, sending polaroids and photocopies of my journals to PhDs and a photo series of  the Scat mating-dance.  But I guess there are still no reported successes.

So fuck it.  I'm taking this shit to New York City.  You say they spawn on coral reefs?  I'm sayin'  they don't need no coral reefs.  I'm sayin' I got a tank that sustains a marine environment, a brackish environment, and a freshwater environment all-in-one and that I'm gonna make these fish do it and make babies.  Again.  Because apparently it didn't take the first time.  And not only that, but for good measure, this time I'm gonna do it in under ten gallons.  Cuz my balls are just that big.

This is a really stupid thing to aspire to, because it benefits no one.  But yet it shows that even the dumbest among us can make something happen that hasn't before.  So I have this.  What about you?  What have you got to show us?

Call this the Honkycracker Challenge.  In an election year where accomplishing things with your dumb-ass wits is considered "elitist" and a negative quality, I challenge you to meet me.  I can do this dumb shit that no one's done before.  Let us see what you got.

If for no other reason, because it's a big "fuck you" to everything you hate.

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