How Juan Rules
(Okay, this is a really long story. It’s a combination of about six different stories I was going to write out, but they all sort of threaded together just today, so I decided to wrap a big giant Oh What The Hell Why Not around it and pull them all together. We’re all over the map, do a bit of Time Travel, and Zip-twang! all over the place because I’ve linked to a bunch of other people I need to mention. It’s, trust me, one big giant ToddBrainDump®. So. Get your coffee, scoot in close, try to keep up, and prepare to hear something hilarious about why Frappé is out of his mind and my new best friend).
(Story 1) So there I was this fair morn, lying abed, pondering the day’s intentions when I rolled over, stretched luxuriously, and reached out my arm to hold my loved one.
Which is because I keep my iPhone on my night table right next to me.
I realize almost immediately that it’s Saturday (good) but that I don’t smell any coffee (bad). Which means my first wife, Cute Redhead (it being Saturday and all) had no intention of exploding onto the world’s stage the way she does each and every weekday morning, explaining the explosion of red hair I see buried under the eighty-seven pillows…
…leaving the work of Altar Boy boy to me. Usually, I walk to the coffee machine every single morning with a devotion and sobriety only a little black and white frock and big, golden, candle thingy would round out. And some murmuring latin choral music in the background. That’s how I approach The Cup. Singing,
The steadfast joe of the Lord never ceases
His coffees never come to an end
They are brewed every morning
Brewed every morning
Great is the rich, full, blend
Pour more
Great is the rich, full, blend.
-TIV (Todd International Version)
Okay, I think that is hilarious, it’s a knock-off of another song but I can’t remember the original anymore because I’ve been singing it to myself secretly for over twenty years and I’m not lying. I’ve just never actually typed it out and let the world know that I border sacrilege until I get through a few cups. Okay that made me laugh even more because I think I also realize that as soon as a bunch of people read my attempt to pass off borderline sacrilege on not having had coffee yet, they’re going to spray their coffee all over their monitors.
(Story 2) Okay, back burner this for a bit (but keep the iPhone part near the front) and let’s .•*•.*.Time Travel.*.•*•. back a few weeks. To WalMart (Time Travel isn’t always pretty, folks). We were visiting Cute Redhead’s Jerry Springer family over Christmas and they live in the south.
I mean…the South.
(pauses)
No, you’re not listening to me. I mean…
THE SOUTH. Think banjos, husbands and wives divorcing and still being brother and sister, and people who’d deep fry milk if they could puzzle out how to hook up a winch and dip a whole cow into boiling oil. Dude. (Okay, that’s actually a little overboard, I admit it. These people are way too nice to hurt a cow like that.)
Anyway, I decided that though watching The Shining was actually relaxing me, there’s nothing more effective than a trip to Walmart to convince you that the gene pool, by and large, has no lifeguard on duty. So there I am walking through this denizen for (I don’t remember what I was sent for I just know I was sent), when all of a sudden I hear the familiar buzz of The Electronics Section. *swoon*
And so I go over to the big giant wall of TVs all playing the same video and approach it like…well. Like this: in my mind I see the camera about one hundred feet above the scene and the light from the holy media is bathing me in something sacred and there’s this loooOOOoong shadow of my mortal self (note: I’m an artist, making me not mortal) (it’s in The Rules) stretched out behind me, right?
It was awesome. Because right before I get up to this one Wailing Wall of TVs (and I was about to start wailing and you’ll understand why in a second), I remember my very cool friend Herzog (who is the devil) telling me about such-and-such flat screen tv that is all the rage and delivering more bang for your buck yada yada yada I want it I want it I want it whine whine whine whatever.
(Story 3) But then I see it. I not only see it, I realize I’m standing RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. IT. It was like the gods of television were welcoming me into their presence and gifting me with a spiritual mentor all my own. Just for me. Right there. It was as if the flat-screen tv I was staring at with my mouth agape was gently smiling back saying, “Hello Todd. We love you. We do. And we’ve been expecting you. You may rise. No, wait…that’s too much. Back on your knees, slave.” And I would have.
Except that at that very same moment, I realized the gods were not smiling. At all.
They were openly mocking me. Because (and I swear to the real God) (He said it was okay this one time) (and I am not making this up even a little bit) ON. EVERY. SINGLE. TV in the entire Electronic Cathedral was showing
a commercial
for
The Camera I Want.
My mouth just dropped to the floor. I stepped back, looked right. Then left. Up. Down. Straight ahead.
Blinked.
Blinked again.
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. And if there was a soundtrack it would have suddenly stopped and a phonograph needle would have ripped across the album sending the sacred moment right down the toilet. (Note on this ‘soundtrack’ thing: I wonder if others are like me and hear a soundtrack to their life all day long. Let me know if you do too. And if you do, we’ll play checkers together in the asylum…which I can do now because the hallucinations have thankfully subsided ever since the bats started flying around me).
(okay I’m not kidding…right now…I have absolutely no memory of what I started writing this post abou—oh wait now I remember)
So. Walmart. TV (want it but I’m more focused on whining about something else). Camera.
I leave dejected. Laughing but dejected. I’m being tested, I can tell. I tell Cute Redhead the Universe is laugh-laugh-laughing at Todd by teasing me with The Camera I Don’t Have in new and creative ways. She doesn’t even look up. *sigh*
Back burner this for a second (but keep the Camera commercial on TV part near the front).
End .•*•.*.Time Travel.*.•*•.
(Story 4) Now we arrive back home to *Hallelujah Chorus* Colorado. To discover that my buddy Kendall had something delivered to my house for him to pick up when he got around to swinging by. Conversation went something like this:
“Hey, is it cool if I have a package delivered to your house and I’ll swing by sometime and pick it up?”
“Sure buddy. No problem.”
“Awesome. Thanks man. You know, you really are the most incredible person I think I’ve ever known. And even though I never say it, I really do wish I was more like you. [okay, Kendall, never actually said this but I know he feels it in his heart] It’s a Canon G10 my dad is sending me for Christmas.”
“Um. What?”
“Yeah…it’s this great camera that I’ve been wanting and anyway he’s sen—”
“Burn in Hell, Kendall.” *click*
I was so mad. And yes I know it’s not The Camera I Want. But it’s its little brother and a damn (can I say that on the air?) good camera in its own right.
And now I get to watch it plop its little butt right on my own doorstep and mock me. Just like the Wailing Wall of TVs at Walmart did. Just like the commercials for My Camera on those TVs did. Just like Kendall’s camera is doing right now. Mock, mock, mock.
Okay.
(Story 5) So John Macco, who is hilarious but deserves to be hit in the head (you know, in love) was having himself all kinds of fun making fun of me being all wrapped around the axel and knotted up because I kept going on and on about taking pictures with everything but The Camera I Want. So he made the big fat mistake brilliant move of joking that I should make a donation page and see if people would actually contribute to Whine-Aid™ and get me to shut the hell up about it once and for all (not likely).
It had to be done. I was pushed over the edge, cornered, mocked, teased, and basically dared that I didn’t have the audacity to do it.That was the straw the broke the camel’s back. Oh whatEVER. As if I wouldn’t take photos of myself dancing naked on the bar if I actually get this camera. Please.
And so I did. Last night. And then I went to bed. Which brings us to
(Story 6) this morning when I woke up, stretched luxuriously, and reached out my arm to hold my loved one. The iPhone. Which had a very cool little iPhone notification that went something like this, “Um…Todd. You better come take a look at this.” And then I rubbed my eyes, clicked swiped, touched, swiped again, entered password…
…and then sat straight up in bed with hair sticking straight up, my eyes like Buick hubcaps (while I launched Stupid Cat off the bed because right before ALL of this, the stupid thing broke my Angelina dream sequence with her Stupid Cad Sandpaper Tongue and licked me awake (leave that one alone, folks, tempting as it is).
I’m looking at the Whine-Aid™ Contribution and World Domination Ground Control app and am thinking, “…wait. dude. what? that can’t be right.” (note: I don’t capitalize until I’ve had coffee.)
And then I look again. And it is right. And my eyes pop right of my head just like the do in cartoons (not the cartoons on tv these days which I hate, I mean like back in the day with Bugs Bunny) and you hear that old antique car horn sound go HooOOOOooga!
Because My New Best Friend made a donation to Whine-Aid™…that is just…I’m sorry, there’s no other way to say this…but he did something that pretty much proves that the rest of you contribute like little girls (no offense, little girls). My New Best Friend’s name is (brace yourself for the coolest foreign name in the whole wide world) Juan Ramón Fernández Villanueva (don’t even try pretending you aren’t saying that name about five times in a row and don’t even try pretending you’re not saying it in the voice of the dude on Fantasy Island). But I call him Frappé because the first time he contacted me on the former blog I read his name, laughed out loud at how cool it was, and wrote him back saying Starbuck’s needed to flat-out copyright all four parts of it and name some cool coffee concoction after him. Also, I couldn’t pronounce it all without choking on the accent marks so I nicknamed him Frappé.
Which brings me, finally, to this:
Frappé…you are amazing. If you knew how many people in the USA read this stuff here and on Facebook just to see what you’re going to say, you’d be convinced of your rockstar status and I’m not kidding lol. They love you and so do I.
And If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me, “Who is that guy??”…I’d have almost as much as you just donated to Whine-Aid™.
(PS: John Macco, I don’t want to start a fight between you all or anything…but everyone’s laughing at how you donate like a little girl. Just sayin’.)
Oh, God! I’m so honored and thankful to you. You just wrote and entire and log blog entry just because of me…I’m so flatered! But…But… I have one thing to say:
OK, I’d send you a five euros in cash because I’d like to see you on a picture with the little piece of paper. So I put it on an envelope, did my thing at hospital and this afternoon, while I was going to the Postal Service…I just saw the entry about the donation thing or whatever-you-named-it. So it crash my hopes. Completely. How could you do something like that to me? Anyway…
So, in the mist of non sleeping at all nightmare that I call a 24 hours shift, I red the entry about the donation and I told to myself: “C’mon, let’s help Todd with a little push!” I saw the camera (which it’s adorable) and I converted US dolars in Euros and Oh-my-God! People! You-have-so-many-cheap-things-at-your-country! It’s almost an insult to us, little europeans which have to pay THE DOUBLE for the same things…. So, OK, I was offended so this is only to claryfy why I decided to help Todd with his “Whine-AD” Trademark business.
So, I went to the PayPal site so me with myself and I just saw the place to put the amount of money to the “donation” (THAT WAS FUNNY). So I wrote down 100 US DOLARS. Yeah. For you, people. But, remember as I wrote just above, we europeans have to pay more to do the same things as you do, so when I clicked that it was OK and I confirmed the donation in progress, the site just change the US DOLARS to EUROS!!!! Because, I DO, if you don’t get it yet, LIVE IN EUROPE. So I donated to Todd little whiny trademark thing, 100 EUROS!!!!
Todd, please, I hope you’ll take an extraordinary series of pictures with the camera you’ll soon have on your hands, OK?
Maybe I’ll go to Colorado just to see them. if I could stop myself to make such a donations as I did in your case.
p.s.: By the way, I enjoy all this thing. Thank you so much.
lol and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is the one and only Frappé :)
I laughed. Many times while reading this.
I love your version of “The Steadfast Joe”.
I am relieved to discover that I am not the only one that has a soundtrack that plays out my life. Finally I know… I am not alone.
Your friend Frappe sounds a dear. :)
Hey Veronique — THANK you for giving me the original title of the song; been wracking my brain all day trying to remember it lol. Look forward to our checkers tournament and, yes, Frappé is good people.
Young grasshopper, every ripple starts with one small pebble! I sent the first buck! And I bought 7 books, which makes 10, including the 1 your mom bought and the 2 you made cute redhead buy! And my wife says I’m not cheap but that I am easy! Oh and I’m am using her iPhone to do this, lol!!
John…don’t even pretend you didn’t love holding the iPhone while you did that. We’re not stupid.
My wife has a boss (other than me). She is very high on the corporate ladder and he is her only boss. Her boss told her that many, many years ago his wife died of cancer. He blamed her demise on a holistic doctor whom he said he could cure her and didn’t.
Her boss then told her that he kidnapped said holistic doctor and tied him up and held him at gun-point at a motel somewhere. He tortured the guy intermittently and after nearly a day, beat the living crap out of him for good measure and left him dazed and bloodied at a roadside.
My wife asked me that if this was indeed true, would that make him crazy.
My response was: “Even if that ISN’T true, and I doubt that it is, the mere fact that he would make up such a wild tale and recount it to you means he is, in fact, quite crazy. ”
My point?
Even if the above story isn’t true (and I believe it is), this would be such a towering tower of Babull(sh!t), such an excruciatingly, painstakingly-crafted, Pièce de résistance/magnum opus masterpiece of pure unadulterated bullsh!t, that I would be compelled by shock, awe, and, dare I say, admiration to contribute to this…Ummm…This…This “thing” you’re perpetrating here…There is no way that I will use a fancy, fifty cent word like mendicancy, and you can’t make me.
So there.
Herm, I will bet you some free photo-retouching services that I can TOO make you use ‘mendicancy’ in a sentence.
Mendicancy: noun
1 : the condition of being a beggar
2 : the practice of begging
Ah… I get it. Good to know.
Mike, ‘zactly what I’m sayin’.