Red on the Head...



DAY: Monday
WEATHER: Cold
ATTITUDE: Pained
DAYS WEARING SAME CLOTHES: 2
SITCOM IDEA: Sewer Squad! Three sewer workers in New York City spend their days cleaning the filters, grates, and screens of the sewer system. They gather enigmatic objects caught in the filtering system, and solve mysteries connected to them by night. Two women and one man. There should be a love-triangle-sexual-tension thing, and maybe a sewer monster or two.
CARTOON CHARACTER OTD: Beavis
WISH FOR THE WEEK: For my tooth to stop hurting my face.
NUMBER OF WILD CHICKENS IN THE YARD: 0


In case you haven’t tuned in to the bed head pics, I’ll tell you right now that I’m a redhead. I want to talk a bit about that.

I learned recently that redheads have a higher tolerance for pain than anyone else on the planet. Apparently, the gene that makes us have red hair, also messes with our pain receptors, and lessens the signals of pain to our brains.

I know why. If you have red hair, you know why, too. We need the extra protection from pain because our hair is red. That the gene that turns our hair from brunette to our crazy, fiery mix comes with a defense mechanism for what pain it will cause, is just, perfect, and goes a long way in proving the Intelligent Design Theory.

From the time I can remember being around other kids, I can remember being singled-out because of my hair color. I’ve heard it all: Redheaded stepchild. (wha?) Red on the Head Like a Dick on a Dog. (that’s my personal favorite. Love it.) There’s everyone’s all-time favorite, ‘Red’. That one used to piss me off more than any of the others.

Red.

On the playground, did any adult ever call to another child by the color of their hair? “Hey, Blonde!” Nope. Not ever. Let me just tell one story today, about growing up Red.

I was in a fistfight with a substitute teacher in the 6th grade. I punched him in the face several times, after grabbing a handful of his shirt, and pulling myself up to his level. He didn’t tear me off without tearing out some of his greasy hair, either.

He asked me to pick up some social studies workbooks off people’s desks like this; “Hey, Red, go around and pick up the workbooks.”

I sat in my chair. Now, this was the sixth grade. I was 12. I’d had a good eight years of ostracism and weirdness. I’d been called Red and worse, thousands of times by that time. In fact, I’ll sidestep just a foot or two to tell you about the first experience with being fucked-with about my red hair by an adult. It’s a family legend. My dad tells people the story all the time.

When I was six, I went to work with my dad. We’d just moved to Idaho, and he’d just gotten the job. I’m pretty sure I was there to see his new office. He took me into his boss’s office, to meet him.

The first thing the boss said was, “Where’d you get your red hair?”

I answered, “It came with the head, stupid.”

Sounds like a bad joke from the Forties, I know, but it’s true.

So back to Tits. Tits is the substitute teacher’s name. (Sorry, Addy, it’s not about real breasts.) Tits wasn’t the sub’s name until he kept calling me Red. He had a Mr. Name before that. You see, he was a tall man, with a beer belly, and woman’s breasts. You could see his bra. Seriously, through his sweaty blue dress shirt.

But as I sat and seethed in my chair after the first time he called me Red, actually beginning to see red, he stood in front of the class and asked, “Didja hear me, Red?”

More seething commenced, as well as some steaming, and tunnel-visioning on my end, and I sat with my fingers pressed into the sides of the desk staring at him.

“Get up, and gather those, Red, or you’re goin’ ta the Principal’s office.”

I decided to do it. I thought, “Well, he’s my substitute teacher, he’s a freakin’ adult. What can I do?” I got up, still seething, certainly red by now, all over my body.

I snatched up workbooks from my stock-still peers goggling up at me.

Tits said, “Ya better not give me attitude, Red.”
I said, “Oh, terrif.” (it was 1982. I was twelve…)
“Terrif?”
“Yeah. It means terrific.”
“Oh, I know what it means, Red.”
By now the workbooks were sliding from my hands. All my classmates were silent, bobbing their eyes between Tits and I. I turned to face him. We were about ten feet from each other.
“Don’t call me Red one more time, Tits.”
He flinched. The class murmured, and tittered. I began to shake. I knew what he was going to say. I knew it.
“What did you say, Red?”
I launched myself at him, screaming, “Don’t call me RED!”

I told ya the rest. Pulled myself up and bashed him as many times as I could. He fought back, too. Slammed me around, bedlam ensued.

I was suspended for a week. I think the testimony from my classmates helped, and the fact that I was the Student Body President, and on pretty good terms with the Principal.

But that should show you to what ends being tormented for years about something that’s inherently part of you will do. That dude was as big as my father-in-law, and no freakin’ way would I go up against Tony.

I’m not meaning to whine about my hair. I meant to tell more about it, actually. But this story is a good illustration of being singled-out and persecuted, and I think that’s a timely topic.

My red hair turned to gold for me by the time I turned 16. All the stigma is a good thing, most of the time. And so ya know, most of what you hear about us is true. I’m sure I’ve illustrated my unrestrained temper clearly enough. (And just so you all know, through years of zen-reiki-master cell activation-yogishi-swama-rami training, I’ve reigned in the temper so that I pass as a fairly decent human.) I now use my red haired experiences to come up with sayings for t-shirts, and for snaring wives.

I do want to talk more about my genetic mutativeness, like how I wrote a high school paper on redheads being the possible source for many a vampire legend. Sunlight, not aging, fiery, alluring, etc…(this high tolerance for pain thing fits right in)

And I wanted to explore more derogatory terms for my ilk, like ‘Fire Crotch’ and ‘Burning Bush’—and I wanted to state the simple fact that my hair is NOT RED, it’s copper, gold, yellow, white, black, brown, and rust, but not red—but I’m absolutely certain you’ve had enough by now.

Have some rad days.

Playin' Possum




DAY: Satunday mornight
WEATHER: Raining for twelve hours straight.
ATTITUDE: Awake for 22 hours, crappy, long night at work.
DAYS WEARING SAME CLOTHES: 1/24
DUMBEST THING AT WORK TONIGHT: A giant (seriously), ugly guy in his early twenties and his girlfriend stopped into the restaurant just after we’d closed so she could run to the bathroom and puke, or whatever she was doing in a restaurant restroom at 1:30 in the morning where she had not even eaten, while her sulking giant loomed in the aisle, flipping through a menu. After twenty minutes or so, she came out screaming at him, and they proceeded to fight in our foyer. Pretty girl left giant, and giant stalked sidewalk for half-an-hour looking for pretty girl. We named him “Ug” and did impersonations of him: “Ug lose pretty girl…Ug mad at restaurant…Ug still look…Ug throw cars now…” He was the dumbest thing at work tonight. And so was she.
CARTOON CHARACTER OTD: Blue
WISH FOR THE WEEK: That hairy dinosaurs from under the Atlantic Ocean would stop eating ships.
NUMBER OF WILD CHICKENS IN THE YARD: 0


So I just started using blogger yesterday, to put my blog where people can comment on it. And my wise wife informed me that my first post here probably wasn’t a good intro. She’s right, of course. It’s not that I don’t believe what I wrote, and totally stand by it, but for my first post at my blogger blog, it was a bit commando. I plan on starting a couple blogs here, probably one called, Theta Mind, about the stuff I know about healing and the old technique I helped create called The Orion Technique that has now transformed into several different healing modes--most dealing with Theta, DNA, and healing.

I thought I’d lighten it up a bit. Well, lighten it up for you, the readers, but probably throw me into some sort of flashback fit when I tell the tale I’m about to tell. I promised yesterday to tell you about the latest attempt on my life by my distant cousin Haggis.

If you haven’t been following along, let me recap for you:
Haggis MacShamel is this guy from a tiny village in Scotland, called Puddle. He found me when I launched my website, and wrote me an email. I immediately knew his noggin’ needed some adjustments, and I was a bit sarcastic about him contacting me.

He was very irate about me posting his email, thinking it made him look like an idiot, and he said a bunch of weird crap about coming to take me to a bar, and beat me up until I puked-up a cat.

Then he started his journey to America, to find me, visit Hollywood, and kick my ass. I started outright slamming him in my blog.

He was lost at sea or something, and I almost got him be-headed, and then he hooked-up with some assassins in some unnamed Asian country. Now he’s traveling the world, recruiting killers to take me out. Several attempts have already been made. One involved the President, Bootsy Collins, and a gang of giraffes. You can read all about my adventures here: Shameless Creations Blog

The latest attempt occurred a week ago, when I came home from work. I pulled into the driveway, and saw a possum (or if you prefer, an opossum) leap from my trash can, scramble across the yard, and into a lilac tree (bush?). It climbed way out onto a tiny limb, and clamored onto my neighbor’s garage.

I was out of my car by the time it made it to the roof of the garage, we were about fifteen feet from each other.

Something occasionally goes through our trash, rips open old lunchmeat bags and rotten fruit, and scatters packaging around. It’s not bad, and I don’t mind, really. I like having animals around. I wish they wouldn’t eat trash, and stick with the stuff I leave for them, but really, who could pass-up a garbage can stew when no one’s around? I thought perhaps the culprit(s) could be a raccoon or two. But obviously, it was the possum.

So I said, “A-ha! It’s you, Mr. Possum, that goes through my trash!”

I could barely see it, once the car lights were off. Just that glare in its big eyes from porch lights. I was completely taken by surprise when it said, “Why yes, it is I who goes through your trash. But I’m not any sort of Mr.”

There was a flash of blue light, as I stood in embarrassment for my social faux pas, and I was knocked unconscious. I believe I said something ridiculous as I fell, and later the possum told me I’d said, “I love The Backstreet Boys!” but I think she’s a stinkin’ liar.

When I came-to, I was in an empty swimming pool, propped up on what looked (and smelled) to be a pile of rotting canvas, with my legs in nearly freezing, brown leaf-water. The possum stood above me on the rim of the pool, bouncing a bit, and humming.

“Get up, climb out,” she ordered. Now, you’re probably thinking that she had a sort of snarling raspy voice with razor teeth clips at the end of her “t’s”, and an evil intonation. But that wasn’t true. She sounded like Kathleen Turner.

I climbed out. Into the freakin’ wind! I started shivering, and Ms. Possum said some derogatory crap about me not being covered in hair, and what a wuss I was, and how she wasn’t gonna eat my garbage anymore, because she was afraid my utter ridiculousness would rub off on her, or rot in her gut, or something about fish, which we never eat.

That’s when I noticed she had a gun. A gun with a silencer. Pointed up at me. I stopped in my tracks.

She stared at the softly-lit windows in the huge house and said, “Yes, I’m going to kill you. Yes, it’s because I swore my allegiance to Haggis after he saved me from a rampaging commune of lesbian badgers. Yes, I should have just killed you in the pool, because it would be less messy, and less hassle, and there’s that rotten pile of canvas in there, with the brown leaf-water.

"I think your bleeding body thrown back against that molding pile of tarp-sop would probably create a perfect scene, and the photos from the investigators would be top-notch, and maybe even make a few promotions happen. But, Haggis said to bash your head with a computer in some rich guy’s house, strip ya naked, write dirty words on you with permanent black marker, and stuff a cat down your gullet. And so that’s what I’m going to do.

"Especially since you’re such a gimp, the way you screamed, ‘I love the Backstreet Boys!’ when I knocked you out with my flasher-knock-out-beam-shooter. We’re going to march right into that house, and up the stairs to the den, and then I’m going to bash you and—”


That was the last thing I heard from her snarly little mouth with the sultry seductress sound, because while she was staring off at the house like a friggin idiot, I picked up a chunk of splintered diving board and bashed HER over the head with it.

After I made my way out of the backyard, I discovered that I wasn’t far from my own house. I made it back without incident. Except that whole thing with the Irbunian cab driver who, when I told him I had no money; insisted he give me a ride, promising to let me pay with margarine and thumbtacks when we got to my house. I don’t know why I bothered, probably because he drove along next to me for about five miles, and kept asking me, “Why you don’t have money?”, but I told him that a possum had stolen it, and obviously stashed it somewhere, because it’s not like she’s got pockets or anyth—Shit! Marsupial. Damnit. All those one dollar bills. How could she not look fat?

Anyway, obviously I made it home okay. All it cost was two sticks of butter (I didn’t have margarine) and sixty-eight thumbtacks. I threw in a dishtowel that was hanging on the refrigerator, because he said, “Hey, you’d better throw in that dishtowel or I’ll do something bad, like blame your cat for this fart I’m letting right now unless you hand it over.”

So, if you’d like to read more about what Haggis has done to me, and just why he hates me so, check out my previous posts at my website. And while you’re there, check out the bed head pic of the day.

Not you, Haggis. You can just F.O.

Addy and the Ninnies

DAY: Friday
WEATHER: Warm. I know, but it’s true.
ATTITUDE: Slightly vexed.
DAYS WEARING SAME CLOTHES: 3
INCREDIBLE THING: Eggs.
CARTOON CHARACTER OTD: Leela
WISH FOR THE WEEK: That more people didn’t suck.
NUMBER OF WILD CHICKENS IN THE YARD: 0

I’ve resisted going-off about the place where I sell t-shirts. I want you all to know that I have. But it’s getting ridiculous.

My fellow shopkeepers at CafePress and I have this wonderful message board where we can talk about CafePress issues. There’s even a place called ‘The Corner Shop’ where we can chat about whatever we want. It doesn’t have to be related to CafePress stuff whatsoever.

So there are people on the list who are cool, and who like each other, and so they talk to each other (in the Corner Shop) about whatever the hell they feel like talking about. It’s nice. Or at least, it was nice.

There are a few people on the board who have sticks up their asses. They complain when someone writes in about something they think is immature, or vulgar, or stupid, or whatever their uptight excuse is about the friendly post. It didn’t happen so much in the past, but lately, it’s been a plague. On all of our houses.

Addy, a great bloke from Australia, actually started a blog because when he would write in to say hi, and talk to us about his “shark-out-of-water wisdom”, people complained that it wasn’t about CafePress, and that they didn’t like reading his posts, and they had a paper-cut, and they can’t find the potty… Anyway, now Addy’s on the hotseat again because he posted a message about people he liked, naming names, and the people who weren’t named started saying shit about how Addy’s post was immature, and that they were gonna puke, and blah blah where’s the potty. One chick said she thought she was reading a twelve-year-old girl’s diary. What a jerk.

It’s ridiculous. If someone wants to chat with people he works with, and he wants to tell some of those people how much he appreciates their humor, or how an email from them will make his day, then he should be able to do it without a gang of ninnies bitching about his post. Oh, and you really should check out Addy’s blog. He’s one funny bloke.

HA HA HA! I just went to Addy’s blog to get his address to put a link in here, and found the most hilarious picture! See it here: Addy’s Blog

I’d said on the post in question that he made one foul-mouthed, ugly little girl. He proved it. Right on, Addy.

I’ve gotta tell you guys about my freakin’ cousin Haggis and his latest threat to my life, but I’ve got to rest my eye. Zane tried to poke it out yesterday. My eyeball is cut, so I have this patch on my eye. I’m wearing a bandana on my head a lot lately, cuz my hair is in my face otherwise, and so I totally look like a pirate.

Terri wanted me to wear the patch this morning for my bed head shot, but my eye felt pretty good today, and so I didn’t put it on. But Zane karate chopped me straight in the same eyeball about a couple hours ago, and I think he opened up the cut again. The patch is back on. Terri says the reason why Zane chopped me tonight was because I didn’t wear it for the bed head shot. So tomorrow promises to be a pretty crazy pic. Ya might want to tune in.

Alright. Redbeard is outa here.