There have been a spate of structure accidents in the past month or so in the city. The worst of which being the two crane collapses in Manhattan. A month or so ago, a building 2 blocks from my apartment burst into flames and collapsed in on itself. The building was abandoned, so no one was hurt. However, another accident of sorts happened across the street from my building.

Walking home one night, I saw two fire engines huddled together, police cars cruising into convergence, and tape blowing in the wind. People in the neighborhood were watching the police milling about and the firefighters standing near there trucks. Someone asked an officer what I always think I’ll get yelled at for asking: “What happened?”

“Eh, building collapsed.”

But there was no building missing or obviously imploded. There was, however, a pile of bricks on the ground. Curiously enough, the pile was right in front of the door to the building. It looked like some sort of Warner Brothers murder plot. No murder, though. Just a pile of bricks curiously in front of the door.

The next day, there were police gates surrounding the building, and the bodega was closed. The lights all seemed to be out in the building and the pile of bricks was still there.

Soon after, a scaffolding goes up. More for protection than construction. Pile of bricks remains untouched thanks to the constant police surveillance. I can’t imagine having that assignment as a cop in Brooklyn. I wonder if that’s a rewarding night of leisure or just a slow, long pain in the ass.

Last night, the gate was still up, the lights in the hallways were out, and the bricks all cleaned up. I think they’ve evacuated the building for safety. That would drive me insane. To have to be forced out of your home into who-knows-where because of a police order.

And all because some coyote was trying to kill a roadrunner… Sad, really…

You’ll have to allow me to be a bit maudlin today.

It’s the last few minutes of Father’s Day. I got off the phone with Dad right before he had to clock in at work. We talked about the weather, the flooding back home, the storms here. I get a lot of my meteorological knowledge from him. Hell, last time I was home, parts of our home videos we watched were of heat lightning going off in the distance while you could hear the sounds of my brothers and I playing.

I’m not sure he really realizes that he’s done such a good job as a father. He kept us safe, but let us grow up. He was there for us when we made our own mistakes. He supported us in everything. Gave us structure. He was there. That’s more than a lot of men do. He still is an active part of our life.

He encouraged me to go on to college and do the best I could. People are often surprised to find out that I was the first in my immediate family to graduate from college. After finding that out, someone told me they thought I came from a family of college professors. Not a joke. I don’t mean to embarrass Dad, but smarts don’t just come from nowhere. There’s about to be 2 more college grads, too. That stuff isn’t an accident. It takes someone who is dedicated to their kids to pull off 3 kids through college.

I don’t know how often he gets told this (or how often anyone gets told this), but he’s done a really good job as a dad. He’s got 3 good-looking sons who are all decent human beings. I’m surviving out here in New York so well because He’s instilled in me the ideas of hard work and just plain and simple manners. He let me go make my own way, even though he hated the idea of being away from his oldest. I miss him a lot, too.

I love you, Dad. Just wanted you to know that any “World’s Best Dad” stuff you might have received today is no bullshit.

I had a small frightening moment last night. It might seem banal and possibly uninteresting when I tell it, but it touched on one of my huge fears that I think most people share; the thought of losing your mind.

I had a long day of travel earlier this month. With only 3 hours sleep to prepare myself, I took a train from my hometown to Chicago, then the Blue Line to O’Hare, then a flight to JFK International, and a cab ride to Brooklyn. Couldn’t sleep through any of it. I can’t sleep in a chair. I have to be splayed out on a comfy surface, much like a bear.

Finally home after 14 hours of travel, I decided that I needed to clean my room and my bathtub. Tired, delirious, and inhaling bleach cleaner, I climbed into bed around 10. Still not wanting to go to sleep, I stayed up checking things out on the internet. Time passes by and then I notice something odd. I’m chewing gum. A fresh piece of gum. A fresh piece of gum I don’t remember putting in my mouth. It had all of a sudden appeared in my mouth.
I definitely had gum on me, so it wasn’t a complete surprise as to where I got it, but it was still a scary experience. It was like a less severe—and more minty—version of those horrible dementia stories where someone finds themselves in a parking lot with no recollection of driving there. I’ve always been afraid of losing my mind, although there is no real familial precedent for it. I was obviously over-reacting to my body just giving way to shutting down for a long overdue sleep.

After a few days back in New York, I was getting tension headaches that never seemed to go away and a bout of nausea out of nowhere. I thought I might be reacting to the temperature changes, or maybe an unlucky case of food poisoning. Then I got two sebaceous cysts on my jaw. Then I thought my phone gave me tumors on my face and in my brain. That was a scary week.
Turns out I was just getting used to the city again. The acrid air can take a bit to adjust to after being in clean rural breezes for over a week. I was also faced with formidable inbox cleaning at work. Stressful projects that did want to leave me. Frustrating. Enough to give a man a brain tumor.

The UCBW is proud to present ReVengeance III this Saturday night at midnight, live on the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater stage!

Revengeance III

June 7th, Midnight, 5 Bucks

Reserve your ticket now!

Will the combined forces of Marz and Uncle Eddie defeat the villianous Super Fraternity? Can The Cowboy stop The Internet from downloading 50 gigs of pain to his hind quarters? Will Dr. Fujimora and Ben Franklin settle the score on who is the better (and more famous) inventor? Will we find out why Huge has been giving away all of his favorite CDs?

The only way to pass this pop quiz is by seeing for yourself! Revengeance III! UCBW! It’s out of control!

According to the AP, Obama has clinched the nomination.

How has Hilary reacted to the news? Let’s ask CNN.

Also, there will be blood.

I’m on vacation now. The big reason I asked for the time off was my friend Eric’s wedding in Chicago. It was an incredibly fun time, and one of the nicest weddings I had ever been a party to. But, with the rest of my time off, I ventured downstate to my hometown of Quincy to see the family and do a whole lot of nothing.

With any homecoming, there is always a recap of the local events that you have missed since you’ve been gone. You find out which of your old classmates got married, who moved to a nicer house, and what new businesses have opened up. Every time I’ve been home, there has been a new restaurant or big box store that I am not yet used to seeing. However, with things moving in, things have to move out.

Driving in on the main drag of town, I saw the supermarket I used to work at closed up. A huge, successful supermarket had it’s sign taken off the building, leaving black grime residue from years of weathering. The parking lot bleached and empty. The doors shut with paper on the inside. A large grocery store stood empty.

The only thing I thought to say was “Good.”

I worked as a bag boy for that store for over 2 years. I was 16, 17, 18 years old. The last thing you want to do at that age is go work for 4 hours after school. There are pools to swim in, parking lots to hang out in, and things to find and break. You have your driver’s license. You want to exercise that freedom and go eat or go bowling. You damn sure don’t want to be wearing some dumb white shirt, your dumb khakis that you had to wear at school, and an even dumber apron with a dumb name tag with your dumb name on in.

It’s such a tedious job to bag groceries. It’s really simple, but you are still treated like the dumbest human being in the world because that’s the only thing you are qualified to do for a living. The assistant management usually treat you rotten. Then again, you are an obnoxious teenager, and you probably need some people to put you in your place. However, contempt still breeds and you are given in to childish retaliation. I used to ride the electric cart around the store. My co-workers would often leave the PA phone off the hook so no one else could page unless they found and hung up the right phone. We would go run to replace a cracked egg, but often just returned the same carton. No one really deserved it, but it made us feel better and helped us pass the time.

We would even turn it on our co-workers. We once convinced a cashier that the upstairs utility closet had been replaced with an employee hot tub. I told her I used it before my shift, others said they were looking forward to using it on break. She ran up to check, and came down the stairs looking embarrassed. We can’t even get a halfway decent vending machine, but we have a hot tub.

All those morose days in high school, I would hope and pray to arrive at work and see that building on fire, or collapsed or otherwise out of commission. So, finally getting to see it locked up forever did my black teenage heart good. Although, the place was a big part of my high school life. It’s almost like seeing a favorite hang out close up or having to sell off your high school car to the junk yard. The tangible part is gone.

I don’t know why I’m getting all sentimental over it. I hated that place.

Matt Little was able to secure some exclusive footage of the Iron Man movie, which he showed at the New York Comic Con.

EXCLUSIVE Iron Man Footage from Matt Little on Vimeo.

I’m glad Robert Downey, Jr. is doing so well.

My first joke for the Onion News Network was used in this video:

Study: Nearly 80 Percent Of Roommates Got So Drunk Last Night

Look for a joke about trains, and you’ll see the first fruit of my labors.

One of the things I do to hurt myself is read CNN.com news stories. It’s junk food news. I don’t learn anything, I waste my time, I get my fill, then I feel awful for the rest of the day. The news stories are so sensationalist, and the headlines even more so. The national news is full of grisly murders. Election coverage is so inconsistently focused. As for the Entertainment section, you are better off just throwing up on yourself. That might sound hyperbolic, but I am sincere. Next time you want to read the CNN Entertainment news, just throw up on yourself and you’ll be ahead of the game.

The video section is just as bad, if not worse, because I have to hear these second-rate journalism flunkies actually talk. CNN’s staff of reporters is seriously as adept at their job as every Best Buy employee you’ve ever talked to.

The recently filed this report named “Aber-Obama and Fitch”, which should just make you angry just by reading the title. This completely non-news item covers the three guys behind Barack Obama at his speech following the Pennsylvania primary. I was at a bar that Tuesday night, and watched a bit of that speech, and I even noticed these three guys. We all laughed it off and went back to what we were doing. Instead, CNN reporter Jeanne Moos, who has filed a ton of clunkers in the past, decides this is a story that needs coverage (or maybe the news director told her to do it. In whatever case, someone should have burst into the door and said “This isn’t news! Can’t you see what you are doing here!?”).

The video gets off to a rousing start with a soundbite of Obama saying “It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness…” which Moos takes as a cue to file the most silly and distracting piece she could. She even puts on a silly voice as she says sarcastically “Distractions like the three guys behind you, Senator!?” Exactly those kind of distractions, Jeanne.

On a side note, they cut to the Clinton speech where a guy was wearing boxing gloves. That’s a little more peculiar to me. I see Abercrombie and Fitch shirts everyday. I don’t see boxing gloves. Also, Hilary’s crowd was chanting “Yes she can!” I think that typifies the Clinton campaign so well. She is dragging focus away from her competition by retooling his style and not by being a distinct candidate. Also, she’s taken a slogan about working together to improve our nation and made it just about her success. Now I’m double-angry!

The report goes on to talk about the blogosphere blowing up about it, the supposed product placement, even delving into a comedy skit where Moos goes to the Abercrombie and Fitch store in New York asking customers if they were standing behind Obama.

If you can, avoid watching cable news whenever you can, unless you are some sick junkie like me that is somehow drawn to this exaggerated version of the world where people are horrifically murdered, children get kidnapped, and the environment is ruined and is trying to kill us. That’s not the way the world is. It is not frightening and scary all the time. Cable news thinks you are stupid and will believe anything they tell you. They think you care about three Obama supporters in similar shirts.

For as much of ruckus as these three boys have caused, they eventually contacted CNN and said they didn’t even notice they were all wearing Abercrombie and Fitch shirts. If they didn’t even notice, why should we?

Man, why am I bothered by things like this?

I did not train in acting, or study it whatsoever, when I was in my academic years. I have done plays in schools, though that was a long time ago. However, sometimes I am called upon to do a bit of acting in a video sketch project by some comedy friends. That’s when I need to do a bit of homework to understand the craft.

My secret? Well, I just watch this: