Got Beeler?

I hate ‘re-start’ blog posts, but I have to do one. For a while, I was going at a pretty good clip, updating the site 2 to 3 times a week. That takes discipline, especially since I was doing my best to avoid “what I ate for breakfast” type posts (oatmeal, hard boiled egg, orange juice and a whole wheat mini bagel if you must know). I have to say I was proud of myself. Then two events of opposite extremes happened:

I got offered an exciting job that I couldn’t pass up on the very day the economy seriously took a nose dive.

The impact of these two events rendered me what some scientists (but not scientologists) would call “unfunny”. I think for the past few months I have been in shock and the thought of writing my own stuff just repulsed me. No ideas grabbed me like before.

I explored my options. I asked my wife if I could develop a drug habit. She said no. I thought about starting a drug habit behind her back, but she said no to that as well. All that was left was to start writing again.

The problem remained that my sense of humor is directly related to the stock market and there could be some unfunny times ahead. That’s when I had my moment of clarity. If I could raise myself above the fluctuations of the market, I could write unimpeded. The solution?

Total World Domination.

Now, I’ve made total world domination a New Year’s resolution every year since I was 4 and frankly I haven’t had the best track record in keeping to my resolution. But this year, I set a goal: total world domination in 365 days. It turns out that is exactly one year, which makes it easier to remember.

By setting this goal, I can track my progress and make sure I’m on plan. Better yet, I’m going to post my progress on my twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/rbeeler. I’ll also feed my twitter account onto this page somehow. [follow up - my attempt to do that failed. I gave it a good solid 5 minutes and have decided that it is impossible to do.]

It’s an ambitious goal, but so is wearing pants at work every day even though I work at home. So, I’m back on the horse (no, not heroin - my wife said no, remember?) and hopefully the creative juices will start flowing again.

Which gets me thinking, “what is a creative juice anyway? Does it come from a creative fruit?”

Classic. I’m back, baby! I’ve still got it!

My wife and I have entered a new phase in the parenting of our twin two-year-olds. Gone are the days of just watching them, adoring everything they do. Sure, we still adore them, but every moment of every day is now filled with fear that one of them is crapping themselves. If our daughter flashes us a new kind of smile, or our son stops mid-run, it’s immediately interpreted as a sign that they are going to the bathroom. “Do you need to go to the potty?” is our standard reaction to any of their accomplishments.

I’m sure they think we are obsessed. We are. And so with my new obsession, bathroom humor is all I have left to share:

I was at the Hilton New York this week when I noticed that the bathroom stall door had two locks:

I started to imagine a door chain or even a security system keypad being installed within the stall. I have enough problems using a public restroom without the fear of a ’stall invasion’. My fears are not unwarranted: the week before - and this is a true story - I saw someone kick a bathroom stall door open because he was pretty sure it was unoccupied. No one was there, but I thought to myself that the common wisdom is that to get ahead, you have to kick some doors down, but I really hope they didn’t mean in the bathroom. Then again, this guy founded his own company….

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I taught the kids tonight to refer to “Arts and Crafts’ as “Arts and Craps”. I’ll give you an update tomorrow if we hear from the preschool.
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I’m probably making a big mistake saying this, but my wife believes I have some kind of condition where I can’t smell dirty diapers. She also believes that not a single men’s room in the New Jersey area has a changing table. I love her.
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When my first son was a toddler, we had some friends from out of town come to visit and we took them to Little Italy. My son was a bit too fidgety so I took him out of the restaurant and walked around the area with him on my shoulders. I wonder if the people who actually saw his diaper burst on my head thought it was some kind of show. They seemed pretty amazed at the whole thing. I know I was surprised.
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Enough of this crap.

If I were running for President of the United States and this was the weekend before the election, I would be:

Popular for my energy policy which states that no one should get off the couch during football on Sundays. Less popular with the “maybe you should get off your lazy butt and mow the lawn” voters.

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Considering not taxing anyone named ‘Joe’ - they seem especially sensitive about it.

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Running ads saying that “old and crazy isn’t enough of a reason to keep our enemies from attacking us. If it was, my dad is older and crazier than you, John McCain!”

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Feeling bittersweet about nominating Tina Fey as my Vice President. On one hand, I have the smarter VP candidate, but on the other hand, I shouldn’t have nominated someone funnier than me.

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Regretting choosing The Pixies “Where is my Mind?” as my campaign song.

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Ready for some football! (whoops, I meant to save that for my next post, “If I were running for President of the United States and this was the Monday before the election…”

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In trouble for choosing Jessica Alba as my running mate. And my walking mate. And my smooching mate. I’d also be in trouble with Jessica Alba for not nominating her for Vice President like I promised her.

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Silent on the topic of legalizing marijuana. You know, the kind of silent that tends to follow a massive bong hit before you exhale.

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Bringing in the black vote based on my record, “Fear of a Black Planet” which I still own. Much like I did back when it came out, I’d play it louder whenever a black person was around just so they might think I was cool.

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In trouble for using the word ’smooching’ when I know full well I meant more than smooching.

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In trouble in swing states which I continually refer to as “swinger states”.

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More popular in 49 states by offering to sell the state of Ohio on ebay.

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Successful at confusing my opponents by announcing that I would elect Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson to The Supremes Court.

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Proud of my campaign slogan, “After 8 years, what this country needs is a President”

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Wondering if I should vote for myself which sounds egotistical or vote for Barrack Obama. I’ll ask Barrack what he plans to do.

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So glad that no one has found the body - or even suspects with only a few days left before the election!

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Popular by focusing less on the word ‘Political’ and more on the word ‘party’.

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Considering raising taxes on only people who make exactly $250,000 (unless they are named Joe).

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Running as the candidate from the “How You doin?” state.

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Taking a nap. Definitely taking a nap.

True story: Sunday night I sat down committed to get Got going (Got is short for Got Beeler, get it?). Swear to Gawd if there isn’t an email in my inbox that had the subject “Just stop blogging”. And with that I was done for the night.

I come to find out a Wired article is calling blogging passé (now that I’ve been to Europe, I have to spell words like passé correctly). Apparently all the cool kids use Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

Now a month ago, I would have held the company line (I worked for Advance Publications which publishes Wired) and immediately shut the site down. But no more. I’m a changed man. I will do what I want and say what I want (except of course what I’m not allowed to say per my agreement with my current employer like calling AdMonsters, “AdBeeler”).

Quick tangent - I am loving parenthesis today (I don’t know why - I just am).

First, I decided to only read the first 140 characters of the Wired article - the limit it would have if it were on Twitter:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug. Writing a weblog t

That proved to have little for me to make fun of, so I scanned the article without really reading it. I find that facts tend to get in the way of me making an argument. This is what I have to say to the guy who wrote the article (I didn’t bother remembering it):

If you look at the origin of the word “Blog” it’s “Blah” spelled differently with a “g” added to the end (no one knows why). That’s what a Blog is…it’s blah. And Mr. Guy-who-wrote-the-article, I blah. I blah blah. I blah blah blah!

The word “Twitter” on the other hand has the word “twit” in it. Touché! Bien fait! L’État, c’est moi! I rest my case.

So Beeler shall blog and won’t just follow the fad of the day. But just in case, I am also on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

For those of you in the know, you know why I haven’t been blogging. Hopefully the rust will come off quickly and I can make this a habit. It’s hard though, especially when it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago something so obvious, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before:

Europe has not heard of AdBeeler!

An entire continent who has never seen my Chris Farley impersonation or the napkin rose. Forget the financial crisis, something has to be done about this!

First, I did some research. I was surprised to find out that England is not the fifty-first state, though you wouldn’t know that by watching their TV (the Simpsons is on right now). One must be very careful to not to refer to someone who is English as British or vice versa though even they can’t tell the difference.

True they do drive on the left side of the road, but as an American if you drive on the right, the other cars on the road will quickly move out of your way.

With my research done, I flew to England straight away and I’ve been here ever since. Some observations so far:

Two out of three drivers from the car service in my experience will know as much about where you are going as they do. It’s offensive to point this out to them as they will not-so-politely ask you to get out of the car. There is no better way to see London than to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere with your bags.

People always talk about how bad the weather is, but in my experience, it’s a little bit like San Diego in the winter. The last 3 days have been gorgeous. Frankly I wasted precious luggage space on warm clothing. If you visit, don’t make this mistake!

Additionally, I have found the accommodations quite to my liking. I know Beckham down the hall would probably agree.

Even though soccer is called football around the world, Americans should never try to actually call it football. Stick with saying soccer. Everyone expects you to say soccer and if you say football, you then have to clarify what you are talking about. I mentioned that the ‘English Football Team’ was staying at the same resort and people weren’t sure what I was saying.

Boat races in the UK are better than boat races in the states. I also hear that beer is good for the hair, though I’m sure people didn’t appreciate the smell.

Europeans know more about American politics than Americans. That’s not saying a lot, but it’s painful to think that my driver was more articulate about the dangers of Sarah Palin than some of my American friends.

Don’t worry about the conversion rate between American money and English. When buying something, give the person all your cash and then give them your best puppy eyes and hope they’ll take it.

I’m sure over the next couple of days I’ll have more to share. The word of Beeler is spreading. Hopefully ‘Beeler’ will mean the same thing once it’s translated in English…er British…er…UKish? Nevermind, I don’t understand what anyone is saying anyway….

I know I haven’t been blogging.

I’m not going to apologize.

It’s a conscious decision.

It’s simply a hiatus while some other things are in motion.

It’s radio silence.

My satori is this! Zen and the art of buttering bread. There’s no more knife. There’s no more bread. There’s no more butter. There is only a gesture which is repeated. A movement. Space. Emptiness!

Details as we learn them.

This Sunday I’ll be heading to Boulder for a conference. Here is my expectation of what is going to unfold (note that names have been barely changed as no one in this story is really innocent):

6:30 AM: Arrive at Newark Airport. Stop at TGI Friday’s for breakfast. Waitress offers me a beer. I respectfully decline.

7:25 AM: I board plane. Stewardess pulls me aside and says that she wants me to sit in first class because my original seat was between a large couple with a crying baby. I ponder and agree this is probably for the best.

7:26 AM: Little do I know that first class is filled with people going to the Boulder Beer Festival (they will find out later they are one week late [seriously, look it up]) and I’m sitting next to Amy Winehouse. The in-flight movie is Leaving Las Vegas. I’m getting restless.

7:27 AM: Amy offers me something she’s smuggled on board in her beehive hair. I respectfully decline.

7:43 AM: I order a water but the beer crowd has already started pounding them down. Amy passes out. I try to think about yield optimization and inventory processes.

7:47 AM: The beer crowd is getting rowdy. They put Amy Winehouse in the overhead compartment. I try to stay out of their way.

7:48 AM: In the process of stuffing Amy in, beer is spilled all over me. One single drop of beer touches my lips.

7:38:01 AM: It’s on.

8:23 AM: Using a combination of cue cards and napkin roses, I’ve commandeered the plane. We stop in Omaha to pick up more booze.

10:50 AM: Plane lands behind schedule, but no one on board cares. Someone coins the phrase ‘Air Beeler’. Undoubtedly a t-shirt is going to come out of this.

11:30 AM: On the shuttle bus from Denver to Boulder is part of the crew from the plane and Chuck Norris. Chuck and I spot a couple of bad guys on the side of the road. We kick their asses and continue on our way (note - might have been Steven Seagal, my memory is fuzzy).

12:00 PM: Arrive at the hotel. Find out my room isn’t ready, the dining room is closed, but the bar is open (this happened to me in Stowe). Bartender places a beer I haven’t ordered yet while I pull up a stool. I hope Bowen doesn’t see me.

12:01 PM: Bowen sees me. I don’t think my bloodshot eyes pull off the innocent look I attempt. I start to explain, but Bowen politely excuses himself. Whew.

12:05 PM: Koshar sits next to me at the bar. Koshar isn’t scheduled to be at this conference, but I’m making this up and I get to decide who sits next to me, dammit.

12:06 PM: I reconsider and decide it’s not Koshar but “Bad Nicole” who sits next to me. Much better.

12:10 PM: Others from the conference file into the bar, including one of the sponsors. Thankful that I don’t have to pay for my beer, I order another one.

Tuesday 3:42 AM: Black and I are arguing with a border patrol (country unknown) apparently trying to get through. I notice I’m holding a drink of what appears to be an absinthe/tequila shooter. Black continually bellows, “But this is Beeeeler”. When all seems lost, an officer appears and hearing who I am, let’s us through. We celebrate with tasty Nutty Bars. Wholesome goodness. Something tells us we’ve left someone behind (Newton or Ryan or both) probably rotting in a jail cell. But Beeler needs another absinthe/tequila shooter and they will have to wait.

Wednesday 11:33 PM: I wake to find I’m in an alleyway getting a tattoo that says “It’s all about the girls…and the guys…and the girls” with a guy with an eye patch wearing sunglasses. I decide it best to pass out again.

Thursday 5:51 PM: I find myself on a plane back to Newark. Everything is calm and I’m feeling clear headed and well rested. I notice that I have thorough notes from the conference on my lap. The in flight movie is a private screening of “The Watchmen”. I take a sip of my water only to find that it’s vodka.

Thursday 5:51:01 PM: It’s on.

This weekend’s plans are a little bit up in the air because of problems with my left foot, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t jam packed with events: we have guests, a trip to the beach, Lion King, etc. Let’s go right to the questions:

Q: What’s wrong with your foot?

A: Hurt like crazy Thursday morning when I woke up. I amused myself thinking it might be gout because that’s something rich people and geniuses get. However, upon researching the disease, I decided that’s not what I wanted:

(What gout feels like - and I’m glad I don’t have it)

Q: So, I’ll ask again: What’s wrong with your foot?

A: My doctor doesn’t know. He knows it isn’t Gout and he knows it isn’t broken.

Q: Beeler, you are dodging the question…

A: I spent Friday trying to get an appointment with a podiatrist (which turns out to be a foot doctor and not the opposite of a richdiatrist). Couldn’t get one. Very frustrating. I can tell you, by noon I was ready to stick my foot up someone’s ass!

Q: What is…
A: I don’t know.

Q: Will you be able to go to the Lion King?
A: No. The New Yorker called this Tony winning production now in it’s tenth year, “theater of the extraordinary. It’s like being in a dream awake.” the plan before my foot was even an issue was that I was staying home with the kids.

Q: Bitter, much?
A: You have no idea.

Q: Any blogging plans?
A: Well I just added a page for Ad Beeler which is coming up. My friend Mike is going to visit the site and so I’m considering changes to make it “Mike proof”. I set up a Got Beeler forum and I’m still trying to figure out why I can’t track traffic to the site.

That’s all the time for questions. Thank you.

I feel compelled to write yet I absolutely hate the process. That’s the conundrum of my writing career and why I started this blog - to hopefully free myself from that vicious cycle. I say this because I need to flush some things out of my system so I can get back on track. It isn’t that I haven’t been busy, I’ve just been tied up with distractions and dead end ideas.

The Distractions:

Something happened with my blog a week ago and I can’t track stats through Google or Wordpress. Stats is what I do - even if I’m not trying to have a heavily trafficked site, I gotta see the numbers! I’m still working on this.

A couple people said that registration hasn’t worked for them. That one is hard to fix and I’m wondering if I scrap comments in favor of a forum approach. Feel free to comment or if commenting isn’t working (because you can’t register) email me at Beeler at GotBeeler.com.

I posted a couple of things to www.urbandictionary.com to see if they would accept them. Not that they are the hip terms the young people use, but I thought they were worth submitting:

Improovisation (improve + improvisation): Making something better but not because you planned it.

Curmudgination: (Curmudgeon + Imagination): The results of an old person’s imagination, usually something misguided. Example: Grandpa buying robot insurance is the result of his curmudgination.

I also have been trying to think through a family page. I wanted to put together a page of the cast of characters that will appear in the blog - which would be my distorted representations of my family. This is all nice until I think about my nephew, Arran, who passed away a couple of years ago. I won’t exclude him but I struggle with the tone in which to write about his death and that’s been hard as those wounds are still fresh. One thing I am doing is setting up information for a charity in his name and contributing to it from things sold in the Beeler Shop.

The Beeler Shop is also an area that has been distracting me, trying to think through how I want to present that as well as get some of the products I want designed. Anyone who has some design skillz and wants to help make up some T-shirts, give me a holler.

The Dead End Ideas:

I’ve got a few ideas that I’ve spent way too much time trying to develop and I’m getting nowhere. My thought is if I push them out this way, I might ruin the joke, but I’ll hopefully flush it out of the system. If you got a direction to go with these ideas, feel free to share. It might help me save them:

Dead End Idea #1: A review of the Dark Knight where I ponder if based on Heath Ledger’s performance that the bar is now set that to get an Oscar or earn my respect, an actor has to die. The right writer could pull that one off - I tried and I can’t make it funny.

Dead End Idea #2: On the shows Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go!, all the animals either speak English or Spanish - never any other languages. Seems to me that would be a problem for a biologist or zoo keeper who only spoke Japanese. There’s something there, but I can’t make it blog worthy.

Believe me, I’ve got more dead end ideas - these are the ones that have been tripping me up.

Anyway, my hope is that this piece of catharsis (that’s Greek for a really big dump) will get me back on track. I’ve got a Facebook post past due, Ad Beeler is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’ve got a few other things in the works. Now if I could only get the kids (and wife) to go to bed an hour earlier…