The Time I Met Adam Carolla

A few years ago, about 3+ now, I met Adam Carolla at Laughs Comedy Spot in Kirkland, WA. As a comedian and near deviant in my early 20’s, the work of Adam and Dr. Drew on “LoveLine” was a life-saver. Not only that, Adam’s humor and sensibilities match, and often surpass, my own. When I heard he was coming to my home club I immediately did everything I could to help facilitate the evening. And naturally I didn’t want to act like a total dumbass because Adam’s like the older brother a lot of us wish we had or needed.

Fast-forward to a few things Adam has said about his life and that night in particular.

1) Adam’s wife once told him, paraphrasing, that he has a way of “Bringing out the idiot in people,” I heard this years after the night I’m writing about, but it rang true that night. As part of Adam’s weekend, he was going to jaunt across the parking lot from the club to a bar called the Liquid Lime, wherein he’d sign autographs, take photos, and then try to beat it back to the club a mere 70 yards away. Instead of walking out the front door, or walking all the way from the club to the Lime via the backdoor, I was asked to drive Adam and Mike August, his road manager, over in somebody else’s 1990 Camry. So I did.
Cut to IDIOT TIME.
I gotta get Adam back to the club so we all head out the car which is parked right in the front of the Lime. I’m 8 steps ahead of them so I can unlock the car, open doors, and get back around the comedy club and drop ’em off. First I need to unlock the…
I need to unlock the Camry… Stupid button… What the… Unlock the …
I pushed the button, held the button, etc for about 10 seconds which is an eternity in the world of Adam’s Efficiency Sphere. At which point I hear what equates to “Nevermind, dumbass, I’ll walk.” It was actually “Hey, I’ll just walk.” The Idiot had been brought out. And I don’t think Adam’s being an asshole at this point, it’s just embarrassing and he’s just a guy who would rather not deal with speedbumps, and it ain’t personal.

So I manually unlock the car, alarm goes off, we get in hastily and I hit the button to unlock it and stop the alarm.
The alarm stops, I start it up and we go.

As we enter the back of the club I hand the keys back to the owner of the Camry, a guy who’d been hired as “Security” for the night. Nice enough guy. I say “Your unlock ain’t workin’,” and he goes, “Oh yeah, I heard the alarm! HA HA HA I should’ve told you it was broken.” Yeah. You should’ve.

2) Adam has referred to this particular weekend as a gauntlet, which went from I think 4 shows to a whopping 9 shows over 3 nights. He’s just so damn popular people wanna get close to him, and Laughs was exactly the spot to get close. Adam’s a worker, a do-er, and this was a weekend that put everything else I’ve done to shame. 9 shows, 90min at a go, on-stage alone. Fuggin’ amazing. Since then he’s only done bigger venues and fewer shows for more money, deservedly-so. It’s a great model to follow; if you can get to the same audience with less repetition, you’re not working harder, you’re working smarter. And less. And that’s good. No need to burn out making people laugh. Truly a hard working entertainer and philosoteur.

They say “Never meet your heroes,” because the shine’ll come off the bust. Not true. Adam’s a dude doing what he does, and great at it. I haven’t hit the Bucket List item with Adam, which is getting invited to Jimmy Kimmel’s Football Sundays and catch a Mangria buzz. But until that happens, we’ll always have a fritzed car alarm story.

November 22, 2013 0

Can You Afford To Care Act

Already my family has taken the brunt of the Affordable Care Act’s jet-wash, knocking us off a very good plan and into the spiral of disparate coverages. Now, I can’t prove that the plan we were on 3 months ago was impacted by the machinations of ACA. I won’t call it Obamacare because the irony of “Affordable Care” is much darker to me, so it’s ACA all the way. I can’t prove the impact because I would have to see transcripts of the meetings between my company and the health insurance providers (HSP) we were with, and how our premiums went up $348/month. THEN I’d have to get clearance from the companies my firm talked with about costs and how those costs went up, break down per-person premium bumps, and then I’d start to have some proof. But that’s not as important as the Truth. The Truth is how it impacts Me, or Us, or You, or My Family. And sorry neighbor, that’s all I give an F about.

So, a month ago we were basically forced off our plan as the premiums through my company were to rise on Nov. 1 to the equivalent of a mortgage payment on a good-sized home in a decent neighborhood outside of the Seattle area (overvalued!). And with the holidays coming, we’d rather have the $700 to put elsewhere than into the coffers of the legalized racketeering that is health insurance. I have been the beneficiary and bitch of HSPs in the past, believe me. I’ve been on both sides of it. But as of now, due to the ri$e, I am covered through work, but… MY FAMILY HAS NO COVERAGE RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

WHAT? BUT… Every American who wants coverage gets it, right?
Well SURE… If you need to get to a new plan, things change but you get coverage! But first you have to provide certificate of creditable coverage for the previous 24 months. And that takes time. And fill out a 25-35page “health questionnaire” and then fax that in. And that takes time. And there’s the online application. There’s a person who reviews the questionnaire and makes some decisions. All of this takes time before ACA goes officially into effect in January… or is it March?

So right now, instead of paying about $600/month to cover my kids and wife we are sitting on the money and it’s not in the backalley of the local HSP. So if my kid needs a doctor’s office visit and some medicine , probably cost us about $180 out of pocket.

WAIT, dude… That’s… No deductible?

Nope, no deductible. No tax on my cover charge. No proof that I can pay for care after I’ve already payed my premium. It would save us $420/month in this scenario. And the care would be the same. Offices will take money right from you. Did you know that? Isn’t that weird? A service taking payment directly from those they serve? What a world we’re living in.

Of course there’s the trepidation of catastrophe, what if a bone breaks or a clot forms or a hemorrhoid-rages out of control and needs cauterization? Car accidents. Shark flood. Old Testament diarrhea AT THE GROCERY STORE. What then? Who pays? I guess it depends on who decides what your life costs, and you pay them.

Catastrophic insurance, if it exists for you, maybe all we need, and a little cash stash to cover the rest of it. Otherwise, sorry kiddos… Christmas is thin this year, but we’ll stuff your stockings with doctor’s office stickers and sweet magnetic calendars from the HSP stating “Happy & Healthy Is The Best Policy.” Stress kills more than anything else, and it’ll probably kill you by the time you figure out how deep in your colon the HSPs are.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

November 19, 2013 1

20 by 40 – Part 2 – Progress

OK, so I’m down 2.5lbs as of this morning. Sure, probably just water weight but still happy to see the ball rolling. Consistency is gonna be needed, big time. It’s usually around day 4 or 5 that I go bonkers, so I need to do the right thing and keep the healthy carbs (like a yam with dinner) coming in and keep that leptin level slightly up. I ain’t been 100% or even 95% clean, probably closer to 85-90%. But I had 2 great workouts so far this week.

In the meantime my co-worker’s eating an apple like it’s the anchor leg of some Young Life event. Ease it off there, buddy.

So dropping the immense amount of carbs from my diet which I had daily ingested last week has proved beneficial. Sometimes something is just too friggin’ good to pass up. So, low carb’in’ it works.

Drinkin’ a lotta water at night, too. I realized I pretty much stopped drinking water after 6pm, so I was getting that weird fake-empty feeling of “hunger” an hour after dinner. Keeps the skin clear, the pipes clear, and helps motivate an early rise from bed, lest I piss said bed. You can get away with that only like 3 times a year before trouble starts.

So there we go. Sigh. On my way. I’ll be even more motivated when it comes to that 10lb mark. When I see the results of consistent action (i.e. not eating like a dipshit on the weekends) I know I’ll be feeling even more motivated.

November 7, 2013 0

So I’m like 3 months away from my 40th birthday, and I have a particular goal of dropping 20 el-beez. LB’s. Pounds. Lard Bricks. I wanna drop ’em by the Friday prior to the Super Bowl. I know I can do this, but I’m also stumped about how my droppage seems to have stalled. Admittedly, the past weekend of Halloween and eating like a foraging bear (candy, date night, pizza party and cake for the youngest’s birthday) didn’t help. I put on 3lbs since last Thursday morning. 3. It’s probably retained water and frankly I could feel it and my face looked it. So if my body will store it that easily, it can lose it that easily.

So what’m I gonna do? Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of violent minds meeting great opposition to mediocre dreams ~ Oprah Lincoln. Or whomever said it, people mash-up and misquote so many Faux-tivational quotes these days, even with the internet to validate against. Ridiculous. I have a dream that one day we will not be judged by the choosing of our quotes but by the accuracy of their citation.

So my plan is as follows:

Eat less crap: I need to be strict with my intake. Depending on which expert you ask, nutrition is 80% of the success towards weightloss. Some say 70%. I’ll gun for 76.47% and see where that lands. I can’t afford a “cheat day,” so maybe, MAYBE, one cheat “thing” a week. But not 1 crap-pile a day for 3 days. Come on, dude… Come on…
You can eat like this if you are THE ROCK. Or turn your heart into A ROCK.

It’s hilarious the games we play with ourselves about crap eating. “Oh just a little isn’t gonna be a problem.” Right. Put a cake out at your workplace and sit by it. Nobody will touch it, no matter how many people come by. Now walk around the corner, and hear the woodchipper that is your coworkers scraping the last of the buttercream off the lid. Do right by you, but no games, Geoff.
Eat more boss: My ideal meal is about like this: Roasted salmon with broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, sweet potatoes. And then right to bed. I need to get away from food, and in the house the best place to get away from food is when I’m asleep. So, eat well, then stop eating. I like the Paleo path best, and I rarely eat breakfast. I’m not hungry until about 11:30 anyway, so why force food into my face when I’m usually behind schedule anyway? No, skipping breakfast doesn’t slow down your metabolism when you’re like me, which is “kinda fat.” So shut up.
Lift Some Heavy Shit: No, not my ass off the couch, ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. I finally have found the joy of proper squat technique, dumbbell deadlifts, and pushing heavy stuff around. I did circuits for a while and looked good but wasn’t very muscular for a dude walking around over 240. For cardio I like either HIIT on an elliptical, hill sprints, or road raging.
Sleep More: I seriously have to get to bed earlier. 11:17pm ain’t cuttin’ it.
Stop worrying about it: I need to chill out a bit on this. I know what I need to do, so now I just need the consistency of doing it. This isn’t a diet, this is a lifestyle.
Stay Motivated As All Hell: Not sure what I need to get super motivated, like whatever blind self-allegiance Guy Fieri has that keeps him from assessing his life. I need that. Maybe it’s seeing 4 of 6 abs. Maybe it’s being under 12% bodyfat for the first time since kindergarten. Maybe it’s just that I need to prove to myself that I can do this. The ultimate goal is to drop 35lbs by April 2014. Mostly, I need to do this for a better quality of life in a few years as my boys get older. They aren’t going to do LESS in life from here on out.

So I’ll post some stuff here in the “20 by 40” posts about what’s up with my bod and how it’s going. May even get some “BEFORE” and “LATER” pics if I’m feeling froggy. Sorry, this was kinda boring and self-indulgent, got low blood-sugar, gotta find some work cake.

November 5, 2013 1

Pretty Much Paleo Pancakes

1/4tsp Baking Soda

1/4tsp Sea salt (It’s all the rage)

2Tbsp whey protein powder (the more grass-fed/organic/isolated the better), vanilla is best

2 eggs (from the closest thing to “homeless” chickens as possible)

1 pretty ripe banana

1Tbsp Almond or (GASP) Peanut butter

2Tbsp coconut flour

First, get your family far away from you so you can get some head-space and just make some awesome pancakes for them. Usually they just slow down everything you’re doing.
Throw the ‘nana, nut butter, eggs into a bowl and beat ’em til smooth. That’s what I did. You can do it differently but don’t bitch if it sucks.
Sift in the protein powder, give it a couple turns.
Sift in the salt, baking soda, and coconut flour. Turn ’em til smooth. Maybe beat it again to smooth it up.
Smoooooooth. Ya feel me?
Let it sit a bit, get all together.
Heat a pan up to just-past the mid-point on the burner.
Ideally you’re dropping some coconut oil in that hot pan til it melts. Swirl it all around, coat that pan like the back of a Summer fling on a Tahitian beach resort chaaaaaise. Smooth.
Then drop some of that batter in there and PAY ATTENTION! The high-fat content will get the cakes browning up pretty quickly so don’t get yourself in a burned cake mode. Try a test cake, drop like a quarter-sized dollop in there, see how it goes.
Taste test! How’s it? Good!
Now you can do what comes naturally when making cakes. Do it up. Make a few big ones. Make a couple little ones.
Enjoy. Feel the power.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: enough
Fat: good for you and enough
Carbs: just a bit, maybe like 50g total if you eat the whole batch yourself
Fiber: 8g or so
Protein: like 30g or so.

I’m sure a strict Paleotian is preparing a response to this and getting their crossfit shorts in a wad, but please remember:
I’M NOT TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD OF PALEO EATING THROUGH ONE RECIPE THAT WORKED OUT WELL FOR ME AND MADE MY KIDS FORGET ABOUT REGULAR PANCAKES. Also, eat sh*t.

Don’t feed the trolls, feed your beast.

November 3, 2013 0

The Task of A Thousand Steps Begins Just After This Coffee Break

This post is the first of 30, wherein I will be dropping 30 posts in the month of November as part of NaBloPoMo, or “National Blog Post(ing) Month,” or Nablo Pomo, former left-handed reliever for the class-AA Donxberg Burros. Long strider, wicked curve ball, but like a lot of young men in his era, he got caught up with the Wicked White Witch and never came off the ride. Talkin’ about sugar, friends. The diabetes got ‘im.

OK, OK… I’m slagging off some things in life because they don’t seem to capture my attention. I realized in the past 48hours I had started a few small things, made calls I needed to, and got things in order for the changes in my life from Affordable Care Act-fallout. But then, for some of these things and calls, I didn’t get a response right away. So now they slip off the radar. The ADD brain doesn’t appreciate that. In fact, one returned call was a voicemail that made almost no correlation to what I had originally called in about, further confusing the scenario, and causing another step for me. Again, added clutter to the brain space of an ADD mind. Not good, bro.

And I realize that procrastinating isn’t unique the ADD’ers, it’s just more prevalent. I have a “do now” gear and a “do another time” backlog. It’s not prioritized, although I have a long list of things I need to get done in the next few weeks to makes we’re all on the same page with life and society. If you looked at it, or a police officer was searching my car and found the list, well I’d have to probably walk through it to show you I mean no harm and YES, I’m fine, so let’s all just chill out for a bit. The BrainBath list is so good for me to do. It’s a constant reference point of things that seemed important at one point, and keeps my brain free of debris and detritus. The trick is going back to it.

I can imagine how frustrating I must be to live with. I have always been a guy who, when given a task and tools and time, will get to work and get something done if left alone to do it. But that work style and parenting don’t exist in the same housing development, let alone cul de sac. I often tell my wife “It takes a long time to be me.” What I mean is that, in order to get in order and stay in order, I need time TONIGHT to prep for TOMORROW, or tomorrow will just be a bust and nothing’s going to get done. Clothes packed for work after the gym, laptop bag packed for work, lunch ready to go, coffee set to auto-brew come the morn, etc. And it’s usually only stuff I can do for me, which makes my time “in my space” seem like avoidance of the family, and it’s not at all.

This is all retro-perspective now of my ADD brain as an adolescent; when given a task I wanted to do, I’d nail it. But add layers of unnecessary complexity to my Summer job of mowing neighborhood lawns (other people, bad tools, sunbathing step-daughters asking if I like Mötley Crüe) and my ability to get the work done slips. Now we have unfocused people with no ability to steer an edger, and they’re too hot to work and now I hate my friend. Then I would have to be more of a leader and say “Guys, we gotta get this done so we can get to the next lawn and get paid and see if Brendan’s brother can score us some wine coolers.” And then somebody would bitch about me being a dickhead and I’d give ’em $10 and send ’em along.

So I am learning that the best way for me to avoid procrastination is do one thing NOW. It’s proven that multitasking is bunk, your brain can only focus on “a” task at a time. You don’t want a surgeon taking calls when they’re 2 knuckles deep in any part of your body. So if you have an ADD’er in your life, and you notice half-done work, odds are they were on their way to Finishberg and got pulled away, not “sidetracked.” If you have the money to shop for your groceries, but no time… or the time, but no money, what good is any of it? Give me enough time, and space, and things get done. Give me however much time you THINK it should take and stand around asking rhetorical questions about toilet replacement codes in remodeled bathrooms, while not handing me a pitch-dark porter, and you may as well be winging full diapers at my head asking me to sing “Girls, Girls, Girls” without warming up. I’m gonna be hoarse and there’s gonna be a lot of crap laying around.

November 1, 2013 2

Month: November 2013