The Ray/Lee Files VIII: IT’S NOT A COINCIDENCE

In the past at my first blog “What You Are Laughing At” I had begun to chronicle the criminal histories of people, usually men, with the middle names of RAY or LEE. We know many of their middle names due to the media making DAMN sure they identify the correct person, and not ruin the life of some poor John Gacy; Competitive Candy Artist.

For your consideration:

“The 55-year-old Renee Ray Curtiss will be sentenced April 24 in for the 1978 killing of Joseph Tarricone at a home near Puyallup.”

“Lonnie Lee Johnson was freed Monday after spending more than 1 1/2 years behind bars. He was accused of stabbing to death Jessie Drungo, 23, in a Kent parking lot during a scuffle that may have had racial overtones.”

“King County prosecutors expect to file a murder charge by Thursday against Deon Lee Fillmore, 21, said spokesman Dan Donohoe. Meanwhile, a judge has ordered Fillmore held in King County Jail on $1 million bail.”

Still not on board…
Okay S-finger…

Moving on…
I’m not sure if it’s the brevity of the name, or perhaps the fact that people with those names may very well have been named and raised by mono-syllabic-preferring parent(s)… but more than any other middle names in society I would bet a Coors Light Dirty 30 on Lee or Ray being more correlated to violent crimes than any other two names.

Let’s not forget the Arizona freakshow shooter, Jared Lee Loughner.

And it’s happened again.

This nightmare ended today with the safe return of a kidnapped 5 year-old boy. He was kidnapped off a schoolbus last week in Alabama by a gun-wielding psycho…
“He is doing fine,” Richardson told reporters at a late-night news conference. “He’s laughing, joking, playing, eating.”

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson had no new details about Ethan’s rescue, and when asked if the boy saw his abductor, 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, killed during the rescue operation, Olson replied, “He’s a very special child. He’s been through a lot, he’s endured a lot.”
Crazy dude with a gun and anti-government views. Nut with a gun threatening children’s lives, HE HAD RUN HIS COURSE AND ARRANGED A VERY EXPENSIVE SUICIDE.

Next up, the story of Chris Kyle’s death, one of the most-decorated snipers in US Military history. (from Yahoo.com’s The Lookout)
“I would love for people to be able to think of me as a guy who stood up for what he believed in and helped make a difference for the vets,” he told the Texan News Service. “You know, somebody who cared so much about them that he wanted them taken care of.”

That mission was tragically cut short on Saturday when Kyle and another man were killed at a gun range in Central Texas. Police said former Marine Eddie Ray Routh, 25, shot the men, who reportedly were spending the day with Routh in an effort to help with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

Two sad stories, one with a happy ending.
So if you know anybody with the middle name of Ray or Lee, just do the right thing and call the cops on ’em.

February 4, 2013 4

Everybody’s The Smartest Dumbass, Dumbass

The internet is not just a giant suckhole of your time, sanity, and sanctity, it’s also where dipshits, tardloads, and the occasional thick-skulled seat-sniffer volleys a shot at your intelligence from their dandruff and sebum-grouted keyboard. Everybody’s a tough guy until they get punched in the mouth. That’s why they never show their mouth. You can’t punch an internet tough-guy (a.k.a. “keyboard warrior”) in the mouth because theirs is full of a brain-frying energy drink and microwaved snacks.

A few months ago there was a “highlight” circulating of a high-school football scrimmage, wherein a running back takes a pitch-out around right-end and heads up-field. He makes a “spectacular flip” over a defender and heads for the end-zone. I saw it and thought right away how the back made a full spin in the backfield (takes eyes off defense), the defense seemed really soft, the blocker falls down, and the safety from the middle of the field doesn’t even try to tackle the kid. It looked staged.

Why stage it? Hell if I know. But it looked staged to me. And I said as much in the comments. And wow, did the dipshits come out of the basement jerk-closets!

My name, GLRules is there. My comment at the top. I had 12 thumbs-downers, so a dozen people thought I was a complete asspipe. Fine.
Then an anonymous user misspells “obviously” while making an assumption about my football-playing past. He’s wrong. I did play football, I study it, I love it.

Then “ManU” chimes in stating that it’s a scrimmage so OF COURSE nobody’s trying… except the kid risking knee ligaments to flip over somebody, while the scrimmage just HAPPENED TO BE CAPTURED ON VIDEO BY SOMEBODY?! Which most coaches would rather you NOT F*CKING DO. Plus, ManU is the moniker of a popular British Soccer squad, so their knowledge of full-out sporting is suspect.

Isn’t my primary comment my way of tossing my TapouT hat into the “Ring of Tards”? Sure. I know it may get comments and those comments may be from idiots. But when you call it out, and it’s faked, and people defend it, and 2 weeks later it’s A COMMERCIAL FOR A WIRELESS CARRIER… then yeah… you get to walk out of the tard ring knowing that you weren’t crapping on some kid’s dream of being a getting a full-ride Parkour scholarship. So what do you do in that case?

Ya just keep throwing.

Never let dipshits get the better of ya.

January 28, 2013 0

Putting the NO in Technology

Technology has now officially slowed me down. Or regulated itself to the point that life is back to the way it was before technology got to helpin’ out. It’s only as good as its connectivity.

See, I tried to call in a refill for a prescription. Line was busy, try on-line. 3min
Go on-line, website says I need to register for a new account. 2min
Register for a new account. Email’s taken. Must have signed up before? 3min
Need a password reset. Password sent to email address. 3min
Now I need to log in to that email account for a password I wouldn’t need if the line wasn’t busy. 2min
And reset the password. 2min
And log in. 1min
And fill out the Rx info. 3min
3+2+3+3+2+2+1+3 = 19 minutes

Drop off Rx at counter of place by my house = 6min.

It is exactly this type of technology that will drive us right back to talking to each other face-to-face, and then WHAT KINDA WORLD WILL IT BE???

January 24, 2013 0

Strideline Socks Are The Real

During Sunday’s Seahawks-Falcons tilt, Marshawn Lynch was busting through Falcs in a pair of these boss footjackets. Footjackets are what I call “socks.”

Strideline was started by a couple o’ youngsters in the Seattle area, bringing major city skylines to our anklecoats. Anklecoats are what I call “footjackets.” The one city they don’t really skyline is Los Angeles, because it doesn’t have a skyline because it’s full of smog and the world’s finest narcissism and weirdos and bad drivers and a horrible mayor and asynchronous traffic signals.

I’m all-in with these dudes. I don’t see a decent pair of Dawgsox yet (Purple and Gold) but I’m buying some pairs and wearing them to the gym in my work’em-outs.

Get what you gotta get NOW before the NBA steals this idea and gets their asses sued.

January 15, 2013 0

Make Time to Take Time

Hey 7 people reading this…

Thank you, first of all, for taking time to read what’s here. My life is so busy lately that the thought of reading, of letting my brain recognize and associate meaning to letter combos, or “WORDS,” seems a task far beyond my schedule. Between work, family, a new-found appreciation for nutrient-based fitness success, and Christmas Time, this blog has been neglected.

I also perform stand-up comedy as a “second career,” though not enough to sustain a household. No, that level of success requires a dichotomous acceptance that in order to be the breadwinner of the family, one must almost never be near one’s family for more than 3 days. The work of stand-up comedy is everything off-stage; travel, radio, travel, waiting, walking around a new city before the show, napping, “writing,” travel, fighting off pneumonia, fighting off boredom-induced alcoholism, and being a spouse and/or parent. The stage-time is actually a break from everything that fuels the performance. All that stuff, the travel and the weird smelling hotels and the club-owners who try and cut your money because they sold 15 fewer tickets than they thought they would, and the knee-jerk bitchy reactions of flight attendants and gas station attendants and Marie Callendar’s late-shift servers… it’s part of the gig. It has nothing to do with ME or YOU, it’s just how that situation happened that time for you because it was your turn to run into the dumped-on attitude of a life-saddened woman in her late-40’s who is trapped between a rock and double-shift on her kid’s birthday weekend. So fuck you and do you want a roll or soup?

The rest of my life, which is really where Life happens, has been kind of weird. We, meaning all of us not just my household or family… WE all get a bit of drama from time to time. Workplace gossip. Neighborhood police activity. Diarrhea at work that involves the police. Legal marijuana. Same-sex marriages. Kids getting sick. Co-worker’s kids getting sick at the same time every Thursday (just before Happy Hour, really Marcia?).
Drama happens. Shit happens. And the more I live the more I see that the Happening of Shit is “part of the gig.”

I truly believe this statement, which I thought up a few years ago:
Madness takes root in the absence of solitude, and flourishes in the abundance of it.

If we don’t take time for ourselves, we’ll lose ourselves to everything else. We become just part of the scenery instead of allowing ourselves to enjoy it and interact with it. But if we stay separated for too long from it, if we don’t take time to be part of the rest of the world that is Life and People, and build friendships and actively love each other and our communities, then we float the river to CrazyTown pretty comfortably.

If you’re feeling lonely or alone, call a friend, get a beer, get coffee, go volunteer, see a comedy show, SOMETHING. Get out of your own head.
And if you’re around people so much that you can’t remember the sound of your own thoughts then get away for at least 24 hours. No phone, no computer. Maybe some good movies or audiobooks or a something to let your mind do some traveling without your thoughts mucking up the trip.

As 2012 comes to a close, I hope for myself to progress in all the important areas of my life, even if it’s small steps. A little less bodyfat, a little more time with my kids, a little closer to a professional certification, a bit more in the retirement accounts, more time with my wife, more time with my friends. You know…. Make Shit Happen.

Or Shit Will Happen To You.

December 24, 2012 0

Work It Out – Simplifying The Basics

I’m in a weird phase now, having joined a gym and going enough to see results, but not so much as to burn out on the people who go there. The personalities of gym-goers range from “Aggressively Spray-tanned Wide-Backed Renter” to “Scrumptious Bootypacked Stairstepper” to “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN’ AT?” to “Keepin’ Sleek at 60.” We all go for different reasons, but the underlying goal is to ultimately beat The Reaper at his own game.

I guess that means killing yourself trying to stay healthy?

Anyway… thanks to some information that piqued my sensors (maybe the 2nd time ever using the word “pique”) from a great site I found, BuffDaddio.com, I started a new lifting protocol. Mike Mentzer’s HIT (High Intensity Training) simplifies all the Sets x Reps x (WeightLifted*DistanceMoved/TimeUnderTension) + Time Staring At Self In Mirror maze of crapola people wade through. Mentzer’s workouts are all about applying a mindset of FOCUSED INTENSITY for a short period of time to properly perform basic muscle-busting movements. You squat 255 perfectly, slowly, for 8 reps and you’ll do more for your body than the guy busting out 315 with bad form and 15 half-reps. Keep it simple, keep it short, keep it moving.

I love lifting again. I’m not as strong as I was 8 years ago when I was in a gym every day pretty much. But I’m getting there. And I’ve accepted that I don’t NEED to toss iron the way I did when I was in college, throwing shot-put, or trying to attract girls with daddy issues. I basically want to drop about 50lbs before next June and see 4 of my abs and have some specific measurements. How does this all come together? I HAVE ADD, SO BEAR WITH ME.

Here’s what I’ve found to be the basic principles of the most-loved and “realistic” fitness regimens. Bodybuilder, athlete, fat-burner, carb lover, busy dad, busier mom, weight-dropping project manager… these are for all of us.

What you eat is about 80% of your success. If you eat really cleanly (lean protein, moderate fat, lots of veggies and fruit, low sugar and carbs), your body gets its energy from your stored bodyfat, which you have (sorry you had to find out here).
Eat Protein. It repairs your muscles and takes energy to metabolize. Eat Fat. It makes you feel full and happy and your brain will love you for it. Eat veggies and fruit. Vitamin and antioxidants are all up in those. If you GOTTA HAVE A COOKIE AND PIE AND ICE CREAM, have a little bit of each, once a week. Then get right the hell back to the good stuff.
If you’re gonna lift, lift pretty heavy, and keep the workout short. Short rests between sets. Compound exercises are best, like deadlifts, squats, presses, and rows. Start with those, then do your 20lb kickbacks in the Zumba room.
If you’re gonna do cardio, DO CARDIO. Get your heart POUNDING, not pumping. Do some HIIT work. Warm up for a few minutes, get loose. Then run/row/pedal/elliptical about 90% effort for 15seconds, higher tension or speed or incline. Then ratchet it down for 45seconds, like you’re on a stroll. Repeat that cycle about 8-10 times. Cool down a few minutes. Boom. 15min of cardio twice a week, and your fat’ll be burning.
Move a little bit every day. Walk around, stretch, be purposely active. Especially if you’re sore.
Get as much sleep as you can. It helps your hormones regulate, weightloss, recovery, and you’re not a complete turd to be around.
Quit stressin’. Life’s too short. Exercise to live better and healthier. If you put in 3 hours of exercise a week, that’s 156 hours a year, or about 6.5 days each year. If those 6.5 days/year meant that you had another 12 months of great health later in life, would you trade that time in?

6.5 days of effort = 365 more days of health, love, family, and friends?

Yeah, I’ll take that trade. Still gonna work to see my gawddamn abs.

To your health!

November 21, 2012 2

Judge Not, Lest… Okay, Ye Judge Me

I judge parents based on the behavior of their child/ren THERE I SAID IT. Feels good to finally log that one in a place nobody ever sees…

Oh… 400 readers last week… Okay…

Judging other parents based on their child’s behavior, I am sorry I even invented it. I feel like such a cornlog for bringing it up. I do, I judge parents. I judge them rarely on what their kid is wearing unless the kid’s naked in the mall or it’s a girl dressed like a girl dressed like a 21 year-old pageant contestant. Behavior says a lot about the kid’s environment. Heck, my youngest son isn’t walking yet at 1 year-plus-2-days, and I feel like a failure as a sprint coach. I judge myself most harshly.

I’m sure nobody has judged me, however. Other parents usually are so very focused on their kid(s) to ever stop and discuss why my son yells “YOU ARE NOT NICE” to kids who take things he was playing with. It’s taken forever to get him to tone it down to that, once we stopped the eye-gouging and F-bombs. And to think that if somebody were to take something of yours in adult life you are moderately within your rights to push them to the ground and reclaim your Nook, pushing your glasses up on your nose with a “GOOD DAY, MADAM.” So knowing I am not being judged makes this even harder to admit to you 5 (over the course of a month) readers.

It’s hard enough raising one kid. Two adults here, and we were finally into a rhythm after 2 years with ONE. Then the little guy came along and holy crap, life is 1.6-times more involved. Not twice as hard, because sniffles and diarrhea aren’t as panic-inducing as with kiddo #1. But when I see parents with one kid who have decided “Yeah, that’s enough,” I’m somewhat envious of the ease of schedule. While things are 1.67-times more complex with 2 kids, it’s also upwards of 50 times more awesome to see little kid-brothers play together and laugh together. It makes my wife’s 49 consolidated hours of labor and extra monthly medical premiums entirely worth it. So when other people say we have good kids or happy boys, I take that with pride, but also wondering HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN JUDGING MY CHILDREN, you horrific monster?

Parenting brings out the Real You. It demands something of you that LIFE may have tried to extract, and now that LIFE is in diapers and hungry and Mom’s tuned into the TV and dad’s beer buzz just kicked in.

Or Mom’s scrambling to get that bottle going because dad had to pick up another shift to make some extra cash and mom’s just worn out but another hour and this kid will be sound asleep. All that kid knows is connection and attention and affection. All mom and dad know is Take Care Of This Baby! Love This Baby!

Sorry parents, I don’t mean to judge you. Most of the time it’s just kids being kids and those kids are pretty awesome. But the 12 year old in the toddler play area, well, you’re a shitty, inattentive parent whose iPhone5 should be crammed up your ass the wide-and-flat way. Instagram that.

Case closed.

November 5, 2012 1

Work It Out – Chest/Shoulders/Triceps

I work out.

Look at that body.

I know, you can’t tell. But I do. I work out. I am a major advocate of Bodyweight exercises for all forms of fitness, from cardio (Tabata protocols, sprints, plyometrics) to buffing up (Turbulence Training free e-book, this guy’s awesome, Craig Ballantyne). Keep it short and intense.
(that’s what SHE said…)

So yesterday I hit the weights a little. I haven’t done so in about a week. Really found myself stronger than I was before, and got through a 15min workout just by staying in the groove and not lollygagging around. I also started doing “Tri-Sets” where you warm-up… You DO warm-up, right?… with a few high-rep sets of light weight and get the joints loose. Then you pick an area and do 3 consecutive sets (no rest) with 3 different exercises (2min rest at end of circuit). Here’s what I did yesterday for Chest/Shoulders/Triceps.

Chest,
Incline Press – 135lbs; 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 Reps,
Push-ups – 20, 18, 15
Dips – 7, 5, 5

Shoulders:
Overhead Machine Press – 115lbs; 10, 8, 8
Rev-Grip PullDowns – 115lbs;, 8,8,8
Lateral Raises – 25lbs; 10, 8, 8

Triceps:
Close-grip PushDowns – 75lbs; 10, 8, 8
Kickbacks – 25lbs; 8,8,8
Overhead Extensions – 20lbs; 12, 12, 12

So my upper boddah is sore sore sore today but in that good “HOLY CRAP MY BODY HURTS” kind of way. The weights weren’t as important to me as the form and “intensity” of the workout, getting through each rep and cycle with maximum burn. Mission accomplished.

I typed this with a pencil in my painfully curled hand.

September 26, 2012 0

Alone In Public

We spent some time in a small berg in Eastern Washington the other day, picking the day that was both the hottest day of the year AND the most-crowded day of the year in that berg. The effect 11 degrees Fahrenheit can have on one’s ability to throttle age or odor-related epithets in a crowd is REAL, folks. And having a very curious toddler weaving across foot traffic into ANOTHER store selling kettle corn… WHO NEEDS THIS MUCH KETTLE CORN… compounds one’s calm demeanor, even when your dopamine levels should be up.

I don’t know if I have ever had a real panic attack. I feel like I’ve teetered on the edge a few times, and frankly I am over-tired of people who act like my need to excuse myself from cacophonous areas and tightly-packed rooms is a weakness. I am grown up. I am an adult. There are some times I can totally tough it out. And other times I have nothing to prove to a small store full of strangers, none of us making eye contact, while a 3 year-old yanks porcelain figures off the “DO NOT TOUCH EVEN THOUGH THIS IS AT TODDLER LEVEL” display. And as my head filled with white noise and people seemed to gear-down from “sloooow” to “barely moving,” I had to get out. The medical term is “get the fuck out right now.”

The feeling of being stuck is bad enough for me to deal with. There’s something about being penned-in that bothers me greatly, even though I can see there’s NOTHING dangerous happening. I think more it’s the fact that I look at people’s faces and they seem to be totally unaffected by the mass they have created. Same thing in traffic. I know, I’m part of the mass, but why isn’t anybody moving? Why aren’t we moving a little more quickly, even a half-step more? Add to that a kid who is eye-to-butt with a lot of people and is touching things he’s not supposed to only because we’ve made a horrible choice to come into the Crystal Solitude retail outlet, and how about I just scream and run out with my kid over my shoulder like the dam burst? Because that seems more rational than the 8 minute route we’re taking to the exit.

My real issue with this is that my need to loosen up my bounds is looked upon like some personality disorder. For some reason, be it that I don’t like crowds that cannot move properly, or I am an Aquarius and can only take some much of being surrounded, or because I’m somewhat neurotic about keeping my kid from side-arming a $395 ceramic Halloween Gnome across the room, my “must have space” need gets the stink eye from people. And with our society slowing down thanks to technology (I am advocating a roped-off area for all publicly-standing texters) it’s only going to get worse. But not for me.

I am making a pledge right now that I will be more vocal about people slowing things down, walking the wrong way, leaving their grocery carts unattended, staring at their phones, being rude, and in general, acting like they are alone in public. Because that sounds lovely, and if I can’t have it, everybody won’t.

August 23, 2012 0

Gimme Moore: I Opened For Bob Saget

I recently had the privilege and pleasure of opening for Bob Saget’s TV Special taping at The Moore Theatre in Seattle. Before I go any further I must tell you that I was recently told to not be so humble or self-deprecating when it comes to my achievements. I honestly have to be, because I’m just not a guy who can toot my own horn too loudly. Those who toot the loudest usually are off-key and poorly trained, so I keep my tooting down a bit.

But opening for Bob was awesome. Really, really fun. First, Bob Saget’s one of the nicest guys I’ve met in comedy and show business. Truly a sweet guy who has a comedic dark streak and embraces it. His history as a TV host and the TV dad (possibly the only one they ever had) to the Olsen Twins belies the fact that his act is “dirty,” hilarious, and unflinching. And it’s not “in your face,” it’s just there to be laughed about. I was really happy to work with him again, and he was very gracious in meeting my wife and good friends backstage. He’d met some of my buddies earlier this year at the Snoqualmie Casino show we did in March, and was just as cool. Consistency is truth.

Second, and screw the humility a moment, there’s a point in every comedians dreams where a full club is roaring with laughter and screaming and you can’t hear yourself think because your last words got ‘em frothy. That happened for me a few times that night. Having over 1,000 people go nuts like that – AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SAY ‘WHAT’S UP SEAATTLLLEEE?!?!?” was a huge moment in my comedy career. It was a wall of appreciation, laughter, and good taste. I took a moment to take it all in.

Finally, in this market it’s tough to build on that success because there’s not too much else to do. BUT, I have been bugging Bob about doing some work in Vegas. He likes my stuff, I show up and do my work and get his crowd amped, and we get along greatly. So we’ll see what else happens. In the meantime I’ll be at my desk working on my Project Management certifications, hearing some new blowhard talk about all the things wrong with Project Management in America, wondering if this guy understands how loud his tooting is.

August 7, 2012 1

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