Monster Trucks and Fancy Cats

Say what you want about living in a van, but it does lead to some pretty spectacular bedroom views. While you're stuck with that view of the neighbor's pool, or the neighbor's trash cans, or the neighbor's illicit affair that only you and your telescope know about, the view out my window can range from the Grand Canyon, to Niagara Falls, to the world famous Tuscaloosa Walmart.

In Sedona, Arizona, I don't need my van for a spectacular bedroom view. My cousin Diane and her husband, Eric, invite me to stay at their beautiful home in Sedona. Eric is an architect, and he has designed their home in an "H" shape, maximizing the effect of the picturesque mountain in their backyard.

This is the view I wake up to in the guest bedroom:


The mountain is nicknamed "Thunder Mountain," which places Diane and Eric's house on "Thunder Mountain Road." When Eric mentions this, all I can think of is the overzealous announcers at monster truck events that exaggerate every proper noun by yelling it three times.

"It's Thunder Mountain, Thunder Mountain, THUNDER MOUNTAIN ROAD!"

When it comes down to it, however, Diane and Eric live a life that evokes no images of a monster truck rally. The house Eric designed is beautifully sophisticated and the couple are avid wine drinkers.

Diane even works part-time for a nearby vineyard, where she and Eric treat me to a wine tasting. I'd never really associated Arizona with wine before, but the local winery is quite impressive, boasting rows and rows of flourishing grapevines near a quaint and peaceful brook.

Sedona is a pretty special town, so it's not surprising that the occasional resident is a bit...let's say...particular. I'm not talking about Diane or Eric, both of whom are wonderful hosts who remain very down to earth. I'm talking about their cat, Paco, who refuses to drink from a bowl.

No, Paco can not quench his thirst unless he is drinking running water, and has managed to train both of his owners to turn on the kitchen sink upon his demand various times throughout the day. Now that's a cat that knows what he wants.

Oh, and if anybody asks, Diane and Eric are very hip and with it, and neither would ever go to bed at eight o' clock on a Saturday night.

And I would never go back on a promise not to mention that in this blog just because I thought it was funny.

Giving Thanks for Not Blogging

I'll be taking a very brief break from blogging in honor of Thanksgiving weekend. Unless plans change, I'll be back with a new blog on Sunday. Until then, I suggest you check out this link.

It changed my life.

The Power of the Stache

I was all set to write a blog about my trip to Sedona , Arizona when I decided that it was time to shave my beard. I have grown a mountain man beard on this journey, but having the opportunity to visit home in Phoenix, Arizona, I decided it was the perfect time to get rid of the beard and go for the clean cut look.

Halfway through shaving, I had an epiphany.

What is stopping me from keeping an epic mustache? I asked myself.

Nothing. Nothing is stopping you, ya big stud.

I've never had a mustache before, primarily because I've always grown facial hair with the regularity of a ten-year-old Chinese girl. But as the beard shed away, it became increasingly clear that a majestic mustache was a distinct possibility.

Before I knew it, BAM.

A young Burt Reynolds.

As it turns out, the mustache is the ultimate facial accessory. Consider the various personalities I am able to embody thanks to my newly found mustache, or as I like to call it, "God's gift to the ladies."





There's the philosopher.













The troubled private investigator who sometimes feels the need to take the law into his own hands.











The seventies porn star who just woke up.

The sixties folk artist. Frankly, it's a shame this was never an album cover.






The lonely creepy guy with his own talk show on public access radio who sells discount mustache rides on ebay.












The guy who desperately tries to explain to Chris Hansen that he only showed up to the house for "a play date."






And of course, the chick magnet. Seriously, I'm now worried about my magnetic properties when it comes to the opposite sex. I'm not sure it's even legal to look this good.

There Once Was a Man in a Van

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Optimism in the Face of Reality

For some people, the cup is half full, even when it's empty.

The stocky, middle-aged man who approaches me in the Cottonwood Walmart with an excited expression on his face is the kind of guy who cries at a wedding, laughs at a funeral, and eagerly anticipates a trip to the dentist.

"You can call me Tim from Walmart," the man says with a laugh.

Tim laughs a lot these days, but it's really hard to imagine why.

Tim was born and raised in Detroit, the product of a working class family. As a young man, he served four years in the Navy, but he has spent the majority of his fifty plus years on this planet searching for his calling.

Things never really came easy for Tim. He wasn't exceptionally good in school, and so work for him has always been just that; work.

But the past few years had been good to Tim. He found himself in a steady relationship, became a father, and decided it was finally time to do something meaningful with his life. So he leveraged his low level position in the hospital he worked at to go to nursing school.

He would work during the day to go to school at night. Studying and test-taking were a chore for Tim, but he was determined, and he had a passion for becoming a nurse. When it came time to take the biggest test of his life, Tim was incredibly nervous.

"I didn't know what to expect, so when I found out I passed, I couldn't believe it. Only two people passed, and here I was, this simple guy from Detroit, and I was finally going to be a nurse. I really feel like it was my calling. It was what I was put here on the planet to do."

It may not sound like much to some, but for Tim, this was redemption. For all the times he was told he'd never amount to anything, for all the times he'd felt completely lost, this was his moment.

Unfortunately, that's all it was. A moment. Because not long after realizing his dream, Tim had that dream taken from him.

"My old lady's father," he tells me, letting his smile slip ever so slightly for the first time since he approached me, "he never liked me. Me and her had an argument one night, and the next week, I find out that he reported me for domestic abuse."

Tim maintains his innocence, but I can not in good conscience say I believe him. Through the course of our conversation, "I never touched her" becomes "I only pushed her after she pushed me, and I never hit her of course."

I'm not here to judge.

What I am here to say is that, whatever mistakes Tim has made in the past, he is paying for them now.

With the claim of domestic abuse, his nursing license was revoked. Unable to secure other work in the current market, he found himself without the funds to afford rent and hopping between friend's couches. For the past two weeks, he has been living out of a green minivan outside the Cottonwood Walmart.

"There's a lot of us stuck out here," he tells me, motioning to the various vehicles parked at the very back of the massive parking lot. "But I'm okay. It's nice to have some alone time in the van. It's peaceful."

To Tim's credit, he is searching for work.

"I've got a second interview with the Wendy's over there on Monday. But, man, I tell you, even there they don't make it easy. It's like running for political office."

It's a sad statement from a man who less than a year ago was working in his dream job.

Tim never stops smiling as he says it.

I Get Blogged Up

The past 48 hours have not been the easiest of my life. They have contained more stress than sleep, more pain than pleasure, and more heartache than happiness.

Unfortunately, due to a world wide web time-space continuum (too complicated to explain, but consider Back to the Future Part III if you need a reference point) my current existence and my blog life run two weeks apart. Essentially, the experiences you read about here generally have happened a couple of weeks ago.

So sometimes I find myself writing about pleasant things like sunshine, skittles, and the cancellation of "According to Jim" when my mind is focused on unpleasant matters like the Apocalypse, Charleston Chew, and the cancellation of "Arrested Development."

In other words, I am too mentally and physically exhausted tonight to write a blog at the level of quality I'd like to maintain on this site (and yes, I am conveniently ignoring the fact that my last post had three gratuitous Hannah Montana jokes) but unable to properly explain why without compromising the world wide web time continuum.

But I didn't want to leave you, my loyal reader/person who stumbled upon this site after searching for "Chuck Norris Summer Camp for Hot Asian Cheerleaders and Teenage Vampires" on google news, without a blog two days in a row.

So I figured I'd exploit the world wide web time-space continuum (which can be better understood by researching the string theory best explained by Dr. Sam Beckett in various episodes of "Quantum Leap") by giving you a heads up on what you can expect from this blog in the coming days.

Topics to be covered in the near future include but are not limited to:

+ Tim from Walmart, a man facing far more serious issues than "not feeling up to blogging tonight."

+ A visit to Sedona, the most beautiful place in America, and home of one of John McCain's 365 houses. (He has one for every day of the year, except of course for leap years; John McCain, incidentally, is notorious for having never blogged on February 29th.)

+ My day spent lecturing high school classes in my hometown of Glendale, Arizona. Highlights of my talk include "Be cool. Stay in school," "Drugs are bad," and the ever popular "Hey Kid, can you spare a couple bucks for gas money? I'm really hurting here."

+ The Thing.

+ A day trip to Timberon, New Mexico, home of the world's tiniest apartments, friendliest people, and most cavalier oryx.

+ A ride-along with the city of Phoenix's crisis response unit, where I may or may not have caused a brush fire that destroyed the Phoenix greater metropolitan area, leading to me feeling "less than bloggish" this weekend.

That's what we in the blogging business like to to call "a cliffhanger of Stallone sized proportions."

As always, you're welcome.

Unless you're not.

Barack Obama and Hannah Montana Audition for American Idol

Have you ever been so compelled to tell a story that you feel it must be the work of divine intervention?

I woke up this morning from a dream so vivid, so unimaginably imaginative, that I immediately ran to the nearest mirror and whispered seductively into it, "I must write you."

This story will be my legacy. It will move mountains and flood oceans. Don't be shocked if, while reading the third sentence, time literally stands still.

I don't mean to oversell the story, but I now know what Moses must have felt like when God approached him with the Ten Commandments.

So without further ado, I present my masterpiece:

It was the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday, and the approaching Twilight reflected perfectly off of Miley Cyrus' Beyonce poster. Miley was in a good mood, because she knew that everyone had forgotten all about her scandalous nearly nude pictures that were posted all over myspace, facebook, and TMZ.com.

After all, she was a respectable Sarah Palin supporter who rejected the notion of global warming, supported capitalism by purchasing an i-phone and a wii fit, and always made sure to keep up with important news like the Southern California Wildfires.

She was nothing like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Nobody would ever see pictures of Hannah Montana nude. They might see pictures of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with no underwear on. They might even see pictures of a naked Megan Fox making out with Jessica Alba, but she couldn't concern herself with such trivial matters as UFC 92, the recent trades by the New York Knicks, and this week's NFL betting lines.

No. She had an American Idol audition to go to. But first, she needed to call and console her best friend, Barack Obama. Obama was so busy appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State that he forgot to appear as a guest judge on Dancing With the Stars.

Unfortunately, Barack was also too busy to answer his brand new Blackberry Storm because he was attending the annual Chuck Norris Summer Camp for Hot Asian Cheerleaders and Teenage Vampires.

If Barack Obama had a Quantum of Solace, he would have torn himself away from Youtube and Wikipedia long enough to answer the phone, but he was too enthralled with watching High School Musical 3 in preparation for his own American Idol audition.

"Simon Cowell is going to love this," squealed Obama, as his newfound friend, John McCain, belted out his famous rendition of Taylor Swift's "Fearless."

McCain paused to reflect, then responded thoughtfully, "Free porn, Barack Obama. Free porn."

Now if that doesn't win me the Nobel Prize in Literature, I don't know what will.

On an unrelated note, I'm trying to drive more traffic to this blog. I'd really appreciate any suggestions of keywords that might show up often in google searches.