What Costume Are You Wearing?

I know that I have been AWOL for the about a week and a half, but I think I have an excuse. Trust me, it has been a long, long, ten days. Please, no giggities...

With that being said, and the fact that I am unsobered up with a concoction of Nyquil, Mt. Dew Amp residue, Alka Seltzer and a Ritz cracker, I will make a feeble attempt at rejoining the blogging world, and letting my fingers keep you entertained for the next 90 seconds.

Again, no giggity.

Setting the sexual innuendo and sinus infection's aside, I would like to direct your attention to what I think is the best holiday of the year. Yes, that celebration that revives the demonic creature inside all of us. Here we are on yet another black and orange sabbath eve, continuing all of the terror traditions that have been carried out over the years of trick-or-treating and ghost stories. Pillow cases full of candy, pumpkin carving, watching scary movies… there is absolutely nothing better than this time of year. 



Halloween is one of the best holidays, wouldn't you say? I was always depressed as a little kid when it wasn't viewed in the same light as Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we never got school taken off for it. One has to wonder how random a holiday Halloween is in the first place with the main activity being getting dressed up in costumes and going from house to house asking for candy. 



I still remember my very first Halloween. I was Mario from Super Mario Brothers. Yep, that's right, fake Italian moustache and everything. Well almost. See, I wasn't from the most wealthy family in the world, so my costume basically consisted of a way too small pair of overalls, an old hat, and the plunger from my bathroom.



My next famous costume was a few years later when I was Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who by the way is the best turtle of the four. But yet again, my costume supplies were low, and I had to settle on green face paint, a cardboard box, and a bunch of my clothes stuffed into a green jumpsuit. But hey, when you're that low on 
funds you learn to improvise and it works just fine. 



Over the years I have graduated from the video game toilet bowl cleaners and masked amphibian crime fighters, to the much more mature, more "hip" costumes of Matrix heroes and football legends. OK, maybe not the more mature costumes because wearing any type of costume celebrates the young person inside of all of us. 



Halloween is the holiday where the little kid we all hold back starts jumping for joy at the thought of wearing a huge Spider-man suit and staying awake eating mini Kit Kats all night long. Where else can you get away with that? I would have to say either on Jerry Springer or in a behavioral medicine clinic. 



I'm kind of stuck right now though. Here it is the day before Halloween and I still don't have a costume picked out. Should I be something funny? Should I get something that is scary to wear? Should I just not wear a costume and when people ask what I am tell them to guess? OK, maybe that last one isn't the best idea available. 



I guess the point of all of this is that there has been a mix of some of the most hilarious and ridiculous costumes ever created for this haunted holiday. However, I must say the funniest costume I have ever seen was my sophomore year in college at a party, when a kid walked in wearing nothing but a white Glad trash bag. I was intrigued by it and approached him:

Swamp Thing: “Cool costume. What are you supposed to be, dude? A ghost? A bubble? What?”



He chuckled and turned back to me, “A trojan.”



A Perverted Ghost Town

Seeing as how I’m in Arizona, and seeing as how there is absolutely NOTHING to do in this neck of the woods, I will revert to my passionate affair with a keyboard, and give you yet another blogpost. Oh, and by the way, I offer my sincere apologies to VRM Arizona Spaniard for neglecting his existence in this state. He does live within 400 miles.

Today’s recruiting journey has brought me through the lovely town of Sedona, and down to a place called Cottonwood, Arizona. Unfortunately there aren’t any psychics in this part of the great A-Z, so I asked the violet-haired hotel receptionist Kimberly what my options were for entertainment.

Purple Kimberly: “Well, do ya drink?”

Cue blank stare followed by slow negative horizontal head movement.

Purple Kimberly: “Well, there is this ghost town called Jerome, about nine miles down that way, you can always find somethin’ to do there.”

My ears pricked up. A ghost town? Like populated with ghosts? Actual floating sheets have claimed residence to an abandoned rambling of homes? I didn’t even listen to the next sentence that came out of the haggling hair-cutted hippie’s mouth, and jumped in my Rogue to see what this desolate former mining community had in store for the frightening of my life.

May I put out a disclaimer that I enjoy scary things. Wait, let me rephrase that. I L-word scary stuff. I would rather listen to a chained tale of ghost stories around a withering campfire, and then go sleep in a century old graveyard than most people would. I think it is the stories that are generated from these bewitched colonies that gets me the most intriguesd. Either way, Jerome was my place to be.

And sadly, I was let down. Cue four-part instrumental harmony of “Nearer My God To Thee” by the dead members of the string quartet as the Titanic was going down to get full effect throughout this portion of the blogpost. That was how saddened I was.

This wasn’t a ghost town! It was a tourist trap for out of state schmucks like me to wander around and buy useless stickers that say “Jerome: Population, Asylum” and magnetic jewelry bracelets that I can use to keep the negative energies away from me. This wasn’t some abandoned graveyard with eerie spirits wandering the streets. It was a Mecca for numbskulls to purchase independent oil paintings that a man who hasn’t washed his three-foot long ponytail in six months can rip you off by selling them to you. This, is NOT a ghost town!

Aside from the meager art stores every ten feet, the only other things that I saw were attempted appeals to the audience were bars, and boutiques. Holy Schnikey’s (LTT) were there a lot of those. There was a bar on every corner with a boutique right next to it. Almost as if the town mayor was saying, “Go get wasted on beer and black liquor, and then buy your wife an erotic pair of fuzzy handcuffs from Puffin’ Stuff.” Seriouly, that was a legit store, Puffin Stuff. I kid you not.

Was I the only sober person wandering around this ghost town? Were they classifying it as a ghost town because people thought they were hallucinating things left and right despite the fact that their blood alcohol level was .50? I wandered into the town museum and saw an ad for a Ghost Tour, meaning a 2-hour introduction to all of the haunted things that Jerome had to offer.

Swamp Thing: “Ooh! Sign me up for that!” I exclaimed to the second-hand smoke-smearing secretary named Evelyn.

Evelyn: lighting a cigarette. “Sorry hon, we only do those on weekends.”

Swamp Thing: confused/perplexed/WTF look across my face “Wait, so why are you advertising for it now?”

Evelyn: “Oh, just to get everyone excited for when we do offer ‘em.”

Swamp Thing: “Hmm…alright. Well, is there anything else to do in this town?”

Evelyn: “Well do ya drink?”

Cue blank stare followed by slow negative horizontal head movement.

Evelyn: “Well, there’s boutiques all around, you can always go buy somethin’ for the mrs.”

Cue blank stare followed by slow negative horizontal head movement.

I walked out of her office being let down by the fact that Jerome isn’t really a true ghost town. It was such a let down to come up here in the first place. Almost like being seven-years old, pouring out the entire box of Lucky Charms on to the counter only to find that there’s not a surprise in my bag of cereal.

As I walked past the former insane asylum now transformed into a museum, I looked in the windows at where they used to hold psychotic patients bundled up in straitjackets. Staring inside, I could see something written in the dust, almost as if a ghost had found the means to be able to communicate with us through messages in a dirty window. Squinting just a little bit harder, I made out the words, and instantly starting chuckling to myself. Cue picture:

Not only is this a ghost town, it’s a perverted ghost town. Somewhere I think Quagmire is lurking around.

My Psychic Experience

I will say as a preface that this may be one of the greatest blogposts that I will ever write. This will be of epic proportions. This may generate more feedback than all of my Week of Sex posts combined! This, my friends, is the story of my psychic reading.

Let me back up for one moment to preface the grounds on which this entire post occurs. By the way, for full effect, download “Psychic Chasms” by Neon Indian from iTunes and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Back to live action.

Currently I am on the western leg of the Arizona High School recruiting tour trying to convince students to come to my college. I was going to do a Week of Arizona blog, however I don’t think that it would have been as entertaining as the Week of Wyoming.

Right now I am in Sedona, Arizona, which is a beautiful, quaint little tourist town just outside Flagstaff. My evening plans were wide open due to the fact that I’m single and don’t know a soul within 400 miles. Minus the Swede. After an overpriced chicken enchilada, I strolled down the road and found a neon sign begging for my attention. Cue picture below.

Now I have never been to a psychic, but I have always been intrigued as to what occurs behind the purple curtains and misty crystal ball. This was my chance, and as I walked into the psychic reading store, I had my game face on, ready to challenge this supernatural superfreak. Biting my tongue, I paid the $35 for a 15-minute reading and walked into an 8x10 foot closet in the back of this perfumed domicile. It was at this point when one of the greatest lies I have ever told began to unravel from my lips.

For the record, let me just make the clarification that I am one heck of a liar. If you have read past blogposts, you know all about my dishonest achievements. I’m not proud of being an elaborate storyteller. This however was the best narrative that I’ve ever conceived.

Aarithika (Paid Psychic): “So, tell me about yourself sir.”

Swamp Thing: slightly blushing. “Well, I need to be honest with you. I kinda lied out there when I said my name was Justin. It’s actually Colby. I don’t know why I thought I should make up a name like that. Probably because I’ve never seen a psychic before. I’m a little nervous.” Cut to awkward giggling

Aarithika: smiling “Well, don’t be nervous. I’m here to help you.” Shuffling her cards, she asked me to select seven random cards from her deck and give them back to her. Meanwhile she began the interrogation process, while I began my fabrication.

Aarithika: “So, tell me about yourself Colby.”

Swamp Thing/Colby: Looking at the ground “Well, I’m feeling really down right now. I just moved out here from Virginia Beach, got a job with ADOT working with their I-89 construction. The reason I moved here was because I had to get away from Virginia Beach. There was just too many bad memories out there.”

Aarithika: Perplexed look across her face. “What kind of bad memories?”

Swamp Thing/Colby: “Well, the thing is, I used to be high up in a multi-level marketing corporation that helped people refinance their home loans. Things were going really well, until last year the entire thing just unraveled and went down the drain. Heck, I invested over $300,000 in the company, all gone.” Pause for dramatic effect.

Aarithika: “Oh my goodness Colby.”

Swamp Thing/Colby: Staring down at the shaggy mauve carpet “Add to the fact that the girl that I’ve been with for over seven years, decided that the guy she met in Texas on a business trip was a better lover than me, so she packed up her bags, and took our four-year old son back there to be with him.” Cue multiple sniffs as if holding back emotions.

Aarithika: Placing her shock hand over her open mouth. “Really?”

Swamp Thing/Colby: I yawned as she looked down at her cards to create dampening in my own eyes. Looking up at the ceiling, she could see a bursting of tears about to unload. “Yeah, and now I’m here in Flagstaff, working for some transportation company, wandering the streets at night, and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.” Cue blink to trigger the isolated tear rolling down my cheek.

Aarithika: Shaking head in dismay. “And now…”

Swamp Thing/Colby: “And now I want you to tell me what to do in my life, cause I’m plum out of ideas.” (And yes, I did use the word plum)

For the next ten minutes, Aarithika decided that her best alternative was to give me advice on how to live my life. “Fight for your child.” “Don’t give up on your relationship” she said. Intermingled with a few F-words scattered amongst her advice, but hey, I can take it. This lady didn’t even look at her cards while she gave me her advice on how to live my life. I thought she was a psychic, not a backseat driving mother-in-law

“But what about the Queen of Pentacles” I asked pointing down at the table. “What is she trying to say to me?”

Aarithika: “She says to get back with your girl.” Oh. Ok. Yeah, I can see that. Queen of Pentacles always want me to get back with fictional dishonest mates.

Swamp Thing/Colby: “Now I see the seven, the eight and the Ace, what are all of these saying?”

Aarithika: “They are saying that you need to let go of your past business venture, and that great things are coming your way. Are you looking to open something else up?” Oh, right! That makes sense. Seven and Eight equal 15, add the ace which makes it 16, and that’s how old I was when I first started…Cut the crap! Since when do those cards mean new business opportunities?!

Swamp Thing/Colby: Confused/perplexed/WTF look across my face. “Why yes? Yes, I am. How did those cards know about that?”

I would like to thank the Academy for giving me this award.

Aarithika: “They are all saying that you should continue moving forward with that. Big things are about to happen in your life in the business world.”

A few more minutes went by, her 15-minute timer went off, a quick handshake happened and I was back on the streets of Sedona laughing my guts out at the greatest performance that I have ever done, even besting the schizophrenic date extravaganza. This entire thing was a joke if you ask me! And yes I just hit the exclamation point a bit harder than usual! She’s not a psychic. She doesn’t know my life. I just fed her a colossal sham and she ate the entire thing up. Heck, if she was a real psychic, wouldn’t she have said, “Your name isn’t Colby or Justin, it’s Brock Bybee, you fool, I know who you are!”

But she didn’t. And she wouldn’t have. And I just sat across a table conning this old hag out of what she has based her entire meager career off of. But then again, she just conned me out of $35, but that’s neither here nor there.

Are psychics real? Are they fake? Are they one of the most ridiculously stupid things to have ever been created since “Jersey Shore” You’re dang right they are. And I just witnessed it. And if anyone out there is dumb enough to believe that they’re real, then take a pit stop at my house in sunny St. George and I’ll give you my own psychic reading. Minus the load of crock that sits in a stack of tarot cards.

World Is Capitalizing On SEX!

SEX seems like it is taking over the world. Everywhere that you look there is something related to the topic of SEX. Whether it be on TV, in movies, or all of the pornographic Web sites on the Internet, you can't escape it; SEX is taking over the world. 



For full effect, download "Garbage Truck" by Sex Bob-Omb from iTunes and play and maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Why is SEX the most focal topic that makes the media industry rotate at such an immoral speed? Almost certainly at our age, SEX is a subject that dominates our thinking, and is extremely appealing to us. Heck, that's how I grabbed your attention to read this post: enlarging the word SEX roughly 30 times. Don't feel dirty for reading this; everyone else's hormones made them do the same thing. Heck, you did it when you read the infamous Week of Sex too. 



SEX excites us, doesn't it? SEX is what perks us up or draws us to anything. SEX is also one of the biggest no-no's in our culture as well. And if something is regarded in a negative light it makes us want to be a part of it even more. Hence, SEX is wanted by everyone.

 You can't watch a TV show, or movie, or even a Disney Channel cartoon without SEX being an instrumental part of the plot. At some point or time in the show there has to be a scantily-clad lady, a dirty joke, or at least one subtle reference to SEX somewhere in it. If not then there will be a “Girls Gone Wild” video advertisement at the commercial break. 



When you look at the magazine covers in the grocery store, what is the biggest boldface type word on the cover? SEX, of course. And it doesn't matter what kind of magazine it is. It can be a magazine completely devoted to ceiling fans, but the latest issue's main article will be something about which is the most fashionable ceiling fan to have great SEX under. You can't tell a joke without it having some sort of SEXual connotation, either. It's like jokes aren't even funny unless the punch line directs our thoughts to any subject dealing with SEX. Your mom, blonde or even corny Laffy Taffy jokes won't make us laugh if it's not about SEX. It's such a hard thing to deal with, and yes, that is what she said.



The Internet is a huge road with former sites such as MySpace, avenues for SEX to be paraded down as well. I can't tell you how many friend requests I would get from digital superhighway prostitutes on an almost hourly basis offering me some sort of SEX-themed Web site. The pornography they are modeling has to be an appeal to a young man coming of age. Why does the world make it so easily accessible? 



There's nothing that we can do about it I guess. SEX will continue to increase its monopoly on the world with morality and standards being cast out the window. In the meantime why don't we stand up for what is right and not give in to the filth-laden industry that is polluting our world? Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean we should. 



Am I making that big of a deal about this, though? Is SEX something that shouldn't be given much attention? I mean, in the words of a good friend, it's just SEX, right? It's not hard to avoid.

That's what she said.

Ain't That A Kick In The Head?

Every so often there are moments in life that suck worse than any single movie starring Drew Barrymore. Moments that make you sit back in your chair, frustratingly shake your head, and mutter out the acronym WTF in confusion. Moments that feel like a manila envelope giving you a paper cut underneath your thumbnail.

Yeah, today has been one of those moments.

For full effect, download either "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones, or "Ain't That A Kick In The Head" by Dean Martin and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Before you get involved in this post, let me mention that this is not a cry for help, this is not a pathetic plea to my readers about how sorry my life is, this is not a 'woe-is-me' syndromic diatribe that I am typing in hopes of getting some putrid gesture of sympathy from one of you 40 readers out there. This is just my life in a nutshell.

Exactly one month ago, I thought I was on top of the world, I would stare into my mirror and mimic Leonardo DiCaprio's famous line from "Titanic". I really thought I had everything going my way. I had my life semi-planned out the way that I wanted it to be, the way that I thought it should be. There was a light at the end of the current tunnel I was barreling through. But oh how amusing it is when life grabs you by the collar and delivers a swift kick to the nut sack to that glimmer of hope that you once held on to.

And now I sit in a perplexed position muttering the acronyms WTF and POS, meanwhile karma is somewhere out there ROTFLMAO in spite. Yeah, life sure sucks sometimes doesn't it? One moment you can do no wrong, you have everything going for you, and in one foul swoop life sucks and all you want to do is lay in bed, watch reruns of day time talk shows and have a diet consisting only of Ben & Jerry's.

What do you do when that happens? Now that my friends, is one heck of a conundrum.

I'm not here to pass out some kind of motivational advice to any of you, and try to deliver a "feel-good" message for the day. Because honestly, I'm too pissed off to give anyone else any condolences right now. But as I sit here staring out the window at the red leaves falling around the hospital, contemplating every sort of rejection I have received in my life in the last 15 minutes, meanwhile an ailing father figure coughs his lungs up in the room next to me, the only thing I can remember is that life is hard. And we just have to keep going.

One of my favorite movie scenes comes from the film "A League Of Their Own". The movie is about women's professional baseball in the mid-1940's, and the successes that they had. In one of the scenes, a star player, Geena Davis decides to quit the team and go home. Her manager, Tom Hanks, calls her out on her decision and asks her why. This is their conversation.

Geena Davis: (in response to her quitting) "It just got too hard."

Tom Hanks: "Its supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, then everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great."

It is quotes like this that help get me out of bed in the morning. Oh and, pass the Ben & Jerry's would ya?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location: McKay-Dee Hospital

Motivating Factors

I have a secret that I am semi-embarrased to admit, but for the sake of this post, and because of my supernatural high self-esteem, I will admit my shamed past to you, and reach into my black hole of a closet to reveal yet another skeleton from my past.

For full effect, download my dishonor from iTunes and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. The paragraphs below will give you the secret song plain and simple.

To paint the picture, I take you back to my senior year of high school a decade ago, when I was wandering the halls of Roy High with a few acne bumps and a squeaky post-puberty voice. I was a tall kid back in the day, and because of my height I used to play basketball for the team. I enjoyed it, and before every game we would all pull out our CD players, (yes kids, that's right, a CD player) and listen to some kind of motivating music to get us pumped up for the game. Most guys listened to hard core Rock and Roll, or some deafening rap. Eminem had just released the Marshall Mathers LP that year, and so most of the ballers were boogying to "The Real Slim Shady".

It was at this point when myself and a fellow big man, who shall be known as Arnold the Beekeeper, used to listen to the same song over and over again to get us "pumped up" for the contest that night. Again, I'm not proud to admit this transgression, but for the sake of an amusing post, here goes.

We would exchange rhythmic glances at each other while our burned CD's rattled off in unison the same song that we had on repeat and would listen to over, and over, and over again. That inspirational ballad that had us hooked and gave us the drive to perform well on the court that night was the song, "This One Goes Out To You" by the Backstreet Boys.

Go ahead, get your laughing out of the way. It's ok. I'm used to it. I am now open with my dishonor and am able to talk about my past transgressions.

Swamp Thing: "Hi, my name is Swamp Thing, and I have a problem. I used to listen to teenage boy bands in the locker room to get me pumped up before a basketball game."

AAA Crowd: "Hi, Swamp Thing!"

Swamp Thing: "I also sweat profusely. Hence the blogalias. I know. I have issues."

AAA Crowd: "We all do Swamp Thing. Except for the sweating part."

Laugh all you want, but for some reason, that song was one of the most inspiring, most motivating, most arousing, ok, wait, maybe I shouldn't use the word arousing in this context, not that there's anything wrong with that...

Uh, where was I at...Oh yeah, embarrassed motivating indignity that I hang my head in shame over every time I hear it on my iPod. And yes, the song is still on one of my inspirational playlists. Don't hate. The point of this entire disgraceful recounting is to illustrate how each of us has something that we hold on to for motivation to do something in our lives. Whether it's a quote from a movie, an improv proverb given by a dying relative, or a group of five metrosexual teen tenors in unison, we all have something that gives us a drive to keep going, to keep getting up for more, to keep rolling out of bed every morning.

Life sure can be a sweeping croquet mallet between the incisors on a consistent basis, but maybe, just maybe we all have a metaphorical Backstreet Boys song on repeat that can help get us through whatever swift kick between the legs we have in store for us next. I think by this point I really should stop making uncomfortable references to male body parts mixed in with a Backstreet Boys song as the soundtrack.

Don't ask me where the rest of this post is going. For the record, it's a little after midnight and I just needed some solid therapy of writing on whatever random topic sprung into my head. (Hence the blog title) Add to the fact that my nourishment for the day has been 4 hours of sleep and 5 and a half Mt. Dew Amps, I need to hit the sack pretty soon here. And no, I will not use the Backstreet Boys to sing me to sleep.

My Favorite TV Show

If you were to combine my favorite cartoon as a kid and my favorite drama currently, you would have made quite possibly the best show of all time.

I Don't Want To Grow Up

Standing in line of a cafeteria that smells like bleach and bedpans, I reached into my pocket to pay for the overly priced $3.51 large cranberry juice I was holding in my hand. As I pulled out my favored wallet, a cash-carrier that is decorated with some of my most esteemed heroes, the legen-wait for it-dary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I shrugged and stared at the inked images that were spawned by a late night party rooted with beer and marijuana.

Cashier: "That will be $3.51 sir."

Swamp Thing: "Do I get free refills on this thing?"

Cashier: "Confused/perplexed/WTF look across her face.

Swamp Thing: "Well from the look you're giving me, I guess I need to exchange my soul for those."

I sat down in the most uncomfortable of all chairs and stared out the window at a cancer patient walking around the courtyard with a walker and what appeared to be a gentle daughter guiding his way.

For full effect, YouTube the old Toys-R-Us commercial that has the famous line, "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys-R-Us kid." and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. That song for some reason has been echoing in the back of my head for the past few weeks or so.

Life sure has it's up's and down's that is for certain. One moment you're the king of the world holding Kate Winslet off the front of the Titanic, the next minute, you forget to see a giant berg of ice in the middle of the ocean, and you're floating on a door muttering the words, "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go..." And yes, I did just call it a berg of ice.

I'm not depressed at all, don't misunderstand where I'm coming from. I L-word my life, every tiny aspect of it. I have a great life. I am surrounded by great people, and I truly do enjoy waking up every single morning. But, it is moments when I stare at a frustrated cancer patient meagerly slouching on a bench and wish that I wished I was the little kid ten feet away trying to catch a duck in the bushes, laughing his face off while another person wonders if he'll even be here in three months.

Growing up can be a pain in the butt sometimes. It's a time when accountability, decision making, and reality govern our lives. It's a time when we have to focus on budgeting our accounts, making an insurance payment, watching our diet for the sake of potential diabetes, rather than waking up at 6 am on a Saturday morning, watching cartoons until two in the afternoon meanwhile downing a gallon of rocky road ice cream. Oh those were the days weren't they? The days of night games and Garfield pajamas and color books. The days when candy was the ruling factor in any choice that we would make.

I miss those days. Man, I sure do. And at the rate that I'm aging, its not looking hopeful that I'll be able to experience them any time soon. I guess the only way that I'm going to ever get them back is by living vicariously through my own kids. But the again, at the rate that I'm going in that department, that might take a while too.

And so I stare at my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wallet and the theme song of their cartoon rings loudly in my mind, meanwhile the 6-year old outside has his bum in the air inches away from catching the duck. Life is grand, isn't it?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location: The cafeteria of McKay-Dee hospital