Amusement Park Memory

My buddy Jeff took me to the local (seventy miles away) amusement park today, since he has an odd number in his family and (wisely) thought it would be easier if an even number was going. We had a lot of fun and I was very happy to have been his plus-one for the day.

There's a ride called the Tidal Wave there that's like a pendulum, going back and forth and filling ye olde genitals with a not unpleasant falling sensation. I used to be able to ride it endlessly . . . before the dark times, before the Empire. But riding it today, I was reminded of a time not too many years ago when a couple friends of mine and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain together and rode their equivalent ride.

It was Matthew, MacDonald, and me, and we spent the whole day enjoying the rides, the California sun, and the idea of wringing the last drops of joy from our youth. Well, not Matthew, since he was a dozen years younger than MacDonald, but still more mature than both of us.

I was delighted to see a Tidal Wave-esque ride there, and demanded we all get on it. We sat down on the farthest seat to the back, since that's where you get the best bang for your buck as it were, and couldn't help but notice a couple of hot young girls sitting in the opposite row on the other side. These were California teenagers, glamorous, well-to-do, as beautiful as any Iowa teen girl, only more sophisticated.

Sigh.

As the ride began to swing back and forth, my eyes naturally went to the girls, and to my surprise, one of them, a brunette with long brown hair (who I choose to remember as an attainable sixteen year old Phoebe Cates . . . since it's my memory and I can do what I want with it), was looking in our direction. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled.

I know what you're thinking, and go to hell. This is my story, and I can tell it if I want to. Just save me a spot there among the demons and Disco gods, I'll be there in due time.

The teen girl whooped when the ride tells you to whoop, but then looked at me again, grinning a perfect orthodontist's masterpiece of a smile. I looked too. She was actually making eye contact . . . with me, Rish Benjamin Outfield, the only guy not to get some at spring break in Tijuana.

Well, to have a pretty young thing give me a smile was every bit as exhilarating as the park ride (as any park ride, honestly). The whole time, until it ended, she would glance in my direction, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, and whatever blink-and-you-miss-it pop group playing over the speakers had become the fudgin' Righteous Brothers.

As all things do, the ride came to a stop, and everybody filed off to go their separate ways. I looked for the girl, but she had places to go and other men's hearts to melt. Still, I was grinning like a Smilex victim until my buddy MacDonald said, "Wow, did you see that chick with the brown hair on the other side of the ride? She was totally checking me out!"

Sigh again.

I said it was an amusement part memory, not an amusing one.

Rish "Heartbreaker, Dreammaker, Lovetaker" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

There's a dip in the road leading up to my street that I imagine is there for water to flow through (though it might be there just to punish people who drive too fast), and it has one of those big yellow signs warning people there is a DIP there.

Well, some brilliant young person took some spray paint this week and wrote "shit" under it (and not altogether well). So, you may take this as a stupid thing because some idiot thought it would be cool to deface a street sign like that, or because I found it kind of amusing. And it's exactly the sort of thing I would've done in my teens.

Or twenties.

Or thirties.

P.S. A couple of days after writing this, I grabbed my camera and tossed it in my car, meaning to take a picture of the offending sign. Well, I forgot about it. But driving home, as I crossed the dip, I remembered only to see that someone had painted over the graffitti. Once again, procrastination kicks me where it hurts.

Happy Fathers Day, folks

Stupid Thing of the Week

There's a wedding going on in Vegas this weekend, and my whole family is loading into the car(s) together to head over there. I spent some of today hanging out with my nephew, who is now three, and offered to make him some Kool Aid. I made about two ounces for him, and about twenty for myself, but had to get after the boy to make sure he didn't drink it in the living room, where he could spill it on the carpet. My mom doesn't let the kids drink or eat anything near the carpet, and I was trying to follow suite.

A little while later, though, I scooted my chair back so I could stand up and sure enough, I knocked my entire container over . . . onto the carpet. It was red Kool Aid too, which may actually be worse than the purple kind.

Chris Evans on THE AVENGERS

I saw this little interview snippet and thought, "Hey, here's something I can post on my blog!*" I really hope this movie works. For all our sakes.

Tags: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

The Cap movie hasn't even come out yet, and I'm already getting used to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. I saw Evans as a slacker, surfer, California type, and it was hard for me to get over that. Now, though, I guess I've seen him in the trailers and publicity stills enough that it probably won't be hard to identify him with the character for the next several years.

Of course, Ryan "Captain Awesome" McPartlin from NBC's "Chuck" was my first choice. But maybe he can be Aquaman or something.

Rish "Colonel Mediocre" Outfield

*And I haven't had something to write in a blog post in a long, long time.

It's all for you, Damien

This is, according to my Dashboard, my 666th blog post.

I WISH I had something significant to post today.

Heck, maybe I could write a drabble and stick it in here. Something appropriate to the occasion.

Stupid Thing of the Week

I recently auditioned for a role in an audio drama. I do that from time to time because I like acting, and because I've got a microphone I paid good money for, and why let it go to waste?

I guess I got the part, because the script for the first episode was sent me (not to mention and email that told me I had gotten the part), and my lines were highlighted and a deadline given me to have the lines done.

I recorded those and the guy said, "Wow, thanks! Here's the script to episode two." That's cool. I like it when people are on the ball.*

Before I could record those lines, however, I got a new email that said, "I got a guy to do another character I was going to voice, so now I can do your part. Don't bother sending the lines. Thanks for everything."

Dude, this is so not cool.

I may have to explain that people volunteer to do voices in internet audio dramas for no pay, and with the knowledge that they're just doing someone a favor, for no compensation ever. It's something you do out of friendship (if not fun), and if you've got a podcast/audio drama/fan film/etc., you need to let your voice actors (or artists or producers or slush readers) know you appreciate them.

I'm probably not worthy to cast the first stone, here. I've been editing a story a guy sent us last year, that was actually supposed to hit the air before 2010 was out. I do feel bad that it hasn't been finished yet, but I have hours of work every week for the show, and it's hard to make time beyond that for my own production.

I agonized recently over a part that a guy did for us for that story. I hoped he wouldn't be upset that we didn't use his lines, but they just didn't work for the story as a whole (he did them in a sort of imitation of a famous Al Pacino movie), and he'd already done a different character in the same story. I felt bad, and considered leaving it in, even though it sounded a bit silly. Ultimately, I called Big and asked what he suggested.

He said that the story has to come first, and if it doesn't work, then don't use it, and that the guy'll understand. But I still feel bad about it.

I feel worse now that my work for this other show has been tossed. I don't want somebody to feel as unappreciated as I did when I got that email.

Look, I've got way more free time than ninety percent of non-homeless Americans, and yet I really felt like I'd wasted it with this guy. Of course, there are always extenuating circumstances behind just about everything, and maybe I really did a lackluster job or he found out I despise cats (and cat lovers) and had to make a stand like Zack what's-his-name did when he refused to work on HANGOVER 2 if Mel Gibson was going to be in it.

All I know is that it made me want to treat people better, and let my people (ie the ones who work for my show for free and very few shout-outs, and even fewer sexual perks) know that I'm grateful to them. Even if I don't know their names. And pretend I've never met them when we're standing in an elevator or at a urinal together.

The long metal trough kind. I really hate those.

So, on with the countdown. I could be a better collaborator. I could be a worse one. I recently got an email from someone working on the "Green Lantern" podcast that said she really loved my Sinestro and was sorry to hear I was going to die alone. Maybe I should do the same for my team.

Heck, I'm gonna do that now.

Rish "The Boss From Heck" Outfield

*Although it does make me feel like something of a slacker. Which I am.

Bonesaw is finally ready

So, Randy "Macho Man" Savage passed away. Sad, I suppose, especially since it was a car accident, which sucks.*

I wasn't a Wrestling fan growing up, and I'll never be one. However, I did work on the first SPIDER-MAN movie in the wrestling scene, where Macho Man was an actor, playing Bone-Saw McGraw. He was an odd and forehead-vein-throbbingly-intense actor. No exaggeration, I watched him do the "Bone-Saw is reeeeeady" line twenty or thirty times, delivering it in an almost painful way every single take. While he and the stuntman went through their moves, he laughed and interacted with the audience, and yes, told everybody to slip into a Slim Jim at least twice.

Also, he was somebody's dad. So I figured I'd say something here.

Rish "The Flying Dutchman" Outfield

*Guess the guy had a heart attack, which caused the accident. He was fifty-eight.

Finally, space is black enough

I'm not sure I have the words to describe how cool this is.

They should've sent a poet.

Never Was There A Story of More Woe . . .

People say that fish have a memory of, like, fifteen seconds. Maybe that's just goldfish. Or Dory.

Last week, two fish I'd had for a long, long time died. They were a pair I'd gotten on the same day, and had tripled in size during their stay in my tank. One of them changed colors sometimes, and I never really understood why it did that (or why the other one didn't). But one day, one of the pair went belly-up. I gave it to the turtles (circle of life, Simba), and was a bit disappointed, but having fish has taught me that everything dies, baby, that's a fact. You get used to it.

But the next day . . . I got up and went to feed the fish, and the other fish was also dead. It had (somehow) jumped out of the tank and was dried up and motionless on the floor. After a burial by turtle, I went to the pet shop to buy some replacements. The guy at the store said "Oh, that happens all the time with mated pairs. I don't really know why."

Neither do I.

Stupid Thing of the Week

I was at a store today, and I paused to look at the t-shirts. There were several Marvel and DC-related shirts, and it occurred to me that if someone went to school wearing a Green Lantern shirt in 2011, they'd be admired rather than called a fag and tossed in a trashcan. But ah well.

And then, I saw a shirt that gave me pause. It had only words on it, in big blocky letters:

TEXT ME WHEN YOU'RE DONE TALKING.

I smirked when I saw it, and then realized (to my horror) that it was saying the opposite of what I initially thought it said.* It wasn't telling me the shirt's owner would prefer to speak with them face to face, it was telling me to go fuck myself.

I dwelled on this shirt for, oh, I don't know, five minutes maybe. It's a bummer that something like that can exist.

You might think it made me feel old, or out of touch. But no, it made me feel angry. I would probably punch someone in the stomach if they were wearing that shirt, and then say, "Oh, sorry. Guess you better text the police."

Rish "Vex Message" Outfield

*I was reminded of a sign I saw at a Los Angeles costume shop back in '02 or '03 that said, "We would be happy to serve you after you've completed your cellphone call." It struck me as tremendously bold and admirable. Of course, the owners of the shop were later reported, detained, and put into camps.