write up to now

So, a month and some change later, here is the end of this story... 
The Story of My Write, the 1000th post is Here...
Write On Through High School (Part Two) is Here...
Write On Through the Dry Spell (Part Three) is here...

May was so uber busy for me, much of it is a blur.  Not only did I finish up and send off about 9 families to Disney World and Universal Studios, but in the last week, I've helped 5 more families get out the door to the magic that awaits. Hence, not a single word on this blog since the end of April, which makes me sad because now May 2015 will have nothing in the "published" tab in the archives over there --->

And that's how life is, huh? 

So, at the end of the last blog published, I was finishing up the "Story of My Write", which is a history of my writing... not really for you, honestly, but for me, so when I'm 77, sitting in a wheelchair in the Sunny Meadows Nursing Home and can't remember when I last took a poopy--which will probably be while I'm thinking "when did I last take a poopy?"--Campbell, 41 years old by then, can come for his monthly visit and read to me my own life stories.  Then he can tell me my name and where I am, because I likely won't remember that either.

Let's finish this entire thing up by taking you back to spring 2005.  I had been married for just over a year, I had been involved with Valleydale Baptist Church for about 6 years, The Lovely Steph Leann and I had really become close to our new Sunday School Life Connection Life Group Sunday School class (the "NearlyWed/Newlywed Class") and our church was going to New York City for a week to do some mission work in Queens and Brooklyn.  I was all in, because having been to NYC a few years previous, I fell in love with the city and had a heart for it's people. 

In a "trip meeting", where everyone comes together for cheap pizza and Milo's sweet tea in a classroom after service to watch a video about what we'll be doing, they were looking for "online journaling people"... that is, people who will be willing to write up a daily summary to share with the group back home in Birmingham.  I raised my hand because no one else did, and my name was put down.   I was told to just write up a few paragraphs at the end of each day and email it to someone in the church, and they would post it on the church website.

Challenge accepted.

But also, I wanted more than just people in our church to know what was going on, so after Star Wars Celebration (mentioned in the previous post) and that slight experience in writing, I decided I would go to Blogger.com and set up an account... I did.  And when it came to a name, I thought "Well, this is only for my NYC trip, so... New York Dave?  Nah... um... Mission Trip... Nope... Broadway... I love Broadway stuff... how about...

BroadwayDave. That works."

Now, in hindsight, I would have come up with something that would make sense beyond just this trip, but I also remember not thinking much would come of this blog after the trip.  I'd write about the trip and be done with it.  Maybe save the posts into a word document onto a floppy disk for safe keeping (remember... this is 1995, and "flash drives" were not affordable and many computers didn't have USB ports anyway).

My first post was called "Less than 30 Days", and it was a quick little blurb on who was actually going on the trip, back when my audience barely eclipsed those people.  I then decided I would practice a little writing by doing another post, this time about my love of Kelly Clarkson and her new (then) song "Behind These Hazel Eyes"...

I followed it up with a few more, including the sadness of finishing a Harry Potter book, picking up "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince at 1201a on release day, a take on MC Hammer and a few more random notes... then the trip began, and my first trip blog came out on July 27th, 2005, introducing everyone going on the trip--remember, I'm still writing on the premise that when this trip is over, so will my blogpage.

We were staying in Manhattan at a hostel, basically... each tiny room had a thin mattressed bunk bed, a window that barely opened, and down the hall a small bathroom with a shower--one that you had to essentially duck into, as there was a frame that held the shower door... a short frame.

And it was hot.  I mean, freakin' hot.  Like, walk outside and the cold shower you just had in the tiny community bathroom upstairs a little bit ago was now negated by the hot, humid temperature at 5am.   Ick.

The sole computer in the building was downstairs and cost $5 an hour, and was old... when you typed a sentence, the cursor wouldn't move.  Then about 20 seconds later, the cursor would fly across the screen leaving in it's wake all the letters you just typed, only missing some words, misspelling words, skipping letters, forgetting punctuation and more.  So a post that would normally take me 25 minutes took over an hour.  Still, I did it.  I posted the day's events every night.

I would also send it back to the church email address and they would post it as well... only on day three, I wrote this about my roommate Larry:

So, it was hot. It still is. Anyone who knows me knows I sweat when I think too much, so last night wasn't great... though with the fan, it wasn't that bad, honestly. Larry, sleeping in the bunk under me, had a bigger problem. Apparently his fitted sheet came off, and he stuck to the plastic mattress cover in his sleep, creating that "sscchhllllleeeepppp" sound when he moved.

Someone sent me an email a few days later (I could only check my email during this hot, late night computer time) asking for the blog address, as the church stopped posting what I had written.  I found out later they thought the idea of a "shirtless Larry" was inappropriate for publishing... to me, it was the best way to explain the heat.   Oh, there was also the story of the naked French guy...

Apparently, there is a naked french guy roaming the halls. He approached Paula in a towel, but Tim only saw him wearing the Star of David on a chain on his neck. I think his name is Jon.

That probably didn't help either.

By the 11th NYC trip blog, I had made the decision that I wanted to keep blogging, because I enjoyed it.   So I did just that.

I started writing about anything and everything... I posted recaps about American Idol episodes... I talked about my marriage and fun with The Lovely Steph Leann... reviewed movies... discussed Disney... talked about friends and family... delved into politics... pop culture and more pop culture... I even did a 100 Coolest Things of the Year for a few years running...

I go back and read some of the stuff I wrote--especially about politics--and will sometimes even wince, thinking "I could have worded that better... eh, I probably shouldn't have said that at all... yikes, that was a d-bag thing to write..."

Then again, I read some of the early posts and think, "Wow... that was really funny... could I write that kind of funny stuff again?"

Evolution of a writer, I guess you would say.  Somewhere along the way I realized that yes, people do actually read what I write, especially since I had random people at church, at work and in life just tell me, "Hey, I enjoyed your blog the other day..."  People that make you say, "You read that?"

So at the end of June, Clouds is My Coffee celebrates 10 years of existence. Not nearly as old as some online journals and blogs... but way, way older than most.

And here I am, at 250,000+ page views over the lifetime of the blog... not bad, I think.  I'd probably say 100K of them came in the last two years, so I'm on my way to a million hits.  Think about that... 1,000,000 individual page views.  Holy crap. 

I can't promise you I'll blog every week, but I will try.  I have no plans to change the content... it will still be about movies, music, pop culture, life, family, Disney, random Amy Adams (whom I'm in love with) references, random Julie Wise references (because I think its funny at this point), random Troy and Samson stories, maybe the final season of American Idol, and maybe just a little bit of politics...

Obama is a tool, incompetent, and the worst president this country has ever known.

Well, maybe not too much politics, at least until after the 2016 election.

So, thanks for reading.  Thanks for visiting the page.  Don't be afraid to check out some of the blog links I have over there ---> and give them a spin as well. 

And that... is the story of my write.

write on through high school

(The beginning of this post can be found here, chronicling my writing history and where I sort of figured out that I liked writing)

As mentioned before, I had a good time writing stories that involved my friends, putting us in various ridiculous situations, but began to stick my foot in the pool of real fiction with my fairytale "Dayton's Quest".

I began to churn out stories every few weeks from there, and my friends wanted to read them, friends that went beyond just the guys I shared paper adventures with (though I did write a story called "1967" putting myself and friends in Vietnam... only Johnny Knowles and I survived the attack by the Vietcong, according to my tale--Jason Smith died a most honorable death, as did Clay Fulford #namedrop).  They would actually pass around a sheet of paper, signing up to the be the first to read whatever I wrote. 

In particular, Tammy Thomas was one of my biggest fans--to the extent I actually had fans--and that which always warmed my heart... I'll never forget her coming to me, more than once, and saying "Are you finished with the new story?  You know I'm on the list first, you know I get it first".   It's one of those small compliments probably forgotten about by everyone but me.  And she's still pretty awesome to the day (thank you Facebook!)

And just for fun, here are a few of the stories I put on paper and released:

**A story called "Tophet", which was, according to my Roget's Thesaurus, another word for "hell" or the "underworld", and it was about a man who buys a video game on Christmas Eve in a back alley from a shady dude, and then gives it to his son for Christmas the next day--and when you play the game, people die in real life, and the end of the game opens up a portal... to Hell.  Boom.  Maybe a little Poltergeisty, but I dug the concept.

**"Reach Out and Touch Someone", a play on the slogan of the old slogan from Bell Telephone (which in 1992 wasn't that far removed from being a real thing), was a divorcee with a young daughter trapped in a house with a crazy sociopath who has, somehow, nailed all the windows shut and boarded all the doors up.  At that time, it made sense. The sequel, called "Hunted", got as far as the first chapter, but was then abandoned... and it was just as well.

**"The Long & Winding Road" was a Hallmark worthy tale of a snotty rich chick who is on a hayride while visiting her country bumpkin cousin, and after a stop, is accidentally left behind with said cousin.  The two barely know each other, despite being family and live worlds-apart, but are forced to walk together, and look out for another, along the five mile long dirt road back to the church... and along the way, she learns a little of what it's like to be kind and generous.  (this is one of my favorites, by the way)

**"Radio Talk", a conversation between an overnight DJ and a caller who seems to be a little off the edge.  The entire story was written all in quotes, which at the time I thought was a pretty cool angle.  Oh, okay, fine, I still think its a cool angle. 

**And one of my favorites of all time, "Out of Time", the story of a teenager who is gravely injured in the 1930s, is given an experimental drug that puts him into a coma, and doesn't age a bit, until he wakes up in 1994 under the name John Doe.  He befriends a pretty nursing student, who helps him escape the clutches of a cruel doctor who wants our John Doe (I cannot remember his name, but this was written in 1992, so forgive me) for more experimentation--thus begins a comical chase story where John Doe and Pretty Student Nurse are trying to find an antidote for the 1930s drug, a drug that is now causing him to age rapidly.

SIDEBAR: Some years later, I came across a movie called "Late for Dinner", which actually has some of the same plotlines... remember, this was a time when there was no iTunes or Netflix or any kind of streaming service.  You had to rent this movie, and it wasn't all that popular, so our local video stores may have had one copy somewhere... but I say it now before the world--mine was an original idea, not borrowed from this film.  I still haven't seen it, by the way.   

I did a couple of more "friend" stories too, mostly as something fun to do... I wrote one called "Witness for the Prosecution" which at the time didn't sound like a lame legal cliche, about a lawyer (my friend Jennifer Lambert took that role) trying to figure out if her client is actually guilty or not (turns out Michael Creech was in fact, guilty), and another story with an equally bad cliched name I can't remember, this one a cat-and-mouse game story about two cops (my friends Stan McDuffie and Jason Smith) trying to track down a serial killer. The premise of the first one was actually pretty good, it just needed more details than my 16 year old mind could produce, while the latter was actually a little silly--but Stan's death scene was actually pretty cool.

And I even did a few stupid stories that included my friends in band, almost parodies full of inside jokes and cliches, one being a western and one being a space adventure.  And no, I didn't get the girl in either, because how am I going to write about ending up with Julie Wise (or Stephanie Phillips, who I crushed on for about six months in 10th grade) and not be completely humiliated at that concept? 

I even had an attempt at poetry, and I still have a yellow folder entitled "d$'s Real Dumb Poetry"--and the title isn't an attempt at humility. Not at all. It's so bad.  Keep in mind that though I did some stuff on a typewriter, I couldn't afford to buy ribbon over and over, so 90% of this was done with a mechanical pencil and paper. 

I loved writing.   And for a kid who is 15, 16, going on 17, I was pretty good at it.  That's not bragging, that's just saying that I know I had a knack for it. 



I scanned the Senior Superlative picture in question,
but because it was out of a yearbook, it was really
grainy.  Anyway, this is Christy and I, paired up
again, this time voted as March (April?) 93's
Calendar Couple in Home Ec.  Strangly enough, we
were never actually a couple of any kind, other than
being good friends. 

And to this day, I still don't know what the purpose
of a "calendar couple" is.  Go SHS!

I was voted Most Creative as a senior for our Senior Superlatives, alongside Christy Mock and her incredible singing voice...

ANOTHER SIDEBAR... So, to take the Senior Superlative picture, it was decided that I, who was in the band, and Christy, who was not, needed to meet in the bandroom, because we could set up a keyboard for her to use as a prop.  The prop that I needed would be a typewriter.  And while the keyboard was in a closet in the bandroom, the typewriter--a huge honk of a machine that was pretty dated even in 1993--was across the entire school in Mrs. Rials' classroom.  Those of you from Samson will know what a haul that is.  So on a warm late April midday, in the south Alabama humidity, I had to go to Mrs. Rials class, borrow a typewriter, haul that sucker across the entire school--why did I not ask for a handcart or trolley of some sort?  where were you to tell me these things?--to the bandroom, wipe off the pouring sweat, take a picture, then haul it all the way back to Mrs. Rials class.  Great picture, beautiful companion in the shot, terrible set up methods.  And if you look in the yearbook, you can't see the keyboard, and you can only see the edge of the typewriter.  Such is.  Back to the story.

...and my plans were to start drafting a book soon, maybe during high school.  I pulled out my electric typewriter, and began to type a story that was rolling around in my head, one with a guy named Peter and a girl named Julianne Frye, and a third wheel named Daily, and a best friend named Barrow, and a mean girl named Piper Huffin and a janitor named Ezekial and a couple named Troy and Suzy and...

...and it was going to be great.  Or, at least the first few pages I typed were great.  Or good.  Or terrible, who knows.  I started the story about four times and never got past page 5.  Oh, and then I graduated and went to college, which is great, because in college, I can sit up late and write, right?

And my first night at Troy State University began what essentially was a five year long case of writer's block.  More on that tomorrow.

post 1,001

the story of my write (the 1000th cloud)

What to do for a post that marks your 1000th time you've hit "publish"?  After tossing around a few ideas, starting a few posts and then tossing a few more ideas, I decided I wanted to go back and remember how all of this got started... no, not in 2005, when the blog started--I mean, back to 1982, when I first realized I liked writing.  This post is broken up into two parts for easier reading, because I'm always too wordy.  Oh, and thanks for coming back here day after day...

How did you start writing?  I mean, if you are a writer, and I know a lot of you are.  Since I started this blog in 2005, oh, you know, ONE THOUSAND posts ago, I think another thousand people that I know have started a blog of their own... some have kept going and make for a good read, and others have done one, two, maybe five posts and it sits forgotten in the graveyard of good intentions--the blogsite edition.

Writing is a funny thing... not everyone can do it, though there are far more people who think they can (and thereby do) than actually can (and shouldn't).  I lost a bet on our podcast, The Deucecast Movie Show, and was forced to watch a Paris Hilton film called "The Hillz" (yes, with a Z).  The screenwriter is a fella named Saran Barnun, and if this film's script is to be used as evidence, Saran is someone who thinks he can write... but probably shouldn't.  Then again, I should never sing nor act, but I attempt both, so there's that...

I'm not saying I'm the end all be all, please don't get me wrong.  At no point will I wave this blog in front of anyone and say "see this!  look what I wrote!  I'm the Grisham/King/Rowling heir apparent!!" or anything of the kind, but... but I think I'm not bad at it.  Ten years later, I've got over 230K views on this site, so that's gotta count for something, right?  Maybe?  Humblebrag, indeed.

My first writing venture was when I was in 2nd grade... I decided I wanted to write a play for some strange reason, and had titled it "The Prince & the Princess", because at 7, I was striving for originality.  Once I revealed my plan to do so, several of my classmates were pretty excited about being it it.  Melissa Gonzalez and Tony Sanchez wanted to be the leads, though I cannot remember if I casted them or Melissa just insisted... doesn't matter, especially when you see how this ended. 

Becky Rocha was my villain, my evil witch... now this was a part she wanted because she was all into the bad guys in stuff.  I don't think she grew up to be Marilyn Manson (we all know that it was Paul from The Wonder Years that turned into Marilyn Manson!  Wait... what?) or anything, she was just 7 and thought the witch part would be cool.

I remember writing this bit of dialogue...

The Prince:  Hello, my princess.  You are very pretty!
The Princess:  Thank you!  I think you are cute too!
The Witch, over in the bushes:  I don't like you or you, and I'll get you!

That's it. 

In my mind I had this vision of a princess in some sort of mortal danger, and a dashing prince from a far away land had come to rescue her from the clutches of the evil, and green (because when you are 7, witches look like the Wicked Witch of the West, not all cutesy and patootsie like Hermione Granger).  Also, I'm really not sure where I was going to get the means to produce such a stage play that at the least, would require a battle scene between the good guy and bad chick, but I figured I would think of something.  And honestly, I think I would have.  

SIDEBAR:  It's important to note that I had never seen Sleeping Beauty, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella or any of those movies that would have likely inspired me to such ideas.

So the script wasn't much to go on, but didn't stop me from calling a practice at recess.  Separate 2nd graders from their recess time and the response is never favorable.  So 7 year old d$ calls Melissa, Tony, Becky and Brian Bruner (my 2nd grade best friend who wanted to help) over by the school wall, where there is some open space for practice--with no script beyond three lines--and they grumble and mumble and complain.  

Sometimes I cannot remember what I had for lunch the day before, but I vividly remember that 32 years ago, Melissa said to me, "What are we doing here?  This is stupid!!" and I replied, "I made you come over here so... you could go play!"  And they did.  Thus ended "The Prince & the Princess".

Somewhere in the middle of 2nd grade, I also created a cast of comic characters.  Now, for some reason, I decided to take Gonzo from The Muppets, make him taller, sharpen his beak a little, make him not as silly and use him as a character, and yet, still call him Gonzo... I didn't really know what "plagiarism" was back then, so grant me that, if ya don't mind...

This was a drawing I did this morning, and I think I'm
pretty dead on as to what they looked like

Anyway, rather than model the rest of the gang after The Muppets, I actually drew from the Archie comics gang, and so in 2nd grade, I began to draw and write a series of short comics featuring Chip the Bird, Freddie the Alligator, Debbie the Rabbit, I Can't Remember His Name the Cat and a few others that I also cannot possibly remember at this time... I think I actually copied some stories from Archie Comics (even at a young age, I had a pretty good sized collection--now I think I have about 50 various digests, comics and trade paperbacks... but that's another blog...)

Smashcut to three years later, I've left Ridgetop Elementary School in Austin, Texas, and am now residing in Mrs Wikel's 5th grade class at Samson Elementary School (I moved in the middle of my 4th grade year), and am still writing random things.  I think I wrote a poem to Misty Kimble, my first ever crush that wasn't Jo from Facts of Life, and I always was ready in Mrs Wikel's writing assignments that forced us to use vocabulary words from the week.  I even wrote a two page story in ten minutes once because I had procrastinated the assignment until literally the last minute, and as I got up to read it, I had to sorta make up the last sentence or two, then go back to my desk and scribble it down before turning it in.  #HumbleBrag indeed.

Transformers were all the rage when it came to being a kid, as was a book entitled "How to Eat Fried Worms".  So, I decided to write a take off of it called "How to Eat Fried Transformers".  Same concept, except the kids are different, and they are eating... you guessed it, Transformers.  And it was a complete story.  A terrible, stupid, ridiculous story, but still a story.

I also started getting into comic books, so naturally, I wanted to draw my own... so, I created... wait for it... wait for it... The Foodformers.  And yes, this is just like it sounds... food that turned into robots. 

Read that again. 

Food. 

That turned into robots.

I think I'll talk about the war between the Fruitibots and the Veggiecons on Dinnertrion in a different post, for the sake of not making this post 15K words...

Back in the day, networks would
make and air TV movies that
featured stars from the most popular
shows of the day... this was always
my favorite, mostly because of
the Nancy McKeon angle.

In junior high, I had a group of friends that I wrote about--specifically, I wrote them into stories, usually based on a movie I had seen recently... using my buddies Daniel, Clay, Greg, Jason, Monty and sometimes Chad, Michael & Johnny, through the glory of "Borrowed Fiction", we had a Goonies type adventure, a Commando mission where we rescued Monty from a bad guy (and I flew a plane!), a cruise caper and my favorite, a summer camp story with some elements (re: a heavy majority) borrowed from the movie "Poison Ivy".  No, not that one, I mean this one.  In that one, Daniel made out with a chick, Clay and Monty got into a karate battle with a bully, some chick named Lisa kissed me on the cheek and Greg met Millicent, and they ate cake.  I'm not making any of this up--this is directly from my memory.  Promise. 

And then, one night in 1990, I was spending the night at the aforementioned Greg's house.  He had a computer in his room, with this black screen and orange letters, which was all well and good--he also had this new thing called "Prodigy", which allowed me to get on this "on the line" thing through the telephone... but more impressive to me was the ability to type--not handwrite--things. 

SIDEBAR:  I had learned to type for the most part using the electric typewriter my parents had given me for my birthday some years before... I would end up taking typing classes in Mrs. Rials class a year or two later, but for now, it was a slower type and even some finger pecking.

Late in the evening, maybe 11p, or midnight, Greg was long asleep, and I sat down at his computer.  With the orange cursor blinking, I typed the words, "Dayton's Quest". 

I titled it "Dayton's Quest" before I even had a story, though like some writers, I knew what the story was before I typed a single letter. Heck, I had an ending, and even most of a middle, I just had to start and get the reader there.

So for the next three hours, I told the story of a villager named Dayton Petrydish, and his adventures with his best friend Flessa, as they attempted to rescue the fair Princess from the evil clutches of a bad guy who's name escapes me--and somewhere along the way, there was a wizard named Vernjox, a special sword and a wedding at the end where Vernjox turned into a condor and flew away.

It was hokey, and silly and cheesy.  And when I realized about 4am that I had no way of taking this story home, because he didn't have a printer... like a plunger, I didn't realize I needed it until I needed it.  I fell asleep exhausted, and when Greg and I awoke the next morning, he agreed to let me come back the next week so I could write the story down. And that's what I did the next weekend, over the course of 2 hours on a Saturday, I transcribed the story from the screen to 24 pieces of regular lined loose leaf paper.

"Dayton's Quest" was important, because it was my first real, true piece of fiction, fiction that didn't involve anyone I knew, fiction that required me to discuss the characters, describe them, build them for the reader...  this wasn't like writing little one and two page stories in 5th grade using vocabulary words, this was a real short story.  It helped me understand, even if I didn't realize it then, that I had a knack for it. 

A year or two later, in December of '92, I believe, Mrs. Daniels asked us to set a goal for the new year.   Some people wrote down "Lose 10 pounds" and someone else wrote "Save up for (whatever they were saving for)" and another jotted down, "Learn guitar".  I was hoping that Julie Wise would write down "Go out with d$" because that would have been the easiest A she'd ever earned, but alas.  For me, I wrote down my goal to say "Write a 150 page story". 

Turns out, Mrs. Daniels took these very seriously, and gave us three weeks to finish the assignment.  After much protest by everyone in the class--especially those who wrote down unrealistic goals of learning to tap dance or hiking some mountainous trail--we were told we had to show the effort.  So, I took "Dayton's Quest" from 24 pages to 138 pages.  

The battle scenes got a little longer, the climax was a little longer and more tense, the romantic build up between the Princess CannotRememberHerName and Dayton was a little sweeter, I think I threw in a subplot with best friend Flessa and more... I was still 12 pages short, so I then tacked on another short story, "The Long and Winding Road" (more on that one later) to the end of it, making it a total of 152 pages long... and I got an A.  Woot. 

So there's the first part of my writing story.  The second part will be here in a few days, so I hope you come back to see me again... and let me know--are you a writer?  And how did you get started?

nothing to blog about

I sat down, laptop open, earbuds in, at a few minutes before midnight, trying to decide what to write about tonight. I've got several ideas brewing, but all will take longer than a few minutes, so while Toni Braxton's "You Mean the World to Me" plays, I am thinking...

...Toni. I loved Toni Braxton in the 90s. Well, I mean, I guess I love her now too, but back in the day, she had this perfection trifecta, this trio of amazing songs that went 1-2-3... "Another Sad Love Song"... then "You Mean the World To Me"... then "Breathe Again". If you add in "Love Shoulda Brought You Home" from the "Boomerang" soundtrack to the beginning of that list, it gets even better. She was amazing.

What you have to know about me is sometimes I revel in nostalgia. More than I should, but it's true. I think I'm like most people in saying that music... more than movies, more that TV shows, more than books... but music, takes me back.

I hear Toni Braxton and one of the aforementioned songs, suddenly I'm sitting in the Adams Student Center, talking to Ginny Kochan over cold pizza during lunch, or I'm sitting on the couch by Bobby Black, playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out on my Nintendo in my dorm room...

...so back to my ideas for a blog. Heck, it's already after midnight, and I still have no idea what to blog about. I wrote a comment on my friend Writer Chris Holmes' blog, and it was a pretty good stream of thought, so maybe I'll type that out. But that's too deep for tonight. Maybe tomorrow night...

...right now, Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" is on. I mean, that song? Just cool. I don't know anything else the band has ever done, not sure I want to know, but this one song is so good. It's one of The Lovely Steph Leann's favorite songs, like, ever. It's also fun to sing too--and that's important. A song has to be fun to sing to really make it enjoyable.

Come on, sing it with me... "I am everything you want! I am everything you need! I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be! I say all the right things at exactly the right time, but I mean nothing to you and I don't know why!" ...

...back to the blog. Just read an article that a house was built on the wrong lot. A dream home for a couple, to the tune of $680,000, on a lot that cost 135K when they bought it, but now appraises for 355K in the neighborhood... and it's not on that lot, it's one lot over. Cause the builders messed it all up...

...there's this movie called "Mo Money", starring Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, a pre-Clueless but still just as fine Stacey Dash, and a few other people you may not know. Circa 1993, it's silly and stupid, but I freakin' love that movie. My friend Tonya Windham and I traveled to Panama City Beach for the day (my hometown was 1 hour and 10 minutes from the beach, so this wasn't a long trip) during my senior year of high school... it rained some during the day, so during the rain delay, we caught a flick... and yes, it was this one. We laughed quite a bit, and for whatever reason, it stuck with me.

The only reason I bring up? The soundtrack is absolutely incredible... Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross, Ralph Tresvant, Color Me Badd and the song I'm listening to now, MC Lyte's "Ice Cream Dream." Yep, I just said "MC Lyte" and "Ice Cream Dream". Now that I'm older, I listen to the lyrics, and realize it's a little racy. Or a lot racy. But I still love it...




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...oh, sorry about that. OutKast's "BOB" video just came on. It's done now. Next up on the random playlist, Extreme's "Hole Hearted", which is one of my favorite 90s tunes. That takes me back to 10th grade, hanging out with my few friends back then. Of course, I had just joined the band, so I had just become a band geek.

I wasn't a popular kid in junior and high school. I mean, I wasn't un-popular, but I think I was like, second tier. You know, you had the more popular kids on top, the cheerleaders like Stephanie Phillips and the beauties of the class like Jennifer Lambert and the athletes like Michael Creech and Daniel Stephenson and even that one guy that just everyone likes, like Chris McCall.

And one level below that, you have the... the popular runner-ups, where if the popular kids can't fulfill their duties, those of us on the 2nd tier would step right in. If we are all going to a party together, I'm the guy that would get picked over some of the lesser bottom feeders in the serf group, but I'd easily get left in favor of Rodney Hornsby or Jason Smith.

By the way, Kid Rock's "Cowboy" is on right now.

Anyway, I'm okay with where I ended up in the hierarchy. It allowed me to make more friends, because I wasn't just sticking with one single group. And I still consider my closest friends, at least in my grade, to be Tonya, Chris and my buddy Greg... I was also good friends with two different Ryans in a different grade, and Jason Howell a few grades back.

"Light My Candle" from the Rent Soundtrack. Spike Lee is shooting down the street.

Then, of course, there was Julie Wise, or as I should call her, The Clouds In My Coffee Official High School Crush Julie Wise. I would imagine there are more and more newer readers to the blog, and are seeing the name "Julie Wise" for the first time here... nearly everyone has that one person that they kinda like, or kinda love for the better part of their high school years. Julie Wise was mine. More on that later...

...since I have nothing to blog about tonight, I guess I can start talking about #40forForty... or maybe it's #Fortyfor40? No, #40for40? #40440? No, that last one is just confusing.


Anyway, as Old Crow Medicine Show strums along to "Wagon Wheel", I'll just tell you that #40forForty is coming very soon. In one month.

...and I'm sorry I have nothing to blog about tonight. I failed in my writing challenge. Off to bed, I'll try again tomorrow.

things carly simon made me say late at night

Its two minutes shy of 11:30. And this is what is known as writer’s block… well, maybe. Sort of. I mean, I wrote a post on Friday, so its only been a few days… I guess I should write something, working on my 20,000 words for January. I’m getting close… you might say “well, you just wrote about movies and stuff, so that only sort of counts”, but I think it counts completely. They are my thoughts, my words, and I made sure not to count anything that I quoted from my earlier posts.

Its 1131 now. Someone on Facebook made a comment about my blog, telling me “You’re so vain. You probably think this comment is about you.” We bantered about lyrics from the song. Of course, as probably 98.7% of you know, that’s where the title of the blog comes from…

 “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee… clouds in my coffee and… you’re so vain…”

Of course, then I had to play the song. Put the earbuds in, turn on some Carly Simon, and type away.

Type away about what? I have no idea!!

I feel like every time I go to Wikipedia, they are asking for a little change. I always feel like I should contribute, because darn if I don’t use it just about every day, multiple times per day. When I watch a movie, many times I’ll look there and IMDb, just to read facts and such about the film… box office returns, trivia, production information. I’m really a nerd like that.

Yeah, this looks a bit dated, don't it?

“In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”, from Carly Simon just played and ended. Now its “Nobody Does It Better” from what I’m positive is “The Spy Who Loved Me”, a James Bond film.

Never been a James Bond fan, really. I mean, I liked the Daniel Craig films… “Skyfall” and “Casino Royale” and not really sure what the heck a “Quantum of Solace” is, but I liked it. Pierce Brosnan was not too bad in “Goldeneye”. I’m sure if I saw more of the Sean Connery ones, I’d like them more.

 “I Haven’t Got Time for the Pain” is on. I don’t know the album, but its such a great song. A great, “suck it up, Im heartbroken, but I got junk to do, so I’m gonna suck it up and get ‘er done.” Boom.

Boom is a great word. Boomsauce is an even better. I use Boom randomly. I think I’ll incorporate Boomsauce in there too.

So, when I was growing up, I heard about this syndrome called Toxic Shock Syndrome. It was this thing you could get if you were a chick and you improperly used feminine hygiene products. I’ve never heard of anyone ever dying of Toxic Shock Syndrome, and I never hear about it anymore. Is it still a thing?

Milo’s chicken fingers are so good. Milo’s is the burger joint in our area that serves their burgers with this brown gravy sauce on it that I don’t like, so I always get it plain, adding my own condiments, like ketchup and mustard and mayo...

"You Belong To Me” just came on. I know it best from the credits on the late Brittany Murphy’s “Little Black Book” a great little underrated, forgotten comedy with Holly Hunter and Peter from “Office Space”, who’s real name esca… Ron Livingston! Yeah, him. Anyway, it’s a great song.

Yes, its got the same title as the Taylor Swift song, and I probably like that song a little bit better, mostly because I am on the downslide to 40 and am a Taylor Swift fan and I’m #notsorrynotsorry. As a matter of fact, I'm going to listen to “You Belong to Me” right now.

Of course, it would help if I remembered that the Taylor Swift song was actually called “You Belong WITH Me”, not “TO Me”. Not quite as possessive.

She wears short skirts and I wear t-shirts, she’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers… this song makes me happy. When I hear it, especially if I watch the cutie-patootie video, it makes me think of high school, and how 16 year old me was the male Taylor Swift and I was singing to Julie Wise. That didn’t work out, and that’s okay.

Wasn’t I talking about Milo’s?

Yes, their fries are good too. And they just started doing chicken fingers a few months ago could have been a year ago, and I dig them. Dig ‘em a lot.

If I quoted Taylor Swift’s lyrics above, do those words count towards my total? Okay, I’m a purist, so I’ll discount those sixteen words. Does t-shirt count as two words? Its hyphenated, so

Holy crap “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears just came across my iTunes shuffle…. What. This song is so good. I won’t quote it or sing it here because I don’t want to have to count the word total and subtract it from my overall total. Too much work.

That’s the hard part about Milo’s… too much work. If its too go, I have to park, and in my lap, doctor it up with the condiments, and then what do I do with the empty packets of stuff? Toss them in the bag, sure, but like, I’ve got fries in there. Chicken fingers are less messy, but I can’t eat those in the car.

I was eating something in the car not too long ago, and like, I had on a white sweater, and I dripped ketchup out. Thankfully, it landed on a napkin, and I was so pleased that it didn’t land on the right side of my shirt where I thought it did. I didn’t look at the left side until a few minutes later, and yup, there it was. A little red splotch.

Splotch. What a weird word. Makes me think of the character Elmo Blatch in the movie “The Shawshank Redemption”, literally my 2nd favorite film of all time (#TheDave500).

Anyway, this red splotch was on my sweater, and I wiped it up, or blotted it anyway, not realizing some had gotten on my lanyard that I was wearing…

My new job requires us all to wear lanyards now, and my picture is a stark reminder of the fact my face gains weight faster than the rest of my gloriously pudgy frame.

..and when I was wiping up the spot on my sweater, I was moving the lanyard which was spreading more ketchup onto my sweater. It was a nasty business.

“Sunrise” by Simply Red is on. I’m addicted to this song, don’t ask me why. I watched the video of it recently, which was a live performance of Simply Red, though I think its just one guy now, singing it. He looks reeeeeeally old, which isn’t surprising because I remember their stuff like “Holding Back the Years” from the late 80s.

Anyway, towards the end of the song, this chicks sings lines from “I Can’t Go For That (no can do)” by Hall and Oates, which “Sunrise” samples.

Sunrise samples.

Sunrise sampler.

Mmm. Now I want to go to Cracker Barrel, or Waffle House.

Apparently the Grammys were on tonight. And I so didn’t care. Pharrell apparently wore a big hat. It looked like the Arby’s hat. So.

I tried Taco Bell’s Cinnabon Delights the other day. I watched “Undercover Boss” with Cinnabon’s CEO chick, Kat Cole, who I follow on Twitter, not that that matters, just worth mentioning and when I watched it, I suddenly wanted Cinnabon… and Taco Bell was as good as any… they were so delish.

I just said Delish.

"You Give Good Love" by Whitney Houston is on my iPod now. If you don't think I'm sitting here, mouthing the words quietly so as not to wake up the family upstairs, yet doing it with over exaggerated head movements that can only come at 12:05 at night, then you are crazy. You give good love to me, honey, never too much will ever be...

My friend Michelle had a huge problem with this song, mostly because it was so grammatically faulty.

I love Whitney Houston. No kidding. I also love Cinnabon Delights from Taco Bell. And Carly Simon music. And Walt Disney World. And my Deuce buddies. And WWE Royal Rumble, which we watched tonight. I don't love Toxic Shock Syndrome. But I do love Whitney Houston.

And yet, I still said Delish up there.

Geez, its late. Crap it all.

Perhaps tomorrow I won’t have writer’s block.

(17,888 words written for #500Words... 2,112 words left in #20KWordsInJanuary)