Merry Christmas Friends

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We're heading up to Utah today to see Grandma and all my aunts, uncles and cousins! I can't wait to throw my first snowball.

In the meantime, enjoy these holiday treats:

I'll be Home for Christmas.mp3

The Christmas Song.mp3

I Heard the Bells on Christmas.mp3

Just Like Christmas.mp3

Santas Too Fat For the Hula Hoop.mp3

Last Christmas.mp3

Wonderful Christmastime.mp3

Many faces of Penny

I don't know what my daughter will think of me in 20 years, but if there's one thing she won't be able to complain about is lack of pictures of her as a baby. She's got a big camera in her face all the time, but that's just because she's so damn cute. So really, it's her fault. I mean, look at her. Look at those awesome faces she makes. I just can't help myself. I loved this series of shots from last month (Mel took them, and did a fantastic job). I channeled my inner-Andy Warhol when I put this together. I suppose she's my mini factory girl.

Enjoy.

I got busted

A funny incident between the wife and I the other day. Some conversations may or may not have been embellished a little.

INT. RONI HICKS - ROB'S OFFICE - DAY.

ROB sits at his desk, Christmas music plays quietly from his laptop. ROB (fluffy, early to mid thirties, messy hair). GEORGE (forties, cuddly, bear of a man, longish hair) is putting golf balls into a golf ball return. Muffled music begins playing, it's "Where is my mind" from the Pixies.

ROB
That's the lil wifey calling (to GEORGE).

ROB answers his cell phone.

ROB

Yo.

MELISSA
Hey.

ROB
How's it going?

MELISSA
Fine. Tired.

ROB
Feelin' any better?

MELISSA
A little. My throat doesn't hurt as much, but
I'm still sneezing like nuts.

ROB
That sucks, I'm sorry. At least you're throat is better.
How's the little Peanut? Did you guys sleep okay?
I didn't wake you up when I left did I?

MELISSA
No, we slept pretty good, actually. That medicine
kinda knocked me out a little, I think. P is good,
just chillin' on me right now, slobbering through
another outfit—her third today already.

ROB
Awesome.

MELISSA
Oh, by the way, is Mark Bangerter your art director
friend who got that job in New York?

ROB
Yeah. Well, it's in Boston, but yeah. Why?

MELISSA
Well, I think you've been cheating on me
with a mistress, and he knows her.
Her name is Tiffany, isn't it?

ROB
(pause)
Huh?

MELISSA
Well, Mark's wedding announcement just
showed up in the mail, but it was addressed to
Rob and Tiffany Atkinson

ROB
Huh. That's random. Who's Tiffany?

MELISSA
(obviously kidding, but playing jealous)

That's what I'd like to know!
I think it's your secret mistress, and now
the cat's out of the bag.

ROB
If I did have a mistress named Tiffany,
I don't know how Mark would know her,
he lives 3000 miles away. Plus, I would think
that he would have known not to send her
mail to my house. I've told him not to do that.

MELISSA
Well, you're busted.

ROB
Damn. I'm caught, you got me.

MELISSA
So, who is Tiffany?

ROB
I haven't a clue. I've never even been
out with anyone named Tiffany.
Not even on a first date.

MELISSA
All right, I'll let you off this time, you're lucky.

ROB
Thanks for not leaving me. You're a peach.
Love you.

MELISSA.
Love you too. Barely.

INT. ATKINSON HOME - FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT.

ROB is sitting at his desk, working on the computer. He is answering emails, surfing the web, etc. MELISSA (late 20's, gorgeous) walks by the computer, and glances at the screen.

MELISSA
Ha, I knew it, you do know a Tiffany! (Pointing at computer screen).

Located on the screen is not only an email from a Tiffany Christensen, but also, ROB had just finished replying to said email. TIFFANY is ROB'S cousin. Well, not really. TIFFANY'S parents and ROB'S parents went to college together about 48 years ago, and have been best friends ever since. The families are so tight, that they call each other aunt, uncle, cousin, etc.

MELISSA
See, it's all true, you have a mistress named Tiffany.
You lied to me you sonofabitch.
Who is Tiffany Christensen?

ROB
My cousin. You know, Sid and Brad's sister?

MELISSA
Yeah, sure. But she's not really your cousin!

ROB
Yep, you're right, Sherlock Holmes, you've figured me out.
I do have a mistress named Tiffany.
My cousin Tiffany. And she just emailed me for
our address so she could send you and I her family's
Christmas card. It all adds up. Once again. I'm busted.
Damn, woman, you're too good.

THE END

So, the moral of the story is, if your friend is going get you in trouble by revealing your fake mistress to your wife, make sure that your fake mistress ends up being your fake cousin. Got it? Good.

It's funny to me that my friend somehow thought my wife's name was Tiffany, even though he's met her three or four times. Granted it's been three years or so since Mark was at our house, but still. However, I assume it was an honest mistake, like when you're writing or typing one name, but happen to look at or hear another at the same time, so you write/type the wrong one. I'm going to give him (or his fiance) the benefit of the doubt. Plus, look on the bright side, if the mistake hadn't been made, then I wouldn't have had this slightly fun, slightly boring little screenplay to write, and you wouldn't have wasted the last 45 minutes of your day reading it. To me that's a brightside, you may feel different.

Whatever.

Oh yeah, by the way, here is the envelope, in case you all needed to see the offending evidence.

Envelope.jpg

I'm back. I hope.

I'd like to apologize to my devoted readers (all three of them) for being such a slacker lately. It seems, for whatever reason, that since my beautiful baby girl was born, I don't feel much like writing. At home I just like to be with her as much as possible, but even when not with her, I've been in a funk. I haven't felt like writing the blog, or in my journal, or anything for that matter. This has even carried over to work, where I've been in a creative malaise of late. The scary part is that I can't explain it, and I haven't been able to shake it. But today I am going to try and power through. They say that when you are stumped, you just have to write. Write anything. Even if it sucks, just to get it out there. So that is what I'm doing. I hope it's been worth the wait. And I hope to be able to break the cloud in my mind, and have more to say.

Okay, on with the post.

So a few weeks ago I found myself scanning through an old Sports Illustrated from 1980, and I found an excellent ad featuring an old "friend". I meant to write about it, but just haven't had the motivation to do so (as explained above).

I got quite a kick out of it, and hope you do too.



If you have trouble reading the type, it says,

"He's always one step ahead. Listen: 'I love today's western look, right down to the boots. And Dingo knows about the West.' Like OJ Simpson, we mean what we say, and what we say is: Nobody Puts Leather Together Like Dingo."

Wow, where do I begin with this one?

I suppose I'll start with the headline. Yep, you're right, OJ is a dingo. He's about the biggest dingo in the world. And why does he have three legs? Did this come out in his trial? Is this how he was able to get away, because they didn't check the footprint of the third leg? Is that extra leg what made him such a great football player? I feel like these are questions that need answering.

As for the copy, he's always "one step ahead", huh? Well, that was true for the past 13 or so years, but it looks like he started to slow down in those Dingos, because karma finally caught up with him this week. Does OJ always mean what he says? Like when he said that he was going to devote his whole life to finding the person that killed Nicole and Ron, did he mean that? Did he mean that he was going to search every golf course on earth for them? Perhaps that's what he was doing in that hotel room in Vegas a few months ago. Maybe he got a tip that the "real" killer was going to be in that room. Well, in a way, he was right, because he was in that room. Nice work, Juice, you've finally found the killer.

And at what point did he go from these brown Dingo boots to the black Bruno Magli shoes? Did Dingo get mad at him? I'm sure that if they did, they were grateful to not have had bloody Dingo footprints all over the cement. Although, perhaps they would have appreciated the sudden exposure that would have come from it.

I was hoping this ad could answer a few questions, but it seems to have caused me to ask more. But that's okay, it was fun anyway—I quite enjoyed the blast from the past, and hope you did too.

Credit goes to Georgie Boy for providing the Sports Illustrated.