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(01/31/02 4:28am)
If I have to watch Subway's "Clay Henry" commercial just one more time during the NFL playoffs, I seriously am going to consider driving to the nearest Burger King, ordering two double Whoppers, finding both Clay Henry and Jared Fogle, and stuffing the fat-laced burgers through their pseudo-virgin throats. \nOK, that's just totally extreme.\nI will, however, complain really loudly to anybody within hearing distance. And I may even stamp my foot in frustration. That will show Jared Fogle.\nFor you lucky souls out there who have no clue who Jared Fogle is, stop reading this column. There is no need for you to delve into the sick, diabolical world of a sub sandwich peddler. Famous for losing 245 pounds in under a year and his amazing ability to stand in front of a camera and smile, Jared's newly-lanky presence has adorned virtually every Subway commercial in the past year.\nI'm not exactly sure why Jared annoys me so much, though. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the sneaking suspicion I have that somehow, someway this guy has gone on more dates than me, and that is just completely distressing and unfair. \nSome say I should appreciate Jared because he went to IU, the lovely academic facility that takes pleasure in greedily gobbling up all of my money. My answer to those detractors is simple: so did Mark Cuban, the man who recently managed a Dairy Queen store for a couple of hours to prove that he is as insane as everybody thinks he is. \nI can't stay mad at Jared, though. Not since I've came across this picture of him standing between two giant sub sandwiches. Which wouldn't be so bad, if the huge meat-filled delights didn't have arms, eyes, a nose, a widely-smiling mouth, and to top it all off, tennis shoes.\nI'm especially interested in where the arms came from. If I find out that Subway's turkey meat is blessed with the ability to grow its own arms, I'm never going within a mile of a Subway ever again. That's a promise.\nI'm irresistibly drawn to this picture. Why would any man consent to being thrust between two such hideous monstrosities? Obviously, Jared Fogle has sold his soul to Subway. \n Now, I know many of you didn't realize that Subway was in the soul acquisition industry and that's probably because I just came up with that fact a couple of seconds ago. However, it makes perfect sense to me, and I can't even figure out what on earth is going on during \n Teletubbies, a show created for kids still trying to figure out what the toilet is for. I'm especially perplexed about why the creators have replaced the sun in the sky with a giant, laughing baby's head. I want to say it has something to do with surrealistic influences, but I know I should really just turn the television off and never stop on that channel ever again.\nWhat was I writing about? Oh yeah. Jared's soul. Actually, I've changed my mind about the whole selling his soul thing. That was just a bit ludicrous. The only thing Jared sold was his story, and for a Whopper-load of money. I can't blame a man for going after the Benjamins. Even if he does annoy me. And eats sandwiches that quite possibly can grow arms.
(11/15/01 4:04am)
It's 5 a.m. Saturday morning and I'm standing outside Foster-Harper in my socked feet watching a fireman through the basement window as he looks for fire under a seat cushion.\nThis is too surreal. How did I end up here?\nOh yeah.\nMy roommate has his girlfriend over this weekend and for some odd reason, they don't want me and my little brother, who is visiting from home, in the room with them.\nI can't figure out why. Maybe they're playing a highly competitive game of Parcheesi and don't want to be bothered. Something like that.\nI guess I've just never been the most perceptive person.\nFor example, one time a friend was trying to get me to stop telling a particularly embarrassing story about him by running his index finger across his neck. Unfortunately, that reminded me of the time he got his finger stuck up his nose, so, of course, I had to tell that story as well. \nAnyway, my brother and I decided to go sleep in the dorm room of two of his friends. We all finally dozed off about 4:15 a.m.\n4:30 a.m.: BRAAAAAAAAANG\nI wake up and wonder why there is a horrible screeching sound emanating from the walls. About three seconds later, I realize what is happening.\nA troupe of angry alarm clocks is at the door after me for my persistent and annoying use of the snooze button. Another three seconds pass.\nOr it could be a fire alarm.\nI get up from my comfortable position on the hard concrete floor and struggle to keep my eyes open. Unbeknownst to me, however, there is a team of tiny sandmen tying little weights to my eyelashes determined not to let me have proper use of my vision. I eventually am able to swipe them away like Lilliputians, and ... I really need to learn how to stop going off on odd tangents.\nThe four of us march out of the room, but not before I forget to put shoes on and get my keys and wallet. We're on the ninth floor and since everyone knows that fires are intelligent beings and go after the elevators first, we have to take the stairs down to the bottom.\nWe finally get outside about 10 minutes later and I immediately miss my shoes more than I have ever missed anything in my entire life. Even more than home-cooked food, and that is definitely saying something there. I believe it says that cafeteria food is horrible, but I won't back up that statement for fear of finding a giant bug in my next sub sandwich.\n So here I am standing in the freezing cold watching this fireman look for fire in the strangest places, like under the couch and table.\nBut I shouldn't be telling him how to do his job. I wouldn't want a fireman to tell me how to do my job.\n Random Fireman: "You should write a column about a fireman who saves the day and is elected President of the World and owns a dalmatian farm, which turns into his secret base."\nMe: "I don't think so. Go look under a couch somewhere."\nThey finally let us back in around 5:30 a.m. after finding out that there was not a fire under any of the furniture in the building. Better safe than sorry I suppose.
(11/08/01 4:09am)
This weekend, Bloomington met my family.\n I would like to use the next 500 words to apologize.\nOK, it wasn't quite that bad. It was just a nice little visit by my mom, her mom and her mom. Four generations of insanity all in one place.\nThey arrived on Saturday night at about 6 p.m. and were very well-behaved on my floor. I was proud of them. "Very well-behaved" means not doing anything that would permanently damage my emotional stability. Like showing pictures of me as a little boy in my tap dance outfits, all of which were equipped with a lovely pink sash, to the people on my floor. That didn't happen. I was thrilled.\nAfter that, we went to Pizza Hut. Everything was going along smoothly until my mother decided to try to set me up with the waitress. This isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, this happens just about every time we go to a restaurant and are served by a female waitress about my age. I've come to the realization that my mother obviously has no confidence whatsoever in my ability to get a date on my own.\nActually, what it really comes down to is her insatiable desire to have grandchildren as soon as possible. If I was a girl, I guarantee my mother would be sending me brochures from sperm banks.\nAnyway, by the time we were getting ready to leave, my family had already pulled enough information out of the waitress to make a KGB agent proud. Deciding the girl was suitable, my great-grandmother shouted my phone number to her as we exited the Pizza Hut. Yes, I'm that pitiful. My 85-year-old grandmother does my pimping for me.\nWe next headed to the hotel they were staying at to have our usual game of Scrabble. It's Saturday night, and I'm sitting in a hotel room getting beaten badly in Scrabble by my mom and grandma. At least I'm beating the 85-year-old. There's something to brag about. A journalism major with an English second-concentration barely defeating an elderly but extremely young-looking woman who never attended college.\nThe next day was the Hoops for Hope Basketball Tournament I was competing in. The first game was a blowout, so my two single grandmothers decided to spend their time more wisely than rooting for a lost cause. So, they knitted. Not really. Actually, I later found out from my mother that they were checking out the shirtless guys playing against us. Let that be a warning to all future shirtless basketball players: My two available grandmothers could very well be checking you out.\n The second game was much closer, and thus, my family rooted for us while checking out the shirtless guys we were playing against. They really got into that second game. My mom was egging me on, my grandma was yelling at the refs, my great-grandma was coming up with cute nicknames for my teammates. Our team could feel the support.\nWe ended up losing in the second overtime, but before leaving my mom and great-grandma insisted on giving a hug to the players on my team who looked a little downtrodden. They probably wanted to give hugs to the shirtless guys on the other team too, but I was proud of them -- they resisted.
(11/01/01 4:15am)
It's 2:30 a.m. on Halloween and I'm sitting at my computer wearing khakis, an undershirt, a bathrobe and a tie around my head. Yes, I do need help.\nActually, I'm just being a good humor columnist. A humor columnist always needs to be busy. We'll take last weekend as an example.\nFriday, 5 p.m.: I'm at the International House watching some Malaysian students putting on what is quite possibly the best puppet show I have ever seen. It was like "Reading Rainbow" on Ecstasy. You could just see the shadows of the puppets, which made it look really cool and creepy, and it was filled with more innuendos than last year's presidential debates:\nGore: "And I promise to save the national parks while making sure there is enough wood for everybody."\nBush: (snickers)\nGore: "What is so funny?"\nBush: "Wood" (starts laughing out loud)\nGore: "I'm going to lose this thing, aren't I?"\nBush: "Wood" (laughs even harder)\nGore: (sighs)\n8 p.m.: I go to see "Clerks" at the Indiana Memorial Union with a big group. But the sound is so garbled, it sounds like two extremely large elephants are getting it on behind the movie screen. For some odd reason, that just totally distracted me from paying attention to the film. I believe we walked out after about five minutes of erotic pachyderm noises.\nSaturday, midnight: A friend from my floor takes me to a party in an attempt to cheer me up after my traumatic experience with the elephants. But he's not aware that we are headed to a costume party. So, I'm at this party in between Winnie the Pooh and Pocahontas dressed up as the idiot who didn't know he was going to a costume party. Classic.\n7 a.m.: I wake up after about four hours of sleep because my body has some kind of vendetta against me and does not permit me to sleep after the sun has risen. So, I do the only logical thing and drift in and out of sleep until 10 a.m. \nNoon: I decide to do something useful finally, and head to the Student Recreational Sports Center for some basketball. I get shown up by a guy half my size. That's like Verne Troyer beating up Shaq. Except neither of them are funny or should be allowed on television or in my columns. In fact, there should be laws. I hereby apologize for mentioning them.\n4:45 p.m.: On my way to Auer Hall to attend a guitar concert, I pass by someone who looks exactly like Garrett Matthews, a columnist for the Evansville Courier and person who I interned under for six months. Garrett is the only person who has ever threatened to kick me with Darth Vader steel-toed boots if I didn't get my assignment in on time. \n Hopefully, he's the last.\n 5 p.m.: Get to Auer Hall only to find out the concert has been cancelled. Classic.\n 8 p.m.: Arrive at the "Potpourri of Arts in the African American Tradition" a tad late, so I'm forced to sit on the floor of the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre. Halfway through the IU Soul Revue's rendition of "Money, Money, Money", I have a revelation. "I'm sitting on a theater floor listening to "Money, Money, Money." That was the revelation.\nSunday, midnight: I'm sitting in a lounge trying to explain my irrational behavior to a friend while wearing a tie wrapped around my head because I'm dressed to go to a costume party I never ended up going to as John Cusack from "Better Off Dead." This, my friends, is the life of a humor columnist.
(10/18/01 4:46am)
Last week, I was invited to what I thought was called an "acoustic hookah" concert and, of course, I agreed. How can anyone turn down an offer to go to an acoustic hookah concert?\nThe only problem was that I had no idea what a hookah was. I assumed it to be some kind of long, tribal horn used by the Flintstones, but this is probably because my brain was eaten away by watching too many cartoons growing up.\nSo I wasn't exactly sure what a hookah was, but I do like orchestras for the most part, so I knew it couldn't be that bad.\nWe walked up to the place where the concert was being held, and I immediately knew something was up. The place was crawling with an infestation of young people sporting dreadlocks and swirling, multi-colored T-shirts. Three out of every four people were wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt. I never really figured this crowd to be the orchestra type.\nBut I ignored this and walked inside the concert hall and paid for my ticket. As we walked toward the seats, we passed a booth selling records for some band called ekoostik hookah.\nI'd like to say I figured out what was happening at this point, but unfortunately, I put clues together about as well as Inspector Gadget. (Yes, that was the second cartoon reference in this column. Yes, I realize what this says about me.)\nIt wasn't until I asked my friend why this didn't seem like a normal orchestra and she shot me the strangest look ever that the pieces started to come together.\nI wasn't at an orchestra at all. No, I was at a concert for a jam band named ekoostik hookah. Furthermore, there is no instrument called a hookah. A hookah is another term for a bong. I'm now so ready for the Jeopardy category, "Things You Could Have Gone Through Life Without Knowing."\nIt was at this point I looked down at my clothes. I am wearing a buttoned-down shirt, a pair of pressed khakis and some nice shoes. I look around me and realize that I am the only one in this auditorium wearing any of these things. I'm more out of place than that time I accidentally wandered onto the "Sesame Street" set. That was embarrassing. \nThe band was actually quite good, though. But I was busy concentrating on one of the guitarists who honestly looked like he belonged in the Chuck E. Cheese Band (formerly known as the Showbiz Pizza band). His body swayed like a puppet with a couple of strings missing.\nI have a theory of how the Chuck E. Cheese Band negatively affects young children, but this column can only be 500 words, so maybe some other time. I will say that my mother used to tell me to be good or the Chuck E. Cheese Band would come and get me -- a thought that still haunts me today.\nOverall, I once again proved that I am a big idiot. But at least I'm a big idiot who now knows what a hookah is.
(09/20/01 5:09am)
I opened the IDS this Tuesday straight to the opinion section, and the first thing that caught my eye was a headline that read, "My first date."\nWhat kind of pathetic loser would be dumb enough to admit he went on his first date during college?\nThat would be me.\nNow, the real question is why anyone would prominently display such an embarrassing fact on the IDS for all to see.\nIt's because my subconscious has it out for me.\nEver since I was a little boy, my subconscious (who I affectionately call Freddy) has been trying to kill me through embarrassment. He would have succeeded by now, too, if I didn't find the embarrassing things I do so funny. \nI'm not too sure why Freddy hates me so. Personally, I blame the pureed peas my mother fed me when I was baby. That stuff looks so gross. That's the real problem with America's youth today -- baby food. I guarantee you that if mothers started feeding their children pureed chocolate cake, young people would be a lot better adjusted. But that's just my humble and totally stupid opinion.\nI have collected some evidence to prove that Freddy is against me. \n(The very fact that I'm trying to prove my subconscious has a vendetta against me probably is a telling sign of mental illness, but I'll worry about that in a later column.)\nEvidence 1: I have conversations in my sleep. This fact is well-documented, and has been the comedic topic of many a family reunion. Because I'm sleeping, I don't remember these conversations in the morning (duh), but I'm guessing since Freddy is in charge, they went something like this.\nMom: "Honey, are you awake?"\nMe: "Man, I really hate pureed peas."\nMom: "What?"\nMe: "I'm pretty sure I'm adopted, and that my real parents own a pet monkey."\nMom: "Good night, Joe."\nEvidence 2: Freddy uses my pride to make sure that I complete the tasks he sets me upon.\nFor example, last winter my Dad asked me if I wanted to go snowboarding, knowing very well that every time I try a sport in which something is blocking my feet from touching the ground, I get injured. Of course, Freddy answers "yes" before my conscious (who Freddy affectionately calls Dummy Head) can think it through. Then my pride kicks in and won't let me back out.\nAs a result, I'm now the only person to ever have to be driven down the mountain strapped to an emergency snowmobile because I busted my head open getting off the chair lift. That's like getting injured while putting your football uniform on. Sigh.\nEvidence 3: Actually, I don't think I can come up with anything else. Crap.\nNo matter what Freddy does, I simply can't hate him back. Mainly, this is because that would mean I hate myself, and that's just too messed up for me to think about right now at 8 a.m.\nSo, it seems I'm doomed to embarrassing situations, a constantly red face, and moments where I want to hide in a box labeled George Washington (no one would ever think to look there). Yes, I'm doomed to the life of a humor columnist.
(09/18/01 4:40am)
A great tragedy befell America Tuesday, Sept. 11, but that doesn't mean that wonderful, exciting and even humorous things stop happening, nor should it.\nFor example, embarrassing as it is for me to say this, I went on my first date Wednesday afternoon. I would love to say how it went, but honestly, at the moment, I have no idea. I'm guessing this is probably because I\'m writing this column on the Tuesday night before. Man, I hate deadlines.\nNow, one has to wonder how a funny, nice, Heath Ledger look-alike like me (hopefully, they don't put my picture next to the column this time) has never been on a date. It was actually quite easy. It consisted of me being too shy to ask girls out, and girls not recognizing my existence.\nSeriously, one time during Home Economics in middle school I was making a chocolate cake with three of the girls from the cheerleading team (don't ask me how this happened...my guess was that they were being punished for talking during Mrs. Baum's directions).\nAnyway, I smeared fudge underneath my eyes, turned to the girls, and said, "Hey look. I'm a football player. You all want me, don't ya?"\nFor some odd reason they totally ignored my valid question.\nIt was as if I wasn't even there.\nActually, I did ask a young woman out before. In response, she turned pale as Michael Jackson and walked back inside her door. I thought about knocking on the door to ask whether that was a yes or no, but Jiminy Cricket jumped on my shoulder before I could knock and made it clear to me that she wasn't interested.\nHe then slapped me in the face. I thought that was uncalled for.\nAt the moment, I'm a little nervous. Wait, I think I made a mistake there. Yup, I sure did.\nI just looked in Webster's Dictionary and it turns out "little" does not mean "so nervous I've about chewed through the end of my pen faster than those little squirrels around here which some people refer to as chipmunks, but I prefer to call little squirrels".\nOK, so I'm a little more than a little nervous. I don't see what I'm so worried about. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?\nScenario: Were at the restaurant and having a wonderful discussion when I suddenly develop a case of amnesia and cant remember what on earth we were talking about. She asks me if I agree with what she just said. \nI respond, "Of course the little squirrels are going to take over the school led by none other the biggest little squirrel of all: Bobby Knight."\nThat's probably not the worst that could happen, but I'm willing to bet it's the most embarrassing.\nMy face will turn red at times during the date, at other times my tongue will be tied more than a pretzel (ooh...good metaphor there Joe...that's gonna earn you a Pulitzer), but I'm expecting to have a nice time and I hope my date will, too.\nThey say that laughter is the best medicine and if I'm lucky, some of you had a decent chuckle at my expense, and if that makes people feel better, I'm willing to make fun of myself at any and all times. Even during the worst times, there's always a glimmer of hope and at least a tiny little something to laugh about. That's all I want to say.
(08/24/01 4:03am)
At first glance, golf seems like an easy and relaxing sport. But a closer look rips off golf's cloak of happy fun fun to reveal a sinister, sadistic game possibly invented by Genghis Khan to torture his enemies.\nI delved into the diabolical world of golf last week when my father signed me up for a lesson so he would have someone to play with after he retires. I had never even been on a golf course before. (Except for the time I escaped from a pack of hungry wolves that weren't wearing collared shirts, and thus not allowed on the course.)\nThe only golfing experience I have is in magical Putt-Putt land where windmills block shots and hippos eat neon-colored golf balls right before they pass them out for a hole-in-one. I didn't see either one of those on the golf course. It saddened me. It still does. Poor windmills and hippos stuck forever in places like magical Putt-Putt land and the Netherlands.\nAnyway, I arrived on time for my golf lesson only to find out my instructor was the one and only Mr. Rogers. He said his name was something else, but I knew who he actually was. Who else would wear an earth-toned vest and a smile at eight o'clock in the morning? I tried to confirm my belief, but to no avail.\n"I know you want to sing 'Won't You Be My Neighbor?' to me."\n"Not really."\n"C'mon, Mr. Rogers, if you're on the run from the police, I won't tell anybody. Promise."\n"For the last time, I'm not Mr. Rogers. Isn't he dead, anyway?"\n"I don't know. Are you?"\nHe finally relented and let me call him Mr. R because his so-called "real" name started with an R, too. I agreed, not wanting to ruin his cover as a mild-mannered golf instructor. But I still wish I could have gotten his autograph.\nThe first part of the lesson was incredibly boring. I had to listen to him lecture on proper form for 15 minutes while I held a golf club with a ball on the ground a mere five feet away from me. The entire time I kept glancing at the ball and then at my club and then at the ball and then back at my club, wishing Mr. R would just let me hit it.\nTen minutes into the lecture, the ball started taunting me with verbal assaults, questioning my manhood. I'm not going to take that from a person, much less a golf ball. But Mr. R was still droning on about hand placement on the club. I had to curb my desire for five more fun-filled minutes of, "You don't have the balls to hit me. Ha ha." That golf ball was a real funny guy.\nFinally, Mr. R stopped talking and let me approach the ball.\n"You gonna die Mr. Ball," I muttered under my breath.\nI could see the fear dripping off Mr. Ball as I swung my club in gleeful anticipation of his impending doom. But Mr. R grabbed the club before I could swing forward.\n"That's not the way you're supposed to swing the club, Mr. Grace."\n"I knew that. My arm just slipped."\n"You don't got no balls. You don't got no balls," whispered Mr. Ball.\n"Your turn is soon coming," I whispered back to the ball.\n"What did you say, Mr. Grace," Mr. R chimed in.\n"Nothing. Just reminding myself of proper form."\nSo, I gently lifted the club behind my back again, looked to Mr. R for approval, and with the nod of his head swung the bat with full force.\nIt would have been a devastating blow had it not went about a foot over Mr. Ball's head.\n"I think we better finish this lesson without the ball," Mr. R said as he put the ball back in the bucket. There, Mr. Ball mocked me the throughout the rest of the lectures and shadow swings.\nI hate golf.