Green Toe Moe

I was a pretty complicated 10th grader… I had never really believed in homework and so my record of completing take home assignments had always been pretty sporadic. I use the term “didn’t believe in” not as nicer way of saying I was lazy and therefore didn’t want to do homework, but because it’s the most accurate description of the facts. I had a personal philosophy that conflicted with the idea that I should be forced to focus any of my free time on school assignments that I deemed to be “busy work”.

By the time I got to 10th grade I basically stopped doing class work as well. When the teacher was talking, I’d sit and listen, but that’s it. I wouldn’t actively participate unless the subject really interested me.

That decision, (along with some actually semi-legitimate concerns), landed me in therapy where it was decided that what I really needed, was Ritalin.

I had to take one pill in the morning before school, and one pill in the afternoon during lunch. Half the time I didn’t actually take the pills, I would just pretend to, but that’s another story… the point is, Moe Greene would always go with me to the nurses office at lunch to get my pill. He did this for two reasons [1] He had nothing else to do, and [2] we had a crush on the nurse.

This wasn’t the typical school nurse… She was only 22 or 23 years old, not that much older than we were at the time. She refused to let us call her by her last name. She was not "Ms. Thompson", she was just "Diane". And she didn’t talk to us like students either, she talked to us like friends. She told us about her weekend, (which usually consisted of bar hopping), dates she went on, and which students she thought were annoying.

Another reason we lusted after Diane was because she fit into the “attractive yet obtainable” category… She had blond hair, but with dark roots… She had beautiful green eyes, but her nose was a little big for her face… She had athletic legs and a shapely ass, but her chest was flat… She was nice to talk to, but she wasn’t terribly bright either… So like I said, she was attractive but her flaws (combined with her flirtatious nature) made us feel like we might actually be able to get somewhere with her.

We were smitten.

We would eat our lunches as fast as we could, then leave the cafeteria and go hang out at the nurse’s office with her. We’d over analyze every comment she made. We’d argue over who made her laugh more, and debate which one of us had a better shot at getting in her pants.

Since we didn’t really have any experience wooing an older woman, our attempts to make ourselves look cool basically consisted of trying to make each other look bad. Diane always enjoyed listening to us argue and make fun of each other, which only encouraged us. We quickly went from making fun of each other’s clothes to telling embarrassing stories.

Eventually things got a little out of hand and Moe crossed the line… He brought up the fact that I actually had a girlfriend and was therefore, not technically available.

“You have a girlfriend? You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend,” Diane responded in an accusatory tone.

That really pissed me off. I had to strike back… I decided to bring up the green fungus that had been growing on Moe’s big toenail for the better part of 3 months.

“Come on, let Diane have a look at it Moe, she’s a professional…”

Moe was, of course, horrified. He already had a phobia about taking his shoes off in public, so the idea of exposing his toe issues to the woman he was lusting after was down right unthinkable... He left the office in defeat. I won that round.

We both assumed that would be the end of the issue. He would never bring up my girlfriend again, and I would never bring up his toe fungus. But for whatever reason, Diane kept bringing it up. It was like the incident had suddenly turned on her “nurse” switch, and she started to act very professional around us.

She asked about it everyday. And everyday Moe would decline to let her look at it. Suddenly our informal flirtation sessions with Diane had become like a visit to the dentist.

Finally, Moe and I decided that he would have to just go ahead and let her look at his foot so we could get back to the way things were. The school year was almost over and we were running out of time to make any actual progress. So Moe relented. One day he pulled off his shoe, and peeled away his sock.

Diane’s reaction went something like this:

“Oh wow. You guys weren’t exaggerating, that is really, really…......... gross.”

She was visibly uncomfortable and didn’t want to touch his foot. At one point it looked like she might throw up.

“I think you need to see a doctor or some sort of specialist… I don’t know what that is…”

And that was pretty much how the relationship ended. The days of her flirting with us were over. It felt like we had somehow managed to sneak into this really cool adult night club, but now we’d been caught by the bouncers and thrown out.

Looking back on it now I can see it wasn’t just Moe’s toe fungus or my girlfriend that ruined what we had... When she flirted with us and we reacted by making fun of each other’s shoes, that probably only served as a reminder that even though there wasn’t that much age difference between us, there really actually was.

Of course… it’s a lot easier and a lot funnier to just blame Moe's disgusting toe fungus.

FILM VAULT TUESDAY

As I’ve said before, my relationship with Film Vault Tuesday is pretty complicated… In the beginning I was full of enthusiasm and looked forward to writing it each week. So much so that I even created a master list of movies that I planned on using and the order in which I planned on using them (yeah I can be pretty ‘type-a’ sometimes).

But then people started to actually respond to what I was writing and new readers started to pop up. The site meter I had at the time indicated that the blog suddenly went from having roughly 10 people show up every Tuesday, to 50 or 60 people showing up every Tuesday… Now, 60 people isn’t a lot (and to be honest it was probably the same 25 or 30 people showing up twice a day), but it was enough to freak me out. Suddenly it felt like I had to write it every week, and as you know, nothing is fun when you have to do it.

So I stopped.

But the reflexes are still there. I’m like an old boxer who’s past his prime but keeps coming out of retirement every couple years to see if he’s still "got it". I’ll find myself sitting at home watching one of my favorite movies on TV and suddenly I’m ready to get back in the gym and start knocking around the heavy bag and training for my next big fight.

That’s what happened to me the other night as I was flipping through channels, looking for something to watch… Suddenly I see that one of my favorite underrated movies of all time is on TNT… Great… But then I notice that the little preview on the channel guide hass given unforgivable rating of only 2 stars to one of my All-Time Favorties! (to provide a context, "True Lies" with Governor Arnold and Jamie Lee Hermaphrodite was playing later that night and it got 3 stars)

That was all I needed… Cue the “Rocky” theme music, dig out the boxing gloves from the bottom of the closet, and put in your mouth piece… it’s time to go to war!

Title: Cast Away (2000)

Credits: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and directed by Robert Zemeckis

Why?: For starters, it happens to be one of the most re-watchable movies ever. I’ve seen it at least a dozen times and yet when I saw that it was on TNT the other night I enthusiastically sat through it once again.

There are several reasons why it’s so re-watchable but let’s examine the main two:

[1] The story… Let’s face it; everyone loves the “trapped on a deserted island” theme. The idea, no matter many times its been done, or how implausible it is (although Cast Away does the best job any show or movie has ever done at making it plausible) simply fascinates us.

[2] Hanks’ performance… Of all of his memorable performances (Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, etc) he seems to get the least amount of credit for this role, but when you think about it, it could be his best… The movie is a little over 2 hours long, and for more than have of that time, he’s the only character. Think about that for a moment… He’s the only person on the screen… He has to keep you entertained, keep you emotionally attached, keep you updated on the story line, and the only one there to help him do that is “Wilson the Volleyball”!

Not to mention the fact that through the course of filming the movie he goes from this:

To this:

That is serious dedication to his character!

Forrest Gump is script driven. Tom throws out his "southern retard" voice and we follow him though a heart warming story of historical events and great music… Any of the upper echelon actors could have done it.

Philadelphia was a morality tale that made us re-examine our position on homosexuality, AIDS, and discrimination. Although Hanks does a fine job, an amazing job really, I think you could probably plug in Kevin Spacey, Robert Downey Jr, Sean Penn, or a half dozen other elite actors and get the same or similar results.

Saving Private Ryan to me would be his second best performance of this group. I can’t imagine anyone else matching his performance in the role, but at the same time, what makes this movie is as much the surrounding cast and the brilliant cinematography as Hanks’ performance.

But Cast Away is all Hanks. He owns this movie. He owns this role. Nobody else could have done it. Period. I will not argue about that.

Remote Scene Stopper: For me, once I’m in, I’m staying for the whole show… But if I had to say there was the one scene I couldn’t miss it would probably be the "plane crash/survival" scene.

First of all, plane crash scenes are fun… And I’ve mentioned it before but I just love the way they take something improbable (surviving a plane crash in the middle of the ocean and floating to an island on a raft) and make it feel plausible, even though its not. Nothing Hanks’ character does to survive the crash is superhuman or impossible. He just does the things a normal guy would have done in his situation and they make those actions somehow lead him to safety.

Tear Factor: “Wilson!!!!!! I’m so sorry Wilson!!!!!!!”

Overall Rating: My channel guide preview gave it 2 stars. IMDB viewers give it a 7.4. I’m giving it an 8.5 and to be perfectly honest, I had to talk myself down from a 9.0 just because it felt weird to have a rating that far off of IMDB.

It’s wildly entertaining. It has a remarkable performance by the defining actor of our generation. And if you still question that rating let me add that it also happens to be one of the greatest "discussion movies" of all time. As proof I ask you all to answer the following questions in the comments section [I'll be sure to put up my responses shortly, and yes, I am so obnoxious that I can't wait to answer my own questions]:

[1] Taking for granted that you survive the plane crash and land on the island, could you survive the 4 years Chuck spent on the island physically?

[2] Could you survive the fours year mentally?

[3] What food would you miss the most while on the island?

[4] What one item would you want to take with you on the island?

[5] What do you think of the way Kelly moved on with her life, got married, and popped out a kid while Chuck was on the island?

[6] What do you think becomes of Chuck and Kelly after the movie?

[7] Would you want to go back to the island a few years after the rescue to visit?

Back in Business

Well as you can see, the new FITS blog looks a lot like the old one. For reasons beyond my control the new URL address will have to remain a dream... for now I'm just going to get back to my semi-regular schedule of pumping out 1-2 mediocre posts a week.

Without boring everyone with the details I'll just say that Chanclita Divina's husband, Mr. CD, was making a Wizard of Oz attempt to fix all of the technical issues behind the curtain last week. It was really nice of him to do and I suspect that he would have even been successful had he not been blocked by the evil, unethical, and tyrannical empire that is Blogger.

Basically, the folks at Blogger are bad people. I won't go so far as to call them pedophiles, but I will say that its probably not a good idea to trust them around your children and you damn sure can't count on them to forward your old URL address to your new one.*

In lighter news, one of the many, many people who used to bully Moe Greene back when we were in middle school was arrested for committing a series of armed robberies a couple weeks back. I meant to write about it at the time but it got put on the back burner when Blogger was in the process of touching my URL in a naughty, private place.

I'm sharing this story with all of you for two reasons. [1] Its kind of a tradition on this blog to post when one of our childhood bullies is arrested, and [2] this story comes with a mugshot, and you know how much I love a good mugshot:

You can read the entire story here if you want to, but the synopsis is that (in case you can't tell by the mugshot) life was really kicking his ass and he made some questionable decisions**

* I can neither confirm nor deny that blogger is at fault for my issues, just as I can neither confirm nor deny that employees of blogger should have an entire episode of "Law and Order: SVU" dedicated to their crimes.

** There is also a really interesting follow up piece talking about some of the difficulties that led Moe's bully to commit his armed robberies. The article is basically an interview with a friend of the accused (not Moe Greene obviously) who describes him as "not a bad guy" right before they mention his criminal history almost in passing. A record that includes:

"...operating a vehicle without restraining a child in May and second-degree assault in September... possession of marijuana and paraphernalia in 1998, hunting at night and during closed season in 2007, and several domestic violence incidents in 2007 and 2008 involving [his ex-wife], who was granted a protection order against him in October."

So yeah, other than all that stuff and the 3 armed robberies he "allegedly" committed, probably not a bad guy at all... I'm sure he'd fit right in with the good people at Blogger.

Technical Difficulties

This new domain thing isn't really working out... According to blogger, my old address would still work and would redirect readers to fartingintheshower.com, only it turns out that they're liars. I swear I'm going to get back to normal posting at some point.

The Options

There have been requests to see the other options I thought about using as the new blog header and here is what I have:

[1] The runner up to the current header IMHO:


[2] The one I had up for about 4 hours the other day:



[3] The old header minus the .blogspot:

[4] The current header:

Back to the Point

From my journal, 1/6/09:

I’m sitting in the food court of Union Station right now finishing off a plate of over priced Chinese. This is one of my favorite spots in the city for people watching and I thought it would be an excellent place for me to write my first journal entry of 2009.

I was reading the blog entry I wrote a little over a year ago when I decided to start keeping this journal and it became apparent how far from the point I’ve strayed from my original intentions… not that I could explain exactly what those intentions were, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to document my romantic longings for each and every girl that catches my eye- which is essentially what this journal has become… So with that thought in mind I decided to come to Union Station and jot down some of my brilliant prose and witty observations of passers by. The only problem is I’ve spent my entire time here eye fucking the bevy of attractive women that have all decided to make their lunch spot within distraction distance of my table.

In between bites of lo mein noodles I keep debating the strengths and weaknesses of potential conversation starters I could use on one of these ladies. I’m optimistic enough to contemplate what to say but pessimistic enough not to follow through on any of my ideas.

So much for changing the direction of this journal… Maybe next year.

News & Issue

Yesterday I posted about some changes being made to FITS but due to technical difficulties I had to scrap everything last night and start from scratch this morning. But now we're good to go... I think.

Basically the changes are: [1] There is now a new option for the way you can get here. If you're tired of typing the cumbersome ".blogspot" into the URL, you don't have to anymore. You can now get here by simply typing: FartingInTheShower.com. Of course the old way still works just fine. Change [2] is the header obviously. I have a couple different options but this is the one I want to go with for now. Let me know what you think in the poll when you get a chance. I had a couple of crappier versions yesterday and Moe Greene was honest enough to let me know, "those new headers really suck" and I appreciate that.

I'll be back later today with normal posting.

Off to a Poor Start

As I noted in my "looking back at the year" post last week, I started out 2008 with a really good post of rambling thoughts that ended up being the best post I wrote all year. The pride I have of writing that post is overshadowed by the shame of having the first thing I wrote in '08 also be the best thing I wrote. So I vowed that this year I would start things off with something crappy, that way I can show improvement as the year goes on... you know, as opposed to what happened last year where I showed um, deprovement or anti-provement.

I suppose if I really wanted to come up with something crappy I could post a bunch of New Year's Resolutions about eating healthier or saving money (god knows those are things I need to do*) but I prefer to ignore my problems... push them into the back of my mind and pretend they don't exist, not confront them head on with a public broadcasting of sensible solutions.

So no, there will be no Resolutions post. Instead I'm going to rant on about a topic that's been bothering me all morning but most likely will mean nothing to anyone else... the inauguration.

A lot of people have asked me if I plan on going since it will take place only a few short blocks away from my work. It will be historic, it will be memorable, it will be blah blah blah... You know what it's going to be? A big pain in the ass!

We're still two weeks away and tourists are already flocking into town and crowding my metro ride... and it's only going to get worse. Dozens of families from Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri, wandering aimlessly around the streets of DC searching for the Capitol Building on a map when if they would just look up they could see the fucking thing staring back down at them. (You can see the Capitol Building from just about anywhere in the city, just walk towards it!) They're going to stand motionless on the left side of the escalators, stop to make pleasant conversation in the middle of sidewalks, ask for directions, make left hand turns from the center lane, drive 40 mph on the beltway, and generally make my life miserable.

And the day of the inaugural is probably going to be cold, wet, and windy... Add in the fact that Monday the 19th (the day before the inaugural) is MLK day and there is 100% chance I'll be taking the day off and enjoying a 4 day weekend. So no, I won't be attending, and in fact I probably won't even leave the house that day.





*A couple weeks ago I was talking to Moe Greene on the phone as I was waiting in a KFC drive through. I told him to hold on when it was my turn to order and laid the phone on my lap. I ordered a chicken strip meal with a Pepsi, and as a side I ordered a "Potato Bowl". In case you're not familiar with it, the "Potato Bowl" is basically KFC's attempt to create a widespread epidemic of obesity across this nation. They take a bowl of mashed potatoes, and sprinkle a handful of corn on top. Next they pile on a layer of deep fried pieces of breaded chicken meat. After the chicken, they pour on an unhealthy dose of gravy, before finally topping the whole thing off with a large sprinkle of cheese! It's a meal in and of itself. If they really cared about their customers they would give you a free syringe full of insulin on the side.

So I ordered my chicken strips meal with a Pepsi, and the potato bowl... and the lady taking my order innocently asks "do you want anything to drink with the potato bowl?"

That's right ladies and gentlemen, a woman who works at the drive-through of a fast food restaurant everyday of her life (an expert in her field) assumed that one person could not possibly plan on consuming all that food on their own. There must have been a second person planning on sharing this concoction of death, hence the need for a second drink.

I responded with an embarrassed "no" and I could hear Moe Greene's cackling laughter coming from the phone. He had heard everything and immediately knew the implications of her asking if I wanted that second drink. He was still laughing minutes later when I got to the window to pay for the food.

As it turns out I actually couldn't consume all of the food in one sitting. I had to save two chicken strips and the accompanying potato wedges for the next day, but still, the fact that I attempted to eat at all says a lot more about my lifestyle than then whether or not I was actually able complete the act.

Click here to read about Moe Greene's hypocritical eating habits.