Photo credit to Mr. Shreffler

I don’t remember if I blogged that I’m working at the Museum. I could take the time to check, but I’d rather just write. So, for those of you who don’t know- I am working on the Grounds & Maintenance crew at Joslyn. That’s a more professional sounding way of saying ‘I am a Janitor and I occasionally trim hedges and trees’.

Just repeat that to yourself a few times and you’ll get the idea of how I spend most of my days, Friday-Tuesday.

‘I am a Janitor and I occasionally trim hedges and trees’.

Anyway, I’m enjoying myself immensely. I haven’t had this much fun at a job in years. I like my co-workers and not just a couple of them. I like all of them.

Recently, I was sat down in a meeting about our benefits package. I knew from the start that I was not planning on taking the benefits package because I don’t intend to work at this job for very long before leaving Omaha in a few months for Tejas- which has been a plan that has gone from pipe dream, to acceptance, to commitment, to actually saving some money and shit for. I’m proud of myself. I’m also getting side tracked from my story.

Our HR guy is named Chuck. Chuck is approximately 40 years old, a die hard Red Sox fan (for some reason), and has no visible sense of humor whatsoever. He’s anal retentive. He’s on time all the time and has it in his day planner. If he gets cut off in traffic, he’s the kind of guy who would scream ‘Darn!’ really loud with all the same inflection that the rest of us would have said ‘Damn!’ or ‘Fuck!’

He’s been bugging me for a couple of weeks to get my forms turned in. My deadline was today. I’d told him I would have them for him by today. He was antsy about it, because his deadline is the 28th because the health insurance, life insurance, and 403 B information all have to be turned in by September 1st- if I was filing for them.

That’s my little secret. I know he’s nervous about deadlines and whatnot. I would’ve pushed it all the way to the 28th, but he’s been asking for them more and more.

I guess, if you’re going to expect people to complete things by a deadline and you really want them as soon as possible, you should probably just give them a much sooner deadline. But I digress.

He got his papers today and was confused looking at them because I had turned down all the benefits and had waited three weeks to return the forms. To be honest, I didn’t crack them open until last night. Hey, I had a deadline. And I met it.

Finally he came to a form for the Mutual of Omaha Health Insurance package. They had 3 options already filled in for your reason for declining benefits and then a 4th that was marked ‘other’ and you could take the time to fill in a reason why you had turned down coverage.

Well, I’m always looking for a reason to make a joke. I checked other and as my reason wrote in ‘philisophical differences’. He skimmed it over, looked extremely confused, and finally just said ‘thanks Bill, have a good day.’

I didn’t expect buckets of laughter. I was pretty much just testing the waters and they were still.

From the Innovator of The Jerk Store and the CEO and proprietor of Music Arsenal comes a new addition to the Jimmy Winter stories.

Check THIS SITE out, friends. One time this guy and I stopped a fight at sokol together by tackling a drunk kid and terrifying the 1% Production guys of our super powers ever since.

The thought occurs to met that events in your personal life, which may seem to you to be exploding like atom bombs, are to the rest of the world nothing but farts cut into the wind.

‘All we are is dust in the wind,’ said Kansas- Not the band. The State ‘Kansas”- Not the band at the Nebraska State Fair. The state of Kansas finally got nuked and nobody noticed except the fireworks bureau of sales in Missouri.

‘Anyway you want it, that’s the way you need it, anyway you want it,’ said Journey. The traveling type of journey- not the band. Rest in peace, Steve. We hardly didn’t know enough of you and your mullet crew.

I’ve callouses on my hands from mopping. Back and forth. Back and forth. Dip it in the bucket. Squeeze it out. Wash the floor. If this sounds dirty to you, it’s because it is. The floor, I mean.

I don’t think I’ve kept my love for the Hold Steady a secret. I think I’ve been fairly unabashed in stating and stating that I think they’re the best goddamn thing to happen to rock n’ roll in years and I’m quite frankly dissinterested in most new music if it isn’t them or the Mountain Goats.

New single for the upcoming album ‘Boys and Girls in America’ is called ‘Chips Ahoy’ and it’s available for quick download over at Pitchfork.

I’m really amped for this album. There will be a full band version of Stuck Between Stations, a song I fell in love with ever since I found the mp3’s from a Radio Station show the Hold Steady had played. I think the lyrics are absolutely killer and that frontman Craig Finn has a real talent with storytelling. These are the songs that get stuck in my head. These are the guitar riffs that I whistle while I’m riding my bike, working, or walking about. These are songs I sing in the shower.

Here’s an EP from another Craig Finn related project. The group was called ‘The Broker-Dealer’ and the website that was hosted with this EP is no longer. The songs are really good too.

I reread the entire contents of Mike’s Blog, Keef’s Blog, and my Blog the other day, because I wanted to experience some heavy nostalgia. Then I got thinking and remembered that there was a church youth group website from the church I went to as a kid (you gotta be heavily indoctrinated to become a hardcore atheist. The rest of you who never grew up with that crap because your parents didn’t need imaginary friends don’t know what it’s like) and found some pictures of me from early in high school.

What I present is a lazy blog. It should come as no suprise- I’m a lazy man.

But here we go.

Our first photo is me and Erin Casper circa 1998? I’m pretty sure it’s 1998. Possibly early 1999. Either way, it’s a few years old. Notice our uniforms. Cults make you wear uniforms. Lutheranism is a weird Midwestern cult and not much weirder than Catholicism or Mormonism as far as I can tell, and I grew up in a town heavily saturated with both.

Number two comes directly from that same church’s basement. Notice the Toasters shirt and Irish cap. They’re more interesting than the fake champagne I’m pretending to be drunk on. Besides, I’m sure there’s still photos floating around of the first time I got blitzed.

Same church basement yet again. This is definately from late 1997- my sophomore year of high school. Notice the Goldfinger shirt and the Squire stratocaster. That guitar was stolen later that year when my house got robbed.

Cog Factory May 2000. That’s from a Corporate Donuts show. I’m pretty sure it was the one that happened the day after my Senior Prom when we opened for Against All Authority. I think that’s the third time something ska related got mentioned in this blog. Weird.

Here’s Keef and I in Iowa City in the spring of 2001. Our companion is ‘Betty Blow Up’ and this came from one of the best weekends I had in Iowa City when Mike, Keef, Keef’s dad, and I all got to play with the video equipment Keef got to bring home from Iowa City public access television. This was long before Keef owed them blood money that was miraculously paid off from a found fifty dollar bill on the sidewalk (which is an amazing story in itself, Keef. It never ceases to amaze me.)

Here’s a photo of what Devin and I would look like, to you, if you were on some really, really good acid and we had a strobe light around.

And finally, six asses in front of the USS Riverside in Riverside, Iowa- approximately 3 AM sometime in the spring of 2001. Notice the Asian Man Records hoodie. Ska reference #4? Methinks so.

Happy Monday to the ‘normal week’. It’s my Friday.

Which option is ‘fuck the fuck off’?