Tag: movies

Mid-30s Partying and Best Shows of the Year

MY WORLD:

The VP of Ops and I hosted a party on Saturday, which meant that we passive aggressively fought most of Friday.  You see, as you steamroll through your thirties, the process of hosting a party goes from “FUN!” to “They’re going to say something about our baseboards!”  Parties quickly double in size due to kids and my guilt complex, and the point of said party becomes less about watching college football, drinking beer and everyone telling me how amazing my brisket is, and more about making sure kids don’t melt down, and convincing your spouse that nobody has noticed any one of the 849 home issues you’re both insecure about (Totally!  Nobody noticed the dirt patches throughout your backyard that could be solved easily if you hired someone, but you refuse because you’re cheap and claim that you’re going to take care of them, but you have no idea how to so you just keep buying whatever product the old guy at the hardware store tells you to but it doesn’t help NOT EVEN CLOSE TO HELPING and you think the next one will but it won’t and you know that but you buy it anyway because you don’t learn from your past and maybe you should hire someone oh wait, that’s right, YOU’D RATHER SPEND MONEY GAMBLING ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL THAN FIXING THE DIRT PATCHES IN YOUR BACKYARD THAT AMANDA AND MIKE ARE DEFINITELY TALKING ABOUT ON THEIR RIDE HOME FROM YOUR STUPID FUCKING “LOOK AT MY DUMB BRISKET” PARTY!!!)

It was a lovely little time!  I honestly just don’t get why I don’t remember the process of preparing for and hosting a party in your mid-thirties (mid? Pal, that 7 means LATE!) So, in an effort to avoid the pitfalls that I cannonball into EVERYTIME I host a party now, I am going to write out what to expect “before the party” and what to expect “during the party”.  I sincerely hope that this roadmap will help all of us navigate the spousal arguments better the next time around:

Before The Party

  • The VP of Ops is going to tell you that she will take care of cleaning the first floor, but that you have to clean the sunroom and bathrooms.  Is this an example of her giving you the worst two rooms to clean? Yes.  Will you say anything about that? No.  However, when you tell her that you will clean both of them after you do all of the shopping and barbecuing/smoking/cooking, she won’t believe you and will be kinda’ pissed at you the whole time she’s cleaning the rest of the first floor.
    • Tip for Next Time:  Clearly, cleaning the sunroom and bathrooms right away would be a quick way to avoid any sort of conflict.  BUUUUUUUUT, since you don’t want to do that because it’s boring and un poco grosso, buy her flowers when you go shopping for all of the food.  Those flowers will buy you at least 4 hours AND if she does actually lash out and get mad, you can point to those because she didn’t get you a present AND THIS IS ALL ABOUT RACKING UP POINTS!!!
  • Your idea of everyone’s kids just taking care of themselves so you can watch football is…um…impossibly stupid.  You and your friends will not be gathered around the television high-fiving about UCLA beating a Bowling Green in front of 8 people at The Rose Bowl (yeah dude, nobody in Illinois cares about UCLA, and even the 8 people in LA that do know that they’re not going anywhere this year or…ever.  But yeah, buy some more expensive Jordan-brand team gear!)  You’ll have the game on when people arrive, but then quickly realize that sitting and watching it will be perceived as rude and lazy (if the shoe fits!)  What you all will be doing is watching each other’s kids in between drink-chugging beers and realizing that what matters to you most now is being your friend’s kids’ favorite uncle.  Is it a competition?  You bet your fucking ass it is.
    • Tip for Next Time:  Pick the 4-hour timeframe to be during a group of games that you don’t really care about because you’re not going to see a snap.  Then, to get ahead in the “which Dad do all of the kids like the most?”-competition, you’re going to need to bring 3 things: 1) Energy 2) Sugar 3) Weird voices.  The plan for next time is to have secret candy giveaways, and while Tootsie Pops have been my typical go-to, lets switch it up and go with little York peppermint patties.  Why?  Because they’re awesome and unique enough that kids may start remembering you as the “Peppermint Patty Daddy” which is a SIIIIIIICK nickname that you’re not pushing, but maybe someone should? (This is a thing of yours, huh?  Just forcing nicknames?  How about “Chubby”?). Finally, you’re gonna need to debut a weird voice for the kids because this deep one you’ve been using is STALE.  So practice the offensive Italian accent thing that you’ve broken out once or twice before.  You’re gonna need more than just yelling for the kids to make you “aaaaaspaghetti and a spicy meatball!”
  • You’re going to attempt to make some food dish in an effort to impress people and distract them from the fact that you have dirt patches in your backyard and you could pay to have fixed but don’t beca—I’ll stop.  And you’re going to feel compelled to invite more people than you should because the worst thing that can happen to you, in life, is for people to see a picture on IG (just write Instagram, loser) and then make some comment to you, like “oh, guess my invite got lost in the mail.”  What this will mean is that you should make much more than you’re originally planning to, but you’re going to push against that because you’re kinda’ cheap and don’t want to spend more money.  When The VP of Ops smartly asks, “are you sure we’re going to have enough food?” your instinctually going to want to roll your eyes and say something douchey like, “it’s not our job to feed their entire extended families too!”  But that’s where you’re wrong.  You see, because of your crippling fear of IG-fueled guilt (JUST WRITE INSTAGRAM INSTEAD OF ‘IG’!  NOBODY CALLS IT ‘IG’) you ARE going to invite too many people.  You are then going to stress about not having enough food for these people right before the party and take that stress out on your dog by yelling “ENOUGH GODDAMNIT!” when she barks like she always does when the Amazon person knocks on the door after dropping the package that The VP of Ops secretly ordered.
    • Tip for Next Time:  Dude, don’t invite that many people.  The stress is not worth it!  THE STRESS IS NOT WORTH IT!  Just be an adult and deal with the guilt of possibly making some people feel left out the way you deal with most things in your life…drinking.  Hey! It’s a party!  Also, these parties now are more about food than they are booze, and people are WAY more inclined to bring booze over because it takes less effort.  So, being the cheapass that you are, buy more food and less booze.  You won’t have to stress out about not having enough food AND it’s kind of a cool move to be able to send people home with Tupperware containers of the incredible food you just made (Hey, you’re not Bobby Flay.  You made a fine brisket on a dumpy smoker.  It was fine.  Cool it.)

During The Party

  • The VP of Ops is going to get just as much praise for the dish that took her 24 minutes to make as you’re going to get for the dish that took you 37 hours to make.  Then you’re going to make incessant references about how annoying it is to try to repair the dirt patches in your backyard, which will bore the ever-living-fuck out of whoever you’re talking to.  Trust me, they’re not thinking to themselves, “I wish Jimmy would talk MORE about these shitty dirt patches in his yard.”  You’ll pour your first BIG BOY IPA in your fancy beer glass because “hey, it’s a party and this is how I like to start my parties.” But then you’ll start to feel bad that you can’t offer every guy a fancy glass for their beer EVENTHOUGH NONE OF THEM CARE AT ALL ABOUT DRINKING BEER OUT OF YOUR FRUITY STEM GLASS.  College football games will be happening and you will not be watching because that’s rude.  Then you’ll check your phone 2 beers in, see that you’ve lost your first batch of bets, and start scrambling to make more bets just to “get back to even.”
    • Tip for Next Time:  Make sure that everyone knows that The VP of Ops didn’t spend as much time making her dish as you did yours.  Will this piss her off? Yeah, but whatever.  Enough is enough, and credit should be given ONLY TO THOSE THAT HAVE EARNED IT!  This does have the potential to spark a little bit of a fight, BUT little comments like, “how long’d you nuke that in the microwave for?” paired with HARD laughter and playful elbows to her ribs is the type of comedy that you cannot pass up.
  • As the “party” rounds into form, you’re going to get a bit insecure about the total lack of kids toys that you have in your house.  So, you’re going to grasp at straws and offer the older kids at the party basically anything you think would entertain them.  Unfortunately, the half-deflated old football and TY stuffed animal that’s NOT a beanie baby, are going to provide about the same enjoyment from them as you get out of eating celery (it’s like eating stringy water.). The kids will then start trying to treat your ratty old dog toys like they’re kids toys, and their parents will pretend they’re not disgusted/horrified.
    • Tip for Next Time:  How about a surprise “presents time” for the kids there?  Not only will the kids be pumped about it, but it will distract the parents from their whisper-level discussion about “those patches in Jimmy’s backyard.”  OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT A PATCH, THEN BACK TO ME, THEN INTO YOUR WIFE’S EAR!  WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE ABOUT?!?!?!  Go to The Dollar Store (don’t forget, he’s cheap!) and get all the kids a bunch of little stuff, that you wrap up (and bonus present will be if Jimmy wraps it, it’ll look like shit!)  Make sure they all get one of the same thing, so there are no baby street fights where all of a sudden the kid who didn’t get the squirt gun starts to melt down and HOW DID THAT BABY GET A KNIFE?!?!  Next time, let’s have a designated “presents time” to really double down on this effort to become the favorite uncle. 
  • Towards the end of the party, you’re going to grasp for the last chance at a buzz.  You’ll think about mentioning a “nightcap” but then you’ll know that the one wife who already thinks you drink too much is now CERTAIN of it.  So, you’ll restrain yourself (like Gandhi!) and venture into the “beers don’t count because they’re not hard alcohol”-zone.  But you’re not drinking lites, are you?  Of course you’re not.  At this point, you’re digging into the bottom of the cooler for the last of the Double IPAs that you know are down there somewhere.  Unfortunately, the “beers don’t count because they’re not hard alcohol”-zone also means that you will not be reaching another fun buzz-zone.  Instead, you will just be getting fatter, while being basically the same amount of drunk, and making your impending hangover that much worse.  You’ll know this, yet still refuse to mix in a seltzer because that could POTENTIALLY negatively impact the buzz you’re seeking.
    • Tip for Next Time:  Just get a grip, man.

OUR WORLD:

“House of the Dragon” is barely back.  Sunday night’s episode was good enough to keep me interested for next week’s, but I implore all of us (dramatic) to not lower our bars so much as to think of that past episode as awesome.  It was pretty good, but not awesome.  The first two were so insufferably boring that this one did feel like an entirely different show because it had…drumroll….DRAGONS DOING DRAGON THINGS!!! Who woulda thunk it?!?!  It’s cool to see dragons doing dragon things!!! But listen, this show simply isn’t good enough to justify me writing about it EVERY week (oh? And it’s not just because your fat ass is worn out from writing that unnecessarily long My World? Got it!)  This episode was cool, and I’m still in, BUT…Guys, Damon was shot with 5 arrows, dying on the ground and then all of a sudden went into Sprint-Mode-5000 to chop in half the toughest crabman the world has ever seen?  Heh?!  AND…How is any army at this time losing if they’re the side WITH THE GODDAMN FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS?!?!  If the battle isn’t going well just fly that thing over and POOF!  Burnt! 

“General, we’re losing ground to our opponent.  What strategy adjustment would you suggest?”

“Maybe we could fly that enormous, indestructible fire-breathing dragon over their side?  Cuz like, planes and missiles haven’t been invented yet, and they can only shoot their dumb little arrows so high.  So just, have the fire-breathing dragon fly higher than their little arrows and light all of them on fire.”

Real quick, if you are looking for shows that were worthy of me writing about them every week (but you didn’t because you weren’t watching them during your paternity leave and you were too lazy to write and do your job at the same time?) these are my current “Best Shows of the Year” rankings:

  1. Black Bird:  This is the best show of the year, so far, and the lead guy in it is so attractive that maybe I shouldn’t be married to a girl?
  2. The Bear:  A half-hour show that works great as a dramedy and is as authentic of a Chicago show as I’ve seen. 
  3. Severance:  Really imaginative concept where you cannot predict what will happen next.  It’s a bit on the slow side, but each episode is better than the last.  If you hate your job, this will make you hate it more. 
  4. We Own This City:  Jon Bernthal has officially entered the land of “if that guy’s in it, I’m gonna watch it.” 
  5. The Staircase:  Incredibly well-done, and I guess I’m glad I finished it, but there are scenes of a woman falling down a staircase (not a spoiler) that are so realistic and awful, that I hated watching it at times.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When the weather turns, and the temperature gets low enough to where you can finally turn off your AC and open your windows. 

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When the weather turns, and the temperature gets low enough to where you can finally turn off your AC and open your windows, but your wife thinks house burglars have zeroed in on your house so you have to close all of the windows at night and keep blasting the expensive AC even though it’s colder outside than it is inside.

JIMMY GAMBLES:

I actually broke even this week on college football!!! I’d like to thank Clemson and Georgia for beating up on Georgia Tech and Oregon like they were supposed to.  And I would like to offer a hearty “Go to Hell” to LSU’s kicker.  I know you’re waiting with baited breath on what my first NFL slate of the year will look like, and that will come soon but…as a teaser….I’m loving the Bears and the points against the “Why are we sure Trey Lance is good?”-Niners.

K bye.

Dragon House Snoozefest & How To Smoke a Brisket JIMMYSTYLE

OUR WORLD:

I know that I’m supposed to wait another day-plus because I originally titled this segment the “48 Hours Later Without Looking Stuff Up on Google”-review, but last night’s episode of “House of the Dragon” was so mind-numbingly slow that I am renaming THIS edition of the segment, “Be More Boring, I Dare You!” 

We all watched that last disappointing season of “Game of Thrones” waiting for stuff to pay off so that we could text our friends things like, “THAT is why we watch this show!”  But when that payoff didn’t come, our collective anger was directed at the writers of the show, (you don’t know their names, do you?  Don’t Google!  NOT ALLOWED TO GOOGLE OR THE SEGMENT IS FOREVER COMPROMISED!) Darren Scott and Lamar Trundleson (not even close).  We all read online about how Darren and Lamar (doubling down on stupid, welcome to Jimmyschair!) had been hired to write the next Star Wars movie, and so they were rushing the end of “Game of Thrones” so they could get to do that.  And for us, that wouldn’t stand!  How dare the two guys who wrote the majority of a series we loved try to parlay that success into getting to helm the most renowned movie franchise of all-time!  After that last episode?  NOT ON OUR WATCH!  So we all got online mad, vilified Darren and Lamar to the point that they got fired from that Star Wars job, and then deified George RR Martin—author of the Game of Thrones book series.  “The series went downhill once RR Martin’s influence waned!” we all chanted from our dumpy bedrooms in our smelly mesh shorts (dude, you’ve had them since freshman year college.  Go spend $17 at Costco for a new pair.)

This chorus for the return of more RR Martin influence reached a crescendo, shortly thereafter, when HBO announced they were making “House of the Dragon” based off his book “Fire & Blood” and that he would be listed as Executive Produce and Creator. (You clearly googled to get that information.  No, we saw you go into the bathroom with your phone and then come out and write that.  CHANGE THE SEGMENT TO “JIMMY GOOGLES IN THE BATHROOM AND THEN PRETENDS HE DOESN’T SO HIS READERS THINK HE’S SMARTER THAN HE IS!”)  So we ignored that this was basically RR Martin’s role on “Game of Thrones” and went about our business forgetting that the last season of GOT uh….sucked…and got ourselves pumped up for “House of the Dragon” by pretending that RR Martin’s involvement was what was missing.

What we all SHOULD have done is ask, “if RR Martin was so great, why didn’t he come up with the idea to make it a show?  And once that idea was brought TO HIM (it was), why didn’t he write the first episode (he didn’t).”  Martin had a deal with the original writers of “Game of Thrones” (you forgot to Google that, didn’t you?) Darren Scott and Lamar Trundleson (yep) that he would write ONE episode of the show per season.  And guess what?  By Season 5, HE COULDN’T EVEN DO THAT!  George RR Martin wrote 4 episodes of “Game of Thrones”.  The series had 73 total episodes (HE’S GOOGLING AGAIN!)

All that information (that you googled and lied about doing so) was conveniently forgotten in the fallout of the “Game of Thrones” final season, and the subsequent build-up to “House of the Dragon”.  I did the same!  I got myself excited about this series because I loved GOT so much, and SORELY missed an event show on Sunday nights (When does Succession come back?) “The Dragon show is gonna be good cuz um, dragons, and it’s based on the book by the guy, and I think the guy is more involved in this one, and um, remember the red wedding?!” was basically how I sold this show to myself in my head (you talk to yourself?)  And now we’re two episodes in, and I’m realizing what I did, what we all did, was go buy a Rolex online…and now we’ve got a “Rolecks” watch that gives your wrist a rash.

I know we all don’t want to give up on this Dragon House show, but we should.  (You said you were giving it 6 episodes!  Does your wife know about all of your lies?!?!)  I know I said I’d give it 6 episodes before throwing in the towel, but I’m making an amendment: for each sucky episode that I do watch, subtract from the number of episodes that I vow to watch.  (That was worded horribly and everybody hates you now and will never read this again.)  Last night’s episode sucked.  Thus, I am now down to 5 total episodes I am committing to watch.  If next week’s episode sucks, I will be down to 4 total episodes, and so on. 

Dragon House is excruciatingly boring in a way that seems damn near impossible considering this is a show ABOUT FIRE-BREATHING FLYING DRAGONS!  We are now two episodes in, more than a full movie-length into this series, and the coolest thing we’ve seen the dragons do is…uh…No, let’s seriously answer that question.  We are 120 minutes into this series, and the coolest thing we’ve seen a dragon do is fly to an almost fight, and sit nearby the standoff until the two sides agree not to fight and to return to where they came from.  That is not an exaggeration.  This is like if you watched “Jurassic Park” and the coolest thing you saw the T-Rex do THE ENTIRE MOVIE was sneeze (he’d sure need a big Kleenex lololololololol).  Much like last week, yes, my main critique is that you have a show about dragons that barely features dragons.

“But Jimmy, they’re building up the anticipation!  Remember, the wait will be worth the reward!” you say?  Well first off, stop yelling at me, The Warden is asleep.  Second, I don’t think the payoff CAN be worth this wait because there is no one in the show that we like yet.  Hey guys, THAT’S A BIG PROBLEMO!  When you’re 120 minutes into a story and there isn’t one character that you’re excited to root for when they show up on screen, that is what we in the business call a GRANDE PROBLEMO!  A payoff worth this wait requires villains to root against and heroes to root for, and I don’t think we really have either yet.  Let’s go through some of the hero suspects:

  • The King: He’s a suburban dad caught in dragon-times who is sad about having killed his wife for a chance to save his son…but then his son also died.  So now he has nominated his daughter to be heir, but he doesn’t seem especially pumped about that.  Oh yeah, and he definitely wants to bang his teenage daughter’s best friend (American Beauty much?)  Plus, we all know he’s going to die because he has infected cuts that maggots can’t cure (shocking!) 
    • “Root-ability” Rating: 3.2
  • Rhaenyra Daughter Girl:  I know we’re supposed to like her, but can she earn that first?  In GOT we loved Arya because she was a total badass.  What has this girl done besides ride a dragon that we already knew liked white-haired girls because we saw that in Game of Thrones already?!?!?
    • “Root-ability” Rating: 3.9
  • The warrior guy who Rhaenyra liked because he has battle experience: Bad sign that we don’t know his name.  Cole something? (Just google it, you’ve already been caught in that lie.)  I do think this is the character I like the most right now because he belittled Daemon in front of everyone by reminding him that he pounded him in their battle.  But…yeah, I don’t even know his name.
    • “Root-ability” Rating: 4.4

How about the villain suspects you ask?

  • Daemon:  Clearly the writers on this show want you to hate this guy, but do you yet?  It’s strange because every time he’s on screen I instinctively know I’m supposed to hate him, but I don’t know why I do.  Yes, he has a hate-able looking face, so that’s a great start.  But, can he do something super awful first?  Remember how much you hated the little boy Prince early on in GOT?  He got the wolf killed!  Can Daemon kill a wolf that we all love before we anoint him as a super villain.  He hasn’t earned it yet.  What he has done is act cocky in a battle tournament, kill a bunch of people that we didn’t know or care about in some random battle scene in the first episode, and…uh…be pissy that Rhaenyra was named heir instead of him.
    • “Hate-ability” Rating: 5.2
  • Father guy who is trying to pimp out his 12 year-old daughter to the king:  Don’t know this guy’s name, but we all know him as the guy with white dreadlocks who’s trying to pimp out his 12 year old daughter to the King.  And while that is most definitely a “hey, not cool, man!”-move, the fact that this is in olden times makes me think it’s not really that messed up.  (Jimmy thinks it’s cool for old men to wed 12 year-olds.  He just put that in writing.) I’m not saying I think it’s cool for old men to wed 12 year-olds, but they did do awful shit like that in olden times.  So, Dreadlock Dad Pimp is kinda, just doing what Dreadlock Daddy’s did back then.
    • “Hate-ability” Rating: 4.1
  • The King’s Hand:  We think he’s on the good guys’ team because he’s the King’s hand, but he looks like a weasel and is mean to his daughter who-BY THE WAY-he is also trying to pimp out to the King!  See!  Just another run-of-the-mill Dad Pimp!
    • “Hate-ability” Rating: 3.6

With no real heroes and no real villains, what possibly payoff is even plausible?  What scene could happen that makes us all forget that the first 120 minutes of this show has included no memorable scenes or characters?  You see, the longer this bore-a-thon goes, the better the payoff scene has to be, and at this point, it already would have to be an electric shock of a scene. 

The only hope I see is this crab guy we caught a glimpse of at the end.  The scenes with the crabs were creepy, and that guy does look pretty terrifying in that mask.  Could he turn into something we all band together in rooting against?  Possibly.  Unfortunately, creating the type of vitriolic hate we would need for a proper payoff moment, would require the writers of this show doing something they have yet to prove capable of: writing an interesting scene.

MY WORLD: 

I’m going to smoke a brisket on Saturday and I’d like to tell you how I’m going to by giving you my steps and recipe for how to do it, and what to expect the rest of your day to look like while doing it.  The ingredients, tools and process-notes you’ll need for the first JIMMYSCHAIR SMOKED BRISKET RECIPE!!!

Ingredients:

  • 12-15lb brisket.  I like to get it from Costco because they’re priced the best (just say ‘cheapest’) and they taste just as good as the expensive ones I’ve gotten from the local butcher (so you don’t support local business.)
  • Yellow Mustard.  Have about a half of a squeeze bottle or just stop being a cheapass and buy a new bottle for this.  Jesus.
  • Kosher Salt.  A lot.
  • Apple juice.
  • Coarse black pepper. Also, a lot.  (Love the precise measurements.)

Tools:

  • Smoker. (How dumb do you think your readers are?)  I use a big offset charcoal smoker.  I use it because I want to pretend I’m an authentic traegers-are-for-clowns-smoker-guy AND because I don’t want to spend what it would cost for a green egg (I’ll take “Cheap white guy things” for $400 please!)
  • Charcoal and Wood chunks.  How much? Uh, like a lot.  I prefer the lump charcoal because it appears more authentic (sound reasoning) and big wood chunks because they burn longer.  What flavor of wood?  I honestly don’t think this really matters so I just go with my heart whenever I’m in the store the day of. 
  • Butcher paper.  This is key and it’s not the easiest to find.  Last time I did a brisket I just asked the butcher at my local grocery store if he had any butcher paper he could spare.  He did, so I used that.  And you are correct, I did just take free butcher paper.
  • A portable cooler.  You know, like the ones you bring to a tailgate.
  • A digital meat thermometer.  One that’ll give you internal and external readings.  Wireless is best so you can sit on your fatass inside for a little while your brisket gets oooooohhhhh sooooo sweatyyyyyy (good lord that was creepy.)
  • An empty spray bottle
  • A towel. (You have to shower with your brisket?!?!)

The Process:

  • Get up at 5:30 AM.  This is serious work and serious work requires an early morning.  Plus, when you’re telling people about your day, it’s going to really impress them if you get started before 6 (they’ll be even more impressed if you’re slurring your speech while telling them all of this).  Get up quietly because this early morning alone time is going to be SO CHOICE.  Make a huge pot of coffee and be really dramatic about how good the coffee grinds smell.  Like, yeah, open the container and smell them and say something like, “ahhhhhhh.”
  • Slather your big, stinky brisket in yellow mustard.  Put some vinyl gloves on for this, otherwise it feels ICKY and Jimmy NO LIKEY ICKY FEELYS (is there a video somewhere of you getting punched? We’d love to see it!)
  • Dump generous amounts of kosher salt and coarse black pepper all over every part of this brisket.  Make sure to get the sides too.  You’re not going to put too much salt or pepper on it.  Do I know this? No, but it’s what I tell myself.  The best part of the brisket is the bark, and you’re not going to have flavorful bark without a dump truck worth of salt and pepper.  (How have you not opened up your own bbq restaurant yet?!?!)
  • Bring a Yeti full of coffee out to your grill area in back.  Hopefully, you can wear a hoodie because hoodie morning weather makes every man about 18% happier.  Have a podcast going.  Look up to the sky, smile and gently shake your head because “God, just doesn’t deserve someone like me.”  Scream at your dog to be quiet.  Chuckle it off when you see your next-door neighbor is outside and just heard you gritted-teeth growl “shut the fuck up!” at your cute dog. 
  • Get your smoker to a stable 225 degrees.  This part is always the part I have a really hard time with, and it takes longer than you want it to.  This is the part that can derail your day.  Put a helmet on, get ready for fucking battle.  Aim low on the temperature.  It’s much easier to get a smoker hotter, than it is to cool it down.  The first time I did this, I got mine up to 300+ degrees and it took like A GODDAMN YEAR to get it back down to 225-250.
  • Before you put your brisket on the actual smoker, make sure your basement fridge is stocked.  Listen here buddy, you’re drinking today.  So go down, and take a look at what you’ve got.  Get yourself excited.  Put on a Huey Lewis song and plan out what time you’re going to crack the first one.  I suggest a lite beer around 10am.  Then think about the afternoon IPAs.  Blow a kiss at your alcohols and tell them that you’ll see them soon. 
  • Get that brisket on the smoker.  You need to get the internal temperature of your brisket to 165 degrees before you take it out and wrap it in butcher paper.  So, put the brisket on fat side up (so the fat drips down or whatever) and plan on about 8ish hours here to get it to 165.
  • Check the time and get kinda pissed that it’s not 10AM yet.  Wonder what to do for the next hour-plus.  Try sitting and enjoying the weather in your backyard.  Stare off into the distance.  Wonder why you don’t have a better job.  Think about the money you wasted on grad school.  Start to hate yourself.  Go inside to eat carbs.
  • Eat carbs.
  • Oh thank god, it’s 10am.  Dive down your basement stairs because it’s faster than running and get a Lite beer out of the fridge.
  • The “I wonder what’s in Jimmy’s red plastic cup at 10:01 AM”-plan is keeping everyone in the dark, so you go outside.   Get the spray bottle and spray your nastyboy piece o’ meat with apple juice (the brisket, right?)  Do this about every hour.  You don’t have to drench it, but this will help keep it moist while also helping…I don’t know bind the bark or something.  Look, I heard this is what you do, so just fucking do it.
  • Go back inside to see that your wife has changed the TV from ‘College Gameday’ on ESPN to some episode of “The Mindy Kaling Show”.  Don’t get mad.  Don’t! 
  • Start to get mad, go to the bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Don’t let her know you’re mad because that will start a fight that will last all day.”  Go back outside, and when she asks, “oh, want me to change it back?” Say, “No thanks, it’s so nice out!”
  • Stew.
  • Get more drinks.
  • Once the internal temperature gets to 165, wrap it in butcher paper, and put it back on the smoker (still at 225-250).  You’ll keep it on here until the internal temperature gets to 203 degrees.  Yes, that’s a magic number that has relevance but I don’t remember why so, again, just fucking do it.
  • Think back to how you didn’t get to see Lee Corso put the mascot head on at the end of “College Gameday” because your wife had to watch the Mindy Kaling episode where the guy doesn’t like her that much AGAIN.
  • Stew.
  • When your brisket finally hits that 203 degree internal temperature, take the wrapped brisket off the smoker.  Keeping it wrapped in the butcher paper, now you need to wrap it in a big fluffy towel.  Use your wife’s favorite, softest towel because this brisket is the new love of your life that would never change the channel off College Gameday before Lee Corse put the mascot head on.
  • Wonder which mascot head Lee Corse put on earlier.
  • Wrap the brisket in wife’s favorite towel.
  • Say “no” when your wife asks if you used her towel to wrap the brisket.
  • Now sloppily wrapped in your wife’s amazing favorite towel, place the brisket in the portable cooler where you’ll leave it OVERNIGHT!!!  Yeah, this makes a huge difference—this resting time makes the bark SO much better.
  • Stop drinking.
  • Get another beer.
  • Respond to your wife with only one-word answers.
  • Go to bed.  Don’t say anything about the College Gameday thing.
  • Get back up.  Get another beer.
  • Google “can I watch a replay of College Gameday if I didn’t record it?”
  • Fall asleep on the couch 8 minutes after promising your wife you’d be upstairs in just a few minutes.
  • Wake up hungover on the couch in the clothes you fell asleep in.
  • Your brisket is ready. Eat it.
  • Whatever.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

The random weekday rain during the summer giving you the perfect excuse to stay inside and be fat and lazy all day.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Shaving. 

JIMMY GAMBLES:

College football actually starts this THURSDAY!  Last Saturday doesn’t count because it was a weird Ireland game that I couldn’t even gamble on and then a bunch of other bad games.   So, for Thursday’s games, gimme West Virginia (+7.5) at Pitt, Purdue (+3.5) hosting Penn State, and Oklahoma State (-21.5) hosting Central Michigan.  These have no chance!

K bye.

Sports Documentaries & Strolls Down Memory Lane

MY/OUR WORLD COMBO: 

Let me get my sea legs back before you start judging me again. Admittedly, I’m very out of writing-shape…

Is becoming obsessed with watching documentaries a natural part of aging?  Are cool 17 year-old dudes who just got home from lifting in their friends’ garage, DURING A FREAKING PANDEMIC, asking their Mom’s to remember to DVR the Lance Armstrong documentary?  (Yes, there are a group of dudes who lift in a garage down my block and…would I be forever honored if they invited me one time? Sure. Is that so wrong?  IS LIFTING WEIGHTS WITH SOME COOL GUYS SO WRONG?!?!) 

Somewhere around the debut of “30 for 30”, or getting married, or realizing that saying I watched a documentary was as close as I could get to saying I read a book, I decided that documentaries were worth more than the average flick.  Maybe there just aren’t a ton of television shows you can watch and then brag about what you “learned” afterward.  “Last night’s Vanderpump Rules really taught me that doing cocaine in your late 30s just makes a person look like a sweaty lunatic.”

Or maybe, the more likely reasoning behind our new documentary obsession, is that it’s fun to relive the parts of your life that were happening parallel to some memorable national or local storyline.  (Is he done with this pseudo-philosophical rant, yet?  I know it’s been a while since he last wrote, but Jesus Christ GET TO THE FUCKING POINT!)  For those like me, constantly looking for a documentary to watch, I’ve got some quick takes on ones I’ve seen recently.  However, because I’m one spicy baby, I’m going to give you an insight into the parts of my life I got to relive while watching said documentary.  Hopefully, this will give you a better appreciation for what The VP of Ops has to deal with.  (What if this makes me really jealous of The VP of Ops, though?  Like, should I tell her how lucky she is to live with such a cerebral individual who pulls off the jeans and sandals look better than a 90s GAP model?!?!) 

THE LAST DANCE: DA MICHAEL JORDAN DOC

We all agree that we don’t need fancy names for documentaries, right?  Like, everyone just calls it “The _________ doc” no matter what the title is, right?  When you were talking to your friends about “The Last Dance”, there’s no way you weren’t just calling it “The Jordan doc” or “The Bulls doc”.  Great.  Just had to establish that.

Every once in a while, a movie or show or documentary comes along where you are POSITIVE it’s going to be great.  (Nacho Libre!)  The first few that come to my mind are: “The Dark Knight”, “The Departed”, and “Old School”.  Once you see the trailer, it’s a LOCK that, that movie is going to be awesome and you’ve already gotten defensive just thinking about anyone who would disagree with you.

That was The Jordan Doc.  Going into it, I was salivating at the thought of The VP saying ANYTHING the least bit critical of this doc.  There could’ve been an episode entitled “The One Where Michael Jordan Talks About How Much He Hates Women From Mississippi” and I would’ve shot The VP my patented “Don’t Say Anything Negative About Michael Jordan”-glare.

Fortunately, there was not an episode centered around Michael Jordan hating where my wife is from. (Phew!) Instead, there was the Michael Jordan version of everything that happened during the most engaging run the NBA has ever seen.  Spare me the takes about what Jordan embellished or, fuck even lied about, because who cares?  We all know what happened.  What we didn’t know was how Jordan’s mind worked while it all happened.  An insight into the mind of the most charismatic athlete of our generation?  Yeah, I guess that sounds FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

And it was.  How do you become the best basketball player of all-time?  When I was a kid, I’d watch Jordan in a game, and then go out into the driveway and shoot, and run towards the hoop like I had a shot in hell of dunking, and then go back inside and tell my parents that what I really needed was his newest pair of shoes if I wanted to play like Mike.  If only I had been able to watch this when I was a kid, I would’ve known that all I had to do was to manipulate any situation into a deeply personal challenge that was worth DYING FOR to overcome.  (Like that time The VP told you that chicken you grilled was “good” but you knew the way she said “good” meant it wasn’t that good?  And then you used that slight to motivate you to open up a Michelin-starred restaurant that you called “Still Think It’s Just “Good” Chicken NOW?!?!?!”)

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

The most exciting time in my life was when Jordan began practicing with the Bulls again after his first retirement.  He hadn’t decided to come back yet, but there were news reports everyday about how his car was parked in the Bulls parking lot, and how he was practicing with the team.

I remember I’d run upstairs so I could watch the local news talk about this possible Jordan return on my shitty antenna TV.  When the TV would get fuzzy, I’d gently adjust the rabbit ears while saying prayers to God that sounded something like, “Dear God, please let me see Alison Rosati throw it to the Channel 5 field reporter standing in front of the Bulls practice facility!”  Every 5PM local news felt like a potential Christmas morning where the best present EVER was possibly under the tree.

Finally, that present came in the form of a fax that said “I’m back.”  Even now, the thought of those words makes me want to wake up jump on my bed and wake up my smelly wife while yelling “He’s back!!!!”

LANCE:  DA LANCE ARMSTRONG DOC

This followed up the Jordan doc in ESPN’s “Is This a 30 for 30?” doc-series, and I went in ready to dunk on anyone who wasn’t a Lance fan going into it.  Pre-conceived notions are the best!  (Try singing Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” but substitute “Preeeeeee-conceived notions” because that’s just what I did and I want you to UNDERSTAND MY LIFE!)  A guy raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research and inspired generations of people with the scariest disease you can get, but we have to hate him because he lied about taking drugs in a sport where…everyone lied about taking drugs?  What was I missing?  (Nothing.  You never miss anything, Jimmy.  You’re so smart and aware.)

And then…this thing happened where I watched the documentary and started having these “Uh oh”-thoughts. Like, when his first coach was talking about how much of a dick Lance was.  Or, when he left his first wife pretty soon after they had their first kid.  Or, when multiple teammates of his talked about how they were never given a chance to compete because everything was about supporting Lance.  Or, when his former team trainer talked about how Lance tried to ruin her life for telling a story about how she saw him use ‘roids… And “Uh oh, Lance is kind of a dick.”

Thankfully, I watched this alone, so I didn’t have to defend my Preeeeee-conceiveeeeeed notions.  If, like me, you think that overcoming cancer, raising HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in cancer research (HUNDREDS!), and inspiring countless people who are fighting CANCER(!), gives you a free pass to act however you want in all other areas of your life, this doc puts that to the test!  I still think that the good heavily outweighs the bad with Mr. BikeMan, but get ready to cringe a few times and look over your shoulder scared someone is going to ask, “you still think that guy is a good guy?”

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

Who didn’t have a Livestrong bracelet?  I remember the Livestrong bracelet led to a SERIES of unfortunate jewelry choices on my part.  I felt so cool and good about the yellow band, that I thought, “what’s better than one rubber band?” So I started wearing like 5…on each wrist…Then, THAT snowballed when I saw the lead singer of Coldplay wearing like 200 thin bands around his wrists.  (No Jimmy…don’t say that you…)  So I bought the exact bands Chris Martin was wearing and wore like 100 little bands around my wrists for a while! Like, more than a month!

Here’s a piece of advice that I wish ANYONE IN MY LIFE had given me when I was going through the “wear as much shit around your wrists”-phase of my life: Just because one of the biggest rockstars in the world looks cool in something, doesn’t mean YOU will cool in that same thing.  Especially when you’re a waiter who hasn’t had a girlfriend in over 4 years.

YIIIIIIIIKES!

LONG GONE SUMMER:  DA MARK MCGWIRE AND SAMMY SOSA DOC

I’m not going to lie to you because that’s the thing you write before you say something that’s somewhat revealing and/or surprising: I watched like 7 minutes of this doc.  (Honey?  Today’s Jimmyschair has a review about a documentary he hasn’t even really watched.  Make sure you don’t miss it!)  Unlike the Jordan doc, Da Sosa Doc had the feel of a surefire terrible movie from the start.  Like, you saw the trailer and thought you were in because that was a fun baseball summer, but then you woke up sweaty later that night and yelled, “I BET THEY’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO TALK ABOUT STEROIDS THAT MUCH!!!”

And from everything that I heard, they didn’t, and it sucked, and I’m happy I didn’t try to convince The VP that it would actually be good.  (What’s worse than standing up for a movie that your spouse doesn’t want to watch, only to have it be horrible?)  In case you haven’t heard similar things, now is when I suggest you listen to me and SKIP THIS DOC!

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

The only Cubs game my Mom brought me to where it was just her and I, was during this home run derby summer.  She brought me to the game where Sosa hit his 60th homer (I think? Don’t google it and point out that he hit his 60th on the road or something…JUST GO WITH THIS)  If it wasn’t his 60th, it was somewhere around there because Wrigley went absolutely BONKERS when he hit it.  One of those few times I remember being at Wrigley and having a great time BEFORE booze was involved in these trips.

After watching an entire Cubs game in Wrigley SOBER (should a documentary be made about me?) my Mom and I got onto the train home and ended up sitting across from my little brother’s Godfather, Kevin.  What I didn’t know at the time is that Kevin was enjoying this game in the A.B. column and Kevin was BLITZED OUT OF HIS MIND on this train.  I remember wondering why his face and eyes were so red and why he couldn’t really talk.  My Mom covered it up pretty well because I didn’t think about him being hammered until recently, when I realized that almost everyone over the age of 19 leaves Wrigley not being able to walk or talk.

And now that a lot of my friends have kids, and I still don’t, I’m thinking that I may be on the Kevin path…Where my friends’ wife is going to have to lie to her kids about why Uncle Jimmy couldn’t talk that one time they saw him on the train.  Please, just tell your kids “he’s had a hard life.  Give him a break.”

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you cook chicken breast and it actually doesn’t taste like the most bland bullshit ever.  We used some Trader Joe’s rub on chicken breasts last night because I’ve gotten PUDGY and I didn’t hate them!  But, you know what I do hate?

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

That thing that I just wrote about the chicken breasts.  Jesus Christ was that boring and lame AND I HAVE NO PERSONALITY ANYMORE NOW THAT I LIVE IN THE SUBURBS.  I LIVE A LIFE OF BLAH!!!!!!

HERE’S A SONG I LIKE:

Can You Put Out a Fire with Alcohol?

MY WORLD:

I now regularly eat hot dogs for lunch.  What used to be a once or twice A YEAR treat at a baseball game, is now an almost DAILY dietary staple (Almost daily means not every day!  That’s a victory!)  A few days back, I sent a picture to my friends of my hotdogs in the refrigerator and said “sometimes I just like to watch them sleep.”  Yes, it was a joke…but, was it though?  There have now been multiple days where I open the fridge around 11:45 (don’t lie, you know you consider lunchtime 11am now) and I just look at the hot dogs in my fridge.  Am I smiling creepily while humming “Rock A Bye Baby” in the direction of my Ball Park Franks?  No! (Is that a victory for you at this point?)  But I do look at them…and…yeah, dream of how good two of them would taste at 11:13AM on a Tuesday?  YEAH, MAYBE I FUCKING DO!

Peak levels of stress now include the phrase “only about a week’s left of relish in there.”  There’s a guy across the street from me who just sits in his window now and looks outside, and while I was eating a lunch dog (no need to say “hot dog,” THERE’S JUST NO TIME!) I caught eyes with him and raised my hot dog up to him like a “cheers!”  Yeah, that’s right.  I cheers’d a stranger across the street at 11:13AM on a Tuesday with a hot dog.  THEN! When he didn’t nod back or show any form of acknowledging my dog cheers in any way, I got offended.  And you know what? I just….

Guys.

Jimmy stop.

I made up the hot dog cheers’ing thing.

I didn’t make up the lunch dogs infatuation, but my brain is becoming so warped, that midway through writing about my lunch pups (is that funnier than lunch ‘dog’?  Yeah, it is.  Stick with it!) I actually did catch eyes with the guy across the street who looks out his window and I thought “next time I have a lunch pup, I’m going to cheers him with it.  That’ll brighten his day!”  So I will do that next time and report back re: his reaction to the lunch pup cheers.  (And you thought you had nothing to look forward to!)

Aside from lunch pups and asking the VP of Ops to waterboard me with IPAs, I figured that buying a house in the middle of a global pandemic/economic meltdown, while my job skates on ice thinner than that picture of you from high school, was a prudent financial decision.  (Just googled the word ‘prudent’ to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and IT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH!)  The VP and I closed on our first house on Friday, while my heart attempted to close on my body simultaneously.

What should have been an exuberant, exciting moment for us, felt more like a red carpet event for the premiere of “Jimmy’s First Stroke in the Citywide Title Office.”  When asked by those nosey paps who she was wearing, The VP of Ops smiled and said “the same leggings I had on while eating Munchos this morning!” Meanwhile, I carried her purse and used it to hide the grease stain on my 2007 Cincinnati Bearcats sweatpants. It was quite the affair, indeed.  Fortunately, or unfortunately (who knows right now? Stay positive though because the super negative people are awful to be around…but it’s so easy to just…STOP!) I did not suffer my first stroke while signing the closing papers to our first house.

Instead, I kept my big leather winter gloves and big puffy winter coat on the entire time we were signing a BAJILLION pages while constantly reminding myself to NOT TOUCH MY FATTER-BY-THE-SECOND FACE.  If you have never signed closing papers on a house before, here’s what it’s like: ten million pages are put in front of you and you have to go through them, one by one, slow enough that the guy thinks you’re actually reading them, but you’re really just looking for the lines with your name under them so you can sign there and feel a momentary sense of accomplishment.  (I found my name!  Mom! Dad!  I found my name on the page!)  On page nine thousand, four hundred and seventy six, you’ll look to your spouse with blurry eyes and say something like “I no read,” before drooling and then slamming your head on the table while scream-crying “I DON’T THINK I’M MATURE ENOUGH FOR THIS MAGNITUDE OF A PURCHASE!” (That did not go over well with the guy in the office but, thankfully, he yelled at me to get ahold of myself while staying 6 feet away.)

Then, once you’re done signing page four gajillion, you’ll sit alone in a lame office while hearing the office person dude mumble things like “are you sure?” into the phone on their desk.  (Is who sure? Do I want them to be sure? I’m not sure!  Should I tell him I’m not sure?!  SIR! I’M ALSO NOT SURE!)  Eventually, he will come back into the room, still wearing surgical gloves, remind you to take the pens with you, and congratulate you in a way that sounds more like “can I finally go home now and cry into my pillow about the future of our country?”

Closing on our first house in the middle of Shitstorm 3000 felt like trying to celebrate a birthday in New York on 9/11.  “Uhhh…yay!”  As hard as I was trying to stay positive and act excited, all I felt was this overwhelming squeeze of the unknown.  (Squeeze? Strangle?)  But while I drove back to our city apartment with The VP of Ops, I kept telling myself one thing over and over and over: “we’re all in this together.”

And it’s true.  How many times has there been a situation that you’ve dealt with where LITERALLY EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN THE UNIVERSE is dealing with the same thing?  As terrifying as this is, no one is exempt.  And the ones that you’re thinking aren’t worrying about it because they seem the same as they’ve always been?  They’re just better at acting than you are.  I’ve never felt more connected to everyone than I do now.

I’ve also never enjoyed hot dogs more than I do now.

OUR WORLD: 

We’re all living in an excruciatingly elongated moment right now that will change the world forever.  The way we look at World War II documentaries and the Civil Rights movement and think “Jesus, I can’t believe that actually happened!” is what smelly fatsos will be thinking about the movies about Coronavirus that come out in 2056.  And while I’m sure those movies will focus on the most terrifying aspects of what is going on right now, I’d like to note some of the other byproducts that will probably be overlooked by PBS’ 2056, Six-Part Docu-series “Covid 19”.

Hangovers were confused for coronavirus

I was going to write something about how internet is officially the best invention ever, but then I was like “but what about booze?”  The person who invented or discovered booze had to have done so in the middle of some terrifying episode in human evolution.

I’m imagining it was some woman with a broken leg who just heard from her friend that dinosaurs exist. “What’s a dinosaur?” she asked, before hearing a T-Rex roar and squeezing a bunch of grapes harder than grapes had ever been squeezed before.  Then, because Mrs. ‘BoutToBeEatenByMegaYoshi didn’t want to waste the only juice she’d be able to reach until her bum leg became unbummed, she started sucking the ground where the grape juice ran for days on end.  By day 6, with her broken leg throbbing, she sucked the ground harder than ever before and…felt some relief.  A bit of the spins and, finally….peace!  Then she heard a rustling in the bushes and went back to freaking out that she was about to be dino feed.

Anyway, that’s basically how alcohol is working for me right now.  As day turns to night, and stressors multiply to the point of swallowing me, I pour a beer.  And then another beer.  And then an old fashioned.  And then a pilsner because now I’ve got to cool down.  And then just a smidge of whiskey because I don’t need the sugar. And then I’m snoring on the couch in the middle of the sixth episode of “Mad Men” we’ve watched tonight.

Mornings then become a fun little game of “hangover or Corona.”  The first few hours of every day are now set aside for chugging water and coffee and telling yourself not to google corona symptoms for the nine thousandth time this week.  By the time 3PM rolls around and you’ve come out of the hangover enough to realize that maybe you don’t actually have this terrifying virus, well, there’s only one thing to do:  Celebrate.

Home workouts that lasted more than 8 minutes were treated like Olympic training sessions

Not to brag (but maybe a little bit? Fine, yeah.  Check out this shit!) but I ran a marathon not that long ago!  I wasn’t a hardcore “look at me I go to the gym”-guy, but I did go to the gym and didn’t shy away from mentioning that if it came up naturally in a conversation.  “Oh, your mother got a haircut?  Weird you mention that because I had my personal best incline bench yesterday!”

However, since this whole “You should stay home and use this as the ultimate excuse to be a blob”-order has come down, working out has fallen to the back of my priority list.  I’m sure I’m not alone in this either.  Yes, it’s true that moving around and exercising makes your brain feel better, but when your job is hanging by a wet fingernail, you have asthma and YOU JUST BOUGHT A FUCKING HOUSE, getting a sweat in doesn’t exactly register as “something I should focus on getting done today!”

This means that completing a sponsored Instagram ad showing you how to do a 15-minute at-home workout without equipment, is the equivalent of completing a Michael Phelps training session.  I came across one of these smiley Instagram trainers imploring me to “stay active indoors!” yesterday and thought “he’s smiling, so maybe I should listen to him.”

So I followed his “workout”.  This was the kind of workout that I would’ve made fun of in my physical peak, but now I got two minutes in and thought “could The Rock do what I’m doing right now?”  (Yes Jimmy, The Rock could do Jumping Jacks for 2 minutes and 14 seconds).  When I finished the “workout” 11 minutes later, the thin layer of sweat on my forehead might as well have been an Olympic Gold Medal.  I went up to the VP of Ops acting more out of breath than I really was and said stuff like, “just finished a little workout” hoping she would swoon and ask if it was okay to tell her friends about her husband’s physical accomplishments.

She didn’t do that. 

Employees at restaurants are fucking brave

I think we’ve all maybe thought this for a while, but if this whole ordeal doesn’t drive home the fact that people working at our favorite “I’m getting something that makes me feel good”-institutions, are brave as hell, then get your dumbass brain examined.  Seriously, if you’ve been through a drive-thru or ordered delivery over the past few weeks and enjoyed the dopamine rush that comes from eating your favorite foods, make sure you take a second to think of the people that went outside, in public, around others, to make that thing for you and get that thing to you.

Fucking restaurant people are awesome.

PODCAST: 

The Bill Simmons Podcast with Pearl Jam from last Thursday.

MUSIC: 

The new album from The Weeknd and all of these Instagram Live concerts that bands are doing.  Here’s The Weeknd from SNL before the world blew up:

TV: 

Watching “Mad Men” for the first time.  If you’re looking for EVEN MORE inspiration to drink, start watching this show. 

MOVIE:

The VP and I watched “Catch Me if You Can” yesterday.  It’s worth it because it’s Leo and Tom Hanks, but was I blown away?  No.  I was not blown away.

 

K, bye.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Takeaways

OUR WORLD:

The VP and I saw “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” on Saturday night (date night omg sahhh kewt!) and it was the brand of good that makes you want to buy a movie pass so that you can go every weekend.  Now, having had a full 24 hours to digest what I saw, I’d like to go over what stuck with me.  If you have yet to see this movie (I almost wrote ‘picture’ instead of ‘movie’ there in an effort to sound smarter than I am…then my brain was like, “hey, but you’re dumb.” So I went with ‘movie’.)  If you have yet to see this MOVIE, then I’d skip today’s “Our World”.  There will be spoilers because I want to write about the ending.  In lieu of calling this a “review,” I’m opting for the much snappier “things that stuck with me even after 24 hours from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”:

Brad Pitt is the coolest man to walk the face of the earth in my lifetime.

The first time Pitt walked on screen, the VP gasped, which was nice because it muffled my gasp.  When I looked over at her, her eyes were drooling.  (Crying?)  No, not crying.  Her eyes were panting, drooling, screaming “how is there a human alive who can look this good?!?!”  She didn’t utter those exact words, but she didn’t need to, her eyes told the story.  And I was with her.  I, on the other hand, wanted to start crying while shaking my head and frightfully asking the universe “how? HOW GOD? HOW IS THERE SOMEONE THIS HOT AND COOL AT THE SAME TIME?!?!”

The hair.  There needs to be a documentary about Brad Pitt’s hair because every time I see one of his movies, one of the first thoughts I have is “I want hair like that.”  Then, I’ll probably try to style my shitty whispies like Pitt for the week following the movie, only to realize that…uh…I’m not Brad Pitt.  His hair in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” accomplishes this feat again (where’s the “make my hair look like Pitt’s”-product?) Somehow it’s blonde and long and full and, even though he’s in his mid-50s, the lack of gray doesn’t come off as fake.  WHAT TYPE OF SORCERY IS AT WORK?!?!

I imagine Tarantino writing his character, Cliff Booth, and thinking “I need to write the coolest guy in any room he walks into…oh right, I’ll just think of Brad Pitt.”  I’m not even 100% sure that Tarantino wrote Pitt’s character, or if Pitt just showed up and Quentin was like, “yeah, just be you.”  What direction could Tarantino possibly have given Pitt in this movie?  “Brad, in this scene, can you do that thing where you strut in a natural looking way and then give that smirk that lets the entire universe know that you’re the coolest person ever?”

In the scene where Pitt’s character tosses Bruce Lee into the car, if you didn’t start laughing while saying “fuck yes” then you need to go to a therapist and ask “why do I suck?”

In the scene where Pitt’s character parkour’s his way from the ground to the roof, did you think for a second that he probably, actually can do that?  Maybe the reason I’m not into superhero movies is because Brad Pitt can make superhero things look natural?

In the scene where Pitt’s character tells “Squeaky” that a screen door isn’t going to stop him from seeing his old friend, did you try to think of a house with a screen door that you’ve been to?  That you could return to, pissed off but projecting calm strength, to flick said screen door and tell the owner that “this isn’t going to stop me”?  Yes, whoever you’re talking to will not understand what’s going on and, possibly, call the police, but just explain that you’re not trying to become Pitt’s character from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

Remember when you were a kid and you’d see a superhero movie and then go home and dress like the superhero?  This movie and this actor can give that same feeling to an adult.  Now, where can I find some moccasin boot things and a Hawiian shirt that, somehow, someway makes me look tough?

Who’s the next super villain Tarantino’s going to avenge?

Lately, it seems that the Tarantino recipe is to go back, find the greatest villains of all-time, and create movies with endings that kill these villains in the most satisfying way imaginable.  He kills Hitler in “Basterds”.  He kills slave owners in “Django”.  He kills the Manson family in “Hollywood”.  It’s a fantastic formula, that I’m worried I’m catching onto.  Like, will I instantly know what is going to happen in his next movie if it’s about another all-time villain?  Whatever, still worth it.

This formula got The VP and I talking after the movie, though, about what super villain would be next for Tarantino to kill in the most satisfying way imaginable?  Here’s what we came up with (and what I’ve come up with since because, honestly, The VP didn’t contribute all that much to this exercise…no offense, no offense!):

  • Osama Bin-Laden
  • ISIS
  • Mark David Chapman
  • Fidel Castro
  • Lee Harvey Oswald
  • Harvey Weinstein…wouldn’t THAT be something?!?!
  • Kim Jong Un

And, shit, I just remembered that The VP actually DID contribute to this exercise.  In fact, she came up with the BEST one: Yoko Ono.

Is Leo the last great classic-Hollywood star?

There’s something to that Hollywood guy who has gotten too big to ever return to television, who when you see on screen you don’t think of as human, but “star”.  It’s that indescribable quality that we’ve seen in Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson, and, most recently, Leonardo DiCaprio.  Whatever movie they’re in you know is going to be fantastic because THEY are in it.

Quick, try this little exercise: think of Leonardo DiCaprio and then ask yourself to write the first word down that you thought of while thinking about him.  It’s “Star” isn’t it?  (Actually, it’s not Jimmy, so…fuck your premise and fuck you.)  It’s not that he’s the best looking person of all-time (we’ve gone over this, it’s Pitt) but it’s crackling charisma paired with an unmistakable knack to draw every eyeball in every room…ever.  That was Nicholson.  That was Denzel.  That is  Leo now.

But, who’s the next star of stars?  Again, The VP and I discussed:

  • She said that Timothee Chalamet guy from the gay bike movie with THE PEACH and I almost drove into wall.
  • I said Ryan Gosling and we both groaned like “yeah, I guess..like, if we HAVE to…” then we both scrunched our faces and shook our heads at exactly the same time because WE’RE SOULMATES!!!
  • Miles Teller kinda’ has a chance.  I guess?
  • Jennifer Lawrence
  • Michael B. Jordan but no because you can never be THE star of stars if you’re never going to be the most famous person with your name.

And the answer that we finally landed on is…that there’s no one.  Now, every star is television or internet based and so it’s over.  That’s it.  Pack it in.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you eat like an absolute horse after working out because you’ve “earned it,” but then you go so far overboard that you start wondering whether working out is the reason you’re gaining weight.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

THIS STAND-IN FOR GAMBLING SECTION:

Still working on it.  Actually, I’m going to be honest, I haven’t been working on it and then I got here and was like “shit.”  So…yeah.

K, bye.

The Clubs I Would Like Entry Into

MY WORLD:

Mike Jones is a Houston rapper who rapped something about saying “Mike Jones? Who?” years ago and there are people my age joking about people who don’t know who Mike Jones is.  Confused?  If so, you better be careful, or you’ll end up like I did–sitting in a car laughing nervously about this “joke” while praying that the other people in the car didn’t turnaround and go “please explain this Mike Jones joke to the class, Jimmy!!!”  I have no idea who Mike Jones is, still, but the people who do know who he is sounded very cool and current and alternative and COOL!  So like, can I become one of those people?  Can I become a “I know about cool rap stuff”-guy?

There are little groups bonded around things I don’t know about, that I’m jealous of.  If you think that jealousy ends when you graduate from High School, try spending a weekend around people who know about things like Mike Jones and it’ll take you right back (tell them the story about how you used to hide in the library and eat your lunch!  That’s a fun one!)  While sitting in the back of a car resisting the urge to say “this Mike Jones character sure sounds spunky!” I started thinking about things, activities, and topics that I, as a 34 year old MAN, think I would like to get into at some point (unless I’m like not allowed to because that group is already full and they just can’t fit one more person into it.  I mean, it’s fine, I don’t even really care.  I was actually not even really interested to begin with, so it’s like, whatever.  Okay…I’m gonna go back to the library now!)

Here is the Jimmyschair list of “Things I Think I’d Like to Get Into Maybe?  If it’s cool?  If it’s not cool, though, that’s fine.  I’m just like, chill, whatever.  That hat is really cool by the way.  So we’ll talk later?  Or not.  Whatever.”:

HIKING:

Did hiking exist before Instagram?  One of nature’s great unknowns, huh?  It feels like a large group of the people I follow on THE GRAM (make sure you keep saying cool slang like that so people know you’re not a cop!) got together one morning and were like “alright, does everyone have their big backpack, short shorts, and sporty brown hiking boots?  Nobody tell Jimmy about this!  DANIEL?  YOU DIDN’T TELL JIMMY ABOUT THE BIG COOL BACKPACK STORE DID YOU?!?!?! DANIEL!?!?!”  Then Daniel was all “I haven’t talked to Jimmy since the Mike Jones incident,” so the group started up the hill, taking beautiful pictures meant to clog my instagram feed and make me feel VERY EXCLUDED (maybe if your thighs weren’t so big, you’d be invited to the cool, tiny shorts store!)

I don’t even know what hiking really is.  Like, if I eat a Cliff Bar and then walk up a big hill in my old Brooks running shoes, did I just go hiking?  I’m pretty sure rocks have to be involved on some level, so what if part of that hill walk includes me going over a gravel driveway?  And the tiny tan shorts with a lot of pockets?  Those are necessary for a hike, right?  Like, if I wear my big white Indiana University mesh shorts while doing this uphill walk, it doesn’t count does it?  DAMNIT!

At some point over the past few years, I think a professional Hiking Judge saw me buy a Cliff Bar at a 7-11 and ruled that I was guilty of “buying a Cliff bar as a treat, and not for sustenance during an Instagram-worthy trek uphill,” before sentencing me to “not a legit hiker”-jail for life.  It was a tough sentence, but looking back, I understand.  Why was I buying a nearly 300 calorie bar when all I was just going to be sitting in traffic for the next hour on my way home?  Stern, but fair.

But is there any opportunity for parole?  I’d love to find my way out of “not a legit hiker”-jail, so I, too, could be in a picture while wearing a big backpack at the top of a beautiful hill.  What a feeling that must be!  (And the Instagram likes!  MY GOD, THE LIKES!!!)  I imagine once you’re accepted into this group, you get some really cool perks like getting to eat a Cliff Bar and not having the 300 calories count because your body knows that you’re a hiker and need that stuff to push through all the rocks you’re gonna have to awkwardly step on.

Dear REI Store Worker,

Next time I walk in, I promise to pretend to know what kind of boot I’m buying and to not ask “which one do you think looks cool, though?”  It’s all about utility, I get it.  Looks? Don’t even care.

SNEAKERS:

A good amount of my friends talk about online sneaker releases, secondary markets for sneakers they bought a few months ago, and the basketball shoes that some non-mega-star has coming out that are “amazing!”  I have no idea what they’re ever talking about, so I’ll throw in cheap jokes meant to throw them off my insecure scent.  “You guys see the new ‘Gary Levinson’s’?  No?  They’re the new Brooks running shoes for suburban dads who can’t really run anymore because of their knees.”  

BUT!  They sound pretty cool talking about the “New Kawhi’s” and the new “Paul George” shoes and…I don’t even know if I’m supposed to fucking call them shoes or sneakers.  I feel like a gym teacher from the 80s calling them sneakers, but then I swear I’ve heard a DJ on Hip Hop Radio Station use the word “sneakers” and sound cool so…What is it?!?! SHOES OR SNEAKERS?!?! GIVE ME A SIGN, GOD! GIVE ME A SIGN!

These guys are also able to pull off the new basketball sneaker/shoe with skinny jeans look, and that’s kinda unfair when I’m having a hard enough time pulling off the running shoe with relaxed jeans look (you’ve got the “suburban surrender”-look down pat!)  Whenever I’m around someone NAILING this look, all I can think about is “aren’t you scared of getting those dirty?  And how have they not gotten ONE SPEC OF DIRT ON THEM?!?! DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE FOLLOWING YOU AROUND WIPING YOUR SHOES WITH DISINFECTANT WIPES!?!?!”  Also, do you play basketball in those shoes too?  Or is that like a lame thing to do?  I’m pretty sure there is one set of basketball shoes meant for skinny jeans, and then another set of basketball shoes meant for…actually playing basketball, and if you mix the two up, you’re kicked out of the sneaker guy club forever.

Last time I played basketball, I wore Brooks.

SCARY MOVIES:

I’m just tired of feeling the compulsion to blurt out “they give me nightmares” anytime the topic of scary movies comes up around me.  It’s not a cool look.  I’m also pretty sure that the people around me are annoyed that they can’t talk about some make-believe monsters because the 34 year old dude next to them, wearing Brooks and a small backpack, will get scared when he goes seepy at night if they do.  (Here’s an idea: quit being a fucking baby, Jimmy!)

So can I just decide to stop being a baby?  Is there a pill I can take that will cause me to enjoy scenes where teenagers get stabbed by a guy wearing a mask at a cabin in the woods?  The people that seem to really enjoy scary movies, REALLY FUCKING ENJOY SCARY MOVIES AND LOVE TALKING ABOUT THEM!  Hey guys, I love talking about stuff!  Being able to talk about brutal murders while smiling also connotes a brand of “bad-assery” that I wouldn’t mind being a part of.  It’s a high-wire act between bad-assery and “hey, do you think Eric liked that torture scene a little too much?”  Once you master it, you’ll be as cool as Nick Wallenda walking in between skyscrapers (minus the weird family stuff going on there…)

There has to be an age you reach, where you’re just like “I pay bills and talk about politics with relatives, I can watch ‘Scream’ without softly whimpering into my pillow later.  Is that age 34? CAN IT PLEASE BE 34?!?!

OUR WORLD:

I’m going on an impromptu, not-fun road trip to Kentucky today and so, of course, I will be allowed to cheat on my diet because road trip calories don’t count.  Here are the Top 10 “Road Trip Treats”:

  1. Gardetto’s Snack Mix
  2. McDonald’s breakfast
  3. BBQ Pringles
  4. Chick-Fil-A waffle fries with Chick-Fil-A sauce
  5. Teriyaki Beef Jerky
  6. Honey roasted peanuts
  7. Gummy worms
  8. White chocolate and macadamia nut Cliff Bar
  9. Diet Mountain Dew
  10. 7-11 Coke Slushy

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you get that feeling in the back of your throat that means you’re about to get sick, but you’re not TOTALLY sick yet.  It’s like walking around with a bomb strapped to your chest AND YOU CAN’T GET THAT TICKING SOUND OUT OF YOUR HEAD!

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

I don’t know this person, but…

cheering young woman hiker open arms at mountain peak

JIMMY GAMBLES:

I’m at $0 right now and feeling lost.  I want to gamble on something but I’m tired of baseball and I think I’m really bad at this thing.  But…what if I’m not?  What if I just need to…yep….STAY THE FUCKING COURSE!!!

K, bye.

 

I’m Moving to Maine

MY WORLD:

Over the past few years, whenever I go out of town, I start a conversation with myself about whether or not I could see myself living wherever I’m going.  Do you do this too?  When did vacations or work trips turn into scouting expeditions featuring Zillow searches and me saying things to an Oyster shucker I just met, like, “I keep thinking I should move to Maine.”  He responded with a “yeah, you should,” but what he probably meant was, “dude, I don’t know you or care.”  I went to Maine this weekend and told a lot of people that moving there was on my mind, and now I’m doing the thing where I return to normal life and talk myself out of doing something drastic.  But why?

I’m sure that part of the reason I think about moving as much as I do is because I know, deep down, that the VP and I probably won’t.  What’s the risk of thinking about jumping off the high-dive, when you don’t even know where a pool with a high-dive exists?  The process of moving to a new state is so daunting that considering it ‘basically impossible’ feels like an instinctual reaction.  Yeah, I’m in a better mood on vacation or when on a work trip that feels more like a vacation than sitting behind my desk does, but am I drunk?  (You? I mean, probably.)  

I’d never been to Portland, Maine before and I thought it was beautiful (HOT TAKES ON A MONDAY, Y’ALL!!!)  “It feels like I’m in a postcard,” is a line I think I said to 42 different people over the span of my three days in the Northeast.  (Yeah, I’m sure it’s been used before, but I still DIG that line.  SO BACK OFF!)  It smelled like the ocean with seagulls providing the soundtrack to hipster coffee shops, oysters, and people who seemed in better shape and more relaxed than me.

I’ve never been awed by the ocean, but I was this time…fuckin’ lighthouses are cool to look at from a distance and not go in!  (I did that!)  We drove to a more rural area one day, through woods and fields with little creeks and houses with decks where cell phone reception wasn’t very good.  Thankfully, though, it was good enough for me to run a Zillow search that revealed houses near creeks in Maine go for less than apartments with creeks in Chicago.  (See what I did there?  With the creeks thing?)  So I went into “well, could we actually figure out a way to live here?”-mode.

This consists of me telling the people around me “I think I wanna move to Maine”; me texting The VP that “I think I wanna move to Maine”; and me asking the guy who just rang me up for my first Maine bagel if I “should move to Maine?”  It’s a scientific and thorough fact-finding mission, one that has been honed over the past two years of being annoyed with Chicago rent prices along with OTHER PERSONAL ISSUES THAT I DON’T FEEL LIKE DISSECTING RIGHT THIS SECOND!

Usually, the people around me will toss a “I think I’m supposed to laugh here”-chuckle my way; The VP will say something along the lines of, “yeah? Do you think I could open a wine and cheese shop there?”; and the bagel man will pretend not to be annoyed with yet another out-of-towner idealizing a place where he works as a cashier for a local bagel chain.  (Does YOUR paradise include clocking in at a place called “Mister Bagel”?)  I’ll push back on the courtesy laughs from those around me.  I’ll remind The VP that just because she eating cheese and drinking wine doesn’t necessarily qualify you to open a wine and cheese shop.  And I’ll take to heart when Bagel Man says, “yeah, you should come here.”  (He’s definitely not saying that because it’s just the easiest thing to say in that moment.  HE REALLY KNOWS THAT I SHOULD BE IN MAINE!!!)

Then at night, I’ll have a few drinks, try to think of what I’d do to…ya know, make money in Maine, and come up with something attainable, like “writing something that sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”  (This blog ain’t it, buddy!)  BUT MAYBE, for a few minutes, it feels like something that could happen and then I get to imagine my new Maine life.  Living in a house by a creek with a deck means I could sit on a rocking chair in the morning and LOOK OUT AT A CREEK WHILE EXFOLIATING MY FACE WITH THE STEAM COMING FROM MY HOT CUP OF COFFEE!!!  From there, I could write for a few hours, before bringing my dog on a long walk into town to get a sandwich that, somehow, doesn’t make me as fat as a sandwich in Chicago would.  Oh, and my dog Belle?  She gets it, “can’t be a psycho in Quaintville, USA,” so she lets kids touch her snout without sending them to the emergency room.

After leaving the “sandwiches that are good for you”-store, Belle and I swing over to The VP’s wine and cheese shop to sample the new cheese (Kraft singles?!?!) she brought in and congratulate her on being named Trip Advisor’s “Best Place to Spend Too Much Money And Then Brag to People That You Love Supporting Local Business.”  When doggo and I return, it’s time for me to put my big, brown, comfy boots on to do my afternoon hike workout that leaves me sweaty and with, somehow, a perfectly full and manicured beard.  (That’s what happens when you get into hiking, right?)  We cook a dinner with wooden utensils and eat outside after telling all the bugs and mosquitoes to politely “leave us alone” because in Maine, the bugs listen.

There are people that live lives like this.  Do I know any?  No, but I’ve seen it in the movies and I’m not being facetious when I say that I’m beginning to fully realize that stuff in movies is inspired by stuff seen by real people in real life.  People have seen lives like this and written them onto screens.  And I have watched those screens before.  I’VE SEENT IT!

So why will I do what I always do after a trip, and spend the next few days talking myself out of what I just saw and felt and thought?  I have no problem with getting whiskey-drunk, but hopes-and-dreams-and-fantasies-drunk is a line I just can’t cross.  I’m aware this has been a rambling entry, but sometimes that’s what a blog should be.  And since this has already been all over the place, how about I just stop before talking myself back into the sobriety that includes whiskey but not the other more fun stuff?

OUR WORLD:

Heat wave > Polar vortex.

LETS HATE THIS AT THE SAME TIME TOGETHER:

When you make a can of chicken noodle soup that has been in your cabinet for a year and, after eating, you start wondering how the chicken in that can was still safe to eat…Is it actually chicken?  Yeah? Then how is it okay after sitting in a room temperature can for a year?

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Tom Cruise doing Tom Cruise things will always be one of my favorite things.

JIMMY GAMBLES:

Yeah, I lost all my bets on The British Open and got to watch them lose while on a plane back from Maine.  The guy sitting next to me was wearing sunglasses the whole flight and, I swear, he was doing it so he could watch me rolling my eyes at Shane Lowry ruining my picks.

K, bye.

 

 

FEAR #1 ABOUT HAVING A BABY

MY WORLD:

For the past two years, whenever a friend of ours or someone we know (who has not EARNED our friendship yet!) announced that they’re having a baby, the VP and I would look at each other with the “but we’re still having so much fun doing whatever we want!”-face.  Now, while we can’t do WHATEVER we want (laws are like so dumb omg) we have really enjoyed each other and the freedom we have.  The whole making-sure-a-tiny-human-stays-alive responsibility hasn’t been exactly something The VP and I have been itching for.  “Babe, I know this trip to Ireland is fun, but what if…now hear me out…instead, we were at home pretending like we didn’t want to cry while dealing with a screaming newborn?”  I can feel the parents reading this either snarling or relating to it so much that they’re feeling guilty, and let me tell you, I’M DOING BOTH NOW!

I guess when you get older your priorities change and whatever this is dumb, I think we want a kid now.  Why? I don’t know, and I’m not asking for all of the new parents around my life to text me about how rewarding it is.  I’m sure that it is, but, for me, hearing a new parent talk to you about how their life has changed with a kid is like hearing fireman talk about rescuing a family from a burning building, “yeah, sounds hot and scary!”

I think The VP and I are ready to care about  another person as much as we care about each other.  That’s fun, right? Like, caring about someone?  (*If I was a Cowboy, I’d definitely say something like: “I only care about the whiskey in my flask and the open road..”  I’m not a cowboy.)  But while caring about someone or something (my chair!) is fun, it is also really really scary (what if my chair breaks?!?!)  So as the VP and I begin to attempt to maybe, sorta’, kinda’ start a ChairFamily, I’m going to start writing about some things I’m scared about related to this whole “having a kid”-thing.

Here’s the first:

The VP, and most of our friends, being proven right that we HAVE to spend a lot of money on a stroller.

First off, there’s a difference between being cheap and just being…ya’ know, not rich.  We fall into the second category (AND THAT’S OKAY!).  Like, when we go shopping for wine, we’re not buying the big “Jug O Grapey Alcohol” on the bottom shelf, but we’re also not buying the bottle that “needs to be properly cellared”.  So in the initial discussions The VP and I have had about important baby things (toys!) I already feel a LARGE gap between what I think is a reasonable amount to spend on a stroller and what she feels is a reasonable amount to spend on a stroller.  No, we haven’t written numbers on folded pieces of paper and slid them across our negotiating table, but she has dropped a few “when it comes to a stroller, we cannot skimp”s on me.  Guess what babayyy?!?! I THINK WE CAN!

It’s a goddamn seat on wheels that will NEVER go over the speed of 1.6 MPH or down the side of a mountain.  We’re not in a Jeep commercial, we’re in a developed city with sidewalks–I’m pretty sure that the same stroller that my parents used with me would work JUST FINE.  And I’m also pretty sure that, that stroller is still somewhere in the depths of my parents’ house, so…guess what?  FREE STROLLER BABAYYYYY!!!!

And this is where my fear comes in because I’ll die on this hill…AND I DON’T WANNA DIE!  What if I somehow, someway make it through countless fights with The VP where she says stuff like “you’re cheating out on our first child’s safety!” and I’m all “trust me,” and then…it happens.  I’m pushing our 1985 stroller down Division St. on a cool, late September, Saturday morning.  The VP is wearing a hoodie and we’re debating what bullshit, hipster coffee place we should get ripped off from this week.  Little BabyChair is drooling in his vintage stroller, but not crying, so we’re not going to touch him.  Then, as we turn the corner, I feel a little rattle from the front, right wheel.  I don’t move my head, but I do dart my eyes to see if The VP saw anything…she didn’t, it’s fine, it’s fine.  “Stroller just had a little cough, probably allergic to the autumn leaves! Nothing to worry about!”  So I keep pushing until I momentarily forget about that rattle.  Unfortunately, as we approach the “$37 Latte Store,” I don’t see the slight crack in the sidewalk…

The front wheel of our Prince-era stroller plunges into the 3-inch-deep crevice, making a slamming noise that sounds like a T-Rex footstep. The VP’s mean eyes shoot down RIGHT AS THE WHEEL EXPLODES, sending a little rubber shards screaming towards her already-pissed off face.  BabyChair is screaming, but like, still sitting because we were walking very slowly.  That is, until The VP loses her balance, on account of the rubber shards barrage, and steps on the back wheel of our very delicate stroller.  Not having lost the baby weight yet, The VP’s misstep OBLITERATES the back wheel, and sends BabyChair flipping through the air towards the front door of the “You Should Really Try Almond Milk, Latte Store”.  As the VP tumbled toward the sidewalk, I am faced with a choice…and I choose my seed.

Thankfully, my ankle has recovered enough by this time, that I’m able to lunge over the stroller wreckage in time to catch BabyChair, twist mid-air and land on my back.  BabyChair, cradled gently yet securely in my arms, would land on my chest and think that he was just put down in bed without ever knowing the full catastrophe his supremely athletic father just disrupted.  And then I would look up from the ground, as a crowd of people tried their best to upload my heroism to the “Amazing Dads Doing Amazing Things” instagram account, The VP would rise.  Brushing the wrecked shards of sidewalk from her back, she would step over me and look down.  Imagine lying on your back and being straddled by a Killer Whale who, somehow, has legs and can walk on land.  That’s me, here, now.

“I told you we needed the $14,000 stroller,” the SeaLand Creature will bellow.

Next thing I know, I’m sipping a $37 latte while in the “Stroller Section” at a Tesla dealership.

OUR WORLD:

People are still setting off fireworks around Chicago.  Was your Monday night THAT great?  Really?  How long do the people that have leftover fireworks get to set them off before someone with a bazooka is allowed to fire a missile into their living room?  Fireworks set off by cities and communities between July 2 and July 5 are cool and fun and whatever.  Fireworks set off by women named “Terry” between July 6 and the rest of the year are obnoxious and scary.  One day, I hope all of the dogs in the world band together to find and harm all of the women named “Terry” setting off fireworks after July 6.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

The selection of movies in theaters right now.  WOOF TIMES A BILLION!

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Heard this song yesterday and lurvvvved it.

I STILL GAMBLE, YES, BUT THERE’S NOTHING INTERESTING GOING ON WITH MY ACCOUNT RIGHT NOW, SO I’M NOT GOING TO WRITE ABOUT IT:

That about says it all.

K, bye.

Movie Trailer Reviews (Pt. 2) & I May Have to Retire from Sports (8/17/18)

OUR WORLD:

I get panic sweats from not being in my movie theater seat 5 minutes before showtime.  Getting The VP anywhere on time is a struggle I fully realize will plague me the rest of my life, but getting to the movie theater and airport with plenty of time to spare is something I will never be rational about.  We will be at the airport two hours before our flight.  We will be at the movie theater 20 minutes before showtime.  In the words of every U.S. Government Official in every action movie with terrorists: “this is not a negotiation.”  Unfortunately, forceful military analogies don’t work as well as ones involving fried food when it comes to connecting with The VP of “I’m Almost Done With My Make-Up”.  Along those lines, here is what I plan to tell her the next time I’m about to sweat through my shirt at the thought of missing the trailers.

Jimmy:  “Can we go ye-”

VP: “I’ll be done in two minutes thank you very much.”

Jimmy:  “This theater has mozzarella sticks.”

That’ll work.  She may chuckle and act like that’s not going to work, but the make-up brush will go down and there will be newfound urgency to her movements.  Mind you,  I won’t look into whether the theater does or does not, in fact, have mozzarella sticks, but I can deal with that meltdown once we’re in the building.  Yes, we’re going to see a movie, but passing up trailers is like…how can I put this in a way that The VP would understand:  Trailers are mozzarella sticks; meant to be a tasty treat before the main course, but so overwhelmingly delicious that they ALWAYS overshadow the entree.  Are you passing on free mozza sticks?  I didn’t think so.  Let’s get into Part 2…

“First Man”:

Ryan Gosling has officially entered the “if he’s in it, I’m probably going to want to go see it” tier of movie stardom.  Obviously, we’re going to be interested because space movies are sweet, but seeing Ryan Gosling and…WAIT, IS THAT COACH TAYLOR?!?! DID HE TRADE IN HIS FOOTBALL COACHIN’ WHISTLE FOR AN ASTRONAUT COACHIN’…WHISTLE?!?! YOU BET YOUR FUCKIN’ ASS HE DID!

If you’re not already in on a movie featuring space, Gosdaddy, and Coach CoolDad, may I interest you in a scary sounding soundtrack?  The music in the background of this trailer makes me look out of the sides of my eyes before walking slowly to the window with an inquisitive expression on my face.  I may whisper something like “what in the…” before turning back to the camera before CUT!

WHAT DID I SEE IN THE WINDOW?!?!  Space, guys.  I saw’d space stuffs.

I do understand hesitation in buying a ticket to see a movie where you already know the ending; we land on the moon and are all like “suck it Russia!”  That’s a valid argument against this movie, and the same one I use when explaining why I don’t go to Bond movies: we know he’s never gonna die.  HOWEVA!  The movie “Patriots Day” changed my mind on historically-based movies: there is drama involved in the details of missions we only saw the final results of.  “Patriots Day” is about the Boston Marathon bombers.  Yes, I knew the good guys got the bad guys, but I did NOT know what it took and it was ABSOLUTELY fascinating to see that.  “First Man” is about landing on the moon.  Yes, I know Neil Armstrong makes it, but I did NOT know that a certain former Texas high school football coach with a smile that could melt an iceberg was the one pulling the strings backstage.  Clear eyes, full space-shuttle-gas-tank, can’t lose.

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

GOOD

“Widows”:

Pairing the writer of “Gone Girl” with the Viola Davis cry-face is a deadly combination, but I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t leery of an action movie led by a 53 year-old woman who appears to be in just decent shape.  Is that fair?  Yes, Tom Cruise is older than Viola Davis in Mission Impossible, but he’s cut from stone and is the best movie runner of all time.  Have you ever seen Viola sprint down a dock with a boat burning in the background?  Me neither. I know Viola Davis from being a mayor in an action movie I can’t remember and for delivering all-time cheesy lines in promos for “How To Get Away With Murder”.

I did, however, start to buy in once I saw that Michelle Rodriguez was part of the “let’s kill the guys who killed our husbands”-crew.  Alright, if we have Viola Davis delivering dramatic lines with no facial expressions and Michelle Rodriguez doing Michelle Rodriguez things, you have my attention.  Rodriguez has “don’t fuck with me” written all over her face and is in the kind of shape where I’d be nervous about pissing her off in a dark alley.  Okay, starting to buy in, starting to buy in…then, hey! There’s another one in the crew with a shaved head and arms bigger than Bruce Willis’ in “Die Hard”!  Now we’re cooking with gas!

As the tense music nears the crescendo and I start remembering how much I love Colin Farrell in everything he has been in, I begin to slowly turn my head towards The VP to give her the “let’s see this”-look when…Oh, Viola no….PLEASE!…DON’T SAY IT!

Viola:  “No one thinks we have the balls to pull this off.”

She did it.  I can’t believe it except I totally can because I am now convinced that Viola Davis has a clause in every contract that reads “Viola will give at least 18 dead-eye stares into the camera, and must be the one to deliver the most cringe-worthy dramatic line in the movie.”  I get that women are leading action movies now and I support that, but if there’s going to be a wink-like line that the female lead has to say in every one of these movies COUNT. ME. OUT.

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

BAD

“Little Stranger”:

-Somehow, in the midst of our trailer binge, The VP of Ops stole the remote when I wasn’t looking and went straight for the British-y looking trailer.  British accents and big old houses are catnip for the VP, AND SHE’S NOT EVEN A CAT, GUYS!  SHE’S A WOMAN!  Meanwhile, I take British accents and fancy clothes and big old houses as an affront to my Chicago sensibilities.  So yes, I did spend most of this trailer giving the VP my unmistakable “you got a lotta fuckin’ nerve”-stare.

I didn’t intend to turn this trailer review into an examination into my marriage, but the fact that she picked this one is the type of selfish move that MUST BE CALLED OUT.  The VP’s thought process had to have gone something like this:  “Jimmy hates scary movies, and british accents, and big old houses, but mayb—Oh wait! It ALSO has no one either of us have ever heard of in it?”  So then there must have been only one thing she could have said to herself, “FUCK JIMMY!”  There’s no way around it, this was a stone-cold “Fuck Jimmy”-decision.

In the trailers picked thus far, have you seen anything along the lines of a documentary about Greg Norman’s 1996 collapse at The Masters?  Or, wait, remember that trailer I reviewed about the 2001 NBA Draft where the Bulls took Tyson Chandler AND traded up for Eddy Curry and I was convinced that the Bulls were about to start a new dynasty?  No, you haven’t heard of either of those trailers because a) they don’t exist and b) even if they did, I have enough COMMON DECENCY to not force my less-decent-than-me wife to sit through them.  It would be like your allergist diagnosing you with a peanut allergy while eating a delicious Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Kind Bar.  I don’t mean to exaggerate too much, but…it’s the way a serial killer thinks, right?  Guys? I’m right.  The serial killer is like “hmmm, I really enjoy murdering people, but I know this woman won’t enjoy being murdered so…ahhh, fuck her!”  Tell me how that’s different than what The VP did here.  I’ll wait.  (Pssst, it’s not different.)

As far as “Little Stranger” goes; who sees these movies?  Ooooooh a bunch of rich brits with weird facial hair are tormented by bells in their house that are ringing when they shouldn’t be.  Here’s an idea guys, buy a new house without bells!

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

BAD

MY WORLD:

An update on my dead ankle?  Sure, thanks for asking.  It still hurts, but the brace the doctor gave me has gotten me some sympathy and gotten me out of some tasks around the house, so that’s nice.  Honestly, what this injury really signals is that I’m never not going to be terrified to play any sport again for the rest of my life.

The few times I’ve played basketball over the last 5 years, I was constantly thinking about tearing my ACL because two of my friends did it.  “Hey guys, can I just be the guy who makes all the inbound passes?  That’s a position, right? Inbound passing guy?”  But now, after destroying my ankle by WALKING, there’s no way I’m going to be able to enjoy playing any sport ever again without thinking about some catastrophic leg injury.  (Catastrophic?  You turned your ankle Jimmy.  Fuckin’ relax.)  BUT WHAT IF I CAN’T RELAX?!?! WHAT IF I NEVER RECOVER?!?!

I remember when I was in my 20s and I would hear people in their 30s talk about how old they were and how their bodies changed and blah blah fuckin’ blah.  They were all drama queens who didn’t know how to work out properly.  And then this shitty thing happened where I turned 33, rolled my ankle in a goddamn pothole and now I’m POSITIVE I’m never going to be able to run without my ankle exploding again.   Did I have to contemplate this new reality after being invited to play soccer by a group of teenagers by my apartment last evening? No, they didn’t invite me and…well, they don’t even exist, but I have created this situation in my brain.  And if this situation ever does present itself, I will be compelled to tell these teens to relish the years between 13 and 19 before dramatically lifting my right pant leg to reveal my never-to-be-whole-again 33 year-old ankle.

“And that’s why I can’t play soccer with you guys.  Ever.”-I’ll say as I embellish a limp back towards my dumpy apartment building.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

GUYS! GUYS!! HEY GUYS!!!! THE NEW DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE ALBUM IS OUT!!!! I’ve had it on in the background as I wrote this, this morning, but haven’t focused on it yet.  No matter, I’m sure it’s earth-shatteringly delicious.  Here’s a sure-to-be hot hot track of the new album that I found a live version of!

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When your dog hangs her head off the side of the couch in an undoubtable effort to make you feel guilty for not providing a yard for her to frolic and play in like all the dogs got to in the movies she saw as a puppy.  Hey Belle, who’s stopping you from getting a job and contributing?

JIMMY GAMBLES:

I’m back at $0 in my account after only betting parlays for the last week.  Confidence is at an all-time low.  Not joking when I say that I cannot remember the last time I won a bet.  I could look it up because it’s probably been about 3 weeks, but that’s a warning….THAT I’M DUE TO GO ON A REAL HEATER!!!!

(My Bovada account is currently at $0)

K bye.

 

Movie Trailer Reviews (Pt. 1) and I’m Getting Fat (8/15/18)

OUR WORLD:  

Every few months, on a random lazy night, The VP and I will go full-on short-attention span Millennial and choose to watch a bunch of 2 minute movie trailers instead of diving into a new show.  (So watching a show has become too hard for you?  Says a lot.)  For the sake of all of my devoted readers, The VP and I did the thing at the end of each trailer where we look at each other and either raise our eye-brows and purse our lips together, crunch up our nose and furrow our brows, or something in-between.  It’s a complicated grading scale, I know, but here’s the breakdown:

GOOD  = “Even though we’ll eventually talk ourselves out of it, we should DEFINITELY see that movie when it comes out!”

okay = “It’s going to take someone I trust freaking out about how good this movie is, but I’m not shutting the door.”

BAD = “That movie is going to stink worse than a VP taco fart.”

Before I get into the trailers we watched, I would like to point out that the pictures of me above were taken this morning at roughly 6:45 AM.  Why did I use those?  Well, you know in the swimsuit issue when they have pictures of “curvier” women to show that there are women of all different shapes and sizes?  And then those women are hailed for being brave?  Well, I used these pictures to show that there are men out there with bad morning hair and large foreheads that shouldn’t be afraid to SHOW IT OFF!  WE’RE JUST AS VALUABLE AS HOT GUYS!  If this inspires even just one guy with bad morning hair and a big forehead to head out into public without running a comb through his hair, then I’ve done my job.  We can’t all be Johnny Hotbod AND THAT’S OKAY!  IT’S NOT OUR FAULT!

ONTO GRADING THE TRAILERS!

“A Star is Born”

Bradley Cooper could not look cooler and is definitely making me think about trying to grow my hair out AGAIN because “maybe this is the time it looks like movie star hair!”  I know this is a remake because my dad told me (Dads!) but let’s be real, none of us are going to watch the original because nobody my age cares about Barbara Streisand or Kris Kristofferson.  You know who we do care about? Dave Chappelle playing a gravely-voiced wisdom-doling friend to Bradley HotHair.  We should all try to find a friend who smokes, wears an old tank and tells us when our “social” drinking has become an issue.

Best line in this trailer is HANDS DOWN when Cooper drops this heater on Lady GaGa as she walks away from him:

Bradley: “Hey”

Lady: “What?” (as she turns around)

Bradley: “I just want to take another look at ya.”

MELT-ALERT! If you’re single, I would HIGHLY suggest using this line on some unsuspecting philly who may have self-esteem issues (I used it on my dog Belle this morning and it didn’t land.  She just kept walking…Fuckin’ bitch.)  

As far as Lady GaGa goes, here’s the deal: VP loves her and I’m iffy.  She does seem like a bit of a try-hard who too easily vacillates between “elegant, sparkly dress singer lady with Tony Bennett” and “dirty shirt, dive bar every-woman”.  It usually bugs me, but I’m buying her in this preview.  Matta a’ Fack, this feels like PERFECT casting.  When she starts singing towards the end of the trailer, The VP started crying and my body was RAVAGED by goosebumps.  If you’re not tingling at the 2:06 mark, check yourself into the nearest morgue because you, my friend, are a dead person.

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

GOOD

“The Old Man & The Gun”

I want to be more excited about this than I am.  When we first watched it, I def gave the “gotta see this”-face because I was trying to convince myself.  Robert Redford is my Mom’s all-time crush and makes a wrinkly face look cool.  He’s also a forever-star and this feels like the last time he’s going to be in a movie that allows him to be the star (felt bad writing that).  Then they drop the “it’s a true story” bomb right on our big, dumb heads and we’re thinking “oh triple-fuck-yeah!”

But how interesting can a movie about an old, polite bank robber be?  I love bank robbin’ movies as much as any other genre, but the best parts of those movies are the guns, chase scenes, and fiery “we’re going down in a blaze of glory!” speeches that the leader ALWAYS gives to the rest of the crew towards the end.  Redford giving soft smiles and cute shoulder shrugs takes away from the “he could die!”-tension.  Casey Affleck playing the cop who’s hunting Redford is a solid choice because Casey knocked that role out of the park in “Gone Baby Gone,” but even he seems charmed by Redford’s cute antics.  Give me Jon Hamm getting pissed about the “not fuckin’ around crew” in “The Town” ALL DAY over Casey blushing about the note Redford left on a stolen dollar bill for him.

Redford does deliver a patented cool-guy line when he talking to Sissy Spacek about life metaphors, and says:  “You know what I do when the door closes? I jump out the window.”  Can anyone pull a line like that off in real life?  There has to be a documentary somewhere about a real-life bank robber who tries to talk like that, but it just comes off as cringeworthy, right?

Oh, real quick, Tom Waits is in the movie and when I hear his voice all I can think about is how Heath Ledger based his “Joker”-voice off of Tom Waits.  Sorry Tom, but you’re the Joker forever now.

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

okay

“Life Itself”

This movie CAN’T WAIT to make you pretend not to be crying while sitting next to your weeping wife.  One hundred percent chance that you’ll look down at your feet at some point in this movie while telling yourself to “fucking get it together, you’re an adult in public.”

First off, is the “Hola”-guy fat Channing Tatum with a mustache?  Once that guy hit the screen, all I could think about was “what the hell happened, Channing?”  Anyway, I’m torn on this trailer because I think I’m falling madly, deeply in love with Olivia Wilde, but I can’t remember anything she has been in that’s actually good.  She’s stunningly gorgeous, and ALWAYS comes off as “down to earth” because she has weird haircuts and wears college-girlfriend clothes, but is she a good actress?  If she was, I’d be able to think of ONE role where I thought she was good, right?  (Hey Olivia, welcome to Jimmy’s attempt to play hard-to-get.  I assure you, however, that he is not hard to get at all.)  

Meanwhile, Oscar Isaac has officially wrestled the “that guy who’s in everything I hear is good but don’t see”-trophy from Viggo Mortensen.  He’s a good actor because he looks actory and I say “Oh, I like this guy” when I’m around other people, but I’m not positive I’ve actually seen anything he has been in.  This casting is feeling like some sort of magic trick.  Like, at the end of the trailer, I’m half-expecting David Blaine to just show up dangling a pocket watch in front of me while whispering “you DO want to see this movie.”  I do? I DO! Wait…do I?

The voiceover dialogue is heavy handed but well-written.  The song playing in the background makes me feel…emotions…and makes me want to…probably wait to watch this on demand.  The dead parents joke towards the end is solid, but then immediately feels off-putting when we see beardy Oscar Isaac having a MOMENT with a Starbucks in his hand.  This is the movie that your parents see and your Dad stays completely silent while your Mom assures you that it’s “INCREDIBLE!”

JIMMYSCHAIR FACE REVIEW:

okay

MY WORLD:  

Should I just get fat?  I have a fantastic excuse of my badly sprained ankle to put some weight on AND get sympathy at the same time.  In fact, I think if I put weight on it’ll only draw attention to my horrible, horrible, “he’s tougher than me for walking on it”-ankle injury.  How would that happen?  Thanks for asking; people would see me, immediately think to themselves that “wow, he has let himself go,” only to be smacked right in their dumb, judgmental face with me lifting my right pant leg to reveal A FREAKING ANKLE BRACE!  I’d plunge the dagger deeper with a line like, “killing me not being able to workout.”  And you better believe the only shirt I’ll be wearing is my 2013 Chicago Marathon shirt that has gotten VERY TIGHT.  Get ready to feel bad about your inner thoughts re: my weight.

Real talk, I have felt a little bit bigger since this horrific, horrific injury and I am getting self-conscious about it.  You ever put a pair of pants on that feel tighter than they usually do, but then quickly tell yourself “I mean, they did just come out of the dryer”?  Because that was me yesterday–blaming the dryer and not the fact that I’ve eaten maybe 37 mini-York peppermint patties over the past…uh…one day.  Why was it hard to get to the third notch of the belt?  I mean, I probably just tried to fasten the belt lower on my hips than normal.  Hips are wider than waist.  Obviously.  I definitely pulled my pants up a few times yesterday and sucked in to be like “yeah, they’re still loose!”  They weren’t loose though, guys.  I repeat, not loose.

Shouldn’t my body realize that I’m not able to workout and compensate accordingly?  Hey body, I’m not lying on my back while eating an entire bag of Goldfish because my ankle DOESN’T hurt!  How ’bout a little help, metabolism?  Maybe Mr. Metabolism could pick up some slack one fucking time.

Since Mr. Metabolism and my dumb body are too lazy to help me out and keep my waistline in check, I’m thinking I just lean into this to prove what assholes my body and my metabolism are.  “Wait, so they clearly know your injured, and they’re not doing anything to help you out?  And yeah, you deserve to eat chip products on your back with an ankle like that!”  THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING!

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

This song came on this morning and I stopped what I was doing to just smile and bop my head around to the beat.  Try it.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

The street we live on is closed through the weekend for a children’s carnival.  Great.  I can’t wait to see how calm Belle is about getting walked next to screaming kids who think they’re allowed to pet anything that comes near them.  Hey kids, if you like your fingers, I suggest keeping them away from my anxiety-ridden doggo.

JIMMY GAMBLES:

I got a “bonus” from Bovada yesterday because THEY LOVE ME! and definitely not because I’ve been losing at an alarming pace and Bovada has nicknamed me “The ATM”.  I’m not kidding, I can’t remember the last win I had.  I am in full-on, betting only parlays mode because I need a big win to make up for recent losses.  This strategy, thus far, has proved fruitless.  Its gotten so bad that I have begged for picks from a guy I work while referring to him as “Baseball Guy” because he talks about baseball sometimes.  Talk about baseball once in my presence?  Guy MUST know how to pick games.  I lost the first parlay he gave me.

(Account currently at $11.42)

K bye.