COLUMN: Assassin

Throughout my fake career as a fake journalist, I've experienced a lot of milestones.

I can still remember the very first sample column I ever submitted... and the rejection letter that soon followed. I remember what it felt like to see my picture in the paper for the first time. I remember my first fan letter just as I remember my first piece of hate mail. I remember when a guy from Missouri showed up at our office after I wrote a less-than-enthusiastic recap of an unpleasant roadtrip I took to the Show-Me State.

And now, I'm pretty sure I'll always remember the first assassination attempt on my life.

It was last Wednesday, and I was just getting back from a trip to the vet. There I was on my back steps, keys in one hand and cat in the other, when it happened.

BANG!

When I first bought my house, my dad was eager to make some improvements to the place. One of the first things he did was install an outdoor floodlight next to my back door. When you're standing on the back steps, it's mounted just beside my door, roughly at eye level. When turned on, it does a pretty good job illuminating my tiny yard. When turned off, it does nothing -- except for last Wednesday, when it exploded.

All I heard was a huge bang, and then felt glass shards hitting my face, my hair, and covering my entire back steps.

Despite how savagely cool I may look in my photo, I am not an especially street-smart individual. I am neither well-read nor experienced in the inner workings of the modern floodlight. One thing I can say with confidence, though, is that they're NOT supposed to explode in your face, especially when they're off. I've never seen a caution label that reads: "WARNING: May spontaneously combust at any time, scaring you within an inch of your life."

There was only one possible scenario that sprang into my head: GUNPLAY. Either someone just did a really good job shooting at my floodlight or a really bad job shooting at me. Either way: SHOTS FIRED.

I refuse to believe that our world has devolved to the point that random acts of terror and violence are the new norm. I still believe in the power of goodness. But bad things CAN happen, and who among us hasn't wondered how we'd react in a God-forbid sort of scenario?

I now know exactly what I would do. I would, in fact, scream "WHAT THE FAAAAAAAA" in an octave I didn't know I was capable of, and then I would awkwardly dive into my house like a lame overweight action hero being chased by assassins. Then, once my hands stopped shaking, I would avoid all windows (you know, in case it was a SQUAD of assassins,) and then I would call 911 and tell them I thought I was just shot at.

"Do you, umm, have any enemies?" the operator asked me.

Good question. DO I have any enemies? Hmm. That fella from Missouri was awfully steamed. Urban chicken-keepers sure hate me (long story). There's my 5th grade gym teacher, but I'm pretty sure he's dead. That pretty much only leaves my mortal enemy, Tom Cruise. I'd like to think he has better things to do than take up sniper positions outside my house.

"I don't THINK so?" I replied.

To the credit of the Rock Island police, an officer was at my door in less than two minutes. In fact, SIX officers were there. And as they searched the back of my house for bullet holes that didn't exist, all I could do was apologize.

"No worries," one of the officers replied. "Better safe than sorry. I would've done the same thing." I don't think he would have done EXACTLY the same thing -- the artistry of the belly-roll-dive I performed shall forever be mine and mine alone.

The exploding floodlight, though, remained a mystery. Then it hit me -- on the head, literally. My neighbor owns a walnut tree. The tree, in turn, owns most of the airspace over my yard. And every year, a team of black squirrels farm that tree for every scrap of walnut they can get. And they HATE me. Every day, I open my back door to a sea of cracked walnuts while squirrels scamper up the tree and chirp at me angrily. If I stay out there too long, they'll drop walnuts on me -- or worse. Let's just say you haven't lived until you've had to clean squirrel pee off your head at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday.

Do I have enemies? I have a whole furry family of them, and I'll bet one of them dropped a walnut directly onto that floodlight while I was standing next to it. Those adorable little assassins have officially crossed the line, and I'm through playing. If you were driving by this morning and saw me yelling angrily at a tree, I promise I'm not insane. I just have a treeload of enemies that need eviction. My guess is they're from Missouri.

COLUMN: Fair Pt. 2

Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. David Beckham. That Ken guy who won a bunch of money on Jeopardy. Scoot over, because I'm about to join you in the hallowed halls of immortal greatness.

As readers of last week's column know, I recently attended the Mississippi Valley Fair for the first time in, oh, about 25 years. The sights, the sounds, and especially the smells of that place will stick with me for a while (even though I've showered, like, 20 times since then, I swear.) But as any professional fair-goer knows, the REAL thrill of the fair isn't in the rides or on the stage. It's the cutthroat competition.

You haven't fully experienced a county fair unless you've wandered through its exhibition halls to see the myriad of competitions raging on. It's all there: the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the greatest floral centerpieces in all of Scott County. You think winning a boxing match or a car race is tough? Try growing the best beet in east central Iowa, losers.

By the time I made it there, some of the biggest battles had already been waged. Blue ribbons adorned everything from green beans to quilts to model cars. And suddenly, right then and there in the middle of the exhibition hall, I had a flashback.

It was me back in grade school -- and one drawer of my dresser was filled to the brim with shiny blue ribbons and pins. Some were from activity fairs at school that I earned basically by showing up. Some were my late grandfather's photography awards. More still came from my great-grandmother's fair wins. All told, there were probably two dozen ribbons of various colors, sizes, and statures. And sometimes, when I was alone in my room and feeling extra important, I would take every one of those ribbons, pin them to my shirt, and play a little game that I liked to call "I Am The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever."

The gameplay was simple: I would walk around my room with my amazing technicolor dreamshirt, and all of my stuffed animals would be really, really impressed by my many ribbon-winning accomplishments. A few of the luckier ones might even get my autograph.

Forty years later, I am mature, grounded, and fully self-aware that a meaningful and happy life can be had without ribbons or recognition. And as I wandered around the exhibition hall staring at all those blue ribbons, only one thought crossed my mind:

I WANT THEM. I WANT ALL OF THEM. Sure, you don't need ribbons for your life to have meaning. BUT I BET THEY'D HELP. And I bet two dozen of them would look JUST as good pinned to my shirt as they did when I was 8. My cats would be SUPER impressed.

So that's it, then. I have almost one full year until the next fair. That's plenty of time to learn how to bake, sew, pickle, quilt, craft, draw, farm, and paint my way to greatness. My goal is simple: WIN ALL THE RIBBONS NEXT YEAR. ALL OF THEM.

Sure, there are a few hurdles I'll need to overcome between now and then. I'm not quite sure what those hurdles ARE, because I didn't bother looking at the rules. I suppose I could do research, but that comes awfully close to real journalism, which I try to avoid in this column whenever possible. I do know that if I really want to win ALL the ribbons, I'll have to somehow pass myself off in certain categories as being both over 65 AND under 14 years of age, which is admittedly a challenge. But by then, I figure a convincing costume should be no problem, since I'll be a master sewer and craftsman by that point. I also might have to move to Iowa, but one doesn't become The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever without the occasional sacrifice.

Some categories might be tough to win. I saw one where you apparently make dresses for little girls. I don't know the first thing about dressmaking OR little girls, and I'm pretty sure asking random children on the street to try on dresses is generally frowned upon by society. I also can't practice growing blue ribbon vegetables in the winter unless I install an elaborate grow light set-up in the basement, and nothing spoils the winter holidays quite like a SWAT team descending on your house. Of course, it might be worth it to see their faces when they bust through my basement door to find a secret grow lab full of radishes, corn, and green beans.

I'll also need to carefully study the difference between good things and bad things, because at the fair, I often couldn't tell the difference. At one point, I got to witness blue, silver, and red ribbon bales of hay. Sincere apologies to all you professional hay balers out there, but to MY untrained eye, every single bale looked identical. Frankly, I think the whole category might have been a sham, because when I was there, they were using the blue ribbon hay bales as free food for the blue ribbon goats.

Which reminds me, I need to go buy some goats. I've only got a year to get them trained up. If a tap-dancing goat isn't deserving of a blue ribbon, I don't know what is. Plus, even if I fail and I don't become The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever, I'll still have a yard full of goats, and that's a pretty decent consolation prize.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have things to pickle. Greatness calls.

COLUMN: Fair Pt. 1

Did you see "The Late Late Show" last week when my favorite shiny-veneered super-villain, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, convinced talk show host James Corden to join him in a skydiving adventure? I couldn't help but wonder what I would do in the same situation. While it's true that I've often yearned to see Tom Cruise take a flying leap, I wouldn't ever opt to join him.

Some people are thrill-seekers. I'm more of a thrill-avoider. Occasionally newspaper columnists get chances to do cool stuff like climb construction projects or fly with the Blue Angels. Those are amazing opportunities, to which I would say: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No."

You might have your own definition of the word "thrilling." My version goes like this: "Ooh, my Amazon order arrived a day earlier than expected. How thrilling!" "This DVD has an extra commentary track? Thrilling!" "McRib is back? I'm thrilled!"

So why, then, did a self-confessed thrill-avoider recently find himself walking through the gates of our area's week-long home for cheap thrills? For the first time in 25 years, why would I purposely go to the place where stomachs churn, hearts burn, and the agonizing screams of the tortured fill the night sky?

I'm not sure, really, other than the constant month-long reassurance that "EVERYBODY'S GONNA BE THERE... THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FAIR!" The jingle lies, people. "Everybody" was not there. I wandered that whole place, and I can assure you from first-hand experience that Katie Holmes was NOT there. I checked.

But yes, I did it. I came, I saw, I ate funnel cake.

Now, I'm not gonna take any cheap shots at fair-goers, that's lazy journalism and it's dead wrong. I saw people of all walks of life, so I'm not about to issue any unfair stereotypes. I will say that I felt somewhat in the minority because the clothes I opted to wear that evening included sleeves. But hey, if you've got a side-body that you're not afraid to show countless strangers, go for it. Sleeves aside, the fair unites us all under one common cause: To eat horribly unhealthy food and then try super hard not to vomit it back up while being strapped to mechanical torture devices.

I may have approached the midway with the wrong mindset. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "I ate a big lunch today. All I really need is something light to nibble on." I should have realized that "something light" doesn't exist at a fair -- and if it DID, someone else would find a way to throw it in a deep fryer and cover it in powdered sugar. I saw a vendor offering something called "Chicken on a Stick," which seemed like a nice little kabob-y thing to snack on. Then he handed me -- with TWO hands, I might mention -- what appeared to be 70%-80% of a whole chicken, deep fried to hell and back, attached to a popsicle stick that was clearly for ornamental purposes only. Fair food is NOT for amateurs.

I loved it all. There were angry-looking tigers, friendly-looking wolves, high-diving pirates, giant robots, and countless exciting ways to separate me from the contents of my wallet. At the far end of the midway, there was a wonderful exhibit devoted entirely to horse poop. Well, and the horses that made it, I suppose. But if I had to guess based on smell alone, I'd say the poop was the real star of the show.

In all honesty, I was there for one reason and one reason alone: to spend some quality time in a stable full of goats. I love goats, and I simply don't have enough of them in my life. In the grand agricultural animal kingdom, goats are far and away the best -- mostly because I don't understand them. They're strange creatures that look like the result of an unholy tryst between a bull terrier and the aliens at the end of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." I'm not quite sure why anyone keeps goats, unless you're looking for a less efficient source of milk, a less efficient garbage disposal, or a less efficient lawn mower. Still, I love them to pieces. I hear that "therapy goats" are a real thing these days, and I will gladly sign up for goat therapy any time, any place.

That leaves us with the rides, and I wisely left those to a younger generation. Once upon a Shane, I greatly enjoyed the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Scrambler, but recently I was at a park with some friends and felt my stomach drop out while I was on a simple playground swing, so I think my whirling and scrambling days are behind me. As for the crazier rides that take you airborne, upside down, and round-and-round, I truly think the only reason one willingly goes on those is to test courage, challenge gag reflexes, or respond to a dreaded double-dog dare.

The crown jewel of this year's show appeared to be a flashing mini-rave of a ride called "GENESIS," where riders strap in to be hurled violently in sideways circles. And speaking of hurling, the only guy who looked more miserable than the riders was the poor soul tasked with cleaning up the after-effects with a spray bottle and a roll of paper towels. Let's just say it wasn't an ideal ad for the "quicker picker upper."

All told, I had a pretty fair time at the fair. I might be too chicken for the rides, but I wasn't too chicken for chicken-on-a-stick. Plus I got to pet a goat, and hey, it was pretty thrilling. Maybe I'll go again in another twenty-five years. I double dog dare myself.   
 

COLUMN: Pretty Woman

A friend of mine confessed something shocking the other day. Somehow, some way, she's lived her entire life having never seen "Star Wars."

In a way, I find this sad. She's not just missing a movie, she's missing a cultural touchstone that's shared and celebrated around the world. I bet you could go to the farthest corner of Mongolia and still find nomadic shepherds who could quote Yoda.

In another way, though, her achievement is kind of impressive. "Star Wars" is fairly omnipresent. It must be somewhat tough to avoid. Kudos, friend. You must be really committed. The Force is strong with this one.

I don't really think of myself as a film buff, but I probably qualify. If you spend as much time on a couch as I do, you're eventually going to see your fair share of movies. If I'm bored enough, I'll watch just about anything. But just like my "Star Wars"-hating friend, there exist a pair of movies that were massive cultural benchmarks of my era that I've never watched, nor do I ever intend to. Maybe I'm just being stubborn or an elitist movie snob, I dunno. I just truly think I'm a better person for having never sat through them.

The first is "Top Gun." My hatred of Tom Cruise has been well documented over the run of this column, but that's mostly due to his temporary betrothal to my ultimate celebrity crush, Katie Holmes. But even before he had the gall to sully the good name of my future wife, I was never a big fan. "Top Gun" just never interested me, and I guess I just never got around to seeing it. I don't even really know what it's about, other than a bunch of guys who fly planes super fast and I presume that Tom is the superest and fastest of them all. And then Berlin sings a song about taking my breath away. Yawn.

The other classic film of our era that I've never seen is "Pretty Woman." That almost changed this weekend.

Last Saturday, I was working on my laptop with the TV on in the background. TBS was airing a cavalcade of harmless romantic comedies that I'd seen a kajillion times over. All of a sudden, though, a new movie started and it wasn't until I spotted Julia Roberts that I realized I was absent-mindedly watching "Pretty Woman." I shoved my laptop aside for a second and stared at the screen.

Do I even know what this movie's about? Richard Gere's a fancy business guy and Julia's a prostitute and I guess they fall in love, right? So it's basically just a skeevy version of "My Fair Lady," except instead of awesome timeless songs, all you get is Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" and Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking," two of the blandest chart-toppers ever released unto the world. Is there anything redeeming about this movie? I hit the "INFO" button on my Tivo to read its capsule description. Hand to God, this is what it said:

"PRETTY WOMAN (1991). George hires a bar girl, Mimin, who looks the same as his co-worker he killed to cover up the disappearance and resign from her job. However, Mimin decides to stay after seeing the vice president who saved her a few nights ago."

Wait... what? Richard Gere's a murderer? Julia becomes a businesswoman? Who's this vice president and what did he save her from? And what kind of a name is 'Mimin'?

One of two things was clearly afoot: Either (1) Tivo seriously screwed up, or (2) "Pretty Woman" is a WAY more interesting film than I ever knew.

It took some investigating, but I finally figured it out. Richard and Julia's "Pretty Woman" came out in 1990. But in 1991, ANOTHER "Pretty Woman" was released -- this one a low-budget drama from Hong Kong. Tivo had simply switched the two descriptions by mistake. (Why a Cantonese movie has leads named 'George' and 'Mimin' remains a mystery.)

But seriously, how AWESOME would that plot twist have been? There's nothing set in stone that says a light-hearted romantic comedy can't end in a moment of horror. Imagine a 90-minute movie where Richard and Julia meet-cute, fall in love, and do all the boring things that happens in every romantic comedy. Finally it culminates in a passionate kiss, after which Richard Gere pulls Julia Roberts close to him, leans into her ear, and whispers, "I killed my co-worker. She looked just like you." A look of terror spreads over Julia's face. A Roxette song starts playing. Credits.

Now THAT would be a movie to remember. Imagine a crowded theater full of date-nighters all going, "WHAT THE...??" in unison. THAT, friends, would be a movie I'd endorse. Moral of the story? I dunno -- prostitution is bad? The world is terrifying? Life is like a box of chocolates except when one of the chocolates gets murdered and replaced by another chocolate that looks exactly like it?

But no, instead of a cool movie full of murders and Mimims aplenty, this was just the boring "Pretty Woman" we all know and love. Except I didn't know it. So I watched a few minutes, got bored, and changed the channel into a Star Wars flick that was just starting up.

Good ol' Star Wars. No Tivo confusion to be had there. Just a good guy, a bad guy, a Wookie, and best of all? In a galaxy far, far away, there's no sign whatsoever of Tom Cruise.