COLUMN: Jeff

Of all the sagely advice my mom handed down to me over the years, there's one that I've always tried my best to ignore:

"NOTHING GOOD EVER HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT," she'd say to me. Twenty years later, I'm starting to suspect she was right.

As many of you know, I DJ on the weekends at a dance club in the District until the wee hours of the morning. 3 a.m. usually finds me trying to make an uneventful way home with tinnitus and tired toes. That's where we join this story last Friday night -- well, technically Saturday morning. Normally I head straight home, but my tummy was rumbly from a half-hearted dinner and I decided to swing by a 24-hour gas station.

I'm not a big junk food kinda guy. I eat bad enough as is without the added calories of a pantry full of chips and candy. So I bypassed the junky snacks and went straight for the junky meal: one of those bland little breakfast biscuits. But as I stood there with biscuit in hand surveying the gas station cuisine, I heard the voices of ALL my friends, yelling at me in unison that I never have anything to snack on in my apartment.

So I decided then and there, with fresh DJ cash in my pocket, that it was time to stock up on some public munchies. Bag of chips? Sure. Sugary candy? Heck yeah. Salsa? Mui bien! Cheese balls? Sign me up. Couple of donuts? And how. (And, okay, the donuts WERE for me.)

So, imagine if you will, your heroic columnist waddling up to the counter with two armfuls of pure food hedonism, looking like a refugee from "The Illustrated Guide to Binge-Eating 101." As I stood there like Richard Simmons' evil arch-nemesis, I was half-embarassed yet half-proud of my combination weight-lifting/balancing act. In front of me, a woman was wrapping up her purchase... or so I thought.

Instead she was one of THOSE people. You know, the folks who go to a gas station as more of a social outing. And this woman wasn't buying a single thing. No, it was just chatty hour with the clerk. I stood there as she told the clerk what a handsome man he was, and how he shouldn't worry because he'd find the right girl one day.

So I'm standing there bemused at the situation and feeling bad for this kid, who's showing remarkable patience listening to this lady lecture him on romance. But it doesn't stop. She doesn't shut up and she doesn't move. And after a while, I can now verify by experience, donuts start to get heavy. So I try the polite "ahem" cough. The not-so-polite hacking cough. The foot shuffle. The exasperated sigh. By this time, I've lost feeling in three of my Pringle- balancing fingers. I've gone from amused to impatient to downright annoyed. Finally she acknowledges my existence.

"Oh, I bet you want me to move..."

"Gee," I said, "Ya think?"

As she steps back, I attempt to sidle up to the counter while figuring out how to gracefully dump my items using those portions of my arms still maintaining bloodflow. That's when it happened.

The woman stepped behind me, began SCRATCHING MY BACK, leaned into my face with creepy deathbreath, and said the words that every man never dreams of:

"ARE YOU GONNA MOAN FOR ME, JEFF?"

How does one respond to this? I can now answer that question. One takes a shimmy forward/side step, twists one's ankle, drops one's donuts to the ground, shivers, and basically recoils in horror. It's a dancestep I like to call the Cootie Shuffle.

"WHOA, lady," I said, recalling the childhood molestation mantra, "Hands off! I'm special! Plus I'm not Jeff."

For a moment, I thought she might apologize and become embarassed. Perhaps she mistook me for Jeff, her long-lost love. After all, I am a pretty hunky dude. Maybe she thought I was NASCAR great Jeff Gordon or mistook my comedic stylings for Jeff Foxworthy or my brute machismo for Survivor host Jeff Probst. Nnnnope.

"Oh," she said. "You look like a Jeff. Or maybe a Scott."

I have never reached into a wallet, paid a bill, and left a gas station faster in my whole life. There aren't enough w's in the world to clearly express my level of "ewwwwwww." I went home, took a much-needed shower, and immediately changed my Facebook status to the tale of my near-molestation.

The next morning, I had a breakfast date with the girlfriend, but, as is my way, slept right through it. So when she let herself into my place and woke me with a whispery "Are you gonna moan for me, Jeff?" I almost started crying.

All day long we laughed at what's now officially become the Creepiest Moment Of My Life, but maybe I was wrong to make non-stop fun. That night, I found myself back at that gas station and thankfully Miss Cootie was off presumably harassing potential Jeffs elsewhere.

"Whew," I said to the clerk, "your new friend isn't here tonight."

"Who?" he said, astonished.

"You remember? The 'moan for me' lady?"

"Oh," he said nonchalantly. "She was nice."

"Are you kidding me?" I said. "People thought Ted Bundy was nice, too. I bet Chuck Manson was a personable guy 'til 'Helter Skelter' came on the radio. She was creepy."

"I politely disagree." he said. and I ended up getting schooled.

"She was nice. She may have been a little weird, but she wanted to know me as a person. She didn't judge and she treated me like a human being and not some retail slave. I like her."

So the moral of the story? Don't be mean to gas station cashiers. Or don't judge people. Or be nice to strangers. Or maybe it's be nice to strangers but not SO nice that you scratch their back and call them random names because that's still pretty stinkin' creepy. Or maybe... heck, I dunno. If you figure it out, let me know. Ask for Jeff. Or maybe Scott.

COLUMN: Beatles...

Otherwise known as
HOLY CRAP THIS IS MY 250TH COLUMN?!
WHOD'A THUNK IT?

Dear world, please help. Earlier this week I was robbed of my life's savings by a gang of thugs. Penniless and hungry. Love, Shane.

Or maybe, just maybe, I'm a sucker and an idiot. Either way, I'm officially broke, and I swear to you all that it's not my fault one bit. I was simply the victim of a nefarious marketing scheme designed to suck the last penny out of every music nerd on the planet. And it's all due to a wily group of thugs whose gang-related activities have infiltrated our culture, corrupted our judgement, and shaken us down for untold amounts of loot.

What gang could do such a heinous act? The Crips? The Bloods? Nope.

THE BEATLES.

I've known this week was coming for ages. I knew the size of the dent this week would put in my pocketbook. I should have been prepared. But it's one thing to have knowledge of your impending fiscal doom, and it's another altogether to see the reality of your credit card getting swiped for amounts of money that are clearly unwise to be spending. But I can't help myself. O God of Music Nerds, thy will is done.

Wednesday was 9/9/09 -- "Revolution #9," indeed. To commemorate such a monumental date, and/or to commemorate Paul McCartney's need for a few more million pound notes, we are officially experiencing Beatlemania Revisited. But instead of girls screaming in delight, this time it's chubby loser music geeks like me screaming at the holes in our wallets.

It's a project that's had music nerds salivating for a loooong time: the Beatles went and got themselves a facelift. For the past four years, a team of sound engineers have been hard at work painstakingly remastering every song the band committed to tape. Using the newest in recording technologies alongside the same vintage gear that the Fab Four themselves used, the end result is a sound that's brighter, wider, and more visceral than any Beatles record you've ever heard in your life.

For a music geek like me, the remasters are must-owns. Sadly, though, they're not free.

The Beatles put out 12 albums in their day. At a suggested retail price of $18.99, that's $227.88. Then don't forget the "Magical Mystery Tour" soundtrack, because a Beatles collection without "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" should be punishable by flogging, so there's another $18.99. Oh, and the Past Masters discs of rarities, because hey, a fella can't live without having immediate access to such vital gems as the German-language version of "She Loves You" (Sie Liebt Dich! Ja! Ja! Ja!) That's a double record, so that's $24.98. Come to think of it, the White Album's a double, too, so change that $18.99 to a $24.98 Which brings our total to (gulp) $277.84.

"But Shane," you say, "Why buy all 14 at once? That makes no sense. Why not pick them up one by one when you can afford it?"

Someone must have asked the same thing to the marketing executives at Capitol Records, because they had an answer: the limited edition collectible box set. Okay, sure, there's no extra content or any advantage to buying the set en masse, except it's in a box. I like boxes. And it's limited edition. And it's collectible (it says so right on the sticker.) Therefore, it had to be mine -- for the low price of $269.

Now, there's one big argument amongst we hardcore music nerds when it comes to The Beatles: mono vs. stereo. See, the first ten Beatles albums were originally recorded in then-standard mono and later remixed for the stereo format. Some folk believe that the stereo remix is the way to go, while some purists prefer to hear the music the way the band originally intended: in exciting low-fi monophonic sound. Capitol, in all their kindness, figured out a solution: an even-more-limited-edition, even-more-collectible box set of the first ten albums in restored and remastered mono. So there's another $224.

I know what you're thinking. "Okay, sure, Shane -- listening to the Beatles in both mono and stereo formats is pretty sweet. But what's the point if you can't hear the tunes without being able to press multi-colored buttons in time with the music?" And you would be absolutely correct.

That's why this week was ALSO the release of Rock Band: Beatles, a Fab Four addition to the pantheon of insipid video games that have ruled/ruined my life for the past three years. I've been concerned for years now about the amount of time I waste playing a game clearly designed for 12-year-olds, so at least a Beatles edition means that it's cool to be an old fogey AND addicted to a video game.

So there's $60 more dollars to the Buy-Ringo-Some-More-Jewelry fund. But wait, no. If you're going to play a fake game where you pretend to be the Beatles, you better have the fake instruments. That's why you can buy a fake Rickenbacker so you can be fake John, a fake Hofner bass so you can be fake Paul, a fake Gretsch Duo Jet to be fake George, and a fake black oyster logo'ed drum set to be fake Ringo. The fake ensemble is yours for a very real $249.

And if you're mortgaging your house to show your love for the Beatles, you'd better be able to answer some questions about 'em. That's why you need the piece de resistance, Beatles Trivial Pursuit ($34.95.)

So I am officially pimped out in Beatles gear while Yoko presumably is having a bed-in with piles and piles of my money. And while my music nerd street cred survives yet another fiscal challenge, I know that some of you must think I'm ridiculous and insane. To that, all I can say is that my nerd-dom keeps me happy and that the remasters sound so good they're worth every penny. At least they must be. I'll find out for sure when I've saved up enough cash to get my power turned back on.

COLUMN: Objectum

Recently I became aware of the fact that I'm kind of a weirdo. Happily, as it turns out, there's always someone weirder out there.

This hasn't been the best month for me. To say that my fledgling relationship with the girlfriend has hit a bumpy patch is like saying that the economy has been a tad bit iffy. In the past month, we've split up and reconciled... oh, man, I've truly lost count now. 3 times? 4? All I know is that she's worth fighting for, and I'm not giving up on it yet, so hush.

But if the relationship's taken a toll on me, please take a moment to pity those most affected by all the drama: our Facebook friends.

If there's one thing I'm good at in life, it's milking sympathy from friends and family. So when we have one of these epic breakups, within hours I'm on Facebook updating my status to some kind of "woe is me" business while 20-30 friends send comments of support. But I've noticed that the comments lately have been a little less "I'm here for you, call me right away" and a little more "Dude. Again? Seriously." I'm wearing out the patience of Facebook Nation. I'm turning into The Boy Who Cried Break-Up.

But it was a Facebook post from a friend that made me realize just how un-weird I really am. The post was a link to a website about something I'd never heard of before: "Objectum-Sexuality."

Hmm, I can relate. Clearly, as a beloved and much-adored local writer, I spend most of my day-to-day time as a sexual object. Ladies, I can't help it that I'm so macho and dreamy. Trust me, it's as much torture for me as it is for you. But I vow one day women will respect me for more than my hot bod. Until then, I'll go to a website with empathy for sex objects.

But, it turns out, that's not what Objectum-Sexuality refers to. It's not so much to do with sex objects as it is with, umm, finding objects sexy.

Let's try to put it in layman's terms. You know the Centennial Bridge? It's a grand structure that serves as a centerpiece to the Quad Cities, a triumph of form and function that symbolizes community pride. It's fair to say that you might even one day pass its friendly visage and say, "Gee, I love this bridge."

Well, if you were an objectum-sexual, you might not love the bridge. You might loooooove the bridge. Objectum-Sexuality is an alleged orientation to love inanimate objects.

The internet home for Objectum-Sexuality was founded by a Swedish woman named Eija-Riitta Eklof. Eija loves the Berlin Wall. So much so, in fact, that in June of 1979, she married the Berlin Wall, complete with ceremony and taking the new name Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer. Yes, she is now Mrs. Berlin Wall. And no, I have no idea what their first dance as wall and wife were.

Through the internet, Mrs. Berlin Wall made acquaintance with Erika Naisho, or as she is now, Mrs. Erika Eiffel. Because she married the Eiffel Tower. Together, they host a network of websites to educate the rest of the world about what they have dubbed Objectum-Sexuality.

According to Mrs. Berlin Wall's website, they "love objects in an intimate way and this feeling is innate... objectum-sexuals feel a strong attraction towards objects possessing, in particular, certain geometry/function." Shockingly, it goes on to add that this attraction often "provokes criticism."

You don't say. I mean, just because you're married to a building and all? People might think you were a bit... odd?

I'm sounding a bit mean-spirited, I know. I don't get my jollies making fun of people, and as far as topics like gay marriage go, I'm an ardent supporter of "love whoever you want." Or is it "whoMever you want?" I never know. But I DO know that it's NOT "love WHATever you want." I'm all for your right to find happiness in the world. But when the object of your desire can't reciprocate the feeling because, oh, it's a WALL? That's a tough leap for even this liberal to make.

Modern psychology has yet to recognize or classify Objectum-Sexuality as either a disorder or a new sexual orientation, so for now it's simply a curiosity and a seriously weird website. But it leads to a few thoughts.

For one, how depressing would it be to be in love with the Berlin Wall? And how must she have felt when the Wall came down? Imagine the entire world cheering with jubilation at the thought of your husband being hacked into a million pieces? But, as it turns out, perhaps the Wall had it coming to it. Upon further investigation, I went to Erika Eiffel's homepage, wherein she admits, "It is also true that I have a longstanding relationship with the Berlin Wall. To my chagrin, this has drudged up criticism of my polyamorous relationship."

So what we're saying here, then, is that the Berlin Wall is nothing more than a cheating rat fink so-and-so, and if the Eiffel Tower ever catches wind of this, there's gonna be heck to pay.

There's part of me that feels really sympathetic towards these women. Clearly something's gone really wrong somewhere. And I dunno, maybe I KINDA understand? I mean, Wrigley Field is pretty sweet. And I don't know any NASCAR fan who doesn't have a SLIGHT fetish for Bristol Motor Speedway.

And I'd better not kid around, because the moment I do, karma will lead me to my unknown Objectum-Sexual self. But with MY luck, I won't be in love with anything as cool as the Eiffel Tower. No, I'll be the guy professing his undying love to a piece of Tupperware. Or a bath sponge. Or any of the random things in the litterbox, if not the litterbox itself.

So I'll shut up, To each their own, I guess. Just please don't be consummating your marriage on the day I decide to visit your betrothed landmark and we'll get along fine. After all, what do I know? I'm just a weirdo.

COLUMN: Flat Tire

Occasionally there are times in life when it's fun to prove your intellectual worth. For some of you, maybe this means that you secretly write poetry or listen to political radio. In my case, it's more of a trivial pursuit.

If you guys have ever seen me out and about, there's a good chance that it's happened at a local trivia night fundraiser. It's the only place where my shameful lack of life skills is trumped by my even more shameful mastery of pop culture. I can't solve a math problem, answer a history question, or perform most basic life functions, but what's that you say? You need someone to complete the following Bon Jovi lyric? Sadly, I'm your guy.

So I get a kick out of trivia events, and that's where I was Saturday night: bringing home victory at the Leclaire Civic Center. The win put me in such a great mood on the way back to my weekend DJ gig that I almost didn't notice the noise at first.

(Thump.) (Thump.) Clearly it's my heart gloating over our (thump) tremendous victory. (Thump.) That's an odd noise. (Thump.) (Thump.) I'll just turn up the car stereo a notch and try to ignore it...

(THUMPITY THUMP!)

This was when I noticed that the THUMPITY THUMP was being accompanied by a SHAKITY SHAKE of the steering wheel. I was pretty sure this wasn't normal behavior for a Volkswaaaaaaaaaa!

And that was the precise moment when my left rear tire went ker-blooey along a lonely stretch of Highway 67 at 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night.

Occasionally there are times in life when it's fun to prove your intellectual worth. Changing a tire is NOT one of them. I took a deep breath, counted my blessings, and formulated a two-part emergency response action plan. Step one was to kick the car. Step two was to hurl enough expletives to officially make this story NC-17.

If only I knew someone in the vicinity with the brawn and the manpower to sort this situation out. Someone macho enough to take control and replace the tire with gusto and brute strength.

It turns out I did. Her name is Tami.

Tami is a fellow trivia player, and she was only a few yards ahead on 67 when the tire blew. I called her up and she turned around to rescue me. In the meantime, I fumbled around and found the phone number to roadside assistance.

"Are you in a safe location?" asked my "friendly" help-line representative.

"Well, as safe as the middle of nowhere can be," I reckoned. Based on the creepy dark nature that surrounded the car, it was anybody's guess. There was a rustle in the nearby bushes. If I had to guess, I was pretty sure it was a were-zombie. "But hurry."

Five minutes later, my phone rang back. It was HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

"hello." said the unemotive robo-voice. "this. is. the. automated. insurance. helpline. roadside. assistance. is. now. being. dispatched. to. your. vehicle. and. should. arrive. in. FIFTY. minutes. thank. you. good. bye."

Fifty minutes at the intersection of Creepy St. & Were-Zombie Avenue? No thank you. Plus I was envisioning a restless group of tipsy 20-somethings milling about on a silent dancefloor. NOT cool.

That's when Tami spoke up. "Do you have a manual for this thing?" We had a look-see.

"Guten tag! Haben sie einen kaput Beetle auf der Autobahn?"

Okay, it wasn't in German. But it might as well have been. Instead, it was diagram after diagram of things that looked like neither my car OR my tire. But it kinda made sense. We pulled the spare out of the trunk and tried to follow along.

"Find wire hook (aka weird loopy thing) and socket wrench (aka were-zombie de-brainer)." Check. "Hook wire clip into wheel cover. Slide wrench through clip and pull cover off." We slid the wrench through the clip and pulled... and said clip straightened out like a wet piece of spaghetti without remotely affecting the wheel cover. So much for German engineering.

Eventually we pried the thing off and went to the next step, which was to loosen the lug nuts. Now, like I said, the manual was full of helpful diagrams, but not one of them showed me standing on top of the socket wrench, jumping up and down, and yelling "ungh" -- but that's what it took to loosen those puppies. Eventually we got the car jacked up and the tire off.

It was about this time when Amy rolled up. Now, Amy's the oft-discussed person in my life who, depending on press time, the current barometric pressure, and the positioning of Jupiter in the evening sky, may or may not be my girlfriend. (It's a loooong story. Suffice to say we break up worse than we date.) I'd called her earlier, and was expecting her to arrive and marvel at my tire-changing ability. The comically shocked look on her face said otherwise.

I was beaming with pride and teamwork and accomplishment at my fortitude and intuitiveness. But when Amy pulled up, there I stood, flashlight in hand, barking out steps from a manual, while Tami was on her hands and knees, covered in grime and lug nuts, effectively doing 90% of the work. I told you I had a shameful lack of life skills. But if she were ever in a crisis situation where she needed an emergency DJ set and/or newspaper column, I'd be there for her in a heartbeat.

Eventually, we got the tire changed and I was able to cancel the roadside assistance with five proud minutes to spare. And those tipsy 20-somethings? They barely noticed that I was 15 minutes late to the gig, and I was able to salvage some of my dignity by keeping the dancefloor hopping til the wee hours.

I can't possibly thank Tami enough, so instead I'll endorse her. She's a massage therapist who owns TEC Bodyworks on Tech Drive in Bettendorf. If she can handle a bad back half as good as she handled a bad tire, you'll be in good hands. As for me? Let's just say next time I'm at a trivia night and a question about tires comes up, I'll be the go-to guy who knows the right go-to girl.

COLUMN: Seuss

I used to think I had a fairly normal childhood. I had my treehouse. I had my friends. I had a great life. But I've come to realize that I missed out some pretty stereotypical parts of the usual upbringing process. I've recently discovered that, when it comes to Dr. Seuss, I'm a bit of a grinch.

I have no recall of my picture book era whatsoever. Surely I must've had my moment in the sun with the Little Engine That Could, but I sure don't remember it. My mother tells me that I had a somewhat scandalous obsession with "The Poky Little Puppy," but I couldn't give you a synopsis today.

My grandmother used to give me Babar books, but I wasn't having it. After all, as Wikipedia informs, some feel that "although superficially delightful, the Babar stories are politically and morally offensive and can be seen as a justification for colonialism." Clearly this concerned me deeply as a 5-year old. Okay, maybe I just thought Babar looked creepy as heck.

As far as my memory is concerned, here's my childhood in a nutshell: In the beginning, there was nothing. Then Mom said, "Let there be Hardy Boys!" And there were Hardy Boys, and they were good.

I worshipped the Hardy Boys and their keen adventures of, umm, keen-ness. And I'm pretty sure that it was my obsession for collecting the whole series that laid the fundamental groundwork for the OCD-riddled music nerd you know and love today. But by the time I was in grade school, I'd read and re-read the entire series. It was time for a new literary hero.

Naturally, that hero would be: Mack Bolan, The Executioner. Choice reading material for a grade schooler, eh? When I was on the phone asking my mom about the poky puppy just now, she was like, "All I remember are the Hardy Boys and that actiony fellow, what was his name again?"

Here's where you have to learn a little about my dad. My father is one of the most gentle, giving, and harmless people on God's green earth. He wouldn't hurt a fly -- well, unless provoked. But my dad was also a military policeman at Fort Knox for a good long while, and as such, has a bit of a hidden side. A side that subscribes to Soldier of Fortune magazine. A side that's seen every war movie ever made. And a side that apparantly didn't see anything wrong with letting his young son read The Executioner series.

To compare, the Hardy Boys defeat bad guys using their intuition and some wits. Mack Bolan defeats bad guys using his AK-47 and some well-timed head shots. After the Hardy Boys win, they go home and get some pie. After Mack Bolan wins, he goes home and just gets some. (Pie not necessarily included.) If my mother ever knew the contents of those books, my dad might STILL be in the doghouse today.

But the point of this whole literary analysis is that between the innocent mysteries of the Hardy Boys and blood-stained streets of Mack Bolan, I somehow ignored the ultimate childhood rite-of-passage: I was never into Dr. Seuss.

It just wasn't my thing. Odd little amorphous, asexual creatures all talking in rhyme and usually complaining about stuff? Not my scene. Here's how I used to stereotype Dr. Seuss books:

First, have your cat walk across the computer keyboard. Like this (here, kitty!):

PRULKINFARG

This is now your amorphous, asexual main character's name. Now do it again (meow kitty!):

RUTTVING

And that's your character's homeland. Then just come up with something bad to happen (you can do that later) and set it to rhyme:

There once was a Prulkinfarg from Ruttving City,
Where (something something really bad) and it was such a pity.

In the end, something something really good happens and everyone learns a lesson. And then when you're in your mid-20's, you learn that your cheezy little children's story of yore is secretly an allegorical condemnation of the horrors of nuclear war and you go "Whoooa, that's deep!"

Me, I just thought they were boring little dumb-named blobs who wore ugly hats and fancied green eggs and one, if not two, fish of the red and/or blue persuasion. So I kinda skipped out on Seuss, and now I feel like I missed the boat. Everyone my age and below reveres Dr. Seuss like a childhood friend. I, meanwhile, was the only person on the planet who recently watched "Horton Hears a Who" and didn't already know the plot.

So it was with some trepidation and reluctance that I accepted my friend Kelly's offer last week to go see Quad City Music Guild's production of "Seussical," the musical that weaves multiple classic Seuss storylines into a magnum opus of cats and hats and Hortons and Whos and Thinks you can think. And for a local production -- heck, for ANY production -- I was blown away.

Between the three fabulous leads (especially fifth-grader Emily Baker stealing the show as Whoville's Jo Jo) and the tight direction of Andy Davis, the entire Seuss canon came to life before my eyes and melted this grinch's heart. The only thing that stunk was that I was watching it WITHOUT the accompaniment of the biggest Seuss fan I know, my girlfriend. (This might be due to the fact that we split up, but that's another topic for another time -- just suffice to say we really suck at breaking up since she's sitting on my couch as I'm writing this.)

I couldn't imagine Seussical without her -- so the very next day, I took her to the matinee and saw the show again. Double the Seuss, double the fun... and now double the incessant songs from the score that are playing in my brain on an infinite loop that could, if they don't soon stop, cause ME to start hearing Whos any minute now. The point is, it only took me 38 years, but I finally realized that I DO like green eggs and ham, Sam I Am. Now I think I need to start work on a musical devoted to Mack Bolan the Executioner -- it's just way hard finding anything that rhymes with "bloody human carcass."

COLUMN: Carnivore

It's not often that my life gets easier -- and that's sad when you think about it. I mean, come on, this IS the 21st Century. We should all have jetpacks and flying cars and teleportation and clothes that self-wash and food that comes in pill form. Instead, it just seems like life piles up more and more complicated crud on us with every passing year. Ergo, it's the little things that count.

My life just got easier. My girlfriend is now a carnivore. Huzzah!

Maybe it's because I hang out with a lot of hipsters and artsy types, but we meat-eaters are an endangered species in my clique of friends. Ever since college, I've always had at least one close friend in my life who recoils in horror at the sight of a Quarter Pounder. Whenever you hear of a PETA protest in town or someone throwing fake blood onto a fur coat, there's a pretty good chance I know 'em.

Now, don't get me wrong, vegans and vegetarians. I have nothing against you, your lifestyle, and your digestive tract. I get the whole vegetarian thing, I really do. I consider myself a cute-itarian: I simply refrain from eating any animal that might one day make me go "awwwwwwww" when featured in a Disney cartoon. Deer are cute -- hence they stay off my plate. Chickens? NOT cute. Turkeys? NOT cute AND mean. Cows are only cute when they're babies, so no veal for me, thanks. Cows are beautiful creatures. They're just slightly more beautiful when served medium well with an ample amount of Heinz 57.

When your friends are vegetarians, eating out can be a real chore. When your GIRLFRIEND is a vegetarian, it's an entirely different ballgame.

I can't tell you the number of dates I've been on the past six months where I sit and tear through a steak while my girlfriend contentedly nibbles on an unappetizing assortment of twigs and berries. Some restaurants are really accommodating to the vegeterian way of life, others not so much. I'm too new at this to know which is which. But wherever we end up, she'll invariably go, "Oh, don't worry, I'll find something!" Sometimes she'll end up with something decent. But sometimes it ends up me devouring Chicken Little while she asks the waiter for some ranch sauce for her parsley sprigs and I'll feel like Glutton McMeateater.

All that changed at the NASCAR race in the Iowa Speedway the other day. I thought nothing of it when she said she wanted food. What I didn't expect was to see her come back with a chicken sandwich in her hand.

"Whaaaa?" said Shane.

"It looked good. I wanted some chicken."

"Wait, this isn't going to be the sort of decision you'll regret later and freak out on me, is it? 'Coz we can get you some nice tofu in a bit..."

"Nnnnnope," she said, taking a big ol' bite of the forbidden carnal treasure. She said something after that which was nearly indescipherable, other than it started with "OMIGODITSSOOOOGOOOOOOOD!" I'm pretty sure it was what scientists refer to as a meatgasm.

I thought maybe it was a one-off dance with the devil until the ride home, when she asked, "Umm, can we stop by Arby's? I think I want a Beef 'n' Cheddar." Gulp. And with that, her lengthy experiment with vegetarianism came to a crashing halt. Now I'm completely open and accepting and supportive of anybody's dietary choices, and I would NEVER pressure any twig-eater into plunging headfirst into a meat pile, but can I just say: HOORAH! Goodbye, guilt. Hello, Jim's Rib Haven!

Of course, the timing couldn't have been worse. Mere days after her epic change of heart, I had an experience that made ME second-guess my carnivorous ways.

There exists in the Quad Cities a fast-food restaurant. I won't say which one, because you might not ever want to eat there again. It's a restaurant whose drive-thru lane I frequent frequently. And just inside that drive-thru window, there's a bulletin board. And hanging on that board are any number of employee memos -- which, if they're written large enough, can be read by any customers who are nozy and/or bored enough to bother with.

It was on that very bulletin board the other day that I saw this note, written in huge letters with what appeared to be an angry, exasperated pen:

"ATTENTION ALL EMPLOYEES! THERE WILL BE NO MORE BOXING UP AND SELLING OF EXPIRED CHICKEN!!"

ummm... on behalf of the entire Quad Cities at large, can I just say... good? I suppose I appreciate the sentiment of the notice, and that the restaurant now gives a rat's behind about NOT treating their customers to an extra helping of enterotoxins with their poultry. But no, what I'm concerned about here is one word in that notice:

MORE.

The sign didn't say "there will be no boxing up and selling of expired chicken." No, it said, "there will be no MORE boxing up and selling of expired chicken." One must only assume, prior to this sign's invention, that the boxing up and selling of expired chicken was a frequent pasttime of this establishment, until somebody had to come along and ruin all the fun with a pesky sign.

I suppose it can be forensically argued that ANY chicken who exits a processing plant in the correct manner had better be "expired," but something tells me that wasn't the point of this sign. At a fast-food joint, we're not priviliged to see the sell-by date on our combo meals. I suppose, though, if an e.coli bacterium can survive a ride through a deep-fryer, it's somewhat deserving of a nice intestinal tract to vacation in.

Still, I prefer that intestinal tract to NOT be mine. So, for the time being, chicken from THAT place is off my menu. And maybe chickens as a whole are suddenly much cuter than I once thought. And maybe a diet without red meat might not be the worst decision I could make. And maybe tofu doesn't taste THAT bad. And maybe parsley with ranch sauce sounds kinda appetizing.

ARRRRRGH. Life was supposed to be easier.

COLUMN: NASCAR Weekend

There are two Shanes constantly waging war in my head.

The first is Shane the Artsy Hipster. This Shane doesn't really exist, because the real me is far too nerdy to pull it off. I'm too old, too chubby, and the nearest Urban Outfitters is, like, two hours away.

The second is Small Town Redneck Shane. This Shane doesn't really exist, either -- my natural wussiness prefers the air-conditioned comfort of my apartment over a sunburn any day. Still, like John Cougar Mellencamp so aptly said, I was born in a small town and I can breathe in a small town.

And so the war rages on. Let's say, for instance, there was a one-act play in town that portrayed existential nihilism as a poisoning of the human soul. Shane #1 would think it a winning night out. Shane #2 would rather sit in a La-Z-Boy eating hot dogs and watching reruns of "Cops."

That's the kind of dilemma I found myself in last weekend, as two major events had the indecency to occur simultaneously.

On the Shane #1 hand, it was the 30th Anniversary Birthday Bash at the Rock Island Brewing Company, and attendance was all but mandatory. A full weekend's slate of music featuring the reunion of three of the greatest bands the Quad Cities ever produced: Einstein's Sister, Driver of the Year, and Tripmaster Monkey. Speaking as a card-carrying music nerd: Wow.

But Shane #1 wasn't the only one excited about this past weekend. For six months, Shane #2 had been whispering in my ear about an event coming up -- and it was a whisper that I'm pretty sure had a southern drawl. I had to own up to my secret shame: A very big part of me would NOT be happy gallavanting around the Quad Cities with the knowledge that, less than two hours away, a major NASCAR event was occurring.

There. I said it. I like NASCAR. Sue me. As hip and cool as I yearn to be, there will forever be a part of my brain that thinks cars racing in circles for an entire afternoon is super rad. I watch the races, I listen to NASCAR radio in my car, and I'm currently 2nd in my NASCAR fantasy league and stand to make a pretty penny if the season keeps going my way. And by pretty penny, I clearly mean the value of respect and admiration from my fellow racing enthusiasts and in no way, shape, or form am I inferring that any monetary amounts are being wagered because that would be really, really wrong. Cough.

Two measly hours away from the Quad Cities sits the Iowa Speedway and last weekend's Nationwide U.S. Cellular 250. The decision was too much for me. NASCAR or music -- which would it be? That's when Shane #1 and Shane #2 spoke in unison: "BOTH." Not the brightest move, but I sit here at my keyboard as a monument to human fortitude, because I pulled it off. Here's how it went down:

On Friday night, I went to RIBCO and saw Einstein's Sister reunite to an all-Beatles set that lit my world on fire. But it was a fire I had to quickly douse, because it was off to early bed for me. 8 a.m. was harsh. My bones ached, but I didn't care. NASCAR waits for no one but the rain.

After throwing myself together, my girlfriend -- a wonderful sport in all this, by the way, since I'm pretty sure SHE has two voices in her head and neither one of them were asking for guitars or cars -- and I headed west on I-80. Two hours later we were in Newton and the Iowa Speedway was in sight. Then it disappeared from sight because the traffic cops directed us to a fine spot that I'm pretty sure was in Indiana.

After a lovely hike through the infinite gravel parking lot, we got to the gate -- to discover that our seatback chairs weren't allowed inside. So we had to walk allllll the way back to the car. Well, since I blew my knee out about a third of the way back, it was more hobbling than walking.

Dear NASCAR, have you ever SEEN your fans? We are NOT what you would call toned athletes who enjoy a brisk walk. While normal people spend their Sundays getting out and about, we spend them in BarcaLoungers watching cars go in circles. Normal people worry about their weight. We worry whether we've got enough nachos to make it through the caution laps. There are 43 perfectly good cars capable of shuttling us to and from the parking lot. The least you could do is send out Kevin Harvick to gimme a lift.

Eventually we made it through the gate and headed towards much-needed refreshments. Suddenly the guy in front of me looks at my Augie t-shirt and goes, "Aug-us-taaana? We don't allow no Quad City f------ in NASCAR Nation!" Greeeat. I take my girlfriend to her first NASCAR race and get us killed before the green flag even waves. That's when the guy continued. "Har! Har! Just kiddin', brother! NASCAR ruuules! Whooo-yaa!" Maybe I made up the whoo-yaa. I honestly don't remember. But whoo-yaa was definitely going through MY head.

I hate to admit it, though, but NASCAR really does bring out the best in people. Everybody around us was smiling, friendly, and high-fiving strangers. The race was killer. Kyle Busch, the driver that every NASCAR fan is contractually obligated to hate, started in last place but made his way to the lead in under 70 laps. Then it was a battle between good and evil, as Busch fought -- and eventually lost -- to Brad Keselowski, who we have to like because his car is owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is to NASCAR fans what Jesus is to, well, NASCAR fans.

But we didn't see the win. We were too busy hustling our dirt-covered bodies back to the car for a quick getaway to a much-needed shower, a knee brace, and a hasty arrival at RIBCO exactly ten minutes before Driver and Tripmaster took the stage. It was an awesome topper to an awesome weekend. For once, I had my cake and ate it, too. It just kinda tasted like burned rubber, though.

COLUMN: Summit

Grr. It's been one of those weeks where very little column-worthy's been going on in my life. Jeez, and it had such potential, too.

I mean, this weekend was the dreaded Parental Summit, wherein my girlfriend's parents journeyed to Galesburg to meet MY parents. This would be GREAT, right? And my great I mean AWFUL, naturally. After all, these are MY parents, legendary in the art of telling embarassing and cringe-worthy tales. I was prepping for the entire day to be an unholy exercise in patience, luck, and my deft ability to change the subject in mid-conversation.

But, like all potentially awful events in my life, the upswing is that even the worst of days can become the best of newspaper columns. I drove to Galesburg with trepidation in my heart but a sharpened and eager pencil in my pocket. If I was going to take the fall this day, at least I'd have something epic to write about. As I was driving towards my certain embarassing doom, I kept looking to the skies but not once did I see four horsemen. Good sign for me, bad sign for the column.

The sad and boring truth is that the whole day went swimmingly well. Astoundingly and shockingly well, actually. My parents and her parents got along from the first moment.

My dad wanted to show off his newest handiwork -- he just finished screening in the entire patio, an epic project with plans dating back to my childhood. Her dad asked all the right questions and nodded at all the appropriate points in the guided patio tour. Me, I got lost 30 seconds into it. There was something about expanding wood and aluminum reinforcements and suddenly the word "wolmanized" was in there someplace -- if wolmanized is, in fact, a word, which I'm not quite sure about. I was just amused at how my dad said "wolmanized" and then thought about what a weird word it is to pronounce, so I kept doing it in my head over and over - wol-MAN-ized, WOL-man-ized, wol-man-IZED -- and then pondered whether or not one who wolmanizes is referred to as a "wolmanizer," and how THAT is a business card I would kill to have ("Shane Brown, Wolmanizer") and then suddenly it turned into a Britney Spears song ("Wolmanizer, wolma-wolmanizer, oh, you're a wolmanizer, baby") ...and the next thing I knew, our guests were saying "cool" to my beaming father while once again I remain perhaps the most ignorant and inept son to ever live who couldn't build his way out of a paper bag, let alone screen it in with proper wolmanization. Sorry, Pop.

But the point is that the dreaded summit wasn't too particularly dreadful at all. Happily, she and I are both blessed with relatively cool parents (as cool as parents can be, I suppose) who are free of pretention, snobbery, and hang-ups. They got along like gang-busters.

And I only wanted to kill my mother once, but it really wasn't her fault. She only made the misfortune of saying "yes" when asked the following: "OOH! DO YOU HAVE ANY BABY PICTURES?"

Now, here I need to interrupt the story and talk a little bit about my girlfriend. One of things that initially made me go ga-ga for her was her countless photos up on Myspace and her seemingly inate ability to look cute as a button in every single one of them. "My God," I thought, "she's, like, the most photogenic human being in the world. This girl does NOT take a bad picture."

Now I know better. This is not to say that my girlfriend is anything less than wonderful (calm down, honey.) In fact, I'm quite the lucky feller to be with someone so stinkin' cute. But she, like everyone else on planet Earth whose names don't include the words "Iman" or "Schiffer," is not immune to the occasional bad photo. She simply overcompensates for it by taking approximately 11,000 photos of every major event in her life -- events such as, oh, driving in a car.

The other day, in fact, we were driving in a car when she went, "Ooh! This needs a picture!" Naturally. Because three score from now, we'll want to be sitting in our rocking chairs reminiscing fondly, "Ooh, remember that one time when we went driving in a car? Good times..." But, me being the nice guy and all, was like, "Umm, okay." I then learned that it takes upwards of 12 staged photographs to effectively capture the pure spontaneous bliss of driving in a car. By this time, I'm flash-blind and a danger to pedestrians. But at least if I killed a pedestrian, we could provide the police with our own handy photographic evidence.

This doesn't sit well with me, as I detest having my photo taken once, let alone 12 times. I don't need twelve reminders of what an unphotogenic mess of a human being I am. Cameras point at me and my head instinctively turns to an odd angle, my eyes sink into my head, my second chin grows a third, and my mouth forms what my brain thinks is a smile but my brain is sadly mistaken. This is a girl who can take twenty pictures of a dress, and this is a boy who takes less than twenty pictures per decade.

My mother, on the other hand, shares my girlfriend's fondness for capturing those moments of life best lost to the ages. Next thing I knew, photo albums were coming out like the wind. Chubby baby Shane. Christmas morning Shane. Crying Shane in a forced pose with a fake Santa. Shane dressed up as Uncle Sam for the sesquicentennial parade. Shane in his "Welcome Back Kotter" sweatshirt. Acne-ridden pubescent Shane. "Ooh, remember that one time when you had those grotesque zits? Good times..."

But I survived, despite the assorted ohh-ing and aww-ing of the female summit members and the eyerolls of the male contingency. Pizza was had, jokes were told, and hopefully some new friends made. Too bad it wasn't exciting enough to make for a good newspaper column. Or was it...?

COLUMN: Hat

If you're just joining the party, my last two columns were devoted to my girlfriend's failed attempts at getting me to dress like a proper and upstanding member of society (or, as I like to refer to it, a preppy loser.) When my girlfriend was on her good-natured "let's-improve-the-boy" kick, she brought up one other concern as to my wardrobe -- and it's something very close to my heart. Well, actually it's something very close to my head.

To understand, we need a flashback to the distant land of 1983, where epic decisions awaited a wee junior-high Shane.

It's about this age that I began to transform into the mature, forward-thinking, career-minded professional that you know and love today. After carefully investigating, analyzing, and researching all of the options laid before me by the world, I decided at age 12 that the most prudent vocation to set my sights and training towards was, clearly, that of ROCK STAR DRUMMER.

Here was an occupation that promised all of the perks of gainful employment that I was concerned about, such as a progressive atmosphere of teamwork fostering professional relationships with colleagues such as the smokin' hot girl in the "Rio" video who dances on the sand just like that river twisting through the dusty land.

After having been evaluated for multiple instruments back in middle school, the band teachers decided that my natural aptitude for melody, harmony, notes and scales made me best suited to bang on noisy objects with sticks. Despite my musical shortcomings, by the time I had reached junior high, I was first chair concert/marching snare with dreams of rock & roll greatness. But the four of us in the percussion section knew that junior high band was small potatoes of "boom-tap-tap, boom-tap-tap" until we reached the big show: high school marching band.

Back in Galesburg in the 80's, our high school band was the stuff of legend. They won awards, they did routines, and their drummers were the coolest people we had ever seen. How cool? So cool that, during football games, instead of wearing foot-tall marching band hats like the rest of the band, they got to wear whatever hats they wanted. One of the dudes wore a fedora, another guy got to wear a leather newsboy cap. They were the rebels of the band, the zenith of cool, and the epicenter of everything my 12-year-old heart wanted to be.

At the same time, I was developing my own tastes in contemporary music. Having been brought up in a very pro-music house, my weekly allowance back then was already being efficiently routed safely to the hands of Musicland, and my growing collection of cassette tapes was my pride and joy. I didn't know much at age 12, but boy, did I know music. I was such an expert, in fact, that I looked at all the artists in the pantheon of rock history, and proudly announced to everyone I knew that The Greatest Rock Band To Ever Walk Upon The Face of the Earth was... the JoBoxers.

In retrospect, probably not the brightest thing to say. This was, after all, a band whose ultimate musical legacy left to the world was the two singles "Just Got Lucky" and "She's Got Sex." At least I know where my 12-year-old mind was at the time. But I promise you, for a 1983 heartbeat, the JoBoxers were pretty rad. As I watched them prance about on MTV (and oh, prance they did) in their suspenders and caps, I wanted to be a JoBoxer with all my heart. I wanted to just get lucky, too, whatever that meant. I wanted the suspenders. I wanted the cap.

Wait a tick... the JoBoxers were cool, and so were the high school drummers. And what was the common thread uniting the two? They all wore HATS. Instantly a plan went into motion. I, too, would get a cool-guy cap. Then I would be the cool rock-&-roll rebel who just got lucky. Only one problem.

I am the proud owner of an elephantine skull of enormous magnitude. I've long bragged that it's to hold my enormous brains, but the truth is that I'm just kind of a freak. Let's just say there was a reason I was born via C-section. Even in junior high, they were already having to custom order my size XXXL marching band hat. Just my luck -- I find the ultimate answer to coolness and can't find one to fit my obscenely huge head.

It's twenty-five years later. The JoBoxers went the way of the dodo, and high school band lost its lustre after discovering they held daily practice at 6 a.m. Still, my obsession with ill-fitting hats remains. There's seldom a time that I pass a cap in a store without flipping it over in hopes that it'll happen to be a XXXL wide. In college, I found one that was. I was broke at the time, but lived off ramen noodles for a week to afford it. And I wore it every day until it honestly starting molting. If you don't believe it, check my closet today - I can't bear to toss it.

But thanks to the internet, I've found my home away from home -- Lamood.com: Big Hats for Big Heads. I've been an ardent supporter for years, and now have an arsenal of XXXL caps at the ready: newsboy caps, driving caps, Gatsbys, and my pride and joy: my Greek fisherman's cap. I have two, actually: wool for the winter, cotton for the summer. I wear the heck out of caps.

Naturally, my girlfriend hates them. This time, though, I kinda know why: they're pretty much ugly. I know that my Greek fisherman's cap makes me look less like a JoBoxer and more like a pudgy Captain in desperate search of his Tennille. And it's not like I need them to cover receding hair - that's one thing that genetics has so far blessed me with.

I can't explain why I continue to wear the silly things. They're just my trademark. I like wearing caps, and ptooey on you if you're not onboard. I may look like a giant dork, but somewhere in the back of my brain, there's still that 12-year-old who can finally be the drumming JoBoxer of his dreams.

RIBCO 30th Anniversary Birthday Bash!

Before there was a District of Rock Island, there was RIBCO. Before there was a Gumbo Ya Ya or a Ya Maka My Weekend, there was RIBCO. Before there was fun at all, there was RIBCO.

OK, OK. Perhaps mankind amused themselves before the arrival of downtown Rock Island's premiere live-music venue, but it probably wasn't as fun, and it certainly wasn't as loud.

The Rock Island Brewing Company turns 30 this summer, and they're celebrating the only way they know how -- music, music and more music.

The RIBCO 30th Anniversary Birthday Bash happens this weekend with an indoor showcase on Friday followed by an all-ages outdoor show Saturday. There will be a lineup of past and present RIBCO favorites, including a few names you never thought you'd see onstage again. Putting together the project has been a labor of love for RIBCO talent buyer Jason Parris.

"We wanted to do something special that wasn't only fun but challenging to put together," Mr. Parris said. "We approached bands that helped shape RIBCO's history, including a few that haven't played together in years. To a lot of them, the idea of a no-pressure get-together sounded exciting."

Chief among the bands reforming for the event is Tripmaster Monkey. In its storied career, the band put out three releases in the mid-1990s on Sire/Warner Bros. Records and toured the U.S., all while getting MTV airplay and critical acclaim here and abroad. This weekend will be their first time onstage as a group in more than a decade.

"We were always looking for a reason to reunite," said Tripmaster Monkey guitarist Jamie Toal. "RIBCO's 30th seemed plenty good. Of course, there was also that dream I had with Abe Lincoln, except it was Spaceman Abe Lincoln from outer space. He said, 'Jamie, check this out! I am totally on Mars right now! Anyways, do me a favor -- reform the Monkey at RIBCO in August. The future of space travel and human awesomeness depends on it.' You don't say no to Honest Abe."

Other bands required considerably less extraterrestial persuasion to hop on board.

"RIBCO is the 'A Room' to play in the Quad-Cities, and has been for 30 years," said Bill Douglas, frontman for the defunct, but temporarily resurrected, Einstein's Sister. "RIBCO has hosted so many great bands and shows, and to be able to play that stage along with so many of them this weekend is an honor."

The power-pop of Einstein's Sister kicks off the weekend on the indoor stage Friday night, alongside local stalwarts John Resch & Detroit Blues. Rounding out the Friday lineup are two other recently revived favorites -- Keep Off the Grass and Jim the Mule.

On Saturday, Tripmaster Monkey is joined on the outdoor stage by Dean Wellman, The Warmth and another group reassembling for the first time in three years -- Parris' own Driver of the Year.

"I wouldn't call it a reunion as much as a return from a much-needed pause," Mr. Parris said. "Driver of the Year will never die in our eyes. I'm just excited to play with such a great variety of artists that I've respected for a long time."

After the outdoor celebration stops on Saturday, the party moves inside RIBCO for the grand finale -- the raunchy glam-rock shenanigans of Cheese Pizza, a crowd favorite.

"RIBCO is where it's at in the Quad-Cities as far as live music goes," said John Nelson, aka Cheese drummer Gil Fishman. "It's my favorite room to play because of the professionalism of the place. Great owner, great PA, an incredible sound engineer in Al Dimeo ... What's not to love? Just being included on this bill is an honor."

You can't interview any of these bands without them taking time to praise RIBCO owner Terry Tilka. Under Tilka's reign, RIBCO has risen from a solid local bar to a national touring destination. Known for his fair-handed, tell-it-like-it-is management approach, Tilka and his venue played a large part in the growth of every band on this weekend's lineup.

"Terry is a really smart guy," said Toal. "He's seen some crazy stuff with the Monkey boys, and we probably ticked him off on many occasions -- but he's really done a remarkable job in the Quad-Cities."

"For Terry to add us to that bill along with these other great acts tells me what he thinks of us as a band, and we appreciate that," Nelson said. "Terry loves us. He once cross-dressed and hopped onstage with us to sing 'I Think I Love You.' OK, that's a complete lie, but print it anyway."

Making the decision to reform was easy for some of the weekend's bands, but getting into the swing of things proved a little more challenging.

Toal described his first practice with the reformed Tripmaster Monkey as "the perfect sonic marriage of nails on a chalkboard with a flock of dying geese. These things take a while to get back to where they need to be."

We're promised they'll be in fine form by this weekend. And at the low cover charge of $5, it's a risk well worth taking for one of the best two-day lineups of local music imaginable.

"This is our way of giving back to all that have supported us over the years as a great music venue," Parris said.

RIBCO has been a steady hand in the Quad-Cities music scene for 30 years. Will we one day see a 60th-anniversary bash?

"We're already working on the line-up," Parris said with a grin.

COLUMN: Shirt Wars, The Sequel

Ahh... there's nothing like waking up after voting day, is there? The birds in the sky chirp with the satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from our free and Democratic society. Yes, a utopian world, really, where every voice has its say, every hope can be realized... and every shirt can be worn.

In case you missed last week's column, let's get you up to speed:

Your humble columnist, otherwise known as The Hero Of Our Story, dry cleaned his collection of super-sexy silk shirts for the purposes of summer wearing. This was much to the chagrin of his loving girlfriend (The Evil Villainess,) who felt that he would be much better suited in a spanky collection of argyle polo shirts. The Villainess, normally a lovely and caring princess whom Our Hero wouldn't trade for all the video games in Japan, was clearly under some kind of evil spell, as these argyle polo shirts hailed from the land of Preppy Golf Course Nightmares.

Thus began the epic battle of Shirt Wars - Episode One: The Argyle Menace. Since the Villainess was immune to all of the reasoning and logic that our couch-dwelling Hero could provide, he instead decided to take the battle to the people, in the form of last week's column. Facts were laid out, opinions stated, and photographic evidence of both the pleasing button-down silk ensemble (yay!) AND the argyle atrocity (boo! hiss!) were presented to you, the general public, for your careful consideration and feedback.

After last week's column was turned in, we both promptly laughed about it and left the Quad Cities for a romantic daytrip to Wisconsin, where my choice of shirts was the last thing on our minds. In other words, it was kind of a joke column, folks. Little did I know that, while we were cruising the waters of Lake Geneva with champagne wishes and caviar dreams, the Shirt War was raging on amongst a goodly percentage of our readership.

What neither of us knew was that the column had made its way to the main page of QCOnline.com, drawing many an eye. By the time we got back in town, I had an inbox bulging with e-mails from readers. Online comments were piling up on our website. Even our respective Facebook pages were teeming with mutual friends up in arms... all about my clothing. I will never look a gift shirt in the mouth again.

Through all of the comments, I learned important things. For example, here's what one reader had to say:

"Your silk man-blouse is UGLY! Your girlfriend has the right idea. In the argyle, you look 20 pounds lighter and your hair and eyes look so much cooler."

Here's what another says:

"I hate the argyle polo shirt. It makes you look fat and look like a dork. The silk look is better for you."

So, if there's one thing to be learned from this exercise, it's the satisfying knowledge that I'm clearly a lard-butt no matter WHAT I drape over myself. Personally, I simply suspect that all cameras on Earth hate me with a blinding fury. I'm just big-boned -- especially my stomach bone.

Still, I wanted an answer. I was convinced that the ghost of Chess King wouldn't have led me wrong about silk and rayon shirts all these years. I wanted to dance on the grave of my girlfriend's argyles. I wanted a definitive and exact picture of myself as seen through the eyes of strangers. This is why I just finished sitting here, meticulously counting the votes and opinions that have come in via e-mail, website, and Facebook all weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen -- the winner of Shirt Wars 2009 is...

THE SILKEN SHIRTS OF SHANE BROWN. By a margin of exactly two votes. In yer face, argyle!

I promptly contacted my girlfriend and delivered my victory speech, the text of which I'll gladly reprint here: "Ahem. Nyah Nyah Boo Boo! You suck! I rule! The end."

Needless to say, she demanded a recount.

When the votes were tallied a second time, I'm afraid to say that two entries were called into question. For instance, there was this comment, on my Facebook, from our mutual friend Sarah:

"So much argyle, so little time..."

I had assumed this was a sarcastic comment favoring MY choice of clothing. My girlfriend, however, feels that this is a clear vote for her argyle polo shirts. This was a conundrum. It's times like this when you realize that you can't trust your own predisposed opinion and must look at the situation from a purely non-partisan view. I needed to think like my elders and my civic leaders. We decided to stop, take a deep breath, and ask ourselves, "What would Rock Island Circuit Court Judge Mark VandeWiele do?"

We struggled for three days to ascertain this commenter's intent, knowing that every vote is critical in this fashion war. The length of the struggle in and of itself helped answer the question. By a preponderance of the evidence, this is a vote for ARGYLE. But Shirt War calls for a clearly ascertainable vote and this columnist and his girlfriend cannot in good faith make that finding. Since these commenter's intent is not clearly ascertainable by a totality of the circumstances as required by a good 'n' proper Shirt War, these two comments shall not be counted as a vote for either shirt.

In other words, we've come to a tie. Persuant to the by-laws of my apartment, this means The Great Shirt War of 2009 shall be decided by -- you guessed it -- drawing lots. I'm just not sure what we need to draw lots of. In grade school, I used to draw lots of rocketships, so I'm hoping that's what it'll be.

Until said time that we draw lots of rocketships, I declare myself the winner. I shall continue to wear my ugly silk shirts with pride, and I'll even concede to the occasional public outing of the thoughtfully-purchased argyle polo shirts because I love my girlfriend and maybe one day I'll love her shirts, too. And if the girlfriend has any issues with that, this humble writer reminds her that she's more than welcome to go and get her OWN newspaper column nyah nyah boo boo. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a victory party to attend -- dress code strictly enforced.

COLUMN: Shirt Wars

The best part about forging a new romantic relationship has to be the communication. When your way of life merges with another's, a bond is formed by sharing and discourse. The relationship begins to flourish as each of you gains new insight and understanding of your lives.

For instance, I have gained the insight and understanding that I am apparantly incapable of dressing myself.

I know fully well that I am no fashionista. As a long-term testosterone-fueled bachelor, I've developed a few simple rules when it comes to fashion:

• Never buy clothes that require ironing. The amount of time that one spends sweating away over an ironing board can then be thusly used on far more relevant and worldly tasks, such as Super Mario Kart.

• Always find shirts with sleeves that can be pushed up, thereby giving the wearer the advantage of owning both winter and summerwear with one purchase. The amount of money that one spends on seasonal wardrobery can then be thusly used purchasing far more relevant and worldly items, such as Super Mario Kart 2.

• Clothing should be carefully selected in two colors only: (1) dark, and (2) slightly off-dark. Time is precious and fleeting, and Super Mario Kart waits for no one -- especially you weirdo girls who waste time sorting your laundry into color-coordinated piles. If one simply buys an entire wardrobe of dark and dreary colors, you can just shove 'em all in the washer en masse and turn the machine to "I-don't-really-care-what-temperature-you-wash-these."

These rules have so far proven to be a triumphant success. That is, until the girlfriend walked in the other day.

"Surprise, honey!" she exclaimed, shopping bag aloft. "I got you presents!"

Presents, it should be noted for those of you wishing to buy them for me, should consist of: food, money, toys, or a Rane Serato Scratch DJ System. Despite her best intentions, they should never be a bag of clothes. Clothes are not presents. Clothes are functional necessities at best.

Still, there I was, facing a bag of thoughtfully-purchased polo shirts. I steadied myself as I examined them with my best "ohhh, wow, you shouldn't have" face. And admittedly, it was a really sweet gesture. Two of them were actually quite nice, and shirts I could easily see myself wearing. One was basic black and another was basic blue, both with your standard polo stripes. I can work with these.

The other two? Hrrm. These shirts made liberal usage out of something I have never owned in all my live-long days. Argyle, explains Wikipedia, is a diamonds-&-diagonal-checkerboard pattern derived from the tartan of Clan Campbell of Argyll in eastern Scotland. It got its name because "argyll" is the retching noise that one makes when forced to wear it.


I kid. Kinda. I suppose they don't look bad. And to hear my girlfriend go, "Awwwwwww, you look SO CUTE" is never a bad thing. But to look at myself in the mirror was another story. They're not just argyle, they're bright and happy. One's white and the other has a big ol' yellow argo-diamond smack across the midsection.


I know in reality that I'm little more than a huge nerd, but in the Me that I like to fancy myself, I live above and beyond the constraints of society. I'm dark and mysterious and esoteric and ironic and funny and, quite possibly, the coolest person that's ever lived. In my new argyle polo shirts, I'm not dark or mysterious. I'm merely late for my squash match with Mitzi and Roland Buffington III. They are, without a doubt, the most anti-me shirts to see the inside of my closet since my much-maligned "ponchos-are-kinda-cool,-right?" phase.

Yet, for the sake of my cooing girlfriend who assures of my argyle-clad attractiveness, I'm giving them a shot and simply feeling uber-weird wherever I go. But it gets worse.

"I got them because you don't seem to have many summer-y shirts," she said with glee.

A-HA! How wrong she was. I explained to her that I simply hadn't taken my summer stash to the dry cleaners. Tucked away in a laundry basket in the far end of my closet lies a pile of shirts that only see the light of day from June through September. Shirts whose greatness breaks all rules. Shirts I adore.

Ever since the glory days of Chess King circa 1987, I have been an ardent fan of button-down silk and/or rayon shirts of the psychedelic and awesome persuasion. If it's in any way silky and looks like Pink Floyd threw up on it, I probably own it. And now they're back in style -- and with the help of a certain Mr. Tommy Bahama, the collection has been growing exponentially.

I took the stash out to proudly show off. To my surprise, it was met with a look of horror. With each shirt I'd pull out, the look intensified, until she finally blurted it out:

"They're old man shirts. Oh, honey, no. You own old man shirts. Omigod, I'm dating an old man."

I figured all it would take is a quick fashion show to prove her wrong.


Now, girls have a certain fashion wisdom that boys will never understand. Girls say things like, "Everyone knows you shouldn't wear white socks with a black watch after Arbor Day." Us guys, meanwhile, merely find like-colored objects that don't induce migraines and piecemeal an outfit together. So I put on some olive cargo pants, a sort-of off-olive undershirt, and an unbuttoned light olive silk shirt to complete the ensemble. I looked like Joe Cool -- or so I thought.

"No, honey," came the reply. "You look like a dingy carpet sample."


So that's where I'm stuck. I have a closet full of silk shirts that I love, and a girlfriend who's silently plotting how to destroy them all in an industrial accident. I think they look great -- she thinks I look like Grandpa Brown. So I'm calling on YOU, my diligent readers, to be the jury. Silk shirts of awesomeness or polo shirts that make me argyle up my lunch? The decision is yours. E-mail your thoughts to sbrown@qconline.com and I'll share them with the missus. A grateful closet awaits your reaction.

COLUMN: Mike

I've received six e-mails and eight Facebook messages this week from readers of this column, all with the same question:

"When are you going to write something about Michael Jackson?"

Well, my initial instinct was to say the Fifth of Never. After all, what can I say that hasn't already been said at this point by, oh I dunno, EVERY JOURNALIST IN THE FREE WORLD?

I'm a pop culture junkie. It's really the only hobby I have. And, just like you, I was stunned by the events of Thursday the 25th. First, Farrah died. And that was sad, even though I was a little too young to appreciate the red swimsuit poster in its heydey. Then around 4 p.m., I received an e-mail from a friend that said, "Are you aware Michael Jackson's likely dead?"

Now there's a surefire way to wake me up from a hazy Thursday. I immediately felt bad for my friend who sent that e-mail, as she's one of the few people whose work day is directly impacted by the deaths of celebrities. She works for a company that manages the obituary sections for a number of newspapers across the country.

Among her job duties is the review and approval of public condolences on their celebrity obituaries. There's always gonna be a handful of internet troublemakers who like to wreak as much havoc as possible in any public forum, and her job is to go through and weed out any tasteless or obscene comments before they're presented to the public.

She'd already had a long day approving Farrah's entries when the word came that Michael was in trouble. You couldn't pay me enough to do her job.

It was an amazing moment when I got home that night and logged onto Facebook. As someone obsessed by pop culture, I'm friends with a LOT of egocentric artsy-fartsy types. Folks who discuss artistic integrity at great length and automatically shun any music played on the radio as commercial drivel -- geeks, goths, snobs and nerds aplenty.

And not ONE of them had a bad thing to say about Michael Jackson that night. He was one guy with the power to cross social, racial, and global barriers with little more than a song and dance. Love him or hate him, you've got to at least respect his power.

When wee Shane first reached the age of allowance earning, one of the first things I did was rush out to Musicland and come home with Michael's "Off the Wall." It was the sound of an artist coming in to his own, and I still argue that it's the musical apex of his career.

The cultural apex, though, had only just begun. With "Thriller," Michael Jackson conquered the globe in a way that I guarantee we'll never see again in our lifetime. I didn't even really dig the music too much, but you still had to give it up for the videos and the moonwalk and the ease by which he charmed the world. I remember timing a slumber party at a friend's house for the sole purpose of being able to watch the world premiere of the "Thriller" video -- and being scared out of my socks by it.

After "Thriller" and "Bad," Michael Jackson the Artist took a slow back seat to Michael Jackson the Circus, but it was just as captivating to watch. For the most part, I forgave him for his eccentricities. I mean, the guy was a kajillionaire. If he wanted to build an amusement park in his front lawn, why not? If I was the biggest artist from here to Zxcvbnmistan, I'd probably want my own chimpanzee, too.

When you live in a celebrity bubble like that, it's probably not as crazy as it seems. The movie director Kevin Smith once told a great story about meeting The Artist Who I Think Is Now Once Again Called Prince and talking privately to one of Prince's assistants. As Smith tells it, the assistant explained that Prince, for the most part, lives in Prince-land, and sometimes can't understand why it's a problem when he wakes up at 3 a.m. with the simple request of having a camel delivered to his house.

To us, it's crazy. But when your entire life is crazy, fancying a camel ride at 3 a.m. might just be a normal Tuesday. Of course, Michael took things to the extreme. When your life becomes a non-stop Fantasyland AND you've got a serious fixation on your lost childhood, it's going to cause problems. But instead of trying to give the guy a break -- and I'm just as guilty of reading the tabloid fodder as everybody else -- we exascerbated the problem until Michael became little more than a pop culture sideshow attraction who probably needed professional help.

The court case pretty much sealed the deal. Do I think Michael Jackson was a pedophile who preyed on innocent boys? I can't say for certain, but I'd certainly be surprised if he was. I think he was an immature soul who wanted to stay young forever and didn't understand the problem with befriending little kids just like Prince didn't understand the problem with procuring a camel.

And now that Michael's gone, we're about to reap the reward for treating the guy like a circus freak all these years. His name will be center stage in tabloids for years to come, as every human being who ever managed to weasel their way into his life will be vying for their fifteen minutes of fame with tell-alls and book deals full of half-truths and speculation.

I wasn't a huge fan of Michael Jackson. But will we ever see an artist make his kind of impact ever again? Probably not, and that makes me sad. I feel bad for the guy, and I mourn his loss with the rest of the world, if for no other reason than we'll never hear the exclamation "SHA'MON!" in contemporary music ever again.

Here's hoping that the next time we're blessed with an artist of his magnitude, we don't force them down the same path.

COLUMN: Date Night

Totally leeched off someone named Illflux's Flickr.

He's got lotsa cool pics - go check it out.

I feel like my columns of late are occasionally descending into stereotype: Hapless bachelor writes for years about meeting nice girl. Hapless bachelor meets nice girl. Hapless bachelor can't shut up about nice girl.

I don't wanna be that guy. And I'm certain that you kind folk don't want to waste your Sundays reading the play-by-plays of our boring dates. Good thing, then, that our dates aren't boring.

The other night we had plans for a no-holds-barred evening o' romance and chivalry. This is not my strong suit, as my usual idea of romance is letting her hold the remote control for an hour or two. But I had a plan.

First a nice dinner and a stop for ice cream. Afterwards, I'd take her to one of my favorite locales: Lock & Dam 14 at Fisherman's Corner out by Hampton. You can stroll right out on the Illinois side until you're pretty much in the smack dab middle of the Mississippi -- just you, your special someone, a few quaint fishing folk, the setting sun, and the gentle call of nesting pelicans. It would be my shining romantic moment.

So after dinner and ice cream in Davenport, I slyly headed north along the river giving myself mental high-fives. Goin' to the dam, gonna be all romantical and supa suave studly maaaaaan.

That was about the time we reached Leclaire and I remembered that the I-80 bridge to Illinois was closed. Not good. I was trying my best to play it off like our night was super spontaneous and magical, and I feared a sudden U-turn would blow it.

I had to find a way to play it cool, so I just kept driving along the river with the hopes of finding an appropriate turn-off to nonchalantly get us home. A few miles later, I realized I didn't know where the heck I was, other than way far north. At this point, if I turned off, I'd have no clue how to get us home. That was when I decided my best option was to keep right on truckin' up to Clinton and just take the bridge there and come back to the dam.

Sure, my night was starting to go badly, but unbeknownst to me at the time, someone was having an even worse night. Someone so distraught over the state of their life that they had chosen that night to end it all.

That someone was a suicidal deer -- and just as I reached a bend in the road at 55 mph, it trotted out in a kamikaze head-on dash for my grill. I didn't even have time for one of my customary expletives. I slammed on the brakes. Bambi of the Damned just galloped straight at me. I swerved to the side. It swerved to the side. I swerved back. It swerved back. This deer clearly wanted to die. I braced for impact, grabbed my girlfriend's hand... and missed the sucker by THAT much.

I could have reached out and pet it as we went by. Well, I could have, were I in control of my extremities. As my girlfriend tells it, I reacted to the close call by throwing my fists in the air and screaming "YES!" as though I'd just scored the winning touchdown. Truth is, I was simply happy that I hadn't wet myself.

Ever been SO pumped by adrenalin and a racing heart that you can't sit still? That was MY state of mind when we reached Clinton. I needed a breather after Venison: The Home Game, so I rolled down my window to get some fresh air.

Ladies and gentlemen, NEVER DO THIS IN CLINTON, IOWA. Dear, sweet Clintonians: I love you all. I really do. And I know it's not your fault. But your town STINKS. Yes, I know, it's a horribly rude thing to say. After all, I'm sure there are occasionally times in life when yours truly smells a little ripe. But even at my funkiest of funks, I can rest safe in the knowledge that I will never be as reeky as Clinton, Iowa. It's a delightful mix of yeast, molasses, rotting entrails, and creepy Jimmy Spencer, the kid from my 5th grade class who never showered. I've now learned that one of the key elements to a romantic night is to plot a route that DOESN'T make your girlfriend retch and dry heave in your car.

But I'm stubborn and I'm not a quitter, so we charged over that bridge and headed back on the Illinois side -- and when I finally saw the turn-off for Lock & Dam 14, I took it with gusto. I wanted my romantic stroll to the middle of the river. I wanted my picturesque fishermen. I wanted the gentle lull of the pelican's call.

None of things, I've come to learn, happen at midnight. In fact, I'm not even sure the dam's open at midnight and perhaps I'm confessing a felony trespass in this column. Either way, lesson learned. There were no quaint fishermen at midnight. There was NO ONE at midnight. Just the two of us, a damp river fog, the darkest walkway ever, and probably a 20-30% chance of being dismembered by an axe-wielding homicidal rapist ghost vampire werewolf.

The gentle Mississippi looked more like the River Styx. Oh, and as for the gentle lull of the pelicans? When you wake them up in the middle of the night, they just start going "HOOOOOOOOONK!" and flapping their wings spastically in alarm. I was hoping to salvage at least one or two sweet nothings in my ear. Instead, what I got was, "OMIGOD SOMETHING'S ON MY SHOE EW EW GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!" It was at that point we made a break for the car and never looked back.

So my grand idea of a romantic evening ended on the couch with a rerun of the Colbert Report. Still, I'm not entirely without chivalry -- once I fell safely asleep, I let her have the remote control.

COLUMN: Mayflies

(Totally snagged off someone named Natalija's Flickr.

She's got some cool pics - you should check it out.

Hope she's cool with me using her mayfly.)

Sometimes it's bad to be curious. Heading to the parking lot on my way home from work just now, I glanced over at our loading dock. What's usually a meticulously tidy area was covered in what looked to be piles and piles of sawdust. That's weird, I thought to myself. Did I miss out on some kind of industrial-arts fun time out back? As the investigative journalist that I am, I went over to check it out. Well, okay, as the man-boy that I am, I went over to kick one of the piles, because that's the kind of juvenile fun you just don't grow out of. Smirking like a schoolkid, I charged at one of the piles and sent sawdust flying into the air and all over my pants.

That's when I noticed that the sawdust was squirming.

That's when I realized I had just kicked a heaping pile of dead and dying mayflies. Umm... eww, to put it mildly.

There are times in life that I'm conscious of trying to look relatively cool. This was NOT one of those times. When your clothes are suddenly writhing with the death throes of a kajillion mayflies, one does not think of looking cool. One DOES, in fact: shudder, nearly vomit, hop up and down like a lunatic, wave one's arms like a madman brushing insect corpses off of one's pantlegs maniacally -- and, as it turns out, one might even do all of the above while making a noise that sounds like "blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"

After living in the Quad Cities for over two decades, I've gotten used to a LOT of things about life on the river. Mayflies, however, are not one of them. I'm originally from Galesburg, a town thankfully lacking in aquatic breeding grounds for prehistoric creepy water bugs. Never in my life have I encountered insects that live and die in such mass quantities that they actually show up on doppler radar and begin PILING UP upon their demise. It is, without doubt, the grossest part of living in the Quad Cities:

The North American Ephemeroptera. Otherwise known as the common Mayfly, because they're supposed to be prevalent in the month of May even though it's June and they're so stupid they don't even know what month it is. Otherwise known as the Dayfly, because the Day they come out is the Day we should all stay inside. Otherwise known as the Shadfly, because "shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" is the noise you make when you're trying to repress vomit after kicking a pile of them.

If you've ever thought that your life sucked, at least you're not a mayfly. Here's their basic life cycle: First off, you hatch in the water with somewhere around 8000 siblings. You're an incredibly ugly infant called a naiad. You spend anywhere from a few months to a few years crawling around the bottom of the river, spending your days dodging predatory fish and eating algae. You stave off boredom by moulting up to 20-30 times and checking out your fancy new exoskeleton. Eventually, one of those exoskeletons comes complete with a spanky new set of wings. You might also be taken aback by the fact that your mouth stops working and becomes vestigial. This is your cue to float up to the water surface, learn to fly, and have some REAL fun.

At this point, you have but ONE thing to do in life: search for some Barry White records, because it's time for some mayfly lovin'. Humans might just see a streetlight, but to the hordes of mayflies flitting around them, it's the Playboy mansion. In fact, mayflies even -- wait, it's a family paper, how can I say this -- umm, boy mayflies have not one but TWO boy parts, and girl mayflies have TWO girl parts, thus the potential for some serious freaky-deaky. The good news is that you don't even have to take her to breakfast the next day, since you no longer have a functioning mouth. The downside, of course, is that you die.

If you've ever thought that your life sucked, at least you're not the guy who created www.shadfly.com, the web's #1 fansite for mayflies. There you can find "fun" videos and pictures of the common shadfly, in case the 10,000 of them stuck to the side of your house aren't enough to satisfy your viewing habits. You can read shadfly poetry (example: "shadfly / clinging to the light / it strives to hold / shadfly / clinging / the spirit blows away.") You can learn to dance The Shadfly Shuffle (grind heel, step, rock recover, bird vine, step forward, 1/2-turn, shuffle in place. C'mon, everybody, join in!) You can even buy a fabulous white gold shadfly pin so you can experience the joy of having an insect carcass clinging to your clothes all year long.

All I know is I hate the dumb little buggers and it wouldn't upset me if they disappeared from our little ecosystem altogether. But once again, science scolds and reminds me that mayflies are an important part of our food chain -- they're a tasty little dish for trout and catfish. But last I checked, there weren't too many hungry catfish in our company's loading dock, so I wish they'd stick to the river. Apparantly, though, a healthy mayfly crop means a healthy river, since they can't reproduce well in polluted waters. And while the shallow, insect-hating part of my brain would encourage all of you to start polluting the Mississippi with extreme malice, the wrath of Chad Pregracke is probably worse than the wrath of mayflies, so I'll keep my yap shut (but mostly for fear of inhaling a cloud of insects.)

Just do me a favor -- the next time you see a horde of mayflies swarming around, remind them that they're a month late to seasonal extinction. I'm sure they'd thank you if they had mouths.

COLUMN: Jaws

Good news. After exhaustive research, countless experiments, and what I can only assume to be gobs and gobs of our money, a team of scientists have finally postulated, theorized, tested, proven, and now, yes, ANSWERED a question that's been plaguing our fragile world for years:

We now know why some people like scary movies.

I know, I know. I heard it on the radio this morning and I still can't believe it. After all these years of wondering, all the hopes and dreams of lost generations, science has prevailed. Unfortunately, I was hard at work all day today and must have missed the ticker-tape parades and victory celebrations that must have assuredly been breaking out across the globe.

It turns out that some people are born with: the scary gene. Well, maybe the gene itself might not be scary -- I honestly have no idea, though experience has taught me that most of the tiny components of our existence are pretty creepy lookin' under a microscope.

But apparantly there really does exist some kind of rogue gene in the fundamental building blocks of certain people that makes them really, really dig "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." I assume that this was discovered by taking a random smattering of people, treating them to a matinee of "Hostel," and then rewarding their terrified state by prodding them with needles (a far scarier proposition than the movie itself, if you ask me.)

As it turns out, the test subjects who enjoyed watching hockey mask-clad psychopaths severing the heads of hapless campers were, in fact, carriers of an extra gene -- or, in layman's terms, "idiots." Those of us who enjoy our movies without the occasional disembowelment (those I like to call "sane folk,") were missing this genetic anomaly.

I am proudly one of the gene-deprived masses. Horror movies are NOT on my agenda, thanks much. I get no kicks from being creeped and/or grossed out. You would have to drag me to Hell to get me to watch "Drag Me To Hell." But that doesn't explain this past Saturday.

As a young(ish) hep and happening couple on the go, my girlfriend and I had ambitious plans for Saturday. A little shopping, a pool party for a friend, an oil change for the Beetle, afternoon church service, a nice dinner. A good plan, indeed. Too bad I decided to channel flip to the start of "Jaws."

124 minutes later, there we sat, still glued to the same positions on the couch, transfixed by a 34-year-old horror movie featuring an animatronic shark and Richard Dreyfuss (I'm not sure which is scarier.) How this happened is beyond me.

Had I seen "Jaws" before? Sure, but I think only the censored network TV version. This was the real deal, in high definition, with gallons of fake blood and severed limbs aplenty. And I was TRANSFIXED. Me, the wussiest man in America, who usually channel flips through horror flicks with eyes closed for fear of seeing an eighth of a second of the bogeyman. And I'm cheering, like, "Yeah, shark! Chomp that leg off!"

What gives? Do I suddenly have a new appreciation for horror flicks? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that "Jaws" doesn't affect me because I am, how shall we say this, aquatically challenged. Despite my parents paying out the nose for swimming lessons, I never got it. I am, however, quite adept at sinking.

So I have no fear of Jaws. I can watch that shark dismember a legion of movie extras and not be affected. Why? Because I'm up here on dry land. Despite what classic SNL skits might teach you, Jaws will NOT be ringing your doorbell. If you wanna go trapsing out in the ocean, be my guest -- but don't be surprised if you return sans leg. Sharks can have their ocean. You wanna scare me? Pick a land-based fear.

Which is, of course, what happened to me the very next day. We decided to close out the weekend with a relaxing drive through the country, which landed us outside of Maquoketa at a place called the Hurstville Interpretive Center. Now, a normal writer would tell you what a wonderful and educational place it is, and how you can learn all about the colorful history of the Hurstville lime kilns while soaking up some native Iowa animal life.

Instead I will tell you that the Hurstville Interpretive Center is evil. Pure evil. They sucker you in with this wonderful educational experience and then you turn a corner to... a beehive. A live, active indoor beehive filled with tens of thousands of bees.

Okay, sure, they're behind glass and they claim it's an educational display for children, but WHAT KIND OF SICK PUPPY DESIGNS SUCH A CONTRAPTION? Everyone knows that bees are the scariest creatures on Earth. Well, okay, maybe I just think that. But looking at that hive was like making me watch every horror movie on Earth ever all at once. If you don't believe me, my girlfriend was kind enough to snap a photo at the exact second I saw the thing, and I look just like Hapless Camper #2 before Jason attacks them with a hatchet.

The display talked about what an important job bees have in nature blabbity blah blah. All I know is that I held my ear up to the glass and I'm pretty sure I heard 10,000 bees chanting, "STING THE FATTY! STING THE FATTY!" The only education I wanted from this is learning precisely how much Raid is required to commit bee genocide.

If there's a gene out there for dealing with bees rationally, I was tragically born without. Hurstville can have its history and its lime kilns and its (actually quite delightful) Interpretive Center. Just don't mind me as I appreciate it like I appreciate the ocean -- from afar.