Hello blogosphere. (Or as I like to say, Blagojesphere). (Sound it out).
Tonight, I don't really have anything to write about. I will say, in an unfortunate turn of events, the wish I made in my last blog has been granted. Chopdick has broken the surly bonds of the backyard and touched the face of the streets and back alleys of Lubbock.
She will be missed, but not very much.
Readers, I think tonight I shall share with you some childhood dreams. Those dear sweet ambitions that one nurses when they are young, only to have them slaughtered when facing the cruelties of earning potential.
I remember when I first began to learn to read. I was about four years old. We lived in a two story house in Mississippi and I was upstairs playing with my dinosaur toys, when my dad came into the room with a very large hardcover book. He proceeded to sit me down, open to the first page and explain to me that it was time for me to learn to read. He pointed to the first word in the dictionary, "a," and it pretty much took off from there.
Essentially the only knowledge that my nascent brain enjoyed processing related to dinosaurs. For the first six years of my life my world revolved around Triceratops, Velociraptors, Plesiosaurs, and their ilk. So the vast majority of my early reading material featured large print and pictures of large reptiles.
This childhood fascination led to what I believe to be my first ever career aspiration, paleontologist. Yes, as a five year old child, my life's goal was to dig up old rocks in the hot sun.
My mom's parents are Canadian immigrants who came to Houston after World War II to find jobs. One of the things that my grandfather did when he came here was to put together a brontosaurus for Houston's Museum of Natural History. When I was young, this was the coolest thing ever.
(Update: 3/28/09, Chopdick has been returned to the backyard, she is serving time leashed to a column)
My next career aspiration came in the days after we left Mississippi. (I was there ages 3-5). Our family loaded up the trusty Astro Van and moved into Lubbock.
Here I got my first taste of America's pastime. Despite the skill I previously displayed in soccer (freedom hater's pastime) my dad felt that baseball was a more natural fit.
I joined a little kids t-ball team and with dreams of following in my father's footsteps, played shortstop my first game. Despite my impeccable form, i was struck in the nose my first game and had laces for a week. This also presents an interesting chicken -> egg -> chicken situation. Did being bludgeoned by the ball cause my current giant nose, or did my current giant nose cause me to be bludgeoned by the ball. These are questions that will only be answered when someone invents a time machine.
This led to aspirations of being a professional baseball player for the next nine years. After a few stints at first base and in the outfield, my dad, realizing that i lacked any natural athletic ability, decided that my best bet to succeed would be on the mound. Pitching was all about technique, outsmarting the batter, and undeserved cockyness, all of which i would soon master.
(this blog is at an interesting impasse, it's not very funny nor is it very intelligent, poignant, or magic like most of the others, it's kind of dull and uninteresting, but I have to satisfy the lust you people have for my way with words)
I had a tumultuous relationship with baseball practice. Sometimes I loved nothing more than practicing with my dad, other times, i would hide under the bed in the guest room so that I could avoid throwing.
In the end, I'm super grateful for that and I have that sort of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams nostalgia for those times. (Without the overweight black sportswriter observing our practice)
As I got older and the kids with actual athletic talent caught up with my solid fundamentals. (I was like women's basketball player) my dream of playing in the MLB died, the last time I really harbored those aspirations was in the fifth grade when, for an assignment, I made a future business card that read, "Kyle Gregory, RHP, Atlanta Braves." Back in the halcyon days of Bobby Cox' pitching arsenal, all I wanted to do was break into that rotation and spent lots of time at the library reading about Maddux, and Smoltz, and Glavine.
My childhood hero (note the small arms and overwhelming whiteness)
I don't know what I wanted to do in the future during the sixth and seventh grades. I think I was pretty much just obsessed with getting my first girlfriend and wearing adidas sneakers with blue stripes. I succeeded in one of these endeavors.
Eighth grade brought on two separate (not mutually exclusive) future destinies. This is when i started to really bond with my buddy, Sebastian. (Mostly because he wanted to date me). Together we were the best pair of cutups since Lucy and Ethel. Sebastian, a diva, took center stage, making a general ass of himself; while I sat quietly in the background jumping in occasionally with a hilarious quip.
This was the time when all kids discover their love of comedy, generally constrained to the masterworks of Mssrs. Sandler and Mike Myers (both still brilliant), and I was no exception.
I spent most nights at home watching roughly 12 episodes of Who's Line is it Anyway or The Simpsons. Fridays were reserved for Friday Night Stand Up on comedy central, and Saturdays brought the crown jewel, Saturday Night Live (with a magnificent cast featuring such comedic luminaries as Maya Rudolph and Dean Edwards). But I was young and didn't realize that the show had once been the pinnacle of American ensemble comedy, so each episode was a revelation to me, and when Will Ferrell left it was the lowest point of my year.
I started reading everything I could about the show, and while names like Bill Murray, and Dan Akroyd, and Gilda Radner never really meant anything to me, I was still caught up in the mythos.
For about a year, all I wanted to do was be a writer for SNL. I had it all planned out, I'd move to LA, or Chicago, or NYC, and join The Groundlings, Second City, or UCB, Lorne Michaels would see my comedic brilliance, offer me a job, and fame, fortune, and women, would be mine. (If there's one thing women like, it's sweaty comedy nerds with bad skin)
Second childhood hero (THAT'S CRAZY!)
Simultaneously with my comedy ambitions, I decided that I would one day be a rock star. I had mastered the first 30 seconds of Stairway to Heaven and was prepared to rock the world. I think we have covered my eighth grade musical experience, so y'all just use your imaginations.
My previously documented affection for music led me to halfway pursue this dream almost all through high school. Not by practicing or writing songs, but by plinking around and recording bad covers of Sufjan Stevens songs. (I still do this).
Then, along came college, and my dreams of being a journalist. I think i'd be good at it, i'm naturally cynical and the average journalist can't write their way out of a wet paper. So I have that on my plate at the moment.
But recently, I have rediscovered my desire to be a comedy writer. I think I would be good at this as well. (I'm snarky!) It seems like it would be a fun profession, admittedly a difficult field to get into, but let's be real, at the rate newspapers are dying I probably won't have a job out of school anyway. Also, if the 4,500 commercials i've seen for Krod Mandoon: Flaming Sword of Fire on comedy central (Penis Jokes! We're mocking a genre that is no longer popular!) has taught me, the field needs some fresh blood.
I love you readers.
