A Conversation with Charlie (Age 6) About Artistic Intent

HIM: Dad, when they sing "You Got Another Thing Comin'", I think I know what they're talking about.
ME: Who? Judas Priest?
HIM: Yeah. It's Star Wars.
ME: How do you figure?
HIM: What?
ME: What do you mean?
HIM: I think it's about Luke. He blew up the Death Star but he's got more bad guys coming. He's got more empire stuff and the emperor.
ME: Out there is a fortune waiting to be had. Maybe that fortune is peace across the galaxy.
HIM: Yeeeeeah.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears (by Charlie, Age 6, part three of a three-part series)

Author's note: for older kids over the age when Goldilocks runs away from the three bears. In this one they eat her.

Once there was a little girl named Goldilocks.
Her house was horrible!
The roof wasn't on right and it let all the air blow in.
It didn't have anything, just walls and a window.

One day after school Goldilocks went outside to play.

After she got out of school, she saw some construction workers making her house better than before. Thye put furniture in and everything.

She walked and walked in the forest until she came to a cabin. It was so cool. She walked inside.

She found three balls of deer meat and there was cups of deer blood. And a decoration of deer horns. Suddenly the three bears stormed in.

They quickly divided her into six pieces and ate her all up.

"For Christmas, I wished for a bunch more Goldilocks," the bears said.

The End!
Burp!

If only presidential elections were this meta

So I'm in this tournament of blogs, right? Innocent fun. It turns out Not Martha, my opponent, posted something on her blog about wanting people to vote in the competition and especially urging them to vote for me. Obviously, people started voting in droves...for her.

I'm past the point of keeping up with this contest in terms of intent or even understanding what victory would mean.

Kate (Age 4) Employs the Schizophrenia Defense

ME: Kate, I found an empty box of Christmas chocolates and wrappers all over your bedroom floor. Did you eat them?
HER:...uh...well...daddy...the care bears wanted me to eat them...
ME: The Care Bears?
HER:...it was...um...Lock Bear and Sunshine Bear's birthday...and they had a party...and Lock Bear turned...twenty six...and Sunshine Bear...is... twenty eleven...
ME: So why did they want you to eat candy?
HER: ...they can't eat and they want me to be happy...

Badness Continues

After years of opposing "Martha", I finally get a new challenger.

Barack Obama might talk a good game but can he build a flying saucer?

Been doing some research today on candidates that are further down the list. This guy is a real actual declared candidate for President, filed the papers and everything, Democrat:

I am President Warren Roderick Ashe. I was born in Whitakers, North Carolina on January 20th, 1957. I am married with 5 children, Alexander, Maurice, Apollo, Vermond, and Nikki. Alex and Maurice are now in college. My wife Corether and I live in Newsome Park community in Newport News.
I am the United States President Auxiliary since 1981. I am also the Founder, Owner, President of my company Jyperonix Astrophysics. Which is a Fortune 500 company at the top of the list. I am involved with time travel communications that are real. And capable of time travel contact throughout history itself.
The transmissions involves White House, Congress, Air Force, department of FCC, and the DOD-SBIR/STTR program for submission proposals. I also build flying saucers that are capable of going to another solar system at high warp speed.
I started this program of time travel communications in the Ronald Reagan administration in 1981. The time travel transmissions have communicated at least and no less than 500 years into the future. I have used my saucers built by hand at Edgecombe Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. That has already since 1983 taken sperm and DNA into the future. Into the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries. The methods I used are through flux capacitation and wormhole technology.

Can You Feel the Badness?

Then it must be Blarch! (apparently there is voting going on)

A Conversation with Charlie (Age 6)

HIM: Dad, what are zombies?
ME: Well, zombies are these made up creatures and they're supposed to be dead people who come back to life and they walk around trying to eat brains.
HIM: Yeah. We play zombie tag at school sometimes.
ME: How does that work?
HIM: Well one person is it and they're a zombie and if they catch you you're a zombie.
ME: But aren't they always slow?
HIM: Yeah. It's hard for the zombie.
ME: It always is.
HIM: So zombies are just pretend monsters?
ME: Yep. They're make believe people who die and then come back to life.
HIM: SO JESUS WAS A ZOMBIE?!
ME: What? Uh...
HIM: He died and came back to life! DID JESUS EAT BRAINS, DAD?!
ME: Well...
JILL: It does sound a lot like what you said about Jesus, except for the brains part.
ME: Well...uh...
HIM: I'm just kidding, Dad. I'm pretty sure Jesus was just made up.

Goldilocks and the Three Tigers (by Charlie, Age 6, part two of a three-part series)

Once there was a little girl named Goldilocks. Her house was so boring so she went for a walk out in the woods. There was not many trees in the forest so she thought it would be safe.

It was very dark in teh forest. She was frightened.

She came to a cottage. It was very fancy. She walked inside.

Goldilocks found three bowls of meat. When she was about to eat them three tigers walked in.

They quickly divided her into seven pieces. And they ate her all up.

The end.

(coming soon: the final story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which, I am advised, is for older kids)

Goldilocks and the 3 Lions by Charlie (age 6) (part one of a series)

Once there was a little girl named Goldilocks. Her house only had one thing: a fireplace that only lit up for one second. It was very boring.

She walked and walked until she got to Africa. She found two of the biggest trees to rest under. She rested for hours and hours.

She found herself on a table on a plate. She had a feeling she was being watched.

She was being watched by 3 lions. It was very frightening. The rope was so tight she couldn't even move a millimeter.

They quickly divided her into 11 pieces and put them on the the table and ate her all up.

The end! (gulp!)


Coming soon: Goldilocks and the 3 Tigers!

How You Know When You Took The Right Job

So I start Monday at my new job. I was down in Los Angeles on Monday for a meeting and saw the big board of possible stories. One of them was "Van Halen 3rd Singer".
"You're interviewing Gary Cherone?!" I asked.
"We want to," my new boss told me.
I've come to the right place.

I'm On The Radio!

Yeah, I know but this is slightly different. If you missed any of my readings for the book I wrote (did I mention I wrote a book?), you can hear the Elliott Bay reading tonight at 10 on KUOW here in Seattle. Or on kuow.org on the Interwebs. I'll post a permalink for it when I get one. I've had nothing to do with the editing aside from providing the weird picture posted here.

ZUNE PHONE!!!



Regarding the Apple iPhone or Apple Phone or, as I've now seen it described, the Jesus Phone or J-Phone: yeah, I'm in. I'm so in. I. Am. In. And it sucks to be a Zune right about now.

A Conversation About Music with Charlie (age 6)

(we're in a pickup truck, waiting our turn to drop off a load at the dump and we're listening to "Superman" by R.E.M.)

HIM: This song is about freedom.
ME: What? It is?
HIM: Yeah. Well, he says "I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything". It's about being free.
ME: Oh. Yeah. I guess it is.

I had always thought it was about Superman. Charlie spent the rest of the day singing the song but changed the lyrics to "Pooperman" because it's funnier that way.

I'm in Spin

I keep forgetting to say something about that. The Pop Song Correspondences are things that Spin says they love. I don't think it's in the online edition. You have to find a copy of Spin, then open it, then find the page that I'm on and...oh just forget it.

Arrested Development gone

but Michael Cera doing just fine.

Big Change

Well, for me anyway. I guess I always knew I was a woman but now with surgery...

No.

I've decided to leave "some radio station where I work" for a new position as Senior Reporter and back up host at Weekend America. I'll still be based in Seattle. We're not moving. The new job is going to be a fantastic opportunity but not altogether brand new since I've been working on that show for the past few years. Still, it's going to be hard to leave some radio station where I work (okay, KUOW!, there! I said it!), which has been a great place to be for the past five years.

Update: Media pounces!

A Question About Being Employed at Uptown Espresso

When you're a young woman and you come to work at Uptown Espresso, is it a requirement that your boyfriend is forever parked at one of the tables and must give you frequent backrubs?

Because that's how it seems to work. For many, many of you.

(Also, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with Uptown Espresso or boyfriends or backrubs, I'm about to announce something fairly significant in my own life, probably some time tomorrow)

How to Cook a Turkey, by Charlie (Age 6)

(This was for a class assignment)

1. Find a turkey. Kill it, of course.
2. Cook at 100 or 110 degrees for an hour and two minutes.
3. Add salt.
4. Make all the bones stick out.
5. Eat it!