$7.33 – A Thank You

Wooooooo doggie!  It’s been a while since I’ve done one for the ladies and the gay gentlemen, so here you go.  Here’s an autographed topless photo of me while out for a jog the other day.

I’m back to running and I haven’t drank for a week.  Ladies, it’s worth mentioning that I’m very much single and I’m super awesome at taking out the trash.  Totally just kidding.  Taking out the trash is the worst.  But for the love of God, would one of you girls just marry me already.  I haven’t french kissed a girl in like 5 years, and I’m getting tired of making out with my pillow night after night.

Anywho, enough complaining.  It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper thank you to you dimwits.  I used to do up something special for every milestone:  50 followers, 500 followers, 1,000 followers, 70 gagillion followers, ect.  But then somebody brought it to my attention that calling people followers maybe isn’t the best term, because the word follower has some sort of sheepish connotation to it.

You dimwits aren’t sheep.  You’re tigers, you’re leaders.   You’re wonderful people, so I’ll just leave it at that.  I’ll just say thank you for reading however many of you there are, because it means a lot to me.  It used to just be my mother reading this damn thing and it got annoying with her commenting all the time, and nobody else (Hey ma, I need to borrow $1,000 pronto.  Wire it to my account.  Thanks.)

I hate math.  I hate it even worse than taking out the trash, but I wanna go over some math with you real quick.  I made my first money ever off of writing last month.  I put these stupid ads on my blog because I wanna buy a big ass yacht.  Guess how much money I earned the first month?  A whopping 7 dollars and 33 cents.  Woopty do, dinner is on me ladies.  Looks like we’ll be eating at Arby’s and we’ll have to share that chocolate milkshake.  If there’s any money left over, we can go buy a cookie from Subway.  7 dollars and 33 cents.  What a crock.

I got out my calculator.  I’ve been writing for about eight years now, so I’ve earned roughly one dollar per year.  I’d say over the course of a year, I average writing and Photoshopping about an hour a day.  So that’s 365 hours per year.  One dollar per year, divided by 365 hours, equals .0027 per hour.  Now, keep in mind the big ass yacht that I want to buy costs 65 million dollars.

I did some more math.  Math is seriously the worst.  I’d rather watch reruns of Lucy than do math.  I forget how I came to the answer exactly, but I figured out at this rate, I’d have to write for about 15 billion more hours to be able to afford the 65 million dollar big ass yacht.  Sounds about right.  What a crock indeed.  I think I’m gonna start making candles instead of writing.  At least my apartment will smell nice.

No, but seriously, I do enjoy writing and I plan to continue writing in the future as I get time.  I know my blog is confusing, and as a result, I’ve lost a lot of folks along the way.  Sometimes I write serious, sometimes funny.  Sometimes I share sad stories, sometimes I make Photoshop tutorials.  Sometimes it’s photos, sometimes it’s videos.  For a simpleton, I’m a very complex man.  But through all the various writing – up and down, sideways and backwards – some of you have stuck around through the whole thing, and that’s really cool.  I appreciate it mucho.  So this is my thanks to you.

I don’t like to make promises, but I think I worked a lot of stuff out last month.  I’m feeling good, so I think I’ll stick to some really funny writing for a while.  I have a bunch of ideas, some old stuff, some new stuff.  We’ll just see where the road leads.  It better lead me to that big ass yacht.  7 dollars and 33 cents.  Hey WordAds, suck it!  Take your $7.33 and stick it up your greedy, coroporate arse.

Well, anyway ladies and gay gentlemen.  Here’s a bonus video especially for you.  It’s a compilation video I made a few years back of my professional modeling photos.  I put it to the song “Love Is On the Way” by Saigon Kick.  Better get the cold shower ready.

Thanks again you dimwits.  Have a nice day.  I will do the same.

Meet Ralph

Well, you dimwits.  The time has come.  It’s time you meet a long lost friend of mine, a friend that began it all for me.  A friend that first got me into writing over eight years ago.  It’s time that you meet Ralph.

Ralph is an alter ego character that I created during the MySpace days.  I began Photoshopping my head onto various bodies and gave myself snaggly teeth, crossed eyes, big ears, and crazy costumes.  I posted the Photoshop images to MySpace, and a star was born.  Ralph became a cult sensation.  I had people all across the world following along with Ralph’s misadventures, until one day, I took the site down completely.  Ralph disappeared over night.  It was a sad farewell.

I tried to resurrect Ralph several times over the years unsuccessfully, including on this blog back when very few people were reading.  I figured I’d give it another shot and see where it goes.  Maybe it will end up at the bottom of the lake.

In a nutshell, Ralph is a fiesty, fiery, 15 year old trapped in a 28 year old’s body.   He loves beef jerky, dungeons and dragons, WWF wrestling, ZZ Top, and game shows, including his favorite game show of all time “Love Connection” hosted by Chuck Woolery.  Ralph lives in the basement of his Gram and Pap’s country home in western Pennsylvania.  He fights mightily with his combative Pap, Uncle Rodger, and cousins.  For a further introduction and more photos, click the link here.

I have a bunch of old Ralph material that I might dust off and polish.  We’ll see.  But for now, I’ll leave you with a few poems that Ralph wrote since I was talking about poetry in the previous post.  Hope you enjoy.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Uncle Rodger’s Hunting Cabin”

The one thing about
Uncle Rodger’s hunting cabin
Is that it’s always cozy
He keeps the temperature
Always nice, never too toasty

After a long day of hunting
Might be deer
Might be some caribou
He always treats us kindly
He up and says, “Here, yinz want some brews?”

We kick back a couple cold ones
Have some delicious beef jerky treats
On the fold out couch bed
That’s where Uncle Rodger lets me sleep

Now this one time
I screamed, “Hey Rodger, I seen a rat!”
Uncle Rodger says, “Now Ralph.
We can’t have none of that.”

Sure enough
He whips out a humongous 12 gauge
I couldn’t believe my eyes
As Uncle Rodger lit up the whole damn place

I says, “Holy crap Uncle Rodger!
You’re making holes in the walls!”
He just up and laughs
And then he says, “Ralph, ain’t we havin a ball.”

    *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Home Sweet Motorhome”

I bet yinz will be jealous
To hear I went cross country in Uncle Rodger’s motorhome
I don’t blame yinz one bit
Missin out on them spacious skies and mountain domes

Gram was majorly upset
She couldn’t come along cause of a mild stroke
I had to rub it in on that one
I says to her “Na na na na na” just to get her yoke

Uncle Rodger gave the camper a tune up before we left
We was ready to rock ‘n roll
I called out, “Shotgun!”
But Rodger says,  “Sit in the back with your cousin Joel.”

Joel’s feet smelled like onions
So I asked to switch with Pap at every single stop
Pap says, “Nice try Ralph.”
So I was stuck in the back with my cousin’s smelly socks

Other than that
The trip was goin’ just as smooth as could be
That was until Uncle Rodger swerved
Tryin to avoid a pack of them wild coyotes

We ran clear off the road
We was headed straight for a big ole’ ditch
I screamed for Uncle Rodger to gun it
He says, “Shut up in the back you son of a monkey’s tit!”

The camper was bent all to hell
Joel was cryin’ and Uncle Rodger was mad as a toad
I said, “See Uncle Rodger.
Shoulda’ let me ride shotgun to navigate the road.”

  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Chris Hinton’s Pathway To Success

Ahhhhh, I’m so pumped right now!  I just got a call an hour ago for work.  This is incredibly exciting news.  I can’t even begin to tell you why, but I’m going to try anyhow.

I don’t know many of the details about the project just yet.  I just know it’s a TV pilot of some sort and I have to read the script and begin preparing for work tonight.  I’ll be working on the project the next three days and possibly the next few weeks and beyond.  That’s how it goes in the film industry.  One minute you’re busy writing and creating a blog, avoiding friends and social obligations to focus all your energies into doing something that you really love, and the next minute you get a call at 6:30 PM on a Friday evening.

“What are you doing this weekend?  How about the next few months?  You busy, or you wanna start scouting tomorrow on a TV pilot?”

Hell yeah, I wanna start scouting tomorrow on a TV pilot!  If you dimwits only knew how challenging the past few months have been for me.  I’ve been out of work for a long time.  Without boring you with all the details, the state of Pennsylvania had a major snafu with our film tax incentive this year, which meant that me and a lot of my friends were without work.  No work means funds dwindle quickly, bills go unpaid, and you eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And worse yet, it leaves you with no money to drink booze.  Being broke sucks a fat one.

Boo hoo, you putz.  Get another job.  But it’s not that easy, and I didn’t want to get another job making $7 an hour.  It’s a waste of time.  I realize some people have to do it to support their families, which kudos to them, but I don’t have a family to support, so I’d rather have my bills go unpaid than work at a crummy job taking home $200 a week.  Instead of working at a job for slave wages, I used the opportunity to do some writing and maybe begin establishing my future.

The film industry is a great gig, but it’s too unpredictable.  One year you make great money, and the next year you make jack crap.  I’m terrible at budgeting money, so this year I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, holed myself up in my apartment, and wrote my ass off the past few months trying to establish a future for the next time I’m out of work.

I don’t know where any of it’s headed.  Maybe there isn’t a future in writing for me, but I have to find out.  So that’s why I started this blog.  To practice writing, to put my creative talents to work, and to build up a network of fellow writers, artists, and creative spirits.

It seems to be going well so far.  I’ve gotten nearly 2,000 followers in two months, and the  feedback has been very kind.  It gives me encouragement to keep writing, so I just wanted to say thanks.  The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste extra good after hearing things like, “This is my new favorite blog.”  “You’re really hilarious!”  “OMG, I want to totally marry you and have six of your curly headed babies.”

Well, all right.  This has been a very good day.  It’s maybe premature, but I’m going to use my credit card to go buy some whiskey tonight, and read through a script until 3 in the morning, make some notes, wake up 3 hours later, and go to work.  I might not be available to reply to comments as much in the next few weeks, but I’ll try my best, because your comments are what kept me going these past few months.  It might sound like BS, but it’s true.  So keep commenting if you’d like, but don’t take offense if I don’t respond for a while.  It just means I’m busy with work, or drunk on whiskey, dancing around my apartment naked at 2 AM, which happens more than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, since you guys have been so cool to me, I wanted to leave you with my keys for a pathway to success.  I realize someone who just spent the past few months eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches probably isn’t the best spokesperson for success, but I can feel it just around the bend.  I think I’m a few years away from accomplishing some big things, so I’m going to let you in on my secrets so you can achieve success as well.

It’s time to go buy some whiskey and read a script.  I’ll leave you with Chris Hinton’s Pathway To Success.  Print it out, hang it on your fridge.  Look at it everyday.  Cheers, you dimwits.  Thanks for being awesome.