The Colonel T Show

Sheets smell of chlorine,
Protecting from prior guests’
Scattered DNA.

Watered down OJ!
Stale bagels! Month old yogurt!
That’s…continental!

The check-in clerk, Ed,
Has fingers like sausages.
Please, touch my room key.

Way too hot in here.
Radiator is thrumming
Like a jet engine.

Doreen is my maid.
She cleans up after I puke
Cheap margaritas.

This hotel is packed!
Naked fat guys on each floor!
Ladies, come get ‘em!

Decent cable means
Bravo. Channel 63.
The West Wing each night.

Plastic cups contained
In see-through plastic wrappers.
What a plastic life.

It would take money.
Like a briefcase of money,
To swim in that pool.

TV Guide Crossword
Each week a brand new challenge.
Can’t believe it’s free.

Today, in a startling coincidence, I received not one, but TWO blog-related emails from people I don’t already know. Finally! Evidence I have an audience outside my circle of family and friends! I asked each sender if I could post and respond to their letters right here on the blog. They responded in kind, on the condition of anonymity.

What I love about these messages is that they come from complete and opposite ends of the spectrum. If opposites attract, these two emails are making sweet love as we speak.

Anyway, I present their unedited emails, followed by my responses.

Letter Number One:

Dear “Colonel T”,

I discovered you through “Next Blogging” and I’ve been checking back every few days. I think my favorite one is the one where you talked about how sad you are. I’m in a similar position (mid-life crisis at 27? I think so!!) and I’ve thought about the same things you think about.

For my part, I’ve gone back to church for the first time in 5 years and it’s totally helped me. Is God a part of your life? Comfort through Christianity, I guess. It’s cheesy but it works for me.

You don’t have to write back but I wanted you to know you aren’t alone. I hope you keep writing! You are good at it!

A faithful reader,
Name Withheld by Request

Dear Name Withheld by Request,

Thanks for the kind words. Things are going much better now. I’ve been to church twice in my life (other than weddings) and I haven’t really gotten much out of it other than a bit of cracker and wine. The music was great, though, and the complimentary bible and hymnal looks great on my shelf.

Letter Number Two:

Dear “Colonel”,

You are an f—ing narcissist. Every damn post is about your hair. And then you f—ing sing and I bet you sit in your room and play it over and over. Why don’t you write about f—ing Iraq and war and s–t. The world is more than your f—ing hair. Like we care about your stupid road trip. Bite me.

Name Withheld by request.

Dear Name Withheld by Request,

I don’t know where to begin! First of all, thanks for your honesty. Positive critisicm is something I thrive off of. I wish I knew you in real life so I could buy you a cup of coffee and a scone. Let me take a moment to comment on your assertations:

1) Every post is not about my hair. Of the 30 posts I’ve made, including this one, only 8 of them contains a reference to my hair. Dude, that’s like 27%. And one of those was a picture! And are you lumping my beard into that? Because that would knock out like four or five posts. I mean, while my beard is techincically composed of hair, it is not, unto itself, hair. Unless you meant it that way. Please elaborate more about my hair. Please. Please?

(You are bald, aren’t you?)

2) Keep in mind that 50% of the of my musical numbers have occurred as a result of tequila (AKA The Sweet, Sweet Nectar). I can’t stop myself from belting out a tune when I drink. And I don’t listen “over and over”. I review each audio post once after recording to make sure the quality is good, and then once when posted to verify it worked. Sure, I may have accidentally burnt a CD of my singing and accidentally left it in my car on “Repeat” but it was purely unintentional. Purely. Pure. Like my voice. Unhhhh.

3) Why don’t I write about Iraq? Because I’m not there, baby. Neither is my hair.

4) Back to the singing. “Sit in my room?” Dude, I’m 30. I have several rooms. One of them even has a stove.

And that’s the first installment of reader mail! Keep those cards and letters coming! Send ‘em here, if you are into the electric mail.

You of course know these ten questions as the questions James Lipton asks every guest at the end of the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” show. They originally came from a French series, “Bouillon de Culture” hosted by Bernard Pivot.

These are my answers. And when you are finished, you will be closer to me than you can possibly imagine.

1. What is your favorite word?

Squiggly.

2. What is your least favorite word?

Pustule.

3. What turns you on?

The Creative Process.

4. What turns you off?

Asian Strippers.

5. What is your favorite curse word?

Blast it all!

6. What sound or noise do you love?

Wrapping paper being torn off Christmas gifts.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

The screams of a child on fire.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Kabuki Dancer.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Porridge Stirrer.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

“Sweet Jesus, your hair looks fantastic. Can I get you sandwich?”

The indoor pool at the Springfield, Ohio Fairfield Inn is completely visible from the lobby. As I checked in last night, I could see a 300-pound man wearing a white t-shirt and boxer shorts wading in the pool. He was greasy and hairy. And fat. He kept rubbing his face, and running his hands over what was clearly a combover. Periodically he would dunk his head under the water, and upon surfacing, would spit water back out into the pool.

Why this image is not on a brochure is beyond me. I hope he’s in the pool tomorrow morning while I’m enjoying my continental breakfast. A bagel, a newspaper, and a hairy, wading fat guy. That’s how you jumpstart a day.

Later, I walked past the man as he waited for the elevator. He had no towel, no shoes, he was just dripping onto the tile as he absently rubbed his belly.

Too bad my room is on the first floor, I thought.

If you’ve known me a long time, you know that I’m fond of saying I’ve never had a decent haircut in my entire life. My hair is comprised of one giant cowlick.

(Okay, in researching the spelling of “cowlick” I found this definition: A tuft of hair turned up or awry (usually over the forehead), as if licked by a cow. I wonder: is there something unique or special about the way a cow licks hair that resulted in the emergence of an entire word? Is a cow’s hair licking technique sufficiently different than that of say, a monkey’s? There’s no “monkeylick” in the American lexicon. Are cows the only hair-licking mammal?

And check this out: According to Webster’s Online, “cowlick” is used about 2 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. As such, it is the 245,945th most common word in the English language.

“Monkeylick”, as I suspected, is not ranked. But I digress.)

A few posts back I vowed not to return to Great Clips. Great Clips hires vapid teenage girls who have no vested interested in my coif. Or in not being sluts.

So today, before I left on my Great Midwest Road Trip, I tried out the “City Barber Shop” in downtown Geneva. I’ve driven past it for a year and a half, but I’ve never had the courage to walk in. It’s got “old school” written all over it: the striped barber pole, lettering made of electrical tape, and through the window you can see three classic leather barber chairs in front of three sinks, in front of a mirror.

I’ve always imagined there’d be a barber with slicked back hair, thick black glasses and a white smock giving buzzcuts to local boys. Everybody gets a buzzcut.

So I go inside, and the place is empty. A middle-aged woman sits in one of the chairs, reading the morning paper. I ask her “Can I get a haircut?” She turns, smiles, and gestures to the center seat. She puts the paper neck thingie around my neck, and lays the apron over me.

“What can I do for you today?” Ahh, the smell of stale cigarettes.

“Um,” I stammer, because I’m not really sure what I want (and maybe this is why I’ve never gotten a good haircut), “Trim up around the ears and neck, and blend in the top.”

“Alrighty.” And she proceeds with the cut. I was facing opposite the mirror, so I couldn’t see what she was doing. I was comforted by the fact that she wasn’t a 19-year-old girl, so I let that slide.

Now, barber(ess) to client conversation is something I’m not terribly adept at. I can hold my own when the topic is weather, and everyone is always interested when I tell them “My company designs software for the government”. People like to ask me what it’s like to work from home. But this barber(ess) wanted, for some inexplicable reason, to talk about Geneva High School football. I have no townie pride at all, so the following sentence sums up my knowledge of Geneva High School football:

“Geneva High School football games allow high school students, who live in Geneva, to compete in football contests with students from other high schools. A score is kept.”

Fortunately an elderly man with virtually no hair was visiting the shop, reading a Newsweek, and filled in the blanks for me. I imagine that he’s there every day, reading that Newsweek, over and over and over. He wore a white sweatshirt with a Christmas tree on it, clearly a gift from a beloved granddaughter.

ANYWAY. The haircut. It’s pretty strong. Sideburns look good, and my neckline is nice and high. She removed the line on the left side of my head. I’m happy with my hair for the first time in a long time, and hopefully the fine men and women of Champaign County will appreciate the work. End of story.

Oh, and I’m totally naming my next band “Monkeylick”.

I’m writing this from the plaid chair in my living room. I’m not jacked into anything. No power cord, no ethernet cable, not even a mouse.

A random trip to CompUSA led to the discovery of the Microsoft MN-820 Wireless-G Notebook Kit, which contains a base station for my desktop and a wireless card for my laptop, all for the low, low price of $39.99. The whole thing took about 30 minutes to install, and I can now run my laptops from anywhere in the house. Later, I’ll be testing it from the front yard and the garage, which will come in handy when Elizabeth catches me with the prostitutes!

Similar products from US Robotics and NetGear cost over $100, and while I was wary of purchasing hardware from Microsoft for the price I just had to take the plunge. Of course, Microsoft did manufacture the greatest mouse ever made (the discontinued but glorious Optical Trackball) so it wasn’t a complete gamble. So far, it appears to have paid off.

When connecting my laptop to the Wireless network, I discovered that some guy in the neighborhood named Jerry also has a wireless network set up. He has NO SECURITY on it whatsoever. I could piggyback on his network and soak up all his bandwidth. Also, if he has file sharing turned on, I can steal all his porn. (Really, have you ever known a guy named Jerry that didn’t have a massive porn collection? It’s true.)

God bless you wireless, and dare I say it, God bless you Microsoft. And Jerry, if you’ve got porn, God bless YOU.