Why Is Your Blog Called Cult of Jef?

 Blogging, Essays, Friends, Humor, Memory Mondays  8 Responses »
Apr 302012
 

When I was a kid, I never met any­one with my name.  (You might want to check out my post about how my par­ents chose my name, too, just click here.)  There didn’t seem to be many Jeff’s in the news, either.  The only rea­son I knew there were other Jeff’s out there is because of those dis­plays with per­son­al­ized key­chains.  I’d rub the Jeff key­chain between my fin­gers and think, I know you’re out there, Jeff …  I always thought it would be fun to have a friend named Jeff.

By the time I was in mid­dle school, another Jeff appeared in the sixth grade.  We didn’t have much in com­mon, though.  In fact, the only thing I remem­ber about him is that he had a very con­spic­u­ous retainer.

In high school, there were a few other Jeff’s, but they were older.  I occa­sion­ally spoke to Jeff R. in Geom­e­try, but our paths didn’t cross much out­side of class–although our ver­ti­cal angles were always con­gru­ent.  (I actu­ally got to know Jeff a lit­tle bet­ter when we were in a play together dur­ing my fresh­man year of col­lege.  He was a nice guy; I hope he’s doing well.)

In the mid 1990s, my friend Tim told me, “You should meet my friend Jeff in Atlanta.  You two have a lot in com­mon.”  I didn’t really know how to respond to his com­ment.  I mean, it’s one thing to go bowl­ing with a mutual friend; it’s another to try to meet some­one 800 miles away for lunch to deter­mine if you both have a pas­sion for sci­ence fic­tion movies from ‘50s, so I’d just nod at Tim and change the subject.

A year or so later, Tim told me that he was dri­ving to Atlanta to visit his friend Jeff for his birth­day.  He asked if I wanted to tag along.  Nor­mally, I would have declined, but I had recently bemoaned to a co-worker that I never trav­eled and I needed to rem­edy that.  So, Tim and I left Dal­las right after work on Fri­day and drove all-night to Atlanta and I finally met the other Jeff.

Jeff and I had a lot in com­mon:  We were both mid­dle chil­dren, both the only sons, both had been D.J.‘s at our col­lege radio sta­tions, both liked pho­tog­ra­phy, and both had the same name.  It was a pleas­ant sur­prise, because it’s not every­day that you meet some­one sim­patico.  I gave Jeff the nick­name “2 F’s” since I was Jef with “1 F” and we kept in touch.

About a year later, I felt like my pro­fes­sional and per­sonal life had become stag­nant.  Since I had lived in Texas all of my life, I sensed that it was time to move some place with bet­ter job oppor­tu­ni­ties and fresh faces.  I con­sid­ered New York and Los Ange­les, but they both seemed daunt­ing.  I recalled how much I liked Atlanta when I vis­ited the pre­vi­ous sum­mer.  Atlanta seemed sim­i­lar enough to Dal­las to feel com­fort­able, yet dif­fer­ent enough to allow some oppor­tu­nity for per­sonal growth, and since I already knew some­one there, the idea of mov­ing began to seem less scary.  I got excited.

I moved to Atlanta and found a bet­ter job, made more money, and started doing all sorts of new things, like rock climb­ing and join­ing a screen­writ­ing group.  I also had the oppor­tu­nity to get to know Jeff bet­ter, and one day I real­ized that wish I had while stand­ing in front of the per­son­al­ized key­chains had come true–I had  Jeff for a friend!

Okay, this is where it starts to get weird:  A few years after I moved to Geor­gia, I moved in with Jeff when he bought a larger house in the city.  I went from know­ing no other Jeffs, to befriend­ing a Jeff, to liv­ing with a Jeff.  By that time, I’d also met Jeff’s best friend from Canada.  His name?  Jeff!  Over the next few months, we met our neighbors–Jeff and Jeff.  Sud­denly, it seemed like I was sur­rounded by Jeff’s.  But then one neigh­bor Jeff. moved, and I told 2 F’s, “You know, it kind of sad­dens me that we’re one Jeff down on the block.

“Don’t be,” Jeff said.  “I met the new neigh­bors next door.”

“What are their names?” I asked.

“Brit­ney and Jeff,” he said.

“You’re kid­ding …”

If some­one had writ­ten a story with this many Jeff’s, I would have told me that it was too coin­ci­den­tal and unbe­liev­able, yet here I am, smack in the mid­dle of a sea of Jeff’s.  There­fore, when I was brain­storm­ing names for my blog, a friend sug­gested that I should focus on some­thing that is unique about myself, hence, Cult of Jef was born.

What is one unusual aspect of your own life?

The Story Behind "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Culture, Pop Music, Retro, Video  7 Responses »
Apr 272012
 

Recorded on New Year’s Day 1987 with pro­duc­ers Stock/Aitken/Waterman, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” was released on July 27, 1987, when it was felt the mar­ket was right for the song.  It topped the U.K. Sin­gles Charts for five weeks and went to #1 in 25 other coun­tries, includ­ing the U.S.  The sin­gle sold over 15.2 copies world­wide.  “Never Gonna Give You Up” was the biggest-selling sin­gle of 1987 and won Best British Sin­gle at the 1988 Brit Awards.  Accord­ing to the Guin­ness Book of Records, Rick still holds the record for first male solo artist to have his first eight sin­gles reach the Top 10 in the U.K.

A few years ear­lier, Rick Ast­ley had been a drum­mer in a pub band with friends from school called FBI.  When the lead singer quit, Rick offered to take over vocal duties.  Pro­ducer Pete Water­man heard FBI play, he offered Rick a solo con­tract.  How­ever, Rick remained loyal to his band­mates and refused the offer.  A year later, the rest of the band felt guilty for Rick turn­ing down the offer, as it was obvi­ous he was a gifted vocal­ist.  Rick accepted an appren­tice­ship at PWL Records in Lon­don, which had already had suc­cess with Divine, Hazell Dean, Dead or Alive, Princess, Bana­narama, Mel & Kim, Saman­tha Fox, and Sinitta, and learned about record­ing and music pro­duc­tion.  Rick Ast­ley went on to record two hit albums and 10 suc­cess­ful sin­gles with Stock/Aitken/Waterman before mov­ing on to explore other musi­cal styles with his third and fourth album.  Rick even­tu­ally retired from the music busi­ness in 1993.

In 2007 an Inter­net meme called Rick­rolling was intro­duced.  This bait-and-switch gag involves post­ing a hyper­link on a web­site to a cer­tain topic, how­ever, the link actu­ally leads to the music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Ast­ley.  If you’ve never been Rick­rolled and you would like to be, please click on this link to read more about nos­tril hole rejuvenation.

Ver­sions
Never Gonna Give You Up 3’32
Never Gonna Give You Up [Cake Mix] 5’48
Never Gonna Give You Up [Escape from New­ton Mix] 6’30
Never Gonna Give You Up [Escape to New York Mix] 7’00

Music Video
The music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” was directed by Simon West and filmed in West Lon­don.  Rick sings and does that lit­tle dance by pump­ing his fists.  He sings in an empty night­club dur­ing the day­time in some scenes, and then sings out­side in other scenes.  The bar­tender and ran­dom backup dancers get jiggy with the song in var­i­ous set­tings.  The video is col­or­ful and really cap­tures the fash­ion of 1987.

Mem­o­ries
I remem­ber read­ing about Rick Ast­ley in a Smash Hits mag­a­zine imported from the U.K. at Book­stop on Hulen Street in Fort Worth.  I was a big fan of Dead or Alive and Bana­narama at the time, so I was curi­ous to hear the song.  I bought the 12″ record at Sound Ware­house a few doors up from Book­stop a few months later.  I recall being star­tled that the music was not Hi-NRG like “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” or “Venus,” and that Rick’s voice sounded more like the Warner Bros. ani­mated char­ac­ter Michi­gan J. Frog.  I wasn’t sure if I liked it; but the more I played it, the more it grew on me.  After the song became pop­u­lar in early 1988, my older sis­ter Vicki told me that Rick Ast­ley looked a lot like me.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that com­ment, con­sid­er­ing that I thought Rick had really big hair.  When­ever I hear the song, though, it always brings back happy mem­o­ries of dri­ving around with my friends, or work­ing at Tar­get on Hulen Street, espe­cially after we closed the store and zoned the sea­sonal candy aisles and the boys in Auto­mo­tive blasted the radio from the back of the store.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley? 

Top Ten Questions I Ask Myself When I Lie Awake at Night

 Humor, Top Ten Thursdays  7 Responses »
Apr 262012
 

I often lie awake at night, won­der­ing about strange sce­nar­ios.  These are the top ten ques­tions I asked myself last night:

01. Should I worry if a  paci­fist tells me that she is going to shoot me an e-mail?

02. If my server at a steak house is a veg­e­tar­ian, does that fore­shadow a bad meal?

03. If my sex ther­a­pist is celi­bate, does that imply that he doesn’t believe in the prod­uct, per se, that he’s selling?

04. If a come­dian is seri­ous about humor, is that a con­flict of interest?

05. If I intro­duce a vam­pire to a hemo­phil­iac, am I an acces­sory to a crime?

06. How come the gro­cery store doesn’t sell fat-free lard?

07. Why are there so many straw­berry & banana-flavored foods?  Don’t man­u­fac­tur­ers believe that the straw­berry has enough star power to make it on its own?

08. If an artist devel­ops a blocked milk duct, is she still able to express herself?

09. Whose name does God scream in vain when He acci­den­tally hits His thumb with a hammer?

10. Wouldn’t a nar­colep­tic and a necrophil­iac be able to com­pro­mise to make their rela­tion­ship work?

Word Up Wednesday: Bootytrap

 Dictionary, Humor, Pop Culture, Vocabulary, Word Up Wednesdays  No Responses »
Apr 252012
 

Booty­trap (noun) \boo-tee-trap\ — When some­one asks for an hon­est opin­ion as to whether his or her behind is dis­pro­por­tion­ately large com­pared to the rest of his or her body, but the only safe answer is no.

Exam­ple:  When Meghan asked Doug if he thought her butt was too big, he knew–after her recent dough­nut obsession–that the ques­tion was a bootytrap.

Can you use booty­trap in a sentence?

Mother Cleared of Wrongdoing for Using Son as Battering Ram

 Crime, Family, Humor, Kids, Parents, Parody, Tall Tale Tuesdays  No Responses »
Apr 242012
 

The Divi­sion of Fam­ily and Chil­dren Ser­vices (DFCS) has cleared Margie Bauer, 34, of Kissime­coochee, Geor­gia, of wrong­do­ing when she used her son, Wilber, 10, as a bat­ter­ing ram to escape an apart­ment fire last week.

““I don’t nor­mally use my chil­dren as a siege engine,” Bauer said.  “But flames were every­where and Wilbuer was being dif­fi­cult.  I asked him to help me tie some sheets together so he and his twin sis­ters and I could lower our­selves safely to the ground, and he refused to help unless I gave him an advance on his allowance.”

““Some­thing inside me just snapped,” Bauer con­tin­ued.  “And in my defense, I had cut out diet soft drinks ear­lier that week and I hadn’t had any choco­late that day, so I was on edge.”

When asked why she used her son as a bat­ter­ing ram, Bauer replied, “Well, he’s so darn stub­born, and I needed some­thing to break down the door so we could escape.  I fig­ured as hard-headed as Wilbur is, his nog­gin should do the trick.  And he went–head first–right through that oak!”

Wilbur, cur­rently in hid­ing from his mother, has released a state­ment through his lawyer that he intends to sue his mother for every­thing that she’s worth, which will–hopefully–be enough to buy a copy of Zom­bie She-Male Apoc­a­lypse for his Xbox.  “I also plan for my attor­ney to ask for the death penalty.”

Bau­rer rolled her eyes when advised of her son’s com­ments.  She declined to com­ment and pro­ceeded to make a pot roast with car­rots and pota­toes and an ice­box coconut cake.  The smell of the food brought Wilbur home where he and his mother reconciled.

The reunion was short-lived, how­ever.  Wilbur, in a sugar high from dessert, admit­ted to set­ting the fire to col­lect the insur­ance money to buy video games.  Bau­rer then denied Wilbur a sec­ond slice of cake and con­tacted author­i­ties.  Wilbur has since been incar­cer­ated at the Enis “Scrappy” Smith Reform School for Delin­quent Boys.

How I Overcame Chronic Shyness at the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

 Blogging, Essays, Humor, Memory Mondays, Travel, Writing  17 Responses »
Apr 232012
 

Peo­ple never believe me when I say that I’m painfully shy.  Yes, I have acted in plays, sang & danced in musi­cals, and given speeches in front of large audi­ences.  How­ever, if you put in a room with peo­ple whom I don’t know and ask me small talk with them, I would rather have my eye­balls pecked out by a schiz­o­phrenic chicken.

I was reminded of this when I attended the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Work­shop on the cam­pus of Day­ton Uni­ver­sity this past week­end.  I found myself in the com­pany of about 350 women, aged 25–70.  I felt like a lone drop of testos­terone in a sea of estro­gen.  Sure, there were a few other men there, but it was mostly mar­ried women with chil­dren.  I’m nei­ther mar­ried nor do I have chil­dren.  What would we talk about?

Dur­ing the work­shop ses­sions, I learned tips about blog­ging, social media, travel writ­ing, humor writ­ing, sell­ing my work, and get­ting pub­lished the ass-backwards way.  It’s one of the few writ­ers’ work­shops that I’ve attended where I felt I got some­thing of value from every ses­sion.  And I must say that the keynote speak­ers at the lunches and din­ners man­aged to be both inspir­ing and hilarious.

I dreaded the lunches and din­ners, though.   But I had a plan:  Just ask a lot of ques­tions and get my din­ner com­pan­ions talk­ing about them­selves.  If that didn’t work, I fig­ured I would feign death and slide under the table.

As it turned out, things went pretty well.  I sat next to friendly peo­ple and asked them ques­tions and they answered them.  Then they asked me ques­tions and I made up a bunch of lies to sound more inter­est­ing.  I just kept telling myself to breathe deeply.  (I think the wine helped, too.)

I found that Erma is alive and well at her writ­ers’ work­shop.  At first it seemed like the Cult of Erma, because the speak­ers kept refer­ring to her in the present tense.  I wor­ried we might raise her from the dead between the main course and dessert.  I feared that I might feel com­pelled to cas­trate myself and eat poison-laced pud­ding before the moth­er­ship arrived.  I soon real­ized how many writ­ers still felt influ­enced by Erma’s accom­plish­ments and I began to under­stand.  To still have that influ­ence 16 years after her death is amaz­ing.  The treat of  the whole con­fer­ence, how­ever, was hear­ing her hus­band, daugh­ter, sons, and her for­mer sec­re­tary read their favorite Erma Bombeck columns.  It was very moving.

By Sat­ur­day the weather had turned colder and I was begin­ning to tire from a sched­ule that was jam-packed with one event after another.  Back in my hotel room, I was very tempted to skip din­ner and just relax.  But I had a feel­ing that I might meet some­one really inter­est­ing, so I forced myself to get up and head to the ball room.

I met Bill, an 88-year-old for­mer Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter and army chap­lain.  He was a bit hard of hear­ing, so when I talked to him, Bill had to put his arm around the back of my chair, twist his neck around, and I’d speak into his ear that was far­thest away from me.  This is going to be a long night, I told myself.  Then I thought, You know, maybe you should change your atti­tude, mis­ter.  Be patient. Who knows what gold nugget may come from this conversation.  

A few min­utes later, I found myself in a deep dis­cus­sion with Bill about reli­gion, climb­ing Mount Ever­est, and fit­ness.  Sud­denly, Bill pulled out his bill­fold and whipped out a black and white photo in a plas­tic accor­dion sleeve.  It showed a debonair young man with pen­cil mous­tache flex­ing his huge mus­cles in swim trunks.  It was very Charles Atlas-esque!  Hav­ing been a stick most of my life, the photo impressed me.  I was also blown away by Bill’s ease to reveal the pic­ture to me.  Then it dawned on me that I needed to respond.

What does one say to an 88-year-old, retired Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter when he shares his beef­cake photo from 1956?  Gee, Bill, you were hot!  No, that’s the equiv­a­lent of telling a man that he looks really pretty.  You know, that would make a great pro­file pic on Match.com.  No, he was mar­ried.  Plus, it could hardly be con­sid­ered a recent image.  I took a deep breath and the answer came to me.

“That’s awe­some, Bill,” I said.  “I hope that when I’m your age, I’ll feel con­fi­dent enough to show half-naked pic­tures of myself to younger peo­ple to prove that I was once a hot mess.”  It didn’t quite come out the way I had imag­ined, but Bill smiled and nod­ded.  I decided at that moment that when I grow up, I want to be just like Bill.

Although the Erma Bombeck Writ­ers’ Work­shop taught me a lot about writ­ing, net­work­ing, and mar­ket­ing myself, the great­est les­son I learned from the week­end was that buried trea­sure is all around me if I dig through my fear.  This was proved fur­ther to me the fol­low­ing morn­ing when I met Leslie and Nicole as our bags were being searched by the TSA at the Day­ton Airport.

 

The Story Behind "I Like 'Em Big & Stupid" & "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" by Julie Brown

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Humor, Music, New Wave, Parody, Pop Culture, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Apr 202012
 

Come­di­enne Julie Brown released her debut single,“I Like ‘em Big and Stu­pid,” in 1983 on Bul­letz Records. In the song, Brown waxes on about her love of a brawny bruit over a sen­si­tive, intel­li­gent man. The lyrics state:

“Smart guys are nowhere, they make demands
Give me a moron with tal­ented hands.”

The song was included on Brown’s EP God­des in Progress on Rhino Records. A few years later, she was signed to Sire Records and re-recorded “I Like ‘em Big and Stu­pid” for her album Trapped in the Body of a White Girl.

The B-Side of “I Like ‘em Big and Stu­pid,” which is a par­ody of “Teen Angel” and the movie Cit­i­zen Kane. The song received air­play on the Dr. Demento Radio Show. A com­i­cal music video was also made for the song. After the Columbine High School shoot­ings, Brown has said that she no longer feels com­fort­able per­form­ing “The Home­com­ing Queen’s Got a Gun,” stat­ing that she is very sen­si­tive about doing some­thing that will hurt people.

In 2008, Brown rewrote the lyrics and recorded a new ver­sion of the song enti­tled “The Ex-Beauty Queen’s Got a Gun” to poke fun at Sarah Palin.

Ver­sions
I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid 2’40
I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid [Trapped in the Body of a White Girl Ver­si­son] 3’49
I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid [Extended Dance Mix] 5’07
The Home­com­ing Queen’s Got a Gun 4’40

Music Video
In the music video for “The Home­com­ing Queen’s Got a Gun,” Julie Brown plays both Debi, the home­com­ing queen, and her best friend, the nar­ra­tor of the song. It’s a campy, over-the-top video with lots of clever sight gags. I taped it off MTV and my mother and I used to watch it all the time. My mom espe­cially likes the end where a hand reaches onscreen and steals Debi’s tiara.

Mem­o­ries
I read about Julie Brown in a mag­a­zine. Intrigued by song titles such as “I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid,” “Girl Fight Tonight,” and “The Home­com­ing Queen’s Got a Gun,” I plopped down $6.99 (plus tax) for my vinyl LP of Trapped in the Body of a White Girl. I wasn’t dis­ap­pointed; the songs were clever and her deliv­ery hilar­i­ous. Even the more main­stream pop songs had humor­ous lyrics, such as “Shut Up and Kiss Me” and “Every Boy’s Got One.” The fol­low­ing year, her TV show Just Say Julie pre­miered on MTV, fol­lowed by Earth Girls Are Easy, a movie based on the song by the same name from orig­i­nal EP God­dess in Progress was released. I bought the sound­track just to hear “‘Cause I’m a Blonde.” I even­tu­ally found a copy of God­dess in Progress in a used record store a few years ago and heard the orig­i­nal ver­sions of “I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid” and “Earth Girls Are Easy” for the first time. Both of her albums were out of print, but Brown bought the rights back from the record com­pany and released them her­self back in 2007, because she was angry at peo­ple sell­ing the orig­i­nal CDs online for hun­dreds of dollars.

What are your mem­o­ries of “I Like ‘Em Big and Stu­pid” and “The Home­com­ing Queen’s Got a Gun” by Julie Brown?

Top Ten Signs That You Might Be the Reincarnation of Erma Bombeck

 Humor, Parody, Pop Culture, Top Ten Thursdays, Writing  3 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

I’m attend­ing the 2012 Erma Bombeck Writer’s Work­shop on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­sity of Day­ton, which is devoted to both humor and human inter­est writ­ing.  Erma was an Amer­i­can humorist who wrote about sub­ur­ban life and passed away in 1996.  Through her broad humor and gen­tle insights, Erma often reminded me of the Dalai Lama, there­fore, I fig­ure it’s time Erma came back again in a new body.  Here are ten clues that you might be the rein­car­na­tion of Erma Bombeck:

01. You state that guilt is the gift that keeps on giving.

02. You say that house­work, if done right, will kill you.

03. You believe that if God wanted us to walk around naked, He never would have invented wicker furniture.

04. You men­tion that the only rea­son to take up jog­ging is to hear heavy breath­ing again.

05. You tell oth­ers they should never loan your car to any­one to whom they’ve given birth.

06. You’ve ever used a left­over Girl Scout Cook­ies as coast­ers for beverages.

07. You advo­cate never accept­ing a drink from a urologist.

08. You say the grass is always greener over the sep­tic tank.

09. You seize the moment, because you think of all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

10. You believe it takes a lot courage to show your dreams to some­one else.

 Posted by at 7:00 am

Word Up Wednesday: Porn Again

 Dictionary, Humor, Parody, Pop Culture, Vocabulary, Word Up Wednesdays  No Responses »
Apr 182012
 

Porn Again (noun) \pawrn uh-gen\ — An evan­gel­i­cal fun­da­men­tal­ist who reded­i­cates him­self to Christ after being exposed by a sex-video scandal.

Exam­ple:  Brother Billy was porn again after the video of him and the chim­panzee in a tutu leaked to the Internet.

Can you use porn again in a sentence?

Mitt Romney Undergoes Sex Change to Win Women's Vote

 Humor, News of the Weird, Parody, Politics, Pop Culture, Tall Tale Tuesdays, Women's Interest  2 Responses »
Apr 172012
 

Mitt Rom­ney, can­di­date for the 2012 Repub­li­can Party pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, will undergo gen­der reas­sign­ment surgery to nar­row the gen­der gap.  “I just decided that if I really wanted to con­nect with female vot­ers, I lit­er­ally needed to walk in their high-heeled shoes,” Rom­ney said.

When asked if he felt that a sex change would alien­ate male con­ser­v­a­tives, Rom­ney replied, “I don’t think so.  I’ve just picked out my breast implants and I think the boys are really going to be pleased with my decision.”

Some female crit­ics have asked exactly how this will change Romney’s stance on women’s repro­duc­tive rights, since he won’t actu­ally have any work­ing parts.  Mil­i­tant fem­i­nist Hermyn Kane approached Rom­ney in a restau­rant and posed this ques­tion to him.  His response?  “Beef.  No, wait a minute–chicken, yeah, that’s it.”

Kane joked that after per­haps after Rom­ney com­plets his vagino­plasty, it may help with his prob­lem­atic image as a flip-flopper on issues, since he won’t have any­thing left to flip-flop around.

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