I got called back!

My audition for the "jazz choir" was a couple of hours ago, and I was invited to return on Thursday the 3rd of July to sing with the group. First, I should mention that it really isn't a "choir", per se. It's actually a 5-person a capella group, one person to each part. (Sound familiar? Think Rockapella. Except this group has women.) The group is "5 Degrees Cooler". They're short a person, though, in need of someone who sings in a low tenor-high baritone range with the ability to cover an occasional bass part, too. Sound familiar? Think Clifton. So, I fit the bill... but the major obstacle is my abject lack of choral experience. I wrote "No" or "None" 8 times on my application. And for all I know, they may give call-backs to almost everyone who tries out -- I don't know how it works. But, hey, I wasn't told "no thanks" right off the bat, right? So we'll see. I received copies of their sheet music along with a CD of the songs. I've got 13 days to select 3 songs to sing with the group. I've got 1 picked out. Guess what the opening song on their CD is? Ahem, track 4 from Rockapella's CD, Primer... "My Home." I KNOW that song!!!

Anyway, so, yeah, I'm all excited and stuff. Stopped at Popeye's on the way home and picked up some dirty rice and gumbo. Gonna go eat some good food.

Before I go, though... I saw an interesting personalized plate today. A little silver BMW Z3 passed me, and it had Arizona plates which read, "WEENAH." I'm so not even making that up. HOW did they get THAT by the acceptance board at the MVD?

It's magical. When the dogs are running well, everything else seems to be a little brighter. I feel like the work I put in during the mornings finally seems to be paying off at night, and each day's daily grind doesn't seem so pointless. It's an upward spiral; I then start feeling like putting in more effort, and so on. A big part of it is they finally lifted the quarantine a couple of weeks ago, and we got the new guys going. It's always fun to start some fresh faces.

Hey, do you like singing karaoke as much as I do? We (a couple of friends and I) have found a place that's kinda out of the way, so there's not a big crowd, so while you get to sing a lot, there's also less pressure, too. We go Wednesday nights. Email me (click the "tfg46" at the bottom of any post) if you want to hook up with us. It's always a tremendous amount of fun. By the way, under 21 is okay.

I'd be a lot more inclined to update my blog regularly if Blogger didn't move so slow. I swear, they must have their servers hooked up to 9600's.

Or maybe it's just me. I don't know. I hope not. I'm paying more than enough for this fast modem and fast cable service, so when I go a whole day without being online, I'd sure like the ONE website I go to to load in a timely fashion.

Just figured I'd let all my readers (both of them) know I'm not dead. Just floating along, suspended somewhere between the oil and the vinegar in the Italian dressing cruet of life. Dinner was good. If I were in a better mood, I'd tell you how good it was -- it was actually the best meal I've ever had. But I'm not, so I won't.

The voicemail on my phone says, "Hi, I'm Clifton Gray, and you aren't."

I may shave my head. Thoughts? It would sure count as a change.

I haven't lost any weight. Too lazy to actually make an effort to do it. But, by the same token, I've been just active enough to not gain any weight, either. Still fluctuating right around 280. I wonder how I'd look if I weighed less than 200 pounds. I may never know. But it'd be fun to try.

Going to go back in and edit my profile at the personals website, then email a few more people. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath, though. I got one response off the first attempt, and I pretty much messed that up after about a week or so. Sat and waited, waited, waited for more responses... nothing.

"If you go into a situation expecting to get kicked in the balls, but instead you get slapped in the face -- well, you're happy!" -- Wish I'd thought of that. Wasn't me, though.

Going to try out for a jazz choir (that's what they call it) on Friday. Don't know about my chances, though -- mainly considering I've never been in a choir before. We'll see. If you're interested, call me Friday night after 8:00ish and ask how it went, in case I decide to go another week without posting in my blog.

Bullshit Alert of the Day: If I hear another model or actress say that the first thing she looks for in a guy is "personality and a sense of humor," I'm going to scream at an empty room. You lie, you lie, you lie.
This Bullshit Alert has been sponsored by Fiona Apple, and her famous "This world... is bullshit" acceptance speech.

I bet somehow, Blogger will lose this post when I try to publish it. If you don't see this post, let me know and I'll redo it. (They did. I posted it last night at 1:15 but it never showed up.)

There's disappointment, and it comes in many shapes and sizes. But there's these little forms of disappointment that are not really anything that should bother someone, but sting like a papercut that you've licked and dipped in salt.

What am I talking about? When you come home, and you see there's a new Caller ID message blinking and one new message on your answering machine. Say, for whatever reason, you're hoping someone may have called. You drop everything you're carrying and shuffle through the darkness over to that flashing red beacon on top of your Caller ID box. You hit Play on your answering machine and turn on the kitchen light, and just as you push the button to reveal the mystery caller, the message plays -- it's a hang-up. Then the caller comes up on the box: "CLIFTON GRAY"

Suddenly, you realize that the message on the machine was actually you, calling home earlier to see if anyone had called -- which you had forgotten you'd done.

See? Not only do you feel disappointed, but you feel pretty stupid, too. At least I do.

This disappointment even trumps going to your mailbox for the first time in 3 days, and opening it up and revealing ---------- nothing. Not a damn scrap of paper. Not even a "Have You Seen Me?". It's like, wow... I would have appreciated even a little bit of junk mail, even a bill, but... nothing?

Don't worry, I'm not in a foul mood or anything. Just unloading the crap in my head. I'm working on a fiction piece in my head, and I may put pen to paper (or keyboard to spreadsheet) tomorrow and post it here. Kind of a cool premise, but I don't want to give it away.

If you're fast becoming hooked on blogs, like I am, you should go see annika's journal and poetry. There's a level of writing there which I could never hope to attain, on such a plane that I feel like I'm watching the events unfold in front of my very eyes. I went back and read her archives today, and her thoughts on the war and the Scott Peterson case were... I don't know. The correct word escapes me at the moment. But it's what I wish my blog were like. Unfortunately, I cop out and keeep rehashing old topics over and over again.

Did somebody say "rehashing old topics over and over again"? Yes, it's true, folks... believe the hype... it's time for Clifton's Whiny Self-Pity Comedy Hour! Or something. My sense of humor is on vacation tonight. It was a very, very rough day -- Tuesday, I mean; I know this'll go under Wednesday. I haven't worked a Tuesday in many weeks, and now I remember there was a valid reason why -- BECAUSE TUESDAYS FUCKING BLOW. The whole God-forsaken day was one big monsoon of shit. I mean, the day started with me at Wal-Mart -- not the nice Wal-Mart on Pima and Chaparral; no, the shithole at 38th Street and Thomas -- at 6:00 am. Why? Well, occasionally, we give the dogs Milk of Magnesia to kind of get their intestinal tract cleaned out. We blend it with buttermilk to hide the disgusting flavor and texture of it, so I bought 16 half-gallons of buttermilk on the way in to work. That wasn't bad, but seriously, any day that STARTS at Wal-Mart is about bound to suck. Then, had Agent hobbling around after he'd run a great race for me Monday night. Pulled shoulder muscle. Nothing too serious, but he'll be out a month or so.

Had to go back to Wal-Mart AFTER the kennel to buy a new fan since someone dropped the one at the kennel but MAGICALLY, NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT GOT BROKEN!!! THERE'S ONLY SIX OF US THERE, YET SOMEHOW I ASKED ALL SIX OF US HOW IT GOT BROKEN AND NO ONE KNOWS!!! This happens a lot, by the way. "Who put a soda in the freezer and had it explode, leaving a sticky mess all over the place?" "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." and I KNOW it wasn't ME. Who did it? I know! THE FUCKING GREEN FAIRY FROM MOULIN ROUGE! I don't know. I just wish that when someone F's up, they'd own up to it. If I can admit I should never have left school three years ago, by God they can admit they knocked the fan off the table. Okay, off that rant tangent...

Came home, ate, trying to get some sleep, when my sister calls at 1:00. She wants to know if she can borrow some salsa. All right, fine... unbelievably, I have an unopened jar of salsa in the fridge. Not her fault for waking me up -- I'm not usually in bed that early in the afternoon -- but getting up totally woke me back up again, so I ended up not getting back to sleep until after 2:00. So I hit the afternoon shift at 4:00 5 minutes late, under-rested at that.

Did I mention the shit rainstorm? That actually happened this afternoon. Apparently, I had my ratio of Milk of Magnesia to buttermilk off, skewing too high on Milk of Magnesia. Guess what? That made them have to shit faster. So we had Liqui-Turds everywhere this afternoon. *sigh* Spent an hour cleaning the kennels. No one suffered any ill effects, which was good, but everyone groaning and squirting turds around them was just enough to take the edge off of tonight's racers. And I'm always in a lousy mood when we have a bad night at the track, tired or not. Suffice it to say, a bad night plus being tired is a lethal combination to my sanity.

I think I held up pretty well, though. The night got progressively worse... I was trying to hand the hose to Helen Cowart and somehow I managed to squeeze the spray gun and drench her face. One of those nights. But here I am... getting ready to go to bed, for sure, but feeling better than I was when I started writing. My recovery time from a bad head episode has improved drastically.

Dane Cook, Comedy Central Presents

"
Got in an accident the other day. Yeah... had to go down to the DMV. (crowd groans) I know... And it's weird, you know... As you stand in line, it's SO quiet in there. Nobody's talking. It's just.... absolute........ dead........... silence......................... and, of course, everyone's thinking exactly the same thing:

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!"

Seriously!! Hey, you know in the future, in the year 3000, everything'll be instantaneous. They'll have transporters and stuff, like you can instantly go from one place to another. "All right, see you later!" ZHOOP! You're there already! You know what? THE DMV WILL STILL TAKE LIKE 9 SECONDS!!!! "Come ON! I have to be at work in 3 seconds! LET'S GO!!"

Honestly, they should just have a guy hide behind the door, and when you come in, he should jump out and punch you in the head. BIFF! "Ow! Sonofabitch!!! Well, I guess standing in line isn't so bad after getting punched in the head like that..."
"

Hey, yo. Been a while since I posted, mainly because I was hoping for more action on my people search... but to no avail. Ah well. I shouldn't stay up all night anyway.

Anyway, I'm going to make an effort to move my ass and call some local orchestras, symphonies, and bands, and see if anyone needs a tuba player. I discussed music at length with Ann Briggs last night, and I realized as I was talking just how much I missed it. I probably won't be calling the Scottsdale Symphony, though... see a future blog for more on that, and their tyrant tubist named Dwayne.

Went karaokeing last night... 'twas fun... I delivered a wicked good performance of Diamond Rio's "Meet in the Middle." You know it was good when you almost pass out when you're done. Anyway, it was good until the DJ got piss-drunk and suddenly couldn't figure out how to run the machine -- he was having enough trouble with it sober, and the 7 or 8 beers (seriously) didn't help much. Dude's name was Pork Chop. DJ Pork Chop. I'm serious.

If I were having a party, the first person I WOULDN'T call would be DJ Pork Chop. Anyway... I've got lunch to eat...

CLIFTON'S LUNCH
2 lbs. Velveeta cheese
16 oz. Pace picante sauce (DON'T buy Chunky Salsa)
2 small cans diced fire-roasted green chiles (or one big can... I guess)
dribble of milk
1 big bag Tostitos (original 100% white corn, no fancy-schmancy scoops or rounds, thank you very much)

Cut cheese into cubes. Place in a big microwave safe bowl and heat for 4 minutes. Stir to distribute melted cheese. Add the salsa and the green chiles and stir again. (The cheese will still be lumpy.) Dribble in some milk and stir again. Place back in the microwave and cover with a paper towel (unless you want to scrub burnt-on Velveeta off every interior surface of your microwave). Heat for 4 more minutes. Stir. If it isn't completely smooth, heat for another minute, and check... repeat this step until it's smooth. Eat with chips.

TIP: I use mild picante sauce but add a couple shots of Chipotle Tabasco. You can add your juice of choice to heat things up. I'm a big fan, by the way, of my Chipotle Tabasco sauce. It's not quite as hot as regular Tabasco yet hotter than Green Tabasco, but, oh, does it ever add flavor. It's my favorite new condiment of the year, just edging out French's honey mustard.