It’s hard to feel cool behind the wheel of a nerd-mobile

I’m feeling a little iffy about my new car. It’s an OK car, better than a lot of the heaps in which I’ve risked my life over the years. But I’m just not sure it’s me.

I won’t be taking delivery for a couple weeks yet; it’s my sweetie’s old car and I have to wait for her to buy a new one. She needs something bigger for her retail business, so I’m stuck with her Beetle.

A Bug, man! Next to a hot pink, Malibu Barbie Corvette, the girliest car to ever roll off an assembly line.

Worse still, it’s white, my least favorite car color (number one, black; red, number two; white, somewhere below chartreuse and taupe). Lori’s even decorated the thing with cute, girly decals. Decals! Girly ones!

If I were in fourth grade, this car would get me beat up daily.

Frankly, I’m not sure I’m man enough to drive the thing without first putting on dark glasses and a hoodie. It’s just not a car I want to be seen in.

My Ford truck was. It was big, black, beautiful and had tires the size of a roller rink. When I drove that truck I felt like the illegitimate love child of John Wayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was the kind of vehicle that makes a man want to crush beer cans on his forehead!

I’ve also driven a few red, mid-life crises sports cars over the years. Behind the wheel of one of these, I feel like Steve McQueen. Cool. A chick magnet. (Although, in my case, the kind of magnet that repels rather than attracts.)

During poor years — pretty much any time I’m between wives — I tend to drive wrecks of questionable legal lineage. My last really dangerous vehicle, the Death Van, was, believe me, aptly named. But even that had a certain lowlife Cheech-and-Chong-I-just-don’t-give-a-damn hippie charm to it.

Not so the Bug. It is cute. It is sensible. It is good on gas and mechanically sound.

Every time I climb behind the wheel of the Bug I feel I should be cruising to a Trader Joe’s to pick up tofu and raw goat’s milk cheese. Like I should be doing yoga, reading self-help books, writing bad poetry.

It just ain’t me.

But I’ll buy it from my sweetie so she can buy an SUV or pickup or whatever she needs to move her art from studio to shoppe. I just hope driving it doesn’t get me beat up by a group of fourth-graders.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Greatness is at last within my grasp

This could be it! I think the art world finally is ready for me. After long years searching for a medium which might adequately express the artistic wonderfulness bottled up within my angst-ridden soul, I believe I have at last found it.

See, years ago, I really believed I was going to be an artist. I tried watercolors, oils, acrylics. At my best, I was lousy, but I tried. Then I took a stab at sculpting. No one ever mistook my work for, say, Michelangelo’s. Even wood carving left me with nothing but slices put in and chunks taken out of my hands.

Despite my best efforts, all my paintings looked like they started life as a series of numbers on a dollar store canvas.

Honestly, I no longer remember what so attracted me to the art world. I probably thought it would help me find a girl. This is likely, since, for many years the hope of finding a girl was the only reason I got out of bed each morning. 

Whatever the reason, I worked hard at developing any nascent talent I might possess. Over time I managed to work my way up from lousy to mediocre. Considering where I’d started, mediocre seemed acceptable.

Eventually, I even managed to land a real “art” job creating book covers and album jackets for a religious book publisher. (If you’ve ever wondered why the cover art on so many religious books is terrible, now you know.)

I gave up the artistic life the day the religious book house fired me. A few years later they went out of business, but I refuse to accept responsibility for that.

So it has been decades since I tried creating any art beyond mowing my lawn in a criss-cross pattern. However, it now looks like my hour may be coming ‘round at last. 

There’s a new art movement afoot, one dedicated to a medium with which I am imminently familiar, one that could at last allow me to tap into the deep, meaningful emotions churning within me. Both of them.

I’m speaking, of course, of back hair.

I promise I’m not making this up. There are as we speak artists carving portraits and landscapes into the backs of furry guys. They even have a calendar for sale.

Now, it’s true I’ve never actually crafted in back fur. That said, I walk around each day with a canvas to die for! Within the furry forest sprouting on my back (shoulders, chest — pretty much any area unfamiliar with a razor’s touch) lies an untapped Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Whistler’s Mother.

All I need to get started is an electric clipper, a stick to duct tape it to, and a mirror in which to monitor my progress. It’ll take practice, sure, but at the rate my body hair grows I’ll have an entirely new canvas every couple weeks.

Also, there are five cats living here, or as I now think of them, sketch pads.

It’s only a matter of time before my name stands alongside Picasso and Van Gogh in the annals of art! Mike “Fuzzy” Taylor. Innovator. Artist. Barber.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Let’s be real, some things just don’t mix

No. Just no no no no no. And furthermore, no.

Pickles and ice cream? No. Bean burritos and first dates? No. Intricate plot twists and the movies of Adam Sandler? No.

Some things are simply not meant to go together. Yeah, I know, we live in an age of constant flux, a time when social mores change oftener than a ninth-grader’s socks (which is to say, once every couple weeks).

But we must have SOME standards, man, some few constants upon which we can rely!

I rarely find my BVD’s in a twist over the actions of others, mostly because I don’t care what other people do so long as they keep it out of my yard and show me the same consideration. I don’t like being the boss of anyone and I don’t like anyone being the boss of me. This, in part, explains my marital and employment history.

Sometimes, though, like now, some chowder-head will come up with an idea so heinous, so reprehensible, so flat-out against human nature that I feel I must speak up. I suppose you’ve already guessed what I’m talking about.

The FloTrack Beer Mile.

For those readers who don’t follow beer news as carefully as I do, the FloTrack Beer Mile is a foot race held in Austin, Texas. It works like this: each contestant drinks a beer. So far, so good! Finally, a sport at which I might excel. 

Then things turn ugly.

After that first beer, the contestant must RUN one-quarter mile. Then drink another beer. Were that the end of it, I might still say, “Well, that’s weird, but OK.”

Sadly, that is not the end of it. Each contestant must then run another quarter-mile, drink another beer, and then run yet ANOTHER quarter-mile and drink yet ANOTHER beer! And then — get this — he or she must run a FINAL quarter mile.

Let’s see, is that a mile yet? Yes, it is. Mr. Paepke was right; fractions are important.

Now, anyone who reads this column regularly already knows I’m fond of beer. I like my beer the way I like my women: cheap and domestic. (Kidding, sweetie, kidding! Put down the knife and let me get you some chocolate!) But seriously, I do kind of like beer.

I don’t drink a lot, despite frequent claims to the contrary, but when I crave a beer with a burger, nothing else really cuts it.

Also, there was a time — though you’d never know it to look at me now — when I enjoyed running. It’s true! I was cross country in high school and even did a couple marathons as an adult.

So I like beer and running.

But not together. Like pickles and ice cream, these two activities were never meant to dance a pas de deux. It’s unnatural and it’s got to be hard on the digestive system. Frankly, if I’m in the mood to attend midnight services at the porcelain altar, I can think of far easier ways to gain admittance.

People are crazy, though. There’s at least a chance this thing could catch on and even … expand. How long before we see Tour de France cyclists stopping every mile to suck back a pack of Camel unfiltered’s? Will rappers be forced to perform the first 30 minutes of every concert without once referencing cops and/or booty? Will we someday witness a cosmetics-free Miss America pageant?

Pickles and ice cream, brothers and sisters. Pickles and ice cream.

Get more of Mike Taylor’s Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogger.com.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273