Postcards from the Funny Farm

It’s so great to have a platform to share psychology and inspiration with you multiple times each week. I get more ideas in a day than I can catch and the blog helps me record and share them with you. In the past two years I have learned a lot about what works for me and what doesn’t in this marvelous medium. Some of the things I’ve learned have proven quite valuable saving me time and, in some cases, earning me money.

When I started blogging in December of 2006, I had no idea how massive the effect would be on my life. My first blog, The feeble, weak-kneed rileycentral.net I started back them has now evolved into four separate domains and I have acquired friends and resources like you wouldn’t believe in just this short time. Part of the success I feel is due to reflection. We can spin and spin and spin in our lives and never stop to analyze the movement. Blogging is really like that. You must stop in blogging and consider where you’ve been and where you want to be. Then, you make a plan in that place hoping to meet your own goals. Thanks for being my readers here at the Funny Farm.

If you blog: I recently published a list of 50 Blog Tips that Deliver. I encourage you to head over and learn from some of my hard knocks!

I grew up loving the radio.  In the early 80’s I remember listening to Casey Kasem’s American top 40 on my stereo in my room.  It had an 8-track.  I suppose that ages me.  8-tracks were cool though.  It was a thick magnetic tape that held a string of songs on 8 different tracks.  You could skip sections but not yet song to song.  That would come later with the CD … much later.  I also used to listen to Dr. Demento.  That was where I first heard “Weird Al” and others like him.  In fact, believe it or not, that was where I heard REM for the first time.  Who would have thought to hear them on a joke show.

Later in life I started listening to NPR, National Public Radio.  Show hosts like Terry Gross and Larry Mantle just mesmerized me.  I listened to their talk shows in my car delivering pizzas and at night going to sleep.  I could see the studio listening in my mind.  The subjects ranged from “The Life of Woody Allen” to “Baking your meals for the month in one day.”  I loved them all.  I even bought an electric timer to record the shows when I was out.  This was way before DVR or digital radio.

This is why I started a weekly podcast.  It pales in comparison to the great shows I have mentioned but I am improving it as I go.  It’s my attempt at recreating that magic of the 80’s and 90’s again when I enjoyed talk radio so much.

I had been recording each Saturday night and upolading the episodes but it wasn’t until last week that I had a really neat moment to convince me this is a great idea for me. Recently you may have seen I put GTalk links in my sidebars on all the blogs. My intent was to connect in real time with people reading my blogs. Tonight a guy from Japan sent me a message on GTalk and we had a brief conversation where he told me he was listening to and finding inspiration from my new podcast I call D-Cast. This was so great to hear. If you are a blogger working at your craft in silence, hang in there … often people are listening!

This week marks the anniversary of 2 years blogging. It’s been an amazing ride with ups and downs and ins and outs. I feel excited going into year three. I wanted to let all my readers know I recorded a podcast message reflecting on what I ran across in the past two years. Feel free to check it out. Thanks for reading and listening through the years.  If you want you can find the growing archive there so check out the titles that interest you.

I had a really neat moment tonight. Recently you may have seen I put GTalk links in my sidebars on all the blogs. My intent was to connect in real time with people reading my blogs. Tonight a guy from Japan sent me a message on GTalk and we had a brief conversation where he told me he was listening to and finding inspiration from my new podcast I call D-Cast. This was so great to hear. If you are a blogger working at your craft in silence, hang in there … often people are listening! And if you are a blog reader who really gets something from a particular post, let the author know … it could make his/her day!

This week marks the anniversary of 2 years blogging. It’s been an amazing ride with ups and downs and ins and outs. I feel excited going into year three. I wanted to let all my readers know I recorded a podcast message reflecting on what I ran across in the past two years. Feel free to check it out. Thanks for reading and listening through the years.

Folks, I want to tell you again about the amazing mail order prescription glasses at Zenni Optical. My main pair just passed the one-year mark and they are just like new, no joke! I had to tighten the screw a little the other day for the first time in a year but other than that, my ongoing experiment testing their product has just gotten better and better data. Now that the holidays are upon us, I would highly recommend you order glasses for a loved one or even a friend. Of course, you will need their prescription. It’s a s simple as typing the numbers into a box and clicking send! Your gift glasses will arrive quicker than you’ll believe.

Zenni Optical is offering a set of Holiday frames that are really cool. I can tell you their frames are high quality, durable, and they look better than the name brands you’ll find in your local optometrist’s collection. The best part about these discounted glasses (they start at $8, which mine cost) is that you can usually go down and get a free eye exam on your insurance plan and then avoid the “shark” salespeople that lurk in those places. With your prescription in hand you are good to go. I went to the site and here is my favorite set of that series I’ll be purchasing:

There’s a vampire film in your neighborhood, crouching in the shadows, waiting for you.  But this is no ordinary vampire film, it has a stronger theme of true love.  I wouldn’t call it horror at all. I recommend it to you in the theme of “drama that shouldn’t be missed.”

Last week I saw Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke’s (director: Vanilla Sky 2001) film adaptation of the bestselling modern novel by one of the the latest and greatest pop fiction writers Stephenie Meyer. This new author’s immediate success is the stuff that great small business opportunities are made of. I should add that the screen play was adapted by Melissa Rosenberg (co-executive producer: “Dexter” ).  The film’s plot revolves around permanent teenage vampire, Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, and the lovely all-american mortal brunette, Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart.  Edward is inadvertently paired up with Bella in biology class and despite his efforts to drop the class, the two begin a romance slowly but surely.

The vampire theme is played way down in this one.  It is only a part of the story in so far as to explain the depth of their risk and trust in falling in love.  The best part of the vampire idea, for me, is the idea of eternity and what good would it be if all your loved ones kept dying around you.  This love story takes that idea and extrapolates a love story.  Edward goes through mental struggles with his love for Bella.  He is somewhere around 100 years old so he knows full well she will age and he will not.  Once Bella finds out about his secret she has struggles of her own but seems to have no reservations about being with Edward come what may.  I found myself wondering what i would do.  When I wonder that in a movie, I know it’s a good movie.

There are new images of vampires in this movie as well as old stereotypes.  When pressed by reporters on how she did her research, author Kristen Stewart, alluded to her Mormon background and claimed she knew nothing about vampires.  She claims she dreamed it all.  If that is true, quite a romatic idea on its own one might say.

My wife and I went out on an unassuming date, neither of us knowing much about this film and we both came out of it fans.  Sarah (wife) has been reading the trilogy and is about done with the third.  It will definitely be tough for sequels to top this one but I am just as excited as all those readers who paid 70 million opening weeekend to see what becomes of these two.  And, of course all us movie goers know we can’t really know until the final sequel.

Photo by juliocrockett

I’ll never forget an amazing and true pizza story that happened five minutes before closing. It was the marvelous year of 1993 and I was 23. I’d been working through college as a Pizza Hut shift manager and they’d transferred me to a city, Lake Forest to be exact, where they couldn’t find a closing manager who would steal from the till. Apparently recruiting from day-labor zones wasn’t going too great for them. Anyway, they pulled me in and the story that follows should ring true with anyone who’d worked retail or food service with that glorious lot we all know as “the customer,” I hope you enjoy it.

Pizza Hut closed around 11-12 depending on the city and the business at those hours. This particular one closed at 11pm and so the closing cook and drivers started getting all the closing jobs done about 9:30-10p. This was for obvious reasons, if we had it all done at 11, they could leave and I could stay 20-30 more minutes to make the deposit and head home myself. Anyway, this was the routine and as most people in customer service jobs know: routines often change :)

Our entire make-table was cleaned and the food was all stored in the walk-in fridge. We kept a few things out just in case like a box of pepperoni, some shredded Mozzarella, a couple disks of crust, yadda yadda. You learn the basic ingredients the late nighters order. When the clock showed 10:55pm we thought an 11pm close-up was eminent … then the phone rang. A collective sign rang out among the four of us in the store. It was an order for one order of buffalo wings. These cost under the bare minimum of our delivery cost so we told the customer they needed something more to get it delivered. We all hoped that would turn them away (my apologies to my old Pizza Hut superiors but sometimes $3.99 wings for the company minus labor and costs just isn’t worth it at five minutes to close.) Nonetheless, we took the order anyway and got ready to send it through.

That was when the drunk customer began to get surly.  He said in a gruff husky voice: “Make these wings hot doggonnit!  You guys never make ‘em hot enough!

I explained to this customer that our wings are prepared commissary so all we do is cook them.  We have no ingredients to make them hotter or milder.  He of course carried on that was all BS and he wanted his wings hot.  Mind you by this time it was after closing and his order was abou $5.99 which he would have delievered and most likely not even tip the driver.  I told him I would see what i could do. As I started his order I was dreaming of getting home in time to watch the end of Johnny Carson.

As I started puttng the frozen wings into a pizza pan, I glanced up and had an evil thought.  Sometimes those make your life miserable but other times they make a good life story!  I saw the giant jalapenos can we used to fill out ingredients table with.  I recalled THE JUICE we strain off.  I tild my night cook Julio to pour the straight jalapeno juice over the wings before and after the cooking process and then put them back in for 3 minutes after that.

Long story short, I got a call as I was sealing the deposit bag.  Does anyone know what I am talking about?  The plastic things that can only be sealed once and if you mess it up you have to use another one?  Anyway, amazing how I jhad not remembered those up until now.  Back to the drunk wing customer: He called me and told me he wanted my boss’ phone number to thank him for the best wings he’d ever had and to give me some form of recognition.

I gave him the 1-800 number.  Hung up the phone.  Laughed a good laugh and ended up getting a Big Mac and mission Johnny Carson that night.  It all reminds me of a Tale of Two Cities opening line by Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times it was the worst of times.”

Whether it’s pizza or something else, if you’ve worked with the public … you probably know what that means.

This post is dedicated to a friend going through a tough spot.

Paul McCartney said all those years ago that “My love does it good.”  He was right.  All the love he has put into music like Yesterday, the Long and Winding Road, and literally thousands of other hits could fill a stadium … as it often did and still does.  Think of how many humans he has inspired?

James Taylor sang about going to the Carolina Outer Banks “in my mind.” It’s impossible to tell how many people his song has enlightened.

To me, songs like these mean that self-love is important and we can use it to help people as well as ourselves.  Most of all, they say that if you don’t love yourself first, you can’t love anyone else.

Any one who says “he doesn’t love himself” is not only in need of love but is also possibly a grave threat to himself.

We should love ourselves.  I know this flies in the face of Christian culture that states we should humble ourselves and as Paul says at some point, “Beat our bodies for the cause of Christ” (paraphrased).  But it is a simple truth that nurtured and fostered love will have an impact on our family and world.

I’ve spoken with several people in preparing for this series and the data has been staggering.  I learned that most people will not say they love themselves. In fact, some will say “far from it.”  This is spite of the fact that they are wonderful gifted, attractive people.  Even more surprising was that I found more women did not love themselves.  How sad, how utterly sad that is to me.  Why is this so?

I learned at an early age from great parenting and through authors like Leo Buscgalia and Rollo May that we need to love ourselves and love others as a #1 priority.  I think much of my time spent in the church chipped away that that foundation of self-love and I found myself quite neurotic and self-loathing in my teens and early twenties.  As I left the church and came back several times, I learned there should be a balance: self-love and loving God.  In my eyes, God is self-love and the church is simply self-”repair”.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer love to repair.

Do you mediate?  Do you pray? Do you buy yourself your favorite ice cream cone and listen to a favorite song over and over?  I’ve been doing that for over a month with Coldplay’s “Viva la Via.”  Man, what a song.  These are just a few examples of how to love yourself.  You can buy yourself something or just spend time reading your favorite parts of a book, enjoying nature, or enjoying anything you feel a connection with.

I strongly feel that a lot of our problems in society whether they be with the family or the economy can be traced back to people who do not love themselves.

Remember in “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge remembers his old girlfriend and the children he knew before in life? It all made him so happy, he jumped with glee and wanted to right all the wrongs he had done.  More than giving out money though, the best lesson that Dicken’s tale gives us is that a man or woman needs to find the love for themself. That will produce empathy for others and hence … giving.

Remember dads, moms, leaders in the world, and everyone else what Paul McCartney said: “Your love does it good.” Keep it tender, keep it fed, keep it warm and it will change the world.  In some upcoming posts I’ll be exploring “self-love” in more detail.  Perhaps your comments can help steer my inspiration.

A question for you: Do you love yourself?  If no … why not?

I’m watching Robert Redford’s “Indecent Proposal” as I type and I must say it had many topics running through my mind for a blog post, but I chose infidelity as the topic for this one.  I find the concept of this movie somewhat ridiculous mostly because Robert Redford is the guy paying the money for Demi Moore.  Why not get that guy from Seinfeld who delivers the mail: “Newman.”  Then you’d have a real story.  Any woman on earth would probably give their pinkie finger to hang out with Robert Redford in a posh hotel for 1mil.  Where the struggle here?  Beyond that, her husband tells her not to and says he is jealous from the beginning?  Where’s the lack of morality?

I think this story had mass appeal at the box office plain and simply because people in this day and age: “cheat” on one another.  We have learned from reality tv and talk shows that “wife swapping” (in its truest sense) goes on as commonplace.  People respond to this movie because they want to weigh their own fantasies of infidelity against what Hollywood portrays it as.

I thought about how this might go down with my wife and I and just kept laughing at the idea of it.  1mil is a lot of money and I’d love to have it.  BUT I would decline on the grounds that I wouldn’t want to wreck my marriage over it.  That goes for if a woman wanted me for a million bucks (oh my, that poor one would have to truly be sick in her head).  I would decline on the basis of the harmony of my marriage.  Even 10 million could never replace that special bond, that quiet trust that exists between us.  To be honest, I have a hard time imagining how people can swing much less accept payment for their spouse as Woody Harrelson does in this movie.

You can see this movie had an impact on me.  Have you seen it?  What do you think of consensual infidelity? Please be honest and sign in as anonymous if you want. Of course if you agree with me, that’s always allowed too ;)

When the internet came around, the ritual sales kind of diminished.  The Black Fridays and the week before Christmas all became just general guidelines.  Every company realized it could seize upon sales like these anytime they chose, anywhere in the entire world.  And many do!  A sale can get you the washer/dryer set you’ve been unable to afford. It can even get you a a new hybrid. The next time you get that “ad” in your email or when you read one on a website, don’t dismiss it. It could be a deal you need better than any Black Friday ever produced.