eric nuzum dot com

Supercycle!

It's still a Super-Cycle!
Originally uploaded by gardinergirl

When I was eight, I decided that I wanted to write books. So I did. While my most elaborate work was a military action story staring my friend Robbie Compton, my first tome was "Supercycle."

After I'd finished "Supercycle," my mother typed it up as I'd written it, photocopied and stapled a few copies (bound in red plastic) and mailed them to my grandmothers.

In my mind, I was a published author.

In the great basement purge of '09, I found one of the original "Supercycle'' books. Below is the text of "Supercycle," pretty much in it's entirety, as it appears in that book.

SUPERCYCLE PART I

SUPERCYCLE

"On planet Mars," said my friend Ted. "The Martians are bikes."

I said, "No way, Ted."

"Maybe!" he said.

"O.K. Ted, I'm waiting." I said to him.

"O.K."

A long long long long time ago, on Mars, the Martians are bikes. On the 12th of Never. A baby was born. But on Mars it's a blessing. They name him Cycle, Jr. Because his mother's name was Handlebars. And father's Cycle. He was called Cycle Jr. because his father was the Mayor of Mars.

On day it was 10,000 degrees F. Too hot to live on. Spaceships are sent out! Cycle Jr's mother and father died of heat rays! Spaceships are blowing up. Mars life is dead. The spaceship carrying Cycle Jr is the last one. It’s in Earth's Inerzone! Crash! For ten years asleep. 

At the age of 11 he waked up. In two days he had "SUPERPOWERS."

Necessity is the mother of invention

scene march 27 1996
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I was going through some boxes in the basement this week and came across this. It is from Scene Magazine in Cleveland from March of 1996.

I think the only reason I kept it was because I was so blown away by this person's creative genius.

Not only does he get people to send him free home-made porn, but they enclose some cash as well.

Why don't I ever think of these kinds of things.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I want a bunch of Scene classified-reading Clevelanders sending me their home-made porn.

Who be the man? Metro driver be the man.

McGruff is a perv
Originally uploaded by NCinDC

Here is a life lesson from me to you: Never fuck with a DC Metro bus driver.

Thankfully, this advice does not come from personal experience. I'm the dork who says "good morning" to the bus driver when I get on and "thank you" before exiting.

I come by this advice simply by reading the paper.

The first was this story of a metro driver who pulled his bus up to a guy dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog, got out of the bus, punched the McGruff dude so hard he fell over, then got back on the busy and drive away. Yes, the bus driver did this.

The second is the story is this one, about an off duty Metro bus driver who decided to put on a mask and try to carjack another guy (who happened to be an off-duty police officer). Next came a shoot out between the off duty public servants, and now Metro has a job opening.

A quick review of both drivers' pasts reveals they were both convicted felons, which is completely fine by Metro. They will, by policy, hire just about anyone who has a couple years between them and their most recent offense.

Just keep that in mind before you flip off the bus driver who cuts you off in traffic.

Its all voodoo to me

voodoo doll found outside my door
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

The other morning as I headed into work I stopped cold in front of my office door. There, in front of it, was an eight-inch voodoo doll. No idea what it was or how it got there.

Weirder yet. It was kind of a "nice" voodoo doll. As in it didn't have any pins stuck in it or nasty evil things written on it.

Even weirder still, it was wearing a black dress, checkered pants, and had spiky black hair.

What could this be? I wondered. What does it mean? Who put it there? Was this voodoo doll put for me to use against someone (and someone with checked pants, a black dress, and spiky hair, to boot)--or was this someone else's attempt to put some bad mojo on me!

Rather than some kind of mystical warning or puppet of pending doom, it looked like a character from a Tim Burton movie. So I wasn't scared or anything.

But I was intrigued.

As people would walk by, or in and out of my office, they would remark, "Umm, what's up with the voodoo doll?" I'd tell them about its mysterious origins--and then they'd get really interested in the "where" and "why" as well.

Scuttlebutt about Eric's voodoo doll spread further around our floor all day, then finally in the late afternoon someone was discussing it when my boss walked by.

"Oh, I put it there," she said.

No one asked her why. Maybe they didn't want to know--or feared that our voodoo priestess boss would leave them a voodoo doll too for being nosey.

Later I asked her about it.

"I bought it for my son and he was scared by it," she said. "So I thought you could put it with the skulls and Grim Reapers and stuff on your shelf."

It is true, I do have a collection of skulls and Grim Reapers and stuff on my shelf in my office--which always makes those coming in for evaluations a bit nervous.

I asked her why she didn't tell me she was doing it.

"I thought it would be more interesting that way."

She was right.

Today is Annual Underwear Day

my 2009 underwear
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I have many ideas, but very few of them are any good. One of my better ones, just about as close as I ever come to genius, is Annual Underwear Day.

Most people (not me) are doing laundry, getting dressed, in the gym locker room, or standing on stage in front a room of antsy and bored paying customers--and have an embarrassing revelation: they have hobo underwear. They notice, or--even worse--someone else notices, that their undergarments are covered with holes, tears, loose seams, discolorations, etc... You know, hobo underwear.

I am not one of these people. I never have these revelations. That's because I have absolute confidence in the condition of my underpants.

How is this, you wonder? Well, that's the genius of Annual Underwear Day. Once a year, or at the first sign of wear on any of my undergarments, I throw out all my underpants, go shopping, and replace the entire stock. No guessing, no fussing, etc... Just out with the old, in with the new--once a year. I do the same thing with all my socks (usually shortly after replacing my underwear). All the socks go--on the same day, replaced with all new ones.

I started doing this about five or six years ago. At first, my wife was very resistant to the idea, mostly because it included a provision that forbid her from buying me any underwear, for any reason, during the course of the year. She doesn't like being told she cannot do something, even when that thing is buying underpants for her husband.

She has eventually warmed to the concept, mostly because I invite her to come along and edit my buying choices. This year she came up to me to review my choices before checking out and only had one thing to say:

"You need more green," she said.

Whenever she goes clothes shopping with me, and the clothing in question has a green or greenish color option, she always tries to get me to purchase it. She read somewhere that green brings out the color in blue eyes, and she has taken this as one of her life missions.

"This is underwear," I said. "How is wearing green underwear going to bring out the color in my eyes?"

She grabbed two of the pairs I'd picked.

"I don't like these," she said sweetly. "Why don't you pick out something green to replace them?"

I did.

(My previous self-tributes to the genius of Annual Underwear Day can be found here).

Framed

trying--and failing--to be clever
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

In my office at work, I've collected random photographs of my wife, dog, family, and friends. They are often stuck inside the corners of frames holding other photographs of my wife, dog, family, and friends. 

One of my co-workers spotted this issue and thoughtfully gave me a multi-photo picture frame as a holiday present (which I promptly broke while taking it home to fill with pictures).

For awhile I've been planning to get a digital picture frame for my office. So this past weekend I noticed that they were on sale at Best Buy and thought I'd pick one up.

When I got it home, I started to comb through pictures of my wife, dog, family, and friends--when I realized I had a problem. A very large number of my personal photographs contain someone flipping the bird at the camera.

I, myself, have a long tradition of camera flipping. For years part of the routine of family photos has included double checking to make sure I am not sneaking a middle finger into pictures with my Grandmother (seriously).

Well, you reap what you sow, I guess. I chucked photo after photo off my list because someone thought they'd be clever by doing what every one of us does when having their picture taken.

The worst part was Monday, when I brought it in to work and discovered that I hadn't eliminated all the middle finger photos. I was in the middle of a meeting with several people in my office when the photo above faded in.

So, yesterday I had to bring home my memory card and look at each photo, carefully, just to make sure they were all gone.

I found two others. Hopefully that's it.

I am Juror #796

Jury's Hotel-Washington, DC
Originally uploaded by Maryland Route 5

I was called for Jury Duty this week. Surprisingly, I have never been called before, ever, anywhere.

From what I'm told, being a semi-lucid non-crack addicted registered voter with no felony convictions puts me among a select few here in Washington, DC--so I was called to serve only five months after registering to vote (and I further understand I can look forward to be called like clockwork every two years).

What for other people would be an exercise in tedium, for a civics-nerd like me, was a roller coaster of excitement! I got to spend a day watching the wheels of justice spin!

Well, it was also an exercise in terror--because I was in absolute fear of being selected for a trial. When I got my notice, I saw that the length of service was listed as "One Day." Excellent! In and out.

It wasn't until I looked at the back of the notice the night before serving that I read that "One Day" really meant that if I wasn't selected for a jury on the first day, I could go home. But if I was selected, I was there for the duration.

I thought about showing up with my underwear on the outside of my pants and singing show tunes, but I figured that at least four other people would try that routine.

To answer the central question, no, I was not selected for a jury. After hours of waiting in lines and answering questions from attorneys, I ended up about five people down the list from where the game of jury chess seemed to end. Because it took up so much time, I was excused--civic duty fulfilled.

The most amazing takeaway from this process was my awe at the amount of time and effort that goes into a trial. The pool I was part of was 60 people--all of whom took the day off to do the same thing I did. Fourteen of them will be there for a week while this trial plays out. Add in the time of the attorneys, judge, bailiffs, court workers, etc...--it really adds up.

And all this for a guy who was obviously guilty.

I'm kidding.

Actually, that was the excuse I was going to use to get out of service: my "deeply held belief" that anyone who would wear a denim jacket with a plaid shirt had to be guilty of something--why not convict him of this? Needless to say, that bit of genius went the same way as the underwear idea.

In all seriousness, now I'm thinking that I might take a day off work sometime and sit and watch a trial take place. I can keep watching the wheels of justice (live!) without all that pesky stuff about objectivity and guilt/innocence.

Ghost of Christmas past

The link below is a great window into another time in my life.

I was 21 and living in Kent, Ohio, going to school.

At the time, my first serious band had just broken up, yet I was still really interested in creating music. I used to sit alone in my room in a nasty rental in Kent, Ohio, and create tape loops using my synthesizer. Just these ethereal random pieces of music intersecting over and over again. I'd record them, and just hit play and see what happened. Then I'd just let them go...for hours, if not days.

This particular one I made as a Christmas present for my friends. It contains some audio of me singing Christmas carols when I was four (a cassette that has showed up in bunches of stuff I've created over the years--including some public radio pieces in recent years).

When you listen, you'll notice the music fades out for a moment in the middle. That was on purpose.

When I was finished with these, I had a cassette duplication business put them on 10-minute tapes--one half on each side. I also instructed them to use very little leader tape--so if you put the cassette in a player that would automatically switch to play the other side--the music would be almost continuous. Therefore those listening to it could just let it go and go--it would never really end. Kind of like the experience in my house.

I think I had 50 of these made and gave them out to my friends. I still have two. A few years ago I found the master and dubbed it off for safe keeping. Then I forgot about it until yesterday.

A year after I recorded this, I sold all my synthesizer equipment, deciding that I should only make music on acoustic instruments. Seven years after that, I decided that music was something for one time in my life, but that I was called to do other things. I wasn't sure what they would be at the time, but I'd lost my love for making music entirely. It was the right choice.

This music was created, literally, half my life ago. It was a different me. I wanted different things out of life. It represents a creative side of me that I've let go dormant to focus on other creative things.

Yet, it is still distinctly me.

Enjoy.

Click the play button to listen (the beginning of it is very quiet, so don't worry, it is playing).

From the mailbox

Mailbox
Originally uploaded by mrjoro

You've read this blog. You may have even read some of my other stuff. You get the basic vibe of what goes on around here.

Now imagine, if you will, what the reader mail is like.

Okay, now make that ten times worse.

Here is a typical email, received today from a reader named "Stephen":

dude nobody care nobody caresssss about youre parental advisory book sorry to say but you what to no somethen in real life dude even if we do commit muder sooner or later will pay the price we all get are tast of death we all die you no and i no and every elese noes its a ruff world we live in even befor rock and rap was born its all ways been a ruff world and it all ways will be and i like rap and rock i myself hope to make it in the music business somday

I'm the helper!!

Laundry Room Note
Originally uploaded by cloudasmoke

This past weekend Katherine had a trip to New York and was very stressed about all she had to do to prepare. Like any good husband, I asked what I could do to help.

"Laundry," was the one-word reply.

I don't mind doing laundry. In fact, I rather enjoy doing laundry (as opposed to other cleaning tasks). However, Katherine does not share my love for me doing laundry. In fact, my laundry skills concern her deeply.

It isn't that she's too picky--I guess, to be honest with myself, I am pretty terrible at doing it. I don't dry things completely. My version of "folding" is more akin to other people's definition of "rolled in a ball and stacked." You get the picture.

So we made a deal--I would wash and dry the clothes and she would then fold them. Deal.

Well, things went along pretty well. Kinda. When Katherine came home from her weekend, she found:

• A laundry basket piled with four loads of wrinkled, packed-tight, yet clean laundry.
• The dryer containing a variety of jeans and dark clothing--all soaking wet because I had forgotten to press start.
• The washing machine, containing day-old wet clothes, including: two bath towels, one white sock, the blankets our pets lay on, and a pair of pants.

I walked into the laundry room as Katherine was surveying the damage.

"I hope I saved you some time by helping with the laundry," I said.

"A little time," she said, turning towards me, smiling, and giving me a hug. "Just a little."