Point of No Return

I’m a changed man.

Do you dream?

Do you dream about going to Europe one day and taking in all the sights and sounds of that historical experience? Do you fantasize about singing on stage, or visiting the Holy Land or doing that one special thing that will bounce around your memory walls for as long as you breathe?

I think we all do, on some levels.

You know that feeling you get when you first slide under those freshly-washed sheets and hunker down for a long night’s sleep? Or when your favorite baseball team is breaking spring training and kicking off their season with a 0-0 record and a bus load of high hopes?

If we are to remember anything from 2006, it’s that anything indeed can happen. On the national level, we’ve seen Britney and K-Fed split, Monte Wisbrock’s dysfunctional St. Louis Cardinals become quite functional and win a World Series and we ended with the sad passings of James Brown and Gerald Ford. Locally, we also had a year of memories.

With all due apologies to ... well, every individual with an ounce of self-respect, here’s our annual foray into adding a more personal touch to some time-honored classics.

Deck the Lots

Deck the lots with as many units as you can,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
‘Tis the season to ignore land plans,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Don we now our cash apparel,

Prepare to be awed.

I took a little stroll down memory lane the other day.

No, I wasn’t feeling particularly nostalgic that day, nor was I harkening back to a simpler time in an effort to transport myself mentally to a better day. Actually, it all started with a song.

Oh, ‘tis definitely the season.

The winter holidays may bring about warmth and a sense of doing the right thing by one’s personal beliefs, but they also bring about chaos, bills and some of the most odd stories of the year. Peace on earth? Indeed. Good will to man? Not so much.

I’m a results guy.

Pale and drawn, The Undead sluggishly amble their way through the sacred corridors of some of our nation’s most powerful institutions. Guttural noises escape from their barely-moving lips as they struggle with their coordination, seemingly mesmerized with finding a spot they can call their own, if only for a short period of time.

Do you ever get that eye twitch?

You know, that fluttering of one of your eyes that signals you are about to either have a nervous breakdown or embark down the path of viciousness and cruelty to the next person you happen to see? Well, I get that a lot.

There are certain days I look forward to each year.

For instance, I anticipate St. Patrick’s Day, opening day of the baseball season and the first of each month so I can flip my Coastal Point calendar to the new month to see what aesthetically-pleasing photograph awaits (Shameless Plug: To secure your copy of the annual Coastal Point calendar, call Monica at 539-1788).

I have an infestation problem in my house.

Before you get all creeped out, it’s not termites eating away at the wood, or rats chomping through electrical wires and drywall. Heck, it’s not even an infestation of ants making a beeline to my sink.

So I’m watching a fight the other night, when a football game game broke out.

Corny enough joke to start?

According to a study recently performed by a doctor at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, the number of men going to emergency rooms drops during televised sporting events, and increases after the games end.

Really?

Well, kick back and strap in ... it’s about to get bumpy as we journey forth into the odd, compelling and obtuse.

Have you ever had that feeling that you would want to be absolutely anywhere else in the world than the place you happen to be at that particular time?

My life is full of empty promises,
And broken dreams.
I’m hoping things look up,
But there ain’t no job openings.
I feel discouraged, hungry and malnourished,
Living in this house with no furnace, unfurnished.
And I’m sick of working dead-end jobs with lame pay,
And I’m tired of being hired and fired the same day.
— Rock Bottom, Eminem

Yeah, it finally happened. I’m now “That Guy.”

The storm came in with a thud last weekend. Lights flickered, tree limbs came hurtling to the ground like they were flung directly from the heavens and streets flooded in moments.

I knew it!

Oh, everyone had a field day with me when I said Leviathan and his merry gang of raccoons that hang out behind Coastal Point headquarters was forming a plot to take over the world through a strategy of brilliant military maneuvers and straight gangland techniques.

So, I’m sitting in this grassy meadow the other day, drinking a flask of Jameson with this grizzly bear and the small moose he’s been “dating” ...

Sorry, I got stuck in some kind of strange flashback there.

“Dude, hit a deer with my car. Call me when you get this. I need to take a shower. Smell like deer.”

Got your attention?

Joy can be found in so many things, and in just as many individual interpretations.

Anticipation.

I’m looking for a man purse.

It’s a mad, mad world we’re living in ...
Darin J. McCann

Much of us find a level of comfort — if not unbridled joy — in following traditions that have been consistently adhered to, or passed down from one generation to the next.

Every so often, man finds that challenge he must face head-on — his white whale, his Mt. Everest, his gorgeous older neighbor who stands outside in a robe when he delivers the newspaper to her and ...

But I digress.

Not surprisingly, I’m a huge freedom-of-speech guy.