Toad Pizza

Nick and I often talk about how there is not enough shunning in society today. People (mainly young men and women of my generation who are currently attending undergraduate school) go around doing horrid things, and they are never shunned. Sometimes they pay a fine, maybe spend a night or two in jail, but there are not enough societal repercussions in store for them to really hedge their sociopath(et)ic behavior.

This post is in response to the recent theft and subsequent torturing to death of a pet bird (an itty bitty zebra finch) by three 21-year-old juniors at Clarkson, which is basically across the street from my college. Their names are:

John E. Breckels III, of Red Hook, NY
Matthew O. Lyndecker, of Copenhagen, NY
Alan D. Grove, of Bothell, Wa.

I wish that I had pictures to go with this.

They recently decided to steal the bird from another student, then having heard that just holding it might frighten it to death, they decided to see what else might kill it. First, they locked it in the trunk of a car, with the stereo turned up all the way, exposing it to the high amplitude, low frequency signal of the car's sub-woofer. That didn't do it, so they decided to shoot it repeatedly with a blow gun. That STILL didn't do it, so they electrocuted it. When it was still barely alive, they shot it twice more with the blow gun, and, upon ensuring it was really quite dead, they dumped it and its cage into the trash. In the statements they have made, they show no remorse. In fact, they still seem to think that this is funny or amusing somehow.

They are only being charged with petty larseny, for stealing it in the first place, but in Potsdam, there is no protection for the bird under the law, evidently. So that's fine. These are JUNIORS at Clarkson, that they would indulge in such inhumane and grotesque behavior is completely unacceptable. I am asking that we SHUN them. I suggest that you e-mail this, or a link to the article (below), to everyone that you know, or that you know who might be interested in shunning. Remember these names, and if you should ever meet them, SHUN!!!

Peace and Love,

A. Toad

By the way, here is a link to an article about the incident.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090430/NEWS05/304309958/-1/NEWS

I would like to trademark/copyright some inside running-joke junk before I get into trouble for making myself t-shirts of it online. Then NOBODY can ever use it again! It will be MINE all MINE! MWAHAHAHAAAAAAA! Anybody familiar with US law regarding that?

Now to handle a bit of Errata:

1) BigMike is not Ja'ar, and even if he were, Ja'ar is not affiliated with this blog. Therefore, the removal of the t-shirts and mugs and bumper stickers etc. (which was right after the first message I recieved, by the way), had nothing to do with his willingness or unwillingness to remove them. That's all on me.

2) The decision to name Toad Pizza "Toad Pizza" has to do with several things. The first is obvious. I am called Toad. You may call me Toad. The epithet connotes having a relatively small torso but burly legs, without implying the cuteness and friendliness that "frog" would. I am not cute, and I am rarely friendly; I am funny-looking and decidedly surly. I have been referred to as Toad for nearly a decade. Road pizza is an unfortunate condition that frequently befalls wild toads, as well as the occasional cyclist. Thusly (a preposition that never quite got its day in the sun), I find that I am often in twice the danger of the average cyclist or toad when I am near the road. In danger, that is, of becoming Toad Pizza, which also conveniently rhymes with "road pizza." I am very clever.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

Hey! Don't you go getting all Miss Thang up in here, TooNuts! You started it. Put yourselves in my posish. How'd you like to get some random, possibly phoney, legalese jargon about taking your hard-loaned money? What if I sent you a thing saying, "Hello, I am a powerful Doctor in Florida, this is my company: (insert made up front company here). You should know that I can get you for a million billion Euros (about a billion trillion US dollars), and also eat your soul. Please contact me and we'll talk (meaning I will take down your personal information and use it as I please... did you say you are a twenty-some college girl living ALL alone in the woods? That's very good; we will be able to find some sort of compromise, I'm sure). What if I sent it to your Myspace? Pretty sure you'd delete that. Things like that are right up there with "**~$$SeXiiiMoNiE$$~** sent you a friend request. Do you accept?"
 
And that's no bouffant. That's how my hair grows. That's right; it's a birth defect. Have a nice, steaming cup of guilt.

Annnnyway. I'm glad we've all gotten our feelings out in the open now. Perhaps we can finally move on from the pain of this whole experience, and, someday, maybe even eat fondue together. For now, however, I need to go practice.

Ta,

yours, etc.

TOONUTSPRODS June 07 9:46 AM Please contact us immediately.  You are using"Toad Pizza" in violation of our copyright and trademark via this site and by engaging in commerce selling goods bearing the name and likeness of our intellectual property at Cafe Press.  We have attempted to contact you previously but our communications thus far have been ignored.  Please treat this as a serious matter.   We would prefer  to settle this amicably rather than have to pursue further action.   Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.  We look forward to your anticipated and timely response.   TOO NUTS PRODUCTIONS, L.P. PH: (310) 967 4532 E: info@toonutsproductions.com

I can't tell if this is a scam or not. I feel like it must be, given the weirdness of it all. Therefore, I don't want you to have my proper email address or other contact info. The last thing I need is to end up naked in a ditch wrapped in a garbage bag or something. I am too busy with school and getting married in a year for all that. So, here we are, under the watchful eyes of observers across the U.S.A. and even in Austrailia, where we can all see everything that goes on. Nonetheless, the shop is toast. Actually, I tried to get rid of it before-- it was only for Ja'ar and me to mess around with, and we've both long-since outgrown the novelty of it all-- but I couldn't figure it out. I did take all the little dealies that said "Toadpizza" off, but I guess that wasn't good enough. I put the link to it on this blog years ago, when I first made the shop, because it was easier for us to find it that way, and, before it was gone, I had even said as much in the description. Anyway. You guys are mean. If you're for real, then I can't believe you are so out to get me, especially when, there is a band out there with a song called "Toad Pizza," presumably making them money. Truthfully, I've never heard of you before you first contacted me, but I did buy their album. I'm not going to tell you their name, because you'd just attack them. Or I will happily sell them out if you will stop periodically threatening me. HAH.

O'Blogoshpere, if you think I sound a bit frivolous, please note that as amicably as NUTS may want you to think they are behaving, the last message they sent (which like this one, I had NO CLUE about because they sent it to the blog, and MSN doesn't contact you like Facebook or Myspace when you get spammed), was quite threatening in tone (heh, not that this one isn't... but it IS a bit more veiled, I suppose). They were bandying about terms like "$50,000 in damages," "lawsuit,"  and other outrageous nonsense. So outrageous, in fact, that I assumed it was some sort of phishing scam to get my personal info. I went to their website and was not impressed. Consequently, I deleted their message. I even tried to delete this blog, figuring that, since I never even use it anymore, I might as well get rid of it if it was going to be trouble. But alas! In a fit of pure nostalgia, I couldn't bring myself to delete all of the entries I'd written, not to mention all the comments by my web-chums, some of whom have since passed. Also, I couldn't figure out how to delete the balmy thing in the first place.

[Deleted: A scathing bit of pointless diatribe. Unfortunately, civility has once again won out in me.]

It is past two AM. I am tired. I have a final exam tomorrow. It is hot. I am irritable.

The shop is done with. You have no more beef with me. Congratulations! You're litigious bullies, how nice. You have tilted at the most benign windmill on the web, Quixotic TOONUTSPRODS. It is a hollow victory, isn't it? Not to mention whatever this all just did to your collective karma.... sheesh. Lessee, it's been a while since I lived in LA, but I still speak a bit of 310, I think: Yo. You dudes need to chillax hella. Yo.

KISS KISS,

A. Toad

PS: Oh GAWD, I sure hope KISS doesn't come and say legalese words at me for using the caps lock on the words "kiss kiss."

PPS: Am I bitter with you, TooNuts? Oh yeah. I am a recovering cynic. You have single-handedly caused one hell of a relapse. So yeah, I'm bitter. Am I spiteful? Yep. I don't know what exactly it is you sell, but I never ever want any of it, and I will definitely tell this story to everybody I know. Though I'd tell the story to everybody I know mostly because it's funny in a sad sort of way.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm not bitter anymore. You have redeemed yourselves moderately by posting an irascible and humorous retort to BigMike's call to arms.

OH MSN! You really do care!  Huzzah!

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Now why does that dealie on the far left say I'm still 20? I wish I was still 20. Pfft. Blatant flattery gets you nowhere MSN.  Nonetheless there shall be catching up in the near future. Yours, etc.

Mostly, this is just a test. It is only a test. Do not run for cover, do not adjust your dial. I just want to see if MSN will let me make entries again, since I couldn't even log in or create/edit entries (and it would be nice to have basic formatting tools in them, like separation between paragraphs in particular. A single, massive block of text is wicked ungroovy). Thus:

(there should be a space here)

Testing, testing, testing.

(And a space here)

My mother said to pick the very best and I pick...

(Here too)


This concludes our test of the emergency broadca-- er-- the formating capabilities of the MSN Live Spaces text entry field. Malocchio on MSN if it doesn't work.

Hallo all. It's been a while. I have no excuses except that natch, when one is as important and in demand and busy as I (and I am very important and in demand and busy), one does tend to run short on time. Ahem.... Seems like I've had more gigs than usual lately. To bad they're always either for free or next to it, and there has been as trend of each possessing some demoralizing, degrading quality. I refer you to the musical of earlier this summer, and now to a conccert band that I am doing. The band is good times, really. Ostensibly, it's got something to do with an art festival, but it's purpose is to give middle and highschoolers to have a chance to play with more experienced musicians. Mr B asked some of his students to participate. It's just that it's a voluteer deal, in Gloversville, about forty-five miles from here, twice a week. There's my grocery money buring up into the atmosphere. Oh yeah, and there's T-Shirts. Bright, orange, t-shirts. They want us to wear them over khakis. Unfortunately, the only khaki I have is in the form of hiking shorts, two sizes too big. Mm-hmm. I look like a jackass. For you, Mr B, I do it for you. Mr B inspires loyalty like I have never seen before in his students, including me. If he asked me to play wearing a roll of Saran-Wrap with an aluminum foil hat, using my credit card to pump gas into a flushing toilet, standing barefoot on piles broken glass, in a puddle of lemon juice, while being lightly dusted with mange, I'd only want to know how soon he could get me the parts I needed to learn, and whether or not there was any good treatment for mange on the market these days. In other news, I'm on a kickball team. We're called the Hornets. Bzzzzz! We're awesome, it's true. Granted, it's questionable whether any of us actually know how kickball works but we do have Hornets jerseys that our captain silk screened last night. I feel like if i can actually connect with the ball when it is pitched to me, I should do all right.

Playing the Allegro from Faure's Fantasie for Flute and Piano makes me nervous like a chipmunk on PCP. No idea why.

Before I start today's entry, there's something you'll need to understand. I, Toad, have fallen under the spell of The Gym. I used to be a non-believer, brushing the Gym off as a mere haven for human-sized gerbils. Turns out that I love it. I love going to the Gym, I love thinking about going to the Gym, I love watching the TdF on the flat plasma screen TV that's attached to the ARC machine that my trainer has assigned to me for my warm-up at the Gym. But I don't yet consider myself a gym rat, as I still ride every day that weather permits, and while I am not a great endurance road cyclist or anything, my rides average around forty miles, whether I go to the Gym or not.

My love affair with the Gym started in Texas a few weeks ago, when, stranded at a Motel in the Desert without my trusty Bianchi, Salt Peanut, to abate the itchiness of Cabin Fever, I started working out everyday in the crummy motel "gym." It was dull, there were only three machines, a stationary recumbent bike, a treadmill, and a busted four-in-one weight machine. Most days I would wake up and think, 'Enh, I'll just ay in the sun by the pool today, that gym sucks." But, try as I might to spend an entire day lounging, after a few hours I'd wind up twitching with nervous energy, and, in shame, I'd sneak away to the gym room to take a seat on the stationary recumbent. When I returned to my hometown in Upstate, NY and was greeted by nothing but torents of rain and massive flooding, I soon began to feel the familiar twitches and itches. To my horror though, it was no longer just faceless cabin fever; it was a craving. For Gym.

I joined a gym around here, rationalizing that this way I'd have something to do on the days when I couldn't get out on a ride. I was worried that there'd be no way I could afford it, but, happily, I get a student discount that brings membership down to about forty dollars a month. Now, only three weeks later, I spend over two hours, four or five days a week at the Gym. Most of those days I've already gone for a long ride, but I just can't help it. It's-- It's just so cool. I mean, there's just so much stuff. I like stuff.

There's all these different cardio things you can climb on, each of which is equiped with a personal flat screen TV with basic cable. There are weights, classes (from Yoga to Ninjitsu), a room called the Cinema, which is basically a theater where they've replaced the seats with treadmills, ARC trainers, and stationary bikes (so cool), and, ahem, a sauna. Oh sauna.

The coolest thing though is probably that I've got a personal trainer, Colette. Gym lessons don't come with membership, and they're pretty far outside of my budget, even with the student discount, but I'm only going to do one lesson a week during the summer, and then one every other week once school starts. Basically, the way a personal trainer works is the same way a studio music instructor works. The first lesson is more or less a consultation to find your strengths and weaknesses, and then the instructor gives you a series of exercises to do to improve yourself as a well rounded musician, or, in this case, human. So I dunno, I'm just pretty excited.

I guess that's all for now. I need to practice some new stuff for tonight's show. With my trusty coleague (a flutist who was covering the first violin part) gone to have her wisdom teeth out, I now am covering both Violins I and II, Bassoon I, and Celli I and II... On flute. Gah... so. totally. over. this. musical.

 

LANCE ON... Being so totally over a musical.

Well, I can't say that I've ever been particularily "over" a musical. You, uh, you know that before I retired I was a professional cyclist, right? Won the Tour de France, like, mad times.... Right.

....

There was this one instance where somehow, Johann wound up booking the entire US Postal team as a last minute substitute pit orchestra for the podium ceremony in Paris. I think that must've been in 2001? Yeah. 2001. Sheeze... That was pretty hard, because I was on lead flugel horn, so George, who was on second, covered my part while I presented, and then I had to leap off the podium and dive into the pit. Hahaha... good times.... good times.

Just when I was starting to feel all right about this gig, having seen that the audience seemed quite happy the first night, and on the second having become familiar enough with the conductor and the way the musical runs that I am finally getting comfortable in the uncomfortable provided setting (did I mention before that the "pit" is a tent about ten feet downwind of the two skankiest out houses that side of the Mohawk? And that they make us literally ill, with headaches and nausea?), I learned last night, to my shock and dismay, that we, the Pit, need to "clean up your act, we can hear you talking and laughing when you make mistakes, and it's just completely unprofessional, you all should be ashamed! We've worked too hard on this ffor you guys to mess it up-- Cut the crap!" Quoth the actress playing Wicked Step Sister No. 2.

Now, at the risk of waxing cynical, the whole purpose of this production is to give amateur actors two weeks in which they can prove to the towns people how great they really are. In other words, this is a huge ego-fest that is so out of control that they actually needed to "hire" musicians to come play music for them to sing, badly, over. We have all been treated like hired help, domestics, subjected to conditions and work parameters for which actual Help would demand extra pay, and, hour for hour are making under twenty-five percent federal minimum wage (we're being paid about 1.22 USD per hour). I guess I have to say it: You're gonna need to pay me a little more to care.

Honestly. I'm not even going to address the all ridiculousness she said, because there was quite a lot of it. But ironically, while she was yelling at us about language, she herself was cursing much louder and more audibly than any of us had, and she was cursing AT people, much worse than the occasional slip of the tongue. Unprofessional? Honey, we're working in ALL BLACK SEMI FORMAL in JULY. If we're talking, it's because the conductor is having to shout last minute adjustments because you people can't count to four in your heads without hurting yourselves. The only thing that's not professional is that we took this gig in the first place. Professionals would've been insulted. And furthermore, if by "crap" you're talking about our morale in general, maybe that's because you're looking at a group of musicians who've worked very hard at being musicians, who've been suckered into this moronic Mickey Mouse production so that YOU can strut around on stage and feel important for a while. Why don't YOU cut the crap. There it is! Like ten feet upwind of the pit. In fact, we'd really appreciate it if you could cut that crap, because it's making us ill.

Whew.

All right. I am sorry that you've all borne witness to this ranting. But there is little else for me to report, as this stupid thing is taking up just about all my free time for the next nine days.

In other news, my cat, Albert, who is wonderful, has gotten a hair cut. I hope to have pictures soon.

CORRECTION: It turns out that we're actually being paid 150 USD, not 50, which works out to about 3.66 an hour or about 71% minimum wage. Still not much, but at least now I am not going to lose money on this gig. (Gas is going to cost about 65 USD, so before I was actually working for something like negative thirty cents an hour. This is much less of a bummer now.)