Monthly Archives: August 2018

when i tell a corny joke, the kids at homer’s are the first ones to say “dave, that’s a dad joke.” that’s ok. out of all the categories of jokes (practical, dirty, sick, lame) i’m comfortable telling dad jokes at this point in my life. here are a choice few that i discovered* just this morning:
what is an arm exercise you can do at a dairy farm?
cheese curls
what is a shoulder exercise you can do at a cutlery store?
fork lifts
what is a wrist exercise you can do at a candy factory?
peppermint twist
what are all these exercises worth?
diddly squat
*these jokes are courtesy of the new york times crossword

i don’t know if jenny & i were married when this picture was taken at beth & gary’s house– but when i look at it, i can hear jenny saying, “we didn’t get a picture of dave’s dad or my brother tim yet! hey you two– get over here!” looking at the 3 of them, i can tell it was the 1980′s, and she was still pretty bossy back then.

print isn’t dead, it’s delivered every week to werner’s. that’s where i pick up a free issue of coffee news when i buy the best sausages in kansas city. you can read quirky stories, quotable quotes, and enter a contest for $50 cash just for spotting a tiny cartoon man waving in one of the ads! this week, however, the publisher is giving away 4 tickets to the renaissance festival instead of cash. eh, i’ll still try to win.

stopping for souvenirs isn’t the safest thing to do during time travel. when you suspend reality, anything can happen… you could throw a rod or lose an axle on re-entry. my friend hoovie took that risk anyway last week & bought me a t-shirt at 1984. mosaic images are cool, because you can almost always go back and see something that you didn’t notice before.

KID: hey uncle dave, tell me about that time you overcame staggering odds when you ran for governor!
ME: well buddy i didn’t actually run, i just wrote my name* on the ballot, and it wasn’t for governor– it was for a committeeman position for the 10th precinct in overland park. you could do that back in those days. if you wanted to be elected in some counties, all you had to do was make t-shirts that said VOTE FOR DAVE then do an interpretive dance in the local high school, and just wait for the landslide.
*there was literally no name for this position in the primaries tuesday— so i entered myself as a candidate.

i got behind an old comet yesterday afternoon. it didn’t have a tail & it wasn’t rushing through the cosmos– but it did time travel from the mid-1960′s, and it came from the planet mercury… i mean the mercury auto manufacturer. the mercury comet was actually based on the ford falcon. the four guys riding inside were probably wishing it had air conditioning.

jenny went to omaha over the weekend, and i went back to 1984 in springfield. the last time i did this, it was a kamikaze trip & i got back home that same night around 2am. this time after 6 1/2 hours of saving galaxies, fighting ninjas, and hunting spies, i spent the night at tom & brenda’s farmhouse. i woke up the next day on their couch to the sound of their snoring bulldog. i feel kinda guilty for not calling my mom or sister, but spending that much time in an arcade is a guilty pleasure.

some body contours aren’t meant to be seen, and when t-shirts start stretching across my gut like sausage lining, it’s time for them to go. the skinny kid i used to be is finally accepting the body he’s forced to live in– but one day maybe he’ll shed the fat cells like a winter coat, and a light brighter than the sun will shoot out every pore of his body! heads will turn, angels will sing… and then  i’ll wake up. goodbye old t-shirts, you were my second skin.

what?! there she is again! jackie denning is a local artist that has surprised me two times in about 20 years. the first time it was the 1990′s & she was working at mildred’s coffeehouse. i was dropping off a flier for my band, the raindogs. it didn’t have any artwork on it. jackie drew a dog with an umbrella, and before she signed it, i said “you’re jackie denning!” i had already seen her artwork around kansas city, so it was easy to recognize her distinctive style. sometime later she told me she was moving to the east coast.last month was the second time jackie’s work caught me off guard. i was at the fairman’s farewell art show, and next to their paintings was a collection of jackie denning t-shirts. i found out she had moved back to kansas city, and was making art again. we left the gallery with a fairman painting & a denning t-shirt.