Hmmmmmmmm?

A few thoughts for today. Please feel free to disagree.

On my career:
--If I ever did a CD made up entirely of covers (i.e. songs that were written and performed by other people before I recorded them), I’d call it Ross King: Gently Used Songs.

--I’m pretty sure I’d be more famous if I had a better chin and jaw-line. I don’t have a good one of either. There are lots of famous people that are much fatter than me that still have a skinny chin and chiseled jaw-line (see two tubbies below whose jaw/chin combos are totally sweet). It’s some sort of genetic issue, I suppose. I feel certain this has held me back, but I have forgiven my ancestors.

-- If you listen to my old projects, you’ll discover that my old songs are pretty bad, but at least my voice was irritating.

On parenting:
--I don’t understand the decision to use a child’s full name only when a parent is especially serious about something. If little Timmy is sticking his finger into his sister’s eye, is he so intent on blinding her that he won’t know he’s being admonished until he hears “Timothy Joseph Gorkenstein!”? Perhaps this tradition began in George Foreman’s home, which would be understandable. In every other home, it ought to be enough to say “hey timmy stop doing that.” Followed by, if necessary, a swat on his little Gorkenstein.

--And speaking of names, I don’t understand the decision to name children based upon letters of the alphabet or rhyming or anything else other than saying “she looks like a Susie” or “he looks like a Ted,” or “he looks like a Percy McSissypants, so let’s name him Cobrastrike and hope to God that he grows into it.” I’m not sure if this letter-based-name-choosing method qualifies as “trying too hard” or “not trying hard enough,” but it seems fishy to me. "Let's go with M!" says the mother excitedly upon deciding that she wants five children. "Nothing but M's all around!" A group of cohabitating creatures named Madison, Mason, McKinley, Minnie, and Millicent ought to be hamsters or cartoon characters perhaps, but not children who will someday be grown-ups that will probably go by their middle names by then.

On entertainment:
--I’m rooting for Britney Spears. I really am. Any time someone goes bonkers in public and shaves their head while dropping their infant on the dirty sidewalk in front of the second best tattoo parlor on the block and then manages a comeback, I applaud them. Clearly Britney had some tough times, and now she has somehow resurrected her career, at least for the next 3 or 4 days. Let me be clear that I am for that. But please, can someone explain why her voice now sounds like someone is holding her nose with industrial clamps, especially when she says “oh baby baby”? I don't remember this from before. I think this is new. Is she actually talking to her infant child when she says this, because it sounds like she’s doing a voice. Sometimes I do a voice when I’m talking to my infant child. I usually do Mickey Mouse or Goofy, but sometimes I do Cary Grant or Hank Hill, and I can’t tell if she appreciates the nuances of my uncanny impersonation skills. But that’s not important. I suppose if Britney is doing a voice (Fran Drescher in a high school mascot suit, perhaps?), it’s of some comfort, but then of course we hear the rest of what she’s saying, and we are alarmed to realize that she’s saying it to a baby. And this is only further proof that K-Fed was a shoo-in for custody.

--I don’t watch American Idol. I like the general idea, but Randy Jackson’s face-skin is getting really, really inhuman-looking to me, so I have chosen to boycott the show on principle. Randy's face is so tight and smooth that I feel like maybe he might be turning into a street-lingo-savvy, slick-talking wax statue. Of a lizard. Most people hate Simon or Paula. Not me. I hate Simon and Paula. Ha! Gotcha! No seriously, I hate them, too. But for other reasons that aren't as superficial as why I hate Randy. And that is because, to be totally honest, he gives me the heebs. And I worry that he’ll soon melt under the lights.

Nice jawline, Rand-izard (not to be confused with Randizzle, which would be a pretty sweet nickname).

On tanning:
If you go tanning in mid February and get all glowy orange like an atomic-powered Dreamsicle, are the rest of us allowed to ask you about how your skin got like that? Why is that offensive? It's not a secret, is it? Are people ashamed that they went tanning in a “salon”? Tanning places aren’t like adult bookstores or Carl’s Jr restaurants. People don’t hide their faces when they go in. We have a tanning establishment in our town that is quite popular . It’s nestled, rather unashamedly, right between Jason’s Deli and Pier One in an upscale shopping center. I’ve seen the attractive, friendly-looking people who work there. They seem normal, in a “my skin is as soft and comfy as an alligator-skin speedo” kind of way. So I don’t understand why we can’t just talk about it. “Wow, you are some serious tan, my friend. Is that painful? Cuz it looks excruciating. How much money did it cost to get like that?” Fair questions, right?

--And what’s with these UV rays? On sunny days, I’m supposed to be really careful and make sure I wear lots of sunscreen. I get this. But then on cloudy days, I’m also supposed to wear lots of sunscreen because – and this is the sort of logic that I get from the science geniuses who always seem to be on the beach towel next to me – I am actually in more danger when it’s cloudy: “Watch out! On cloudy days, you actually burn worse, because you don’t know you’re getting burned!” So when I do know I’m getting burned, I’m not getting burned as badly? This seems like some kind of tactic to trick me into going into that tanning place. I can’t go in that place. I wouldn’t even know what to wear in the… what? Booth? Bed? Pod? What do they stick you in these days while they cook you up for a summer glow? For how long? And what would an hour in the tanning pod do to Randy Jackson’s waxy lizard skin? Would he know he was getting burned, and would that make it worse? Fair questions.

On bumper stickers:
--I don’t get bumper stickers. Do people put them on their cars and think “watch out world, here comes my opinion!”? Or, rather, “watch out, Person in Car Directly Behind Me, that’s my opinion back there, and if you catch up to me later maybe we can argue about it!” I just sort of picture these people as riding around thinking that poll numbers are altering like crazy simply because they drove to the Dairy Queen. "This Blizzard is great tasting, but it goes down a little smoother knowing that people on this stretch of road will now think twice about gun control!"

--I’ve often thought it would be funny to put several bumper stickers on my car, only make it so that they have confusing, competing messages. Like “God is My Co-Pilot” next to one of those Darwin-Fish-with-feet-eats-Christian-Fish-without-feet-things next to “Kinky Friedman 2012” next to “Bush/Quayle 2000” next to “Stop Global Warming” next to “My President is Charleton Heston” next to “Eat Vegan or Die” next to a Calvin peeing on whatever model of car that I’m actually driving right then, which would hopefully be a Prius limo with monster truck tires. And hopefully you’d have plenty of time to read them all when you sat behind me in the drive-thru line at Carl’s Jr. Maybe Dairy Queen for dessert.