Nickerblog

boingboing

A couple of weeks ago, this picture of my dog made the Reddit front page.

Yesterday, my last post made Boing Boing (thanks to Wil).

Who needs Twitter!

 

 

 

(just kidding, Twitter)

Tricks to Successful Internetting

1. When in doubt, ARGUE! Being right matters.

2. Hate everything.

3. Saw it already. Funnier the first time.

4. FAKE.

5. Did he died?

6. Make fun of something someone else loves because FUCK THEM!

7. I am so smart. SMRT.

8. LAME.

9. Racism because, just kidding!

10. Treat women like idiots.

11. Definitely comment with fervor. YOUR OPINION COUNTS.

12. CORRECT THAT PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR, why not?! SAVE HUMANITY!

13. fat jokes

14. Hate religion because religion hates others because you hate religion because they hate everything because you hate them. EVERYONE IS NOT AS GOOD!

14. Make a list and watch people fix numbers and add things to it...

whales

How do you tackle huge endeavors?

It's the hundred dollar question. The scariest part... the part that instills fear and excitement in me...is not really knowing.

Flying in the face of not knowing is an acquired skill. It's hopefully honed during previous attempts at new things. It's never perfect. It's always a version of managed, low grade panic.

Yet, something about it is exhilarating.

Walking out on that wire...

Showing up to the party alone...

Driving with no map (fine, no GPS)...

I've been thinking about the defining moments that occur during the major shifts in my life. For me, those key moments can often be pinpointed to one big decision that is a byproduct of a series of smaller shifts. The eventual stress of those shifts, combined with a personal evolution leads to some sort of snap, which shoots me in a new direction. These are the best times.

They are terrifying plummets from a comfortable place, laced with the excitement of landing somewhere new.

I'm not trying to be cryptic or vague, although I know that's what I'm doing.

Anyway...

Those moments when, whether by your choice or not, something snaps?

That's not a bad place to live.

RIDICULOUSNESS: Season 3

Here we go again...

Premieres FEB 14th on MTV @ 10pm

 

Get More: Ridiculousness, Full Episodes

Proud Dad Achievement: UNLOCKED

coming up next...

Why are the big, exciting moves forward always the scariest? 

Dudes, I'm about to jump.

JUMP, I TELL YOU!

2 TableTop pix

As I was looking wistfully through the photo library on my iPhone, I found a couple of good ones from the TableTop shoot last year. The first is a shot of Dodger Leigh and Ashley Johnson, my bitter, bitter rivals on that day:

 

And the second is a double photobombing, featuring TV, Film, Beer, and The Internet's Wil Wheaton:

 

We have fun.

recalculating...

One of the patterns I'm trying to break out of is giving up on a goal if I don't follow my pre-planned route absolutely perfectly. When I set goals for myself, this often happens:

1. Set ambitious goal.

2. Start road to goal.

3. Fall short somehow.

4. Torch the whole thing to the ground with feelings of failure and self defeat.

It's a nasty habit, because it either builds failure into the plan OR trains me to set my goals smaller. Because I'm constantly biting off more than I can chew, I rarely choose the latter. My lofty goals are often plagued by my own inability to accept anything less than perfection, and any course deviation cues that stupid voice:

You fucked up.

You blew it.

The whole thing is ruined.

May as well stop.

All your momentum is lost.

It's either start over or it's not worth it.

Not this year. 

I'm ignoring that guy. I'd like to see what happens if I keep going, in spite of self-doubt, self-defeat and an impossible quest for perfection. I know for sure that giving up on goals ends in failure. Let's see what happens if I push on, in spite of missteps or hiccups. 

So I missed a day running.

So I missed a day writing.

So something took longer than I planned.

So I had a beer.

So I have to compromise my original plan to get to the end.

So it's harder than I thought.

So I ate [insert junk here].

So what.

Onward. Up and onward.

shoot the gaps

When I was about 19, I decided I needed a fake ID. Not some bullcrap made in some kid's basement, I wanted a real looking fake ID. I had to make a trip to Boston. I got a hot tip from a friend about a particular neighborhood to visit where they specialized in fakes. "Just wait around there. Someone will ask if you're looking for an ID," this person told me. Seems legit.

One of the guys that I knew from high school, Stuart (who was always up for something that could lead to disaster), agreed to come with me. He was in the market for a fake ID too, it turned out.  

I didn't know how much money to bring, so I brought a hundred bucks. That was a big chunk of my weekly summer paycheck, but the idea of being able to buy beer ANYTIME I WANTED was too powerful. A hundred bucks was practically cheap.

We got to the neighborhood, which was near a now regentrified section of Boston known back then as "The Combat Zone" (seems legit), and found our spots on the sidewalk. Sketchy ass people scoped us out. Stuart didn't seem nervous, but I'm guessing it's because he was no stranger to putting himself in fucked up situations. We decided not to stand together, since we thought that seemed more suspicious. He stood on one side of the street and I stood on the other.

Eventually, a guy who looked mostly homeless slunk over to me and in a very hushed whisper asked, "Fake ID?" I was shocked. How could he know that? It didn't occur to me that I was one of two fresh-faced white guys standing in The Combat Zone wearing pegged Guess jeans, a B.U.M. Equipment sweatshirt, and Samba soccer flats. I thought it was simply my lucky day.

"Yeah," I told him.  

"Fifty bucks," he told me.

He held out his hand. I looked around, concerned that I was about to break the law in broad daylight, and fished fifty dollars out of my pocket. I handed it to the man, who started walking. "This way."

He started walking me on a scenic tour of the side streets and alleys of Boston. At first he seemed to have a destination in his head, but then his route started to feel improvised as we backtracked and doubled back on streets we had already walked down. I started to feel like an idiot, but I really wanted a fake ID. Maybe he was shaking the fuzz.

After about ten minutes of walking to nowhere in particular, I started to think maybe I'd been played. I meekly asked my guide, "Are we close?" He looked back, annoyed that either I hadn't given up or that he hadn't found the balls to just bolt. Then I remembered that he saw the other 50 bucks in my pocket when I pulled out his 50. He was trying to figure out where to roll me.

Eventually, he walked us into a Dunkin' Donuts. I imagined a secret door to a high tech fake ID manufacturing ring, but knew that nothing like that existed behind the walls of this donut shop.  The place was crowded, and he walked us towards the bathroom.

"In there," he said. 

"In the bathroom?" I asked.

"Yeah man, come on," he said, suddenly in a hurry.

Seems legit.

I was naive, but even as a foolish innocent I knew that something was wrong. I wanted my 50 bucks back, but I wanted to get the hell out of there more.

"No thanks," I said.

I turned and walked quickly out of the Dunkin' Donuts. He followed me out, shouting, "Yo, where you going? You want that ID?" It was like the scene in Goodfellas when Jimmy is trying to convince Karen to go around the corner to get some Dior dresses. 

"I changed my mind!" I yelled, like some kind of idiot.

I ran back to the spot where I left Stuart. He was talking to someone who was clearly a hooker.

"We gotta go," I told him.

Unfazed, he said goodbye to the whore and we drove back to NH. I told him the story, and he asked me why I didn't go in the bathroom. Like he would have. Shit, he probably would have.

When I told my younger brother, he taught me a trick that cost nothing. He put a piece of matte scotch tape over the year, and drew a new year in pencil to make me 21. Worked like a dream until I was legal.

Glad I never went in that bathroom.

I hope my kids live through their dumb decisions as successfully as I somehow have.

 

squeaked it in

Today was long. We woke up in Boston at 5:30am, slightly hungover from a Patriots loss in Foxboro. I was packed (always pack the night before), but bleary-eyed. The coffee did little to help. At 6:15, we walked out of our hotel into 25 degree air. By 6:30, we were at the Virgin America gate at Logan Airport. A 3ish year old boy dressed like Batman was in line behind us at security. He had a mask, a cape, and a wooden Batarang. He cried when he was forced to take off his costume to run it through the scanner, not understanding why that needed to happen. I couldn't come up with a good reason myself.

We boarded, settled into a 6 hour and 6 minute flight back to Los Angeles, and dozed for as much of it as possible. It's not real sleep. It's sleep interrupted by announcements and people. I put Colin Hay on a loop and drifted as far away as I could. 

In the Uber car from LAX to Sherman Oaks, we got a call. The handymen ruptured a water pressure pipe while tearing out some rotten lattice and couldn't find the main line to shut it off. Our back yard was flooding. On top of that, my son was throwing up with some bug. Helpless in the car, all I could do was wait for us to get home and see how bad it was.

I walked into chaos. Neighbors were out front trying to turn the water off at the street. In my house, which had the distinct smell of little kid sick breath, my other kids were watching the excitement in the back yard unfold. It was a gusher. I went out to take a look and got sprayed in the face when I moved one of the bricks that had been placed there to slow the flow. It was all part of some weird movie scene. Surreal.

Eventually, the water got shut off. They fixed the pipe. Some version of normal came back.  It was only noon. 8 more hours until bedtime for the kids and I still felt hungover, layered in the travel grime that floats in the recirculated air of a plane, tired, annoyed, and vaguely anxious from the alcohol leaving my system. 

They're in bed now. My son is sleeping with a bowl next to him in our bed. Our backyard looks like Woodstock happened again. I just spent two hours watching shocking YouTube videos of disasters, for some reason.

But the fire is burning in the fireplace next to me as I sit in my favorite seat in the house. We're all back under the same roof. My wife turned 42 today, and life is actually pretty great.

All the small shit is small. 

I think it's time to get back to this no alcohol thing.

Lots to do.

 

skipped

I missed writing yesterday, but that's because I'm in Boston for my brother's surprise 40th birthday party. It was yesterday, and I went radio silent to avoid somehow ruining it.

Welp, I guess I'm done with my fish.

There was a worm in my cod. I might never recover.

dusk

As I ran through the woods, Barney the mutt ran with me. We ducked under branches, weaved through the hemlocks, and leapt over streams. Flashes of the backs of houses served as our boundaries, and we did our best to stay clear from view. The woods was better without the windows of houses snooping in on our play. We let the dusk and shadows of trees swallow us up as the chickadees, cardinals, goldfinches, and blue jays greedily stole their last seeds from the neighborhood bird feeders and flew up to their roosts for the night. It got more lonely when the birds disappeared. Lonely and quiet.

We climbed into our small fort made from abandoned wood and scrap that we salvaged from the local "stump dump." It was an open lot that locals used to dump their bio-degradable waste; a rural landfill constantly resupplied by people dumping their scraps, and a goldmine for the neighborhood kids to build their forts and imaginary worlds. Our fort had rotting floorboards probably torn out of an old supply shed or storage bin. The walls were loosely nailed together, and one side was mostly made out of an old blanket. It was still wet from a recent rain, but Barney and I sat there in silence. The dark was creeping in.

That time, the time between after school and going inside to do homework and get ready for bed, that time I can still feel. It was a bittersweet time, both perfect and fleeting. It was, especially as I got older, harder and harder to visit. As we sat there in the dwindling light of a long set sun, I pet my dog. I envied him. He was oblivious to homework or papers due or the petty social stresses kids face at school. A dog's life.

My mom called us in. My brother and sister were off somewhere else in the neighborhood, so Barney and I had the fort to ourselves. I heard her, but it was only the first call. I had about two more before she started to put some "I mean it" in her voice. 

After a few minutes, I heard it.

"SHANE! TODD! COREY!"

"RIGHT NOW!"

I squeezed through the small gap in the planks that served as a door to our crudely built, ineffective shelter. Barney panted and wagged his tail as I stood up and brushed off my floor dampened jeans.

I called back to my mom.

"COMING!"

We trotted back up the short trail to my house, passing under the oblivious birds, on my way back to the relentless grind of growing up and years passing.

writing and running and whirring

Writing and running go hand in hand for me. Each is proof that the other is possible. It's either sit down and do it or get up and do it. Currently, I'm doing the former. As I do so, our neighbor's pool filter grinds what sounds like its siren song to mechs. It's a brain piercing noise. It's not a constant hum that eventually becomes part of the background. It's an ever-changing grind and whir that forces the brain to listen, like an unwelcome house guest who snores. I've been putting off having a conversation with these neighbors because nervous about confrontation, but it's time. It's ruining our peace.

But running. It requires a great deal of faith to push through the shit parts that hurt and feel futile. "I can't do this. I'm not a runner. I hate everything. It's not worth it."

And writing. Same faith. "I can't do this. I'm not a real writer. This sentence sucks. Who cares? It's not worth it."

Ignore those voices. I have to remind myself to do that.

Because sometimes, you get out there on the road or on the screen and you feel untethered, free and easy and loose and you just want to keep going. You keep pushing onward and it feels like you just leveled up into someone better than you.

Those moments. Those are the ones that help me ignore those voices and keep me going through the shit parts.

Even the shit parts have their purpose.

still here

Did you think I blew it by missing it a day of writing? Of course you didn't. Who's even paying attention, anyway.

Well I'm not missing a day. Every single day in 2013. That's my goal.

Sure, this counts.

friending

As the years pass, I find I've lost friends to time. Some have moved away, some have drifted away, and others have been swallowed by their life raising children. It's not a sad thing. It's what happens.

As 2013 has been my year of taking inventory, I've realized how important it is to take control of the parts of my life that bother me. Whether that means cleaning up my health and fitness, limiting alcohol intake, committing to completing projects, or even just fixing things around my house that need attention, taking action and repairing the broken parts of my life has already been a very productive endeavor. It makes me happier to feel like I'm being proactive.

Another big realization I made recently is that I'm not relegated to the small circle of friends I currently have. It's not too late in my life to make new friends. With friendships, you get out what you put in. As a father of three kids under ten, I haven't had much to put in for quite a while. For so long, I've clung to the experiences/parties/life that I used to have before kids. Often, getting together with old friends feels like a pale echo of days past.  My lifestyle has changed since I became a parent, and although I have lots of friends going through the same thing, it seems I've forgotten that it's okay to modify my social circle to line up more with the things that currently make me happy. I have new interests and new goals. Surely I can add friends to my life that share my 41 year old interests, as opposed to constantly living in an echo of my younger days.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the people who mean the most to me should be jettisoned. Lots of my friends have grown and evolved in the same direction that I have, which is nice. Even old friends, who have grown apart, will always be a huge part of my life. I'm just realizing that you can continue to make new friends for as long as you live. It takes work, but if you stop putting in that effort, your life can get stale and you can start to feel stuck in the past, complaining about all the new scary different things in the world. I'm not ready to be a cranky old man just yet. 

Sometimes it feels like I've been struggling to keep tepid friendships alive, when there are other people in my life, who I've put zero effort into getting to know, who are much more compatible with the person I am now.  It's as if the person I think I am is more important to me than the person I really am. 

"Cut out the people in your life who bum you out" is a great life philosophy. An addendum to that might be: "Add new people into your life who make you happy."

Simple, right?

From what I can tell, the past is a nice place to visit...but it's not a great place to live.

 

 

 

pushing through

I cut my finger with a tape measure yesterday, which hurt a lot more than you might imagine. I had about seven feet of tape rolled out, then released the spring to reel it back in and the edge of the metal sliced my finger as it zipped back into its roll. Like a paper cut on crack. 

It was worth it, though.

Yesterday, I set up a green screen in my office. It's part of a project I've been wanting to do for a while, and one that I've been putting off. As I resolved to push forward on stagnant creative plans in the beginning of 2013, I went to my office to get into it. Voices of self doubt and self defeat battled me the whole way there, and I ignored them blindly. I've come to realize that the only way to get things done is to start doing them, even through the uncomfortable parts when you're not sure what you're doing. 

So I've had a huge leftover roll of green screen backdrop sitting in my office from a past production, and I decided to figure out how to use it in a video. I started researching plug-ins and Adobe After Effects and watching youtube videos about how green screen works. I learned a little, but decided to just set up the screen, shoot a test video, and figure it out. I'd figure it out as I went, make mistakes, and keep pushing through.

I know it sounds easy: hanging green screen on a wall, setting up a camera on a tripod, and shooting a simple test video. As I write this, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Maybe it isn't. But in the past, I'd have let the fact that I wasn't sure what I was doing stop me from actually starting.

I figured it out. I cut a 7' x 7' piece out of the roll and duct taped it to the wall I was shooting on. I set up the camera, and shot my test video. Then I went home, decided to open iMovie to see if it could handle green screen, and figured it out in ten minutes. 

Now I know how to shoot on a green screen and drop anything (in this case, sample background) I want behind me. (I also learned the importance of good lighting).

Not a huge deal, I know. But goddammit, I'm pushing through that doubt that holds me back. I'm ignoring the need to do things perfectly the first time, and simply starting projects I want to do.

Guess what? It's pretty fun.

 

 

fractured

I'd have a very hard time trying to remember all of the places I have created content over the past fifteen years on the Internet. The obvious ones are obvious, but a deep crawl through my memory would probably find some places I have long forgotten. 

Anyway, here are some links to stuff I like that exists elsewhere:

TUMBLR ARCHIVES

I still have a Tumblr. I use it when I see a funny picture I want to post or have a quick mini-blog entry I need to get out. The archive link makes it easy to see it all. Lots of good stuff here that I had forgotten about. Tumblr

FLICKR

I've been on Flickr since 2004. Now, Instagram automatically feeds my photos into that stream.

SHANENICKERSON.COM

I tried to blog there for a while, but the interface wasn't as dynamic as Typepad.  This is the link to the writing I did there.

HELLO GIGGLES

I wrote several entries for Hello Giggles as a so-called "Daddy Blogger." All kid-centric.

BLOGGING.LA

I wrote here long ago, and though there doesn't seem to be a way to find a list of entries I made, the link points to one I really like called "Bullets Over Sunset."

ARCHIVE.ORG

Here's a look at this blog back in 2004. Remember when it used to be yellow?

There's so much more of me buried in the basement of the Internet. This entry is a bit of a cairn to remind me how to get back to where I once was.

loop

You can get trapped in a pretty self defeating loop if you're constantly worried about what people are thinking about you at any given moment. It's natural, I guess, to wonder how and where people categorize you compared to others in their mental filing system. Imagine if we actually knew all of the thoughts and emotions connected to us, good and bad. Though initially painful, it would be refreshing to hear truthful, uncensored thoughts from the people who know us. It might even allow us to explore our own weaknesses, faults, character flaws, and recurring annoying traits. It could also reinforce the positives in our personalities and encourage our most well-liked behaviors. Problem is, it's an impossible problem to solve. Until we are able to read minds, discovering what people really think of us will never happen. 

Accepting that, the most logical next step is to not give a single fuck about it.

None.

Zero fucks should be given!

Difficult. Most of us want to be accepted by our peers (and strangers), and I think most of us do our best to please the people around us to achieve that end. It's a daily struggle to summon the confidence to exist honestly and unaffected by our own perceptions about the way we MIGHT be received by others. My bad habit is to try to transform myself into the person I think I should be for each person I know. It's tiring. It's futile. Worst of all, I'm afraid I end up being far less interesting as an "I can be what you like" guy, than as one of those "haha, I'm me so no fucks are given this day" guys. 

I envy those people. I'm trying to become one of those people.

An honest, straightforward, unapologetic for my beliefs, likes, musical taste, opinions, sense of humor, and interests type of person. Rather than try to get everyone to like me, what about: "Here's what I'm like. You deal with it."

Still working on it, but as I get older, that confidence is becoming easier to summon. Some people have it by high school.

Some of us are still working on it.

 

 

The Gag Reel

I had an insane amount of fun shooting TableTop last July, and then the producers and editors over at Geek and Sundry made it even more enjoyable by cutting together a really fun episode. This is the gag reel, which will probably make more sense if you've seen the whole Alhambra ep. If it looks like everyone is having fun on the set, that's because everyone was. I feel very lucky to have been invited.

unchained

Got some great advice from lots of people, including Nina, Sean, Melissa, & Wil  based on their experience and various methods of finishing projects. Thanks, all. It's always a relief to know that others struggle with the same hurdles I do. It's even better when those smart people I like have figured out ways to kick the hurdles down. Writing and creating requires a great deal of faith; faith that the original idea is good enough to follow up on even when the voices are trying to convince you otherwise. 

The big takeaway is: stick with it, stop talking about it and do it, don't worry about how it's going to turn out. I like the idea of working with the understanding that everything is a draft. Takes the pressure off.

I saw Django Unchained tonight. Wow. Talk about getting things done. The scope and magnitude of making something like that is really almost impossible to imagine. The mental stamina to make a feature length ANYTHING is a miracle, but to make something that is truly a piece of art in the face of an Industry that constantly tries to convert all art into profit must be a thrill you never quite get over. Amazing film. 

QT is a pretty inspiring artist.

Freakish, but inspiring.

 

GTD

I posted a draft from three years ago a few hours ago, but I decided that was cheating on my "write every day" pledge so I killed it and made it a draft again. It was bumming me out having it up. If you missed it, you didn't miss anything. It was a whiny lament about about sucking as a person.

So, back to drafts folder it goes.

On a less emo note, talk to me. I want to know how other people (you people) accomplish your personal goals and projects.

My pattern is:

1. HOMYGOD I HAVE A GOOD IDEA!

2. Make plans in my head to do idea.

3. Tell someone idea before it's fully hashed out.

4. ZOMGS HAVE MOAR GOOD IDEAS BEFORE FIRST IDEA IS FINISHED!

5. Have head full of ideas with plans to do all of the ideas.

6. Get overwhelmed.

7. Start to lose faith in self and ideas.

8. Get fully logjammed.

9. Send ideas back to hell/drafts folder

10. Failure averted/Failure achieved.

I'm determined to break this old, self defeating pattern this year. Any tips? What are your tricks for getting stuff done? 

 

 

Jan 8, 2013

There's something very comforting about a busy commercial audition waiting room. Ran into some old friends, saw lots of familiar faces, and felt like a salty old pro in a sea of the eternally hopeful.

Of course, it was hot and crowded and now I have to battle midweek LA traffic back to the Valley at 5:30, but some days only the positives matter.

clarity

One of the nice side effects of drinking like a drainage sewer for 6 months is that when you do stop abruptly, the dampening cloud lifts fairly quickly. I had a few days of noticeable irritability and crankiness, followed by a somewhat depressed feeling of introspection as my synapses started refiring, The by-product has been a clarity that I have missed desperately.

Within days, my creative mind started up again. Old project ideas feel important again. New project ideas seem doable. Current projects are being attacked with a newfound excitement.

One old project I'm committed to accomplishing this year is the production of the webseries: "dicks." 

It's a comedy about two guys who give up everything to become Supernatural Detectives. Click that link to read more about it. Or this one.

Or, you can watch the pilot we shot HERE.

It's far from perfect, but I have faith in it. Microsoft passed on making it into a series a few years back. We let it die.

Lotta stuff coming out of the ashes this year.

I've been talking a lot about making stuff that matters to me over the past few days. It's more than that.

Whether you want to be an actor, writer, producer, undertaker, haberdasher, fisherman or fluffer, sitting on the sidelines hoping it happens does not work. Wondering why someone won't hire you to do all of the great things you know you're capable of is futile.  It won't happen... unless you put yourself in a position to be one of the first people others think of when they're looking for a...let's say haberdasher. Show them why you should be hired to make hats. Because you're good at it. And look at this hat if you don't believe me.

I want to have full creative control of a web series that I am in. Do I wait for someone to call me for that opportunity?

Not if I ever want to actually do it.

It's not about what everyone else has done, dummy.

It never has been.

 

 

from the ashes is pretty okay

The Search for Self  Artist:  たみ。

 

This little break in production on Ridiculousness has been extremely productive for me. I've been able to get a lot of stuff done around the house that's been driving me crazy.  The usual stuff: messy closets, cluttered garage, burned out lightbulbs, etc. It's such a relief to knock those things down that have been gently nagging at me. Throwing stuff away, fixing broken things, clearing out space.

Whether it's the spirit of the New Year or just a coincidence of convergence, that happened on a more cerebral level as well. Throwing stuff away, fixing broken things, clearing out space. 

I've been off. Just lost. Not sure where I'm headed or what I want in my life. Time goes quickly when you have children (and even if you don't), so years can slip away before you realize you've completely lost your identity. You've forgotten what you like. You've been running off the groove in the road for longer than you can remember. It's a theme this year in these posts so far, I know, but it's a big theme. The past few weeks have been important for me because I've started to remember who I am and what I like...and what I want.

I want to make things that I'm passionate about now instead of putting those things on some back burner until [future date]. I enjoy the show I work on. I spent the past 7 years working my ass off on three+ shows, with more ahead.  But there's no reason to let that be the only thing I'm doing. For so long, I've had ideas that I never follow up on. Videos I want to make, shorts I want to direct, scripts I want to write. All mostly dormant. This year, I will attack them. 

You see, I'm a fraud. I'm one of the best people you can have in your ear if you're tentative about wanting to do something. I'll cheer you on and tell you you need to do it and list the reasons why not doing it is a huge mistake. I can see it so clearly when it's other people. It's so obvious: Don't wait. Do it now.

But I mostly ignore my own advice. When it comes to projects I really want to make, I hide behind excuses like work and time and [other bullshit reasons].

So I had this breakthrough. I don't care what people think anymore. I really, genuinely don't. That doesn't mean I'm not sensitive to criticism. Of course I'm still exposed and raw and terrified of being laughed at, but I don't care. I know my flaws. I know my weaknesses. I know what I like.

That [future date]; that date when I'll finally be able to do all the things; the date I've been saving up all my good ideas for is here. It's now.

Nothing needs to be perfect right away. Something pretty good can get better. Starting somewhere is the key. Something never made is nothing.

I love that no one knows I'm writing here again.

It's like shitty inspirational cat calendar notes to myself:

JAN7: DON'T WAIT! (picture of cat working at a laptop)

merge

I'm running out of time before my daughter discovers my online presence. She already knows I write things that end up on the Internet. She told me this after she and a friend found an article I wrote for the Hello Giggles website. WTF? SHE'S 9. It'll be a tough transition for me in many ways. Merging the two personas: The dad she knows and the person I am in words and images.

I'm not sure why I'm afraid of her discovering that her dad is more layered than she imagines. I guess we're wired to protect our children from knowing too much about stuff, mostly because it's difficult for us to believe that they are capable of understanding. We want to protect them from the world. We struggle to keep them young. It's an unwinnable, unreasonable battle. I suppose I'm also afraid that she won't understand context or sarcasm, or even begin to understand why a grown up would want to share his life with a largely unknown audience. I'm still not sure I even understand that. It's like I don't want her to know me, for real.

Which seems odd.

My hope is that when she does discover my blog, with the nearly 1000 posts about the last ten yeards of my life (and stories from before that), my successes and failures, my hopes, dreams, and disappointments, that she will take comfort knowing that her own fears and hopes are normal. I'm very honest with my children. I wouldn't lie to them about anything, including my blog or my Twitter or my Instagram or any of the other footprints I've left behind here on the Internet. And how could I? Other than scrubbing my trail (which is nearly impossible), what options do I have? The evidence is there to find. Dad's secrets revealed. He is not a mystery. He is a person.

I wonder if I would've scoured the Internet for anything I could find about my own parents, had it existed when I was her age. I think I would have. Of course I would have. 

I'm starting to realize that these kids are actual people. Maybe it's not fair to drag them into a public blog without letting them know it's happening. What if I post a picture that's embarrassing? What if one of her friends tells her she thought the picture her dad posted of her on his blog made her look silly? Is that fair? I'm freaking out a little bit. 

Is this detailed map of my past 10 years a liability as a parent, or is it something that will bring us closer? Will old childhood pictures I've posted of them become a liability to them? I have no idea. I don't know exactly how to navigate, as it's uncharted territory for me. Any advice? Do your kids know about your blog/online presence? At what age? Should I go through my archives now and remove anything questionable, or do I let it live and keep an open line of communication about it? 

How the hell am I the parent?

How the hell am I the parent to a kid who's practically ten?

How do I transition from the dad of a baby girl into the dad of a pre-tween?

Do I have the right to keep writing about them?

I don't know anything.

I've never known anything.

 

 

 

10 Things to Stop Doing on Twitter

I love Twitter. Hang out there long enough, and trends start to bother you. One morning I woke up and decided to write another list of recurring trends to leave behind in 2012. I've done this before. I've done all of these things and although some of them do slightly bother me, my opinion is like an asshole. I have one and it should be ignored.

I'd tell people to stop taking things so personally, but I'm still reeling over one shitty YouTube comment someone wrote about me once a long time ago so obviously I'm full of shit.

Those last four words.

Originally posted on Tumblr, reposting here for no good reason.

 

10 Things to Stop Doing on Twitter

 

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time to look back, reflect, and make declarative posts summarizing it all in lists! Wonderful! We’re built this way!

My contribution to the steaming cesspool of numbered pseudo-factual opinion is a list of Twitter devices and joke formats we (I) would do well to leave back in 2012. I do realize that by even making a list, I am aping what I purport to hate. Not my problem. You’re the one who obviously has an easier time parsing information when it is preceded by descending numbers culminating with a 1. Did I say you? I meant me.

I have no business writing this. I am in direct violation of almost every number on this list, and I’m pretty sure 60 to 90 percent of the people following me have either muted me or wish they could unfollow me without making it weird. Am I deterred? After writing that out loud, I have to say I almost am.

ALMOST.

In the name of forward progress and advancing the art of the 140 character quip, here are TEN (10) ten (X) things you (I) should probably stop doing on Twitter. 

10. R.I.P. anyone. 

Let’s just assume we are all sad when someone dies. Unless you are fucking EXCITED by someone’s passing, it’s not news to me. I assume you are not some violent unfeeling monster, and therefore I expect you to feel some grief when someone beloved evaporates into the ether. There is no award for mourning someone the most or the fastest. We get it. You are super sympathetic. Consider this a fav for what I hope is your inherent human compassion and your weird need to be acknowledged for it. 

9. “If <name of person> doesn’t have a <business or product> named <pun using person’s name>, s/he’s wasting his/her time.”

Ha. I see what you did there. You made Jean-Claude Van Damme’s name into a type of Damme-burger. Brilliant or ridiculously simple? We call those puns. They are tempting and addictive, but beware tweeter. Like methamphetamines, they will make the rest of us scratch our faces off until we bleed sadness and pus. You’re better than this. Avoid.

8. Lists of super funny tweets by (wait for it)….WOMEN!

Stop this. What is the purpose of telling people that HOMYGOD, SOME WOMEN WERE ACTUALLY FUNNY! My timeline is filled with women who are hilarious. As a matter of fact, the women I follow are generally far funnier than the men that I follow. I’d be LUCKY to be half as insightful, smart, hilarious, and self aware as the vast majority of the women I follow on Twitter (except maybe for the one porn star). Start making lists that just include the funniest tweets (HuffPo). Qualifying it by making sure everyone know it’s women seems unnecessary. Or maybe I just wish I could make that list. You know what? Fuck lists!

7. Mayans. Apocalypse. End of the World. Horsemen. 

Okay, you get a pass for 2012. There was a prophecy or something that said the world is made of crackers and it was all supposed to crumble to delicious dust in December. Makes sense to make jokes about a dumb thing. HOWEVER. Snooki having a baby or Kim Kardassian (I know, but I love Star Trek) being pregnant or anything to do with the WWE or Paul Ryan’s workout photos with a backwards baseball cap (seriously, WTfuckingF) do not indicate an Apocalypse. They mean you are following the wrong news. In Internet language, these people we spend so much time eviscerating with our wit would be, in real life, called TROLLS. If you feed them, they grow stronger. Until you’re face is being eaten by the minions of Gorgothal, the Apocalypse is not nigh. Resist this punchline in your tweets. Anything less is a sign of the Apocalypse.    FUUUCK

6. Witty @reply to a funny tweet that is, in fact, a rewrite of the original joke.

You’ve (I’ve) done it. You see a funny tweet and think, “Holy crap, you know what would also be funny OR SHIT…be even funnier than that? {type type type type SEND!} What are you doing? Do you want acknowledgment for being extra clever? Are you trying to punch up your favorite tweeter? Do you want that person to know and understand that you can parry with them on a comedic level? If yes, STOP IT. Or if you don’t stop it, make sure it’s AMAZING. If you do it to me, it needs to be so goddamn much better or funnier than I ever expected that my fingers get whiplash as they RT your genius, which obviously trumps mine. 

I am not without guilt.

I did this to @kellyoxford yesterday.  Her tweet:

@kellyoxford: Let’s all make a pact that if any of us get access to a time machine, we go back & stop Kim Kardashian’s sex tape from leaking.

My HILARIOUS response (since deleted):

@shanenickerson: @kellyoxford Can we go back further and make sure her dad is never born?

KUDOS, ME! You really did it. You really took her joke and made it 0% better! She courteously starred my @reply, but the more appropriate response would have been to ignore it, publicly shame me and instantly block me. Learn from my mistakes, gang. Save your witty retorts unless they’re earth shatteringly perfect. And even then, probably just don’t do it. 

5. Toilets.

Oh, you’re shitting? Please don’t ever tell us in a tweet. Ever. I’m so fucking serious. Not ever. 

4. Retweeting your favstar achievements. “CONGRATS ON YOU 100★ RT!”

Look, I know it’s hard out there for a Twit. You feel proud and you want the world to know that you made something special. Problem is, you sound like a dick. Also, no one gives a shit. Sure, I know this sounds bitter and mean but the truth is, it’s true. It’s like tweeting the best of your dick pix. Yeah, it might be a perfectly shapen, armor piercing sex weapon, but you need to understand that no one wants to see it. Not even the best shot.

3. Turning Twitter into an AOL chat room.

You’ve made some nice friends in the Twittersweb, and that is fantastic. You like to trade barbs and one up each other for hours at a time, and listen, it’s a joy to watch…for like, two replies each, tops. When your tweet-off turns into a 15 minute fully developed conversation, complete with 2 and 3 part tweets and examples and footnotes, it’s time to take it to sexting. Or a phone call. Or at least DM’s. It’s nice that you and your twitter chum have such great rapport. Both of you are marvelous wordsmiths! Take it outside. Or to a hotel. Or wherever you people who hook up on Twitter hook up.

2. Telling people what to do or how to tweet.

Ironic one! Cut the shit though. Don’t cut people down for the way they use Twitter. Just unfollow or mute or, and this one is radical, IGNORE THE THINGS THAT BOTHER YOU. Told you, drippy drippy irony.

1. Saying cruel things to celebrities.

Controversial, I know. After all, they’re not actually people so what do they care? Shit, they crap moneyshits anyway, so they can dry their tears with thousand dollar bills! There’s a fine line between good natured joking and being a fucking dick. Observe Wheaton’s Lawon this one and assume that celebrities are as needy and insecure as you are and are probably reading their @replies while they drown in golden bowls of ice cream in their Bentleys. If you’re calling someone a fat pigcow and assuming it will bounce off of him/her because celebrities are superhuman, you MIGHT BE WRONG. Exceptions to this rule are Chris Brown, Michael Vick, and Donald Trump. These are terrible people that should be insulted frequently.

Well, there it is. A non-comprehensive list of things to leave back in 2012 by a guy unqualified to write it and guilty of almost all of them. Let’s push forward into Twitter 2013 in new and exciting and hopefully funny ways, all the while telling ourselves that the time we spend there will somehow pay off in the end.

It won’t.  

I love you all.

Happy New Year.

 

 

phases

Ups, downs, and figuring out where one starts and the other begins.

Last March, I ran the LA Marathon. Here I am at around Mile 12:

I was in close to the best shape of my life. I registered very late, undertrained and uncertain if I'd be able to complete it. Somehow, I beat my 2003 time by six minutes.

Back then, I was running races every weekend.  Tough Mudders, a sprint Triathlon, bike tours, 5Ks and 10Ks and 10 and 12 mile trail runs. Something about turning 40 made me want to be the best I'd ever been, physically.

And then, beer.

Slowly at first, rewarding myself after races with the Michelob Ultras provided at the finish line. You run 26.2 miles and you can convince yourself you deserve a beer. That excuse can drag on for weeks. I stopped exercising every day. I slowly lost my conditioning and slipped back towards the guy I had been before being a bit of a health and fitness freak. I got into this downward slide that made me feel like all the work I'd done was wasted. Negative brain started taking over.

That alcohol. It's a dampener. It deadens my creative urges. It sneaks up on me and tricks me.

It's not that I stopped drinking forever on January 1 of this year. It's that I need a break to catch a breath and remember who I am. Can't keep pouring evenings away and washing it down with TV and Twitter. 

I think we all know, individually, how to live to make ourselves happy.  If you asked people to really isolate the things that inhibit their personal happiness and self satisfaction, they'd know.  Whether it's overeating, not exercising, too many pills, too much weed, too much booze, not enough effort, loneliness caused by living in a situation that isn't working, crummy job, or any of countless other things, most people know deep down what their issues are.

The astounding thing is just how few people actively make changes to create an equation in their life that equals happiness.  For me, that equation is complex. So many variables. I do know from past experience that if I eat healthy food and subtract alcohol for a while, I'll at least have an easier time seeing how to get there.

In marathon mode, I was alcohol/drug/caffeine free and I was eating almost vegetarian. That came in slow, unplanned phases. Bad news is, it evaporated in much quicker, unceremonious phases.

Here's to getting it back.

 

 

 

can't go back, must. move. forward.

I wonder if I really learned all the lessons in high school that I think I learned. I look back, certain that I could do it better with the experience I have at 41. It's those nagging questions: Why did I work so hard to impress people who didn't necessarily like me? Why didn't I just hang out with the people who made me happy? Why did I not see it? If I could do it all over....

Foolish regrets, of course.

But now, I know better.

Ha.

It seems I've spent a significant portion of my life trying to evolve into someone else...someone better, accepted, loved by everyone, CELEBRATED...always tricking myself into believing I'm almost there. It's a miserable place to live. You end up sort of liked by everyone, and not really known by anyone. 

Is this a midlife crisis? Instead of transforming into a person I hope other people will like, why not just be myself and let people deal with it? This chameleonesque, middle of the road guy sucks. I'm sure that's why I was drawn to performing. I could play someone else...someone confident and secure..maybe an accent and a cape. 

Jesus christ, it's like a LiveJournal entry.  

But still, 2013. Big year for me. 

New outlook.

 

 

TableTop

Wil Wheaton asked me to be on his YouTube show, TableTop last year. It finally went up today. Notes to self: Speak up, loosen up, Invisalign in 2013!  Here's the episode and my interview.

Thanks, Wil! It was so much fun.

 

 

 

night night

Emmy woke up at 11:30 pm tonight. It's not uncommon for her to wake up briefly, cry for a few minutes and go back to sleep. She's 2. In fact, she's 2 years, 4 months. Seems impossible.

Tonight though, her crying was louder than usual. Probably a bad dream. A selfish part of me is excited when she wakes up in the middle of the night because I really like seeing her. I went in before knowing if it was a crying that needed to be fixed or just a burst of crying that evaporates into nothing. I couldn't stop myself.  Those moments of consoling my children in the wake of a bad dream... calming them after crying... are the ones I will miss the most when I am old. Some moments of parenting feel extra important. At night, when all the other sounds of the world are silent, being there to comfort my kids when they wake up scared or sick feels that way.

I brought her a little more milk, but she wasn't interested. She stood up in her crib that has now been converted into a toddler bed, and reached for me. I'm a sucker for people who want to be near me.

I brought her out to the living room, and we sat by the fire.  We talked. Well, she talked and I answered. 

"Daddy. Wookit. Fire."

That's right. It's hot.

"Yeah iss Hot."

Very hot.

"Oh! Daddy. You hear dat?"

I did. That's the heater.

"Yeah das a heater."

And so on. It was nice. She was silly and excited to be spending time with me at such an unusual hour. I asked her if she was ready to go to bed, and she said no. About a hundred times.

Eventually, we moved back to her room to avoid waking up the rest of the house. I read her a few books a few (dozen) times and I finally convinced her to get back into her bed. She cried. It got to me and I read her another book. I'm sure there are reasons why I'm probably not supposed to do that. Didn't care. She got to me. 

After the book, I rubbed her back and told her it was time for sleep.  She cried some more when I turned out the IKEA moon light, but she was tired now. She grabbed the bottle and I kissed her good night.  

"G'night daddy."

Good night, Emmy. I'm so glad you're here.

 

 

mlc

I used to practice my autograph. I have such a clear memory of it now, more than 25 years later. I'd sit in Junior High, bored in some math class, filling the back pages of my Mead spiral notebooks with dozens and dozens of autographs. Practicing, I suppose for something that has never quite panned out. It does not correlate to my current signature, which is a lazy scribble of circles reserved mostly for credit card scanning stations and an occasional legal document. 

I don't know what I want anymore.

It's strange to let these swirling thoughts materialize here, because they often shock me as they come out.

I don't know what I want to be anymore.

I love my wife, my kids, my dog, my life.  I'm just not sure what things I want to do the most, next.

I saved notes I wrote to long gone girlfriends and kept journals I scribbled teen thoughts in. I kept pictures I thought might look nice in the biography that would no doubt be written about me. I was my own archivist, certain the world would one day come looking for relics from my past. Delusions of a path I was lucky enough to never find. Stupid kid with a yearning for acceptance and acclaim. A kid who dreamed an end result without ever imagining the path to get there. He still sits in the back of my mind, watching carefully. Hoping old hopes still, even in the face of a better reality than that dream world he imagined.

I like having him there. He's not so different from me, and sometimes I entertain his foolish ambition. Make something great, he whispers. I'll try, I tell him.

When? he asks. Soon, I've always said.

WHEN? he asks again. Now, I think.

Awesome, he grins. 

Awesome, I grin.

living right here

Someday we'll furnish our house with things we like. As soon as I have a bit of free time, we'll take the kids to Europe. Maybe I'll write a book in a few years. At some point later on in my life timeline I'll be ready to finally _________. 

What is this mentality? Is it an American thing to live as if right now is just a temporary bridge to what's (bound to be better?) around the corner, or is it a human mistake to assume that we will arrive at some undefined checkpoint that changes everything? I've been living towards something for so long, I've forgotten that I already got to lots of "theres" I set out to reach, and yet I keep going. Slow down, maybe. Savor this. Life is good right now and everyone is healthy, happy, and relatively young. Why am I trying to rush through all the levels of my life like it's some new iPhone game?

I can't seem to adequately express what I mean.  Rusty brain.

Later is risky. Now is where I should live. It's time to get furniture we like for this house and fix the fence on the side walkway and plant some pretty flowers in the back yard that I see every day. I'm not leasing this house for a semester. We own it. I live here.

I need to actually live here.