Reid About It

In 1987, this was a disappointing sight.

New podcast up with Chris Stuckey, Matt “Mattie 5″ Bellner, and Zack Spears. A much more focused podcast this week as we share some Super Bowl memories both sports and non-sports related, including…

• Our Super Bowl picks.
• Where we’re all watching the Super Bowl, and why.
• The year my hometown faced the heartbreak of Hardees.
• Our votes for worst place ever.
• Your questions on Twitter and Facebook, including our pick for best #12 ever.

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No, this is actually what's supposed to happen.

After a lifetime of sinus problems, I have decided to take the best treatment available, as long as that treatment is available for less than ten bucks.

Yes, I have purchased a Neti Pot.

For those of you who’ve never seen Cougar Town, a Neti Pot is a device for irrigating your sinuses by turning them into your own personal Tennessee Valley Authority. You take the Neti Pot, fill it with saline water, cock your head sideways and start pouring. The water runs through one nostril and out of the other, turning your snout into a faucet.

Fair warning, using a Neti pot can be fatal if you use water from Louisiana.  Which is, let’s face it, pretty stupid. In fact, putting anything from Louisiana inside your body can actually be counted as “suicide” in terms of invalidating your life insurance. Food, water, New Orleans companions, Harry Connick Jr., whatever.

Anyway, my head has been a bit stuffy lately so I decided to whip out the ol’ Neti Pot again. I used it on both sides, then went about my business to learn a very important lesson.

If you don’t get all the water out of your nose, then you are a garden hose waiting to happen.

Yes, you can blow your nose all you’d like, but you’re not done yet. You’ve got a couple of quarts lurking within you, just waiting for the opportunity to come pouring fourth like the last wave in Titanic.

I was at a bookstore about two hours after using mine, and bent over to see some books on the lower shelves. Suddenly a torrent of water began to pour forth from my nose, with the unstoppable urgency of a young man’s urine stream.

That’s very hard to explain to casual strangers.

Does it help? I have no idea. I wouldn’t recommend it as the sole form of treatment if you’re sick, but it makes me feel like I’m cleaned out.

It’s just a bit difficult to tell someone that when you’ve just reverse-snorted a pint of nose fluid onto their carpet.

– Reid Kerr doesn’t like to shop where people shed their bodily fluids.

And sleep tight, hemorrhoids.

Worst. Children’s book idea. Ever.

– Reid Kerr also does not recommend “Everybody Poops, Especially Corn.”

From now on, I will kill my enemies with kindness. Or perhaps a sock full of nickels, whatever works.

Artists rendering of our get-together.

I had a great time last evening with three of my old friends, Chris Stuckey, Matt “Mattie 5″ Bellner, and Zack Spears. We’d all worked together in radio before, and we decided to get together and podcast. It was every bit as blessedly random as conversations between friends usually are. Comedy! Pop culture! Awkward mentions of things we accidentally went into too much detail about! Good stuff.

Part One: NFL Playoffs, gambling, improper tweeting, how hilariously diverse Mattie 5′s resume is (Professional Putter & Forklift Operator), the unsanitary nature of edible underwear, and the latest Mattie 5 has ever been for church.

Part Two: Fast food condiments, including something you never knew about Whataburger ketchup, Reid taking gluttony on the road, why Mattie 5 thinks Facebook is about to implode, what your Facebook picture says about you (especially if you’re not in it), Zack’s time in Twitter Jail, and the many deaths of Matt Bellner.

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You pretty much abandon all hope if you can eat this.

It’s long been my theory that most of the pages of diet books are either blank, or just gibberish towards the back of them. It doesn’t seem like anyone ever actually finishes a diet anyway, why bother writing something for pages 220-250 of the latest edition of  ”Eat Your Way To A Swimsuit Body With Prunes, Lettuce, and Leeches!”

I’ve rejected diets for most of my life, in favor of just eating like a rabid wolverine. I have enough red meat in my colon to classify me as “foodstuff” in most Central American countries.

As my life stretched on, I started to realize that perhaps my eating philosophy of “No leftovers, no survivors” was starting to wear on me, and so last year I made my first eating adjustment of my life.

I was at 235 last summer.

That’s in pounds, by the way. If you’re Canadian, I have no idea how to translate that into Kilos, or Hectacres, or Shatners, or whatever the metric system was of putting it would be. 

I started using Visalus Nutrtition shakes. Not to give you the big sales pitch on these here, just shoot me a FB message or tweet if you want more information. With the shakes, I was able to get it down to 210, which is lighter than I’ve been in almost ten years.

I stayed at 210-215 for a couple of months, but the holidays came, and I had to live at a basketball gym for three days working at the scorer’s table, and my eating habits devolved back into “eat whatever you find, and eat a lot of it.”

Don't I look sad, while my daughter looks happy, and airborne?

For example, one day I ate an entire bag of dinner from a place called “Weinerland.” That place doesn’t exactly have a diet menu. I think asking them for a low-fat option might cause them to drag you out of your car window and kick the crap out of you, then force you to swallow one of their “Jumbo Fatass Dogs” whole.

Anyway, I let go for a little while. I returned to eating like a puma, and some of the weight came back.

As of today, Monday January the 16th, I’m back at 225 pounds.

I’m doing one of those “Biggest Loser” style contests with some online friends of mine, so hopefully that’ll keep me going. A little accountability is always good. Our government should really try that one of these days. We’re doing so through the “Lose It” app, so hopefully we’ll lose weight while gaining bandwidth.

My goal weight is 200 pounds, which is not out of the ballpark for a man of my age and height. I’m picking 200 because not only is it a nice round number, but that’s also the maximum weight to go to the mall and get on their “Zero G Trampolines,” which are those trampolines with the bungee cords attached. My daughter is twelve, and she loves those.

My goal is to crack 200, then head to the mall and get my jump on. Wish me luck.

– Reid Kerr hasn’t been on a trampoline since the great “Tackle The Man With The Football…Off The Trampoline To The Ground Below” game of 1983.

Longtime readers of my stuff know what a fan of bad movies I am. In honor of today, I tackle one of the longest running yet worst franchises ever…

He’s more recognizable than your average Vice-President, only with a slightly higher body count. He’s Jason Voorhees, everybody’s favorite serial killer, and somehow he’s had eleven movies and made more than three hundred million bucks in the past twenty-eight years.

No need for you to see these movies, I’ve already done it. In honor of the anniversary, here’s what you need to know about each flick.

Friday the 13th - This was after the movie “Halloween,” when studios were green-lighting anything with a slasher and a calendar connection. “Prom Night,” “Happy Birthday To Me,” “April Fool’s Day,” basically any special event was cause for a whole boatload of people to get killed. Kevin Bacon is killed by Mrs. Voorhees, thus giving Jason a “Kevin Bacon Index” of two.

Friday the 13th Part 2 - Jason’s first appearance, wearing a potato sack for a facial covering. He appears to be a cross between the Elephant Man and the banjo player from Deliverance.

Friday the 13th Part 3 - This movie was in 3-D, thus making it not only horribly acted, but awkward on cable. Jason picks up the famous hockey mask in this one.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - This movie wasn’t the final chapter, obviously. Jason meets nutjob loonball Crispin Glover and parks a cleaver in his face. Sadly, Corey Feldman gets away. In retrospect, it would have been a mercy kill.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning - This was the “Jason: The Next Generation” try, where they kept Jason dead and had someone else take up his exact MO. Accepting that one retarded super-psycho killer was hanging out and carving up teenagers at Crystal Lake was hard enough, nobody bought that there were two of them.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives - Jason gets struck by lightning, then rips out the heart of Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter. No kidding. This was the movie where Jason effectively becomes immortal and unstoppable, and the franchise turns from “horror” to “comedy that makes you feel creepy about all of the teenagers in the theatre cheering for the serial killer.”

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Jason versus Carrie. A machete beats a telekinetic high school girl nine times out of ten, by the way.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan - Jason leaves his country home for the big city, and winds up killed by nuclear waste. I think there was a metaphor of some sort there, but I didn’t get it.

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday - Again, “Final” obviously is just a marketing term. This film answers the question, “Why haven’t the federal authorities noticed that Jason has killed a thousand people over the past ten years?”

Jason X - Jason revives in the future, and in a world of laser cannons and virtual reality, he still hacks up people with a machete and people shoot at him with bullets. He’s old school.

Freddy vs. Jason - Jason has apparently killed everybody else by now, so he’s being sicced on other fictional serial killers. Next sequel, he’ll be fighting Hannibal Lecter, Sweeney Todd, and Voldemort.

Friday the 13th (the remake) - This reboot makes Jason faster, leaner, and a scary mountain man. If you’re a hockey fan, Mike Modano’s wife gets both naked and killed in this one.

And there you have it. I’ve wasted my youth watching them, no need for you guys to waste your brain cells. You’re welcome.

– Reid Kerr has not only watched, but has listened to the Director’s Track on “Phantasm.”

Joe R. Lansdale...writer, icon, really nice dude.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of sitting down with Joe R. Lansdale, and talking to him about the craft of writing. Joe’s written dozens of novels, short stories, comics, novellas, and pretty much done everything a writer would want to do. He’s won awards (including the Bram Stoker Award eight times), had his work turned into films (including “Bubba Hotep”), and just generally been an icon, especially to me.

Even though he’s made the big-time, Joe is still a very friendly, open guy. I had him on my radio show last year when they were filing “Christmas With The Dead,” and when I saw him talking about writing on his Facebook page, I approached him about doing a podcast with me.

Joe talks about his writing process, the industry, agents, e-publishing, and the single most important thing for a writer to do. If you’re a fan of Joe R. Lansdale, or you consider yourself a writer, this interview will open your eyes about some things. It was good to get actual advice from a guy at the top of the game, who worked his way up every single rung to put himself there.

Click here for the full podcast.

– Reid Kerr has cast a Hap and Leonard movie in his head dozens of times.

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Not much else going on in New Hampshire, apparently.

Well, the results are in from New Hampshire, and all I have to say is, “New Hampshire? Really?”

As a political nihilist, I’m at a complete loss to fathom how we take this entire multi-million dollar job search involving a profession with access to nuclear weapons, and we start it in Iowa and New Hampshire.

To begin with, I don’t even know if New Hampshire is a state. On the puzzle map I grew up playing with, New Hampshire was lumped in with the other New England states in a larger, yet still tiny block. I have no idea what shape it is. It’s roughly the size of a dorm room.

We’ve got three hundred million people in the country, of which about forty-three live in New Hampshire. More people are killed every year in Dallas than live in New Hampshire, but somehow, that’s the place we look to for leadership.

It’s like opening a new movie, but instead of going to New York or L.A., they use a bargain cinema in Butte, Montana to gauge public interest.

– Reid Kerr isn’t even sure where Old Hampshire went.

Wandering around the other night, I happened upon something that was such a perfect example of marketing that I was momentarily taken aback, and then aforward, for that matter.

There’s a product that has a celebrity endorsement that has stood the test of time, and even though now it makes no sense, it’s still the biggest product on the market.

Flintstones vitamins.

Think about it. Flintstones vitamins are synonymous with children’s vitamins. That cartoon has been off the air for forty years. I don’t even think the reruns are airing on basic cable anywhere. But you start talking about vitamins, and everybody thinks of them in a little Fred-shaped pill.

Nobody who takes Flintstones vitamins was alive when the show was on, for crying out loud. When I was growing up, I didn’t eat Fatty Arbuckle vitamins, but somehow the Flintstones are still ranging across the generations.

Now that’s some staying power. You don’t see Yogi Bear doing spots for Geico. Huckleberry Hound isn’t the pitchman for Xanax. Hell, Quick Draw McGraw couldn’t get arrested in Hollywood these days, but everybody starts their day with a little bit of Fred or Barney.

Somehow, this modern stone age family is still raking in the big bucks. And don’t get me started on the whole Cocoa Pebbles/Fruity Pebbles thing. It’s a money-making syndicate through the courtesy of Fred’s two feet.

– Reid Kerr could really go for a Wilma right now.

“I’m not afraid of men,” Isaac said. “I’ve fought in the war, and been in fights all my life. Men don’t scare me. All a man can do is hurt your body.”

He coughed, and his wheelchair shook. I leaned forward to listen to his whispered words of wisdom.

“Short of killin’ you, anything a man can do to you will heal, and pain is only temporary. It’ll go away eventually.”

His eyes stared off into the distance, as if focusing on something through a distant window.

“But a woman…a woman is dangerous.”

– Reid Kerr also thinks knives are dangerous, but in a different way.

The bane of my existence.

My least favorite party game? Scattergories.

I consider myself a fairly intelligent guy. I’m not a simpleton, at least, but that’s the way Scattergories makes me feel.

If you’ve never played, each of the players has a card with a list of things on it.  Breeds of dogs, flowers, TV shows, etc. Someone rolls a die to come up with a letter, and everyone has to brainstorm something that starts with that letter for each of the things.

Sounds simple, right? It should be, but while I can remember all sorts of trivial details about other things, thinking about big broad concepts just causes my mind to shut off.

“Uh…things in the room, starts with T…uh…oh, man…ahhhhh…tribbles? No, no. Tap…estries? Tapestries? No, this place isn’t a museum. Ah…grrr…tip…ple…tee-toes? That’s not a word! Arrrgggh!”

Ding!

What did you get, Reid?

Nothing.

What did you get, semi-retarded redneck cousin who can’t even legally drive?

Table!

Yeah, thanks for all that, Scattergories. I appreciate you pointing out to me how obliviously stupid I can be. That’s exactly what I want at a party. It’s like if “Life” had a space that said “Fail to satisfy your woman, go three spaces back.”

– Reid Kerr would prefer to do something interactive, like Bumfights.