Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] The greatest public misnomer involves announcers addressing crowds at things like NFL games. As ladies and gentlemen at any game of about 70,000 fans, there are probably no more than 120 ladies and maybe a dozen true gents.
[00:00:18] If they cared at all about accuracy, they'd say welcome bitches, dudes and garden variety blowhards I'm Chris Rodell and I've Been thinking, or haven't you heard? I've Been Thinking is my newest Get Rich Quick scheme. Well, it's really not a scheme. I was trying to figure out a way to make money and entertain readers with something that's useful, funny, and I have in spades. Let's say I've Been thinking does all three of those. Plus it's simple. Check it out on my YouTube or Facebook and Instagram.
[00:00:51] My pitch is give me 60 seconds and I'll give you five shots of thinking so original it'll turbocharge your creativity for the rest of the month.
[00:00:59] See, I'm thinking in buzzwords. I'm hopeful that event planners will see this and bring me in to entertain their associates with my humor and we'll all live happily ever after.
[00:01:09] But I may be wrong again.
[00:01:12] I wonder about the get Rich Quick schemes I launched in the 1990s that still haven't made a dime.
[00:01:17] There's nothing quick or rich about them.
[00:01:20] I'm going to keep it snappy today because I'm eager to resume regular posting of this still evolving podcast, which I believe has merit.
[00:01:27] So let's start off with one from 2010 about pitfalls of buying your girlfriend snappy new breasts.
[00:01:36] I pay no attention to either of the four thousand dollar boobs as they sashay into the bar, nor to the girl to whom they're surgically attached to.
[00:01:45] As I've said before, I'm not a boob man. I'm an ass man and I drink in a bar with a dozen other asses just like me.
[00:01:53] But lots of the regular Joes notice them, including one of the regular Joes who's sitting conveniently to my right and is named conveniently Joe.
[00:02:00] Oh, here she comes, he says contemptuously. Do you know he paid $8,000 to get her those breast implants? Can you believe it?
[00:02:07] No, I can't believe it. It seems excessive, like ordering a new car with bigger, brighter headlights when the ones that come installed from the factory are sufficient to illuminate any darkened road and I'm confused by the etiquette of the gesture.
[00:02:21] How does that offer arise? Did he say he wouldn't have anything to do with her unless she bumped it up two or three cups.
[00:02:28] I'd be hurt if my wife said I was deficient in a physical area and that she'd spend $8,000 to extend the length of, say, my nose.
[00:02:37] The girl seems perfectly pleasant. I don't know what would have been wrong with her old breasts. I doubt that they were square or made funny corduroy noises when she walked around braless. In fact, the old breasts that the 50 something guy was concerned about probably weren't even on this 30 something year old girl.
[00:02:54] They were probably on some ex wife.
[00:02:56] That's fairly common. Many middle aged men leave perfectly good wives for younger women who are bound to cause the same consternations that come with any matrimonial binding of the sexes.
[00:03:07] I don't see that happening with me. I love my wife. And besides, I wouldn't want to have to go through life explaining things like Bob Dylan to someone all over again.
[00:03:16] But there's no denying we live in a breast obsessed society.
[00:03:20] I'm always more interested in the guy who bought the breasts than the girl who's accessorizing with them. I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask him. I'd like to know how you wrap breast implants you intend to give as a gift.
[00:03:32] Do you put them both in the same box?
[00:03:34] Really? A box with one implant would likely spoil the surprise as to what's in the second box, wouldn't it?
[00:03:40] And do you go to the operating room with the recipient during the installation?
[00:03:43] It would have been the reverse of being in a delivery room when your gal delivered twins.
[00:03:49] But my observations lead me to believe this guy's a tremendous jerk and I already have my quota of them in my life.
[00:03:55] See, I've been a convivial person my whole life and I've always gone to all the places other convivial people go. I've never seen this guy before and now he and the $8,000 breasts are everywhere.
[00:04:07] That would be fine, but he's causing trouble in places where I go to seek sudsy serenity. First I saw him being rude to a waitress at one local tavern. Already overwhelmed with customers, he summoned her by calling her name, Kara, raising his glass and rattling the ice the way pet owners rattle keys to summon dawdling dogs.
[00:04:25] To me, right there, that's a hell worthy sin. And hell's going to be mighty crowded if I ever get to decide who belongs there.
[00:04:32] This waitress was a professional. She'll get there when she's ready.
[00:04:35] Then he went beyond the pail and coming into my home bar and stirring up trouble on a recent Friday afternoon and it was all over a bar stool. The breasts sat down where one guy's wife had been sitting. A joke was made. It wasn't even funny. Then all of a sudden, my happy hour turned into a wildlife special.
[00:04:52] The breast buyer rose up like a fighting rooster, a cock if you will, and said the remark was a front to his fair damsel. The men had to be separated. It was all incredibly mature, immature. That's coming from a guy who sometimes wears big Wookiee pajamas to work.
[00:05:07] I kind of feel sorry for the girl because it looks like he owns more than just her $8,000 breasts.
[00:05:13] All I can surmise is there must have been some kind of boob special the day he got hers. He paid for two big ones and she wound up stuck with three.
[00:05:26] A demonic being who seeks to deliver the souls of all humanity to Satan is the Antichrist.
[00:05:32] A sweet old relative adored by children who seeks two cubes of sugar for high tea is the auntichrist Auntie.
[00:05:44] There's a lot of sad news in the world today about death in Minnesota, and that caught my eye when I was looking back for his headline to put into this podcast today.
[00:05:53] This was about a story I did for Details magazine in about 2010 or 2015 around there, and it's about my death in Minnesota. It was very nearly happened.
[00:06:05] I really hadn't thought about how close I'd come to dying there until a friend mentioned fun things to do in Minnesota in January.
[00:06:11] Dying did not make the list, but what I was doing moments before I nearly did does something fun to do in Minnesota in January.
[00:06:20] Tried doing donuts at 65 miles an hour on a frozen lake in a Toyota Corolla with walkaway insurance.
[00:06:27] Now that was fun and often deadly, as I was soon to learn. In a profanity laced tirade over my suicidal naivete, I'd given myself.
[00:06:37] I've forgiven myself. I was so much younger then. Just a kid, really. I had no rational grasp of how responsible adults were supposed to behave in potentially dangerous situations. Just a kid. Nothing but a boy really. I was 42.
[00:06:51] I was doing wacky feature stories from Details magazine By then I had a treasure chest of great Americana heartland stories about oddball rituals and offbeat individuals. Milox, Minnesota in January had both in spades.
[00:07:04] Mille lacs is a 207 square mile body of water that every winter becomes Minnesota's third most populous city. It has plowed roads, pizza delivery Distinct neighborhoods and regular trash pickup at temporary fifteen thousand dollar homes. All atop a three foot frozen foundation.
[00:07:22] It's well cool, with wind chill temperatures regularly dipping to minus 60 degrees. Of course it's cool.
[00:07:31] That's how I pitch the story. And it's all true. It's a great American spectacle.
[00:07:35] People living in some of our most harsh elements conceive ways to make it fun. They choose to do more than merely endure. They enjoy.
[00:07:43] My assignment was to spend three days out there on the ice, do some fishing and experience what it was like to party in one of those pimped out ice fishing homes. Some of them come with hot tubs, satellite TVs, an interior condition so comfy that most everyone wears shorts and T shirts.
[00:07:59] It's just like fishing in your living room. Only if your living room floor was entirely made of ice with 12 frisbee sized holes in it. It was great fun.
[00:08:07] My second greatest memory was looking out the window and seeing a trio of eagles, each as big, as sturdy big and sturdy as winged fire hydrants feasting on the walleye entrails of the fish we just caught and gutted.
[00:08:21] But my greatest memory is the big bearded dude waving his arms and screaming for me to get my car off the ice.
[00:08:28] Ice, you see, is organic. It grows and shrinks given the wind, the sun and other elemental conditions.
[00:08:34] I'd vowed I'd drive my car right out on the ice so I could say I'd driven a car on ice again. Cool, right?
[00:08:43] But I was doing off road equivalent of driving on ice. The actual roads are there for a reason. Men and women experienced an ice thickness take pains to find the most stable parts of the ice.
[00:08:53] This I did not know.
[00:08:55] So I pulled off the land onto the ice and just gunned it. It was what I was thinking. It was Driving on the Bonneville Salt flats out in Utah. Must be like only with 105 degree temperature differential.
[00:09:07] Everything was white and smooth, glistening and slippery. I got it up over 60 and just cut the wheel. Whee.
[00:09:15] Whee.
[00:09:17] I did about a dozen donuts. It was like an amusement park thrill ride. I did it again. Wee.
[00:09:23] There's a lot of room to do donuts on a frozen surface of a 207 square mile lake.
[00:09:29] I was about to do a third when I saw a bearded man on a ski doo making a beeline for me. He was waving his arms in alarm.
[00:09:37] You idiot, get your car off here. You're going to kill yourself. He told me I was driving on unstable ice and that every year, three or four idiots like me fell through and drowned.
[00:09:48] Even if you survive drowning or hypothermia, they make you pay about $5,000 to salvage the vehicle from the lake bottom 30ft down.
[00:09:57] So a good day almost went really, really wrong.
[00:10:00] Funny, I never thought about how close I'd come to dying until my friend mentioned fun things to do in Minnesota in January.
[00:10:07] Reckless driving a nearly 2 ton vehicle across an indeterminate thickness of frozen ice was sure fun.
[00:10:13] I'm glad I did it. I'm even more glad I didn't die when I did.
[00:10:20] I was all set to read an article about the warning signs that one is a raging narcissist, but hit delete, delete, delete the second I realized the article was not about me.
[00:10:32] Do that with authority and I'll leave you with this.
[00:10:37] Those who go out of their ways to make others feel special are the ones who become special.
[00:10:42] Have a great weekend. Thanks for checking it out. And look for my I've been thinking thinking posts on YouTube or ChrisRodell.com they're out there. It's not hard to find.
